wooden seat over the chute. The smell was awful, and she made a mental note to ask that the faeces be cleaned out again.
So the battle had begun between the treasurer and prioress. It was about time. There was no doubt in Joan’s mind which of the two women was the better: the treasurer was a woman of integrity and honour. Margherita was sincere in her love of the nunnery; she wouldn’t have let it get so run down.
Joan cleaned herself and walked down to the frater, entering and sitting alone at a table. She was too late to join with the others, but that was a matter of policy nowadays. The younger girls all giggled and chattered so quickly Joan often couldn’t hear a word. Her hearing was getting odd: if many spoke all at once, she would miss everything, no matter how hard she concentrated on the person before her. It was more relaxing to eat and drink alone.
Inevitably her mind drew her back to the coming fight. It had been precipitated by the death of that novice, Moll. Joan gazed into the distance. The child was so young, it seemed terrible that she should have had her life taken away, and yet Joan couldn’t regret her passing. Moll had been viewed by many as some kind of saint – it was the image she was keen to project – yet she wasn’t. She was a liar. Nor was the girl as pious as she wished the world to believe; she was both devious and malicious.
There was one good thing to come from Moll’s end, and that was the election of the new prioress. Joan had little doubt about it, because Margherita had told them all earlier. They had all heard the rumours about the prioress, and with the message Margherita had sent to the visitor, he would have to come back and replace Lady Elizabeth.
As Joan often reminded herself, she had been a nun when Lady Elizabeth was still running naked in the fields, and age hadn’t improved her prioress. She couldn’t control a place the size of Belstone. It needed someone with a better business brain.
She shivered and scowled. The cold ate into her bones nowadays. The weather grew more chill with each succeeding year, and it was ever more difficult to warm herself. She threw back her head and finished the last of her wine, then stood. At least her legs still worked.
At the door she eyed the women at their work. A convent was always a busy place. It was a shame, but sometimes Joan felt rather left out of things these days. Oh, she was involved in the machinations of the place by Margherita and by the youngsters, who felt the need to confide in someone older without embarrassment. Often their problems were simple – novices often had feminine troubles, and their shame and anxiety wouldn’t allow them to speak to friends or the mistress of the novices. Instead they went to Joan, who could always be relied on to give a sympathetic ear.
Deciding to return to the fire in the infirmary, Joan almost tripped over a flagstone whose edge had lifted. She closed her eyes and patiently offered a prayer, thanking God for allowing her to see it in time.
Margherita wouldn’t have let the place get into this state.
Bertrand’s story took little time to tell. He had visited the priory only a few days before, on his way to Crediton from Buckland; he was methodically progressing from one institution to another, and had intended staying at Crediton for some days before returning to Exeter, when the slightly garbled story of the novice’s death had reached him by letter.
“I met this Moll, Sir Baldwin,” Bertrand said, turning on the knight an intent, serious look. “She was only a child. Scarcely old enough to realise the supreme importance of the vows she must take as a Bride of Christ, and yet now her life is ended.”
“How?” Baldwin was ready to dislike this man intensely. Although his sentiments were reasonable and justifiable, Bertrand looked as though he was almost enjoying being able to demonstrate what an upright man he was; how much integrity he held. Baldwin had no doubt that by the time Bishop Stapledon came to hear of the affair, Bishop Bertrand’s part in resolving it would be greatly magnified, and Baldwin felt contempt for a man who could look to make capital out of a novice’s death. His distaste was so great Baldwin found himself musing on the character of the bishop, and thus missed the beginning of Bertrand’s story.
“… she had a severe headache, and was sent to the infirmary, there to be bled by the phlebotomist. The operation was perfectly successful and she settled quickly, soon dropping off to sleep. The next morning, when the infirmarer went to attend to her after Prime, the girl had apparently haemorrhaged from the site of the bleeding, and died.”
“These accidents will sometimes happen,” Baldwin said.
“This was no accident. I know the clerk concerned myself: Godfrey of Malmesbury. He was at Oxford with me, and his skills are beyond doubt. No, Brother Godfrey would not have slipped and slashed an artery by accident.”
“A priest performed the letting?” Baldwin asked with surprise. Men in major Orders had been banned from manual surgery for over a hundred years. Their skills lay in selecting the best prayers and penances to cure the ill, not in butchery. When Baldwin had been a Templar they had enlisted the