Hangman Blind (25 page)

Lantern light illuminated his features. They were clean shaven. It was the sacristan. His distressed expression sent thoughts of herself flying.

‘Quickly, sister, a most terrible calamity has occurred!’ As soon as he saw her pull her cloak from its hook he turned and, raising the lantern to light the way, hurried off down the corridor.

Her immediate thought was that something had happened to Avice.

A
WARE OF THE
dagger in her belt, Hildegard followed the sacristan down the spiral stairs and out into the garth. On the other side lay the frater, its shape hardly discernible against the black sky, only a splinter of light visible from one of the rooms above indicating its position. Even so the light was too frail to penetrate the gulf of darkness that lay in front of them and they stepped forward like people plunging into a well. To her surprise he did not lead her towards the guest house beyond the court but across towards the building on the other side.

The moon must be behind a bank of cloud, she was thinking as she followed closely on his heels. When she caught up with him, she asked, ‘Has Lady Avice set out for Watton yet?’ As one of Hubert’s obedientiaries he would be fully aware of abbey business.

He shook his head. ‘The weather kept her here at Meaux. But, sister,’ he lowered his voice in awe, ‘this is something unconnected to the Hutton household. I beg you to prepare yourself.’

Without further explanation he led her into the pitch dark, only his flickering lantern, now blown by the wind and shielded by the edge of his sleeve, to serve as guide. He went unerringly to the door of the frater. When he pushed it open they were met by two monks, novices by the look of them. Faces as white as their habits, they gestured for her to follow them to the next floor. She had never been in this part of the abbey before and knew the chamber at the top to be the muniments room where all the abbey charters were kept under lock and seal.

The alarm on the faces of the monks made her hold her tongue until they reached a heavy oak door at the top where the sacristan’s shout to open up brought the sub-prior swiftly out. He too was white faced. His hands, she noticed, as they lifted a candle above their heads in order to confirm their identity, were shaking so much they were sending shadows trembling like the flicker of bats’ wings across the walls. Such was the fear everyone showed that an alarm ran through her body at what she would find. Hildegard pushed into the room.

The sight that met her gaze brought a cry to her lips. Countless parchments were strewn across the floor. The six iron-bound chests that were the repository for all the deeds, accounts and chronicles, as well as the abbey treasures, had been ransacked. Their lids gaped. Inside, the silver candlesticks, the jewelled chalices, the inlaid crosses of gold, all the gifts from benefactors than were too flamboyant or costly to display in the austere domain of a Cistercian abbey, had been taken out and yet, inexplicably, lay where they were dropped. The only conclusion to be drawn was that the thieves had been disturbed in their task.

The abbot came swiftly towards her but stopped within an arm’s distance as if an invisible gate barred the way. His glance rested on her face. Gathering himself, he told her, ‘I’ve sent for the infirmarer but as he’s slow of pace you’ve preceded him. Perhaps you would take a look, although I’m afraid it’s too late even for your skill.’

‘Infirmarer? But why—?’

He moved to one side and she saw now, among the heaped documents, half hidden behind a chest, what she had assumed was a cloak tossed down with all the other things. But, moving closer, she saw that within its folds was a man. A monk. A young monk, she saw as she bent to look, no more than twenty-one.

He lay on his back, and at first appeared to be sleeping. But then she noticed the gashes on both wrists. Deep grooves, made by a knife. The blood had pumped unstoppably from the main artery that ran from heart to wrist. It was already congealing and had spread stickily across the coarse wool of his habit and soaked into the parchments underneath.

Hubert spoke. ‘When he failed to show up for matins the sacristan was worried. Knowing he’d been working in the scriptorium but failing to find him there, he guessed he would come up here to deposit the deeds he was copying.’

‘And when did he find him?’

‘Just before prime.’

‘Recently, then. But not recently enough to save him.’ She remembered drifting to sleep as the bell tolled and how it had become part of the confusion of her dreams, like a premonition.

‘There is a note.’

She had unconsciously knelt beside the body and the abbot came over. ‘It suggests suicide but I know this boy. He understands fully the fate that awaits one who takes his own life.’

‘Where is the knife?’

The abbot indicated the sub-prior. Shame-faced, Brother Gilbert stepped forward with a single-edged dagger wrapped in a cloth. ‘I picked it up without thinking,’ he apologised. ‘It was in his hand.’

It was the sort of knife anyone might use at table. Sharp enough to cut a rabbit into strips, sharp enough to gut a man. The hilt was bound in leather. Nothing special to it. The only thing to remark was that it was a similar type to the one they guessed had killed Ada, another single-sided blade.

‘The note?’ she asked.

‘Inscrutable.’ Hubert handed her a piece of parchment like that used in the scriptorium. On it in careful letters was written in English:
Fields have their eyes, forests have their ears. None escape notice
. She shivered.

‘Was this found in his hand too?’ She turned to the sub-prior, who had had the grace to flush at his earlier mistake.

‘It was tucked into his belt, sister. I removed it on the assumption it had some import regarding what had taken place.’

She could understand Hubert not wishing to believe that the monk was capable of killing himself and risking hellfire. It would negate the teaching of the order, of the Church itself. The note proved nothing either way. It was, as the abbot had observed, inscrutable. What was more, it appeared to have been deliberately cut from some other parchment. It was covered in blood.

Kneeling beside the young monk, she placed a finger on the side of his neck but there was no sign of a pulse. His flesh was already chilled. His eyes remained open as if staring at something terrifying and she gently pressed his lids down to give him some respite from his ordeal. Around her stood the silent figures of the monks: the abbot, the sub-prior, the sacristan and the two novices. ‘Where is the prior?’ she asked, noticing his absence.

‘Gone to fetch the infirmarer and his man. For what good they can do now. I think it falls to us to ease the passage of our brother’s soul to heaven.’ It was clear Hubert did not believe in the suicide of the young monk. And yet the wrists were slashed. And there was a message of sorts.

Peering closer, Hildegard noticed a contusion on the side of the young man’s head. It might have been caused when he fell. One of the treasure chests was in close proximity to the body. It was not beyond imagining that he had struck his head against its brass-bound edge. Yet what had made him fall? ‘You’ve seen this?’ she murmured, indicating the wound.

Hubert crouched beside her. ‘Someone cracked him over the head? And, unconscious, he was unable to prevent the attack with the knife?’ He sighed with a measure of relief at having his initial assessment of the matter apparently confirmed.

‘We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,’ she reminded him. ‘What’s your procedure in matters such as this?’

‘The coroner in York will have to be recalled.’ Hubert gave a grimace. ‘My cellarer would normally collate the evidence but it’ll be some time before he’s able to return from the grange at Tharlesthorp because of the floods. He’d present the evidence to chapter and we would make a collective decision on how best to apprehend the culprit, given, as would be expected, he had fled the abbey lands. All this is assuming we’d reached the conclusion that it wasn’t suicide.’ He gave her a glance. ‘In fairness we need someone to look at the evidence. A person who has no vested interest in the matter. Someone outside our abbatial jurisdiction.’ He gave her another glance. ‘It’s most unusual to ask a nun to carry out such a duty, but given your evident knowledge and objectivity I believe chapter would agree to your involvement.’ He raised his head and gave his officials a piercing look which would have taken courage to resist.

The sub-prior blew down his nose but nodded in reluctant agreement. ‘The prior may have another point of view,’ he murmured but without conviction.

The sacristan pre-empted any further objections. ‘I can offer you the services of a scribe, sister.’ When she accepted he beckoned to one of the novices. ‘This is Brother Thomas. He has a fair hand and a cool head.’

The abbot suggested that all but Thomas, Hildegard and himself return to prepare for the night office and to give no hint yet about the fate of their brother monk. That could be announced at chapter later that morning when the whole abbey gathered as usual to discuss the issues of the day.

When everyone had left he turned to Thomas. ‘You are sworn to secrecy. What I’m about to say was told to me in confidence.’ They listened intently as he explained that the doomed monk, Brother Nevyl, had come to him in distress shortly before compline the day before after hearing the confession of one of the visitors from Hutton. ‘He could not tell me what was said within the privacy of the confessional, of course, but it was sufficient for him to be deeply troubled.’

‘But why should that result in his suicide?’ asked Hildegard. ‘Did he feel complicit in what he heard?’

‘That is not what I intended to suggest.’ Hubert frowned. ‘Nevyl’s distress was on behalf of the person he had confessed. For the enormity of their sin and the hazard of their immortal soul. He believed it might be a matter for the justiciar. What he required from me was advice on the confidentiality of the confessional and whether it was right to break it. I suggested it was a matter between God and his own conscience.’

‘And the identity of this person, did he admit that?’ asked Hildegard.

‘I would divulge the name if I knew it but he hinted only that they belonged to the household of Sir Ralph.’

‘Forgive me, but I fail to see the connection between a confession and Brother Nevyl’s apparent suicide.’

The abbot sighed. ‘So do I. But I have a firm belief there is one. This was never suicide. Nevyl was true of purpose. I offer these facts in nothing more than a spirit of conjecture.’

‘You sound as if you think that the person who made the confession regretted the impulse – and decided to silence the only person aware of their guilt,’ Hildegard suggested.

Hubert’s eyes sharpened. ‘It’s the obvious inference. I rue the fact that I didn’t press him further.’

‘You can’t blame yourself,’ she replied. ‘Confession would normally ease a troubled soul, not rouse it to further acts of iniquity.’

‘It certainly shouldn’t have frightened him into committing murder. If it did…’ He trailed of, uncertainty in his tone.

Thomas, standing silently beside them, made a sudden start. ‘If I may be permitted to speak, my lord.’

‘What?’ Hubert turned abruptly towards his novice, as if having forgotten he was present.

‘It so happens, my lord abbot, I saw someone leaving the confessional late yesterday. They were with Brother Nevyl, God rest his soul, for some time. In fact, they were the only ones to come in all afternoon. I was on duty between nones and vespers,’ he explained. ‘I saw all who came and left.’

‘Who was he?’ demanded Hubert.

‘Not he, she,’ said Thomas.

‘She?’

When the answer came Hubert uttered a sound of astonishment.

‘It was a maidservant of the Lady Sibilla. The one I believe to be the wet-nurse for baby Roger. I was at the lodge when the cortège arrived from Castle Hutton,’ he added. ‘I saw the entire party debouche from their wagons.’

‘That upsets our theory somewhat!’ Hildegard exclaimed. ‘I can hardly imagine that girl taking a dagger to anyone, least of all her confessor.’

The three of them glanced back at the scattered muniments. ‘The two events cannot be connected, then. Maybe it really is a case of common theft that went wrong,’ suggested Hubert without conviction. ‘And yet, after a cursory inspection, we can find nothing missing. The way the rolls are thrown suggests it was a deliberate attempt to give the impression of a break-in. And the wounds aren’t the sort one would expect from a tussle with a burglar. And the note,’ he went on. ‘Nevyl would never have left a deliberate mystery to confuse and tantalise, whereas a murderer might.’

He gave a sudden grim smile as something else struck him. ‘There is something we’ve missed.’ He went over to the body where it lay, waiting for the infirmarer. ‘The dagger. I remember how Gilbert unclasped the fingers of Nevyl’s right hand to prise it free. In fact,’ his tone became more certain, ‘the lad is left handed. The dagger was planted. There is no other conclusion.’

Aware that Hubert was keen to prove that his brother monk had not committed a mortal sin, Hildegard was forced to point out that the monk might quite naturally have slashed his right wrist while holding the dagger in his preferred hand, then changed hands to slash his left wrist. ‘This would be the natural thing to do,’ she reluctantly concluded.

Hubert could not help but agree. He gave a heavy sigh. ‘We have to get at the truth. For his soul’s sake and for our own peace of mind and to see that justice is done.’

‘We need to talk to the wet-nurse,’ Hildegard suggested. ‘Let’s see what she has to say. Perhaps she’s awake tending the baby at this hour. It would not be unusual. If you like I’ll go to Sibilla’s apartment and see what I can find out. At least that will close one avenue of speculation.’

Hubert gave her a warning glance. ‘Take Brother Thomas with you. With a murderer on the loose you’d best go accompanied.’

Fields have their eyes, forests their ears
. The phrase made Hildegard’s flesh creep every time she turned it over in her mind. She felt unseen eyes spying on them as they left the others with the body and returned to ground level down the twisting stairs. It was the sort of phrase the guild men might use in order to maintain control over their apprentices. A warning to anybody against stepping out of line. Whoever the murderers of the five members of the Company of the White Hart were, guildmen or not, they must have had their spies. They would have obtained their intelligence from sources among the manor officials in the fields and from those appointed as wardens of the forests. Had the murderer of Brother Nevyl left the scrap of parchment behind in order to hint at the monk’s membership of that same company? Someone had removed the pewter badge of the white hart from the murdered apprentice’s tunic. Was it Nevyl himself, or were the two incidents unconnected?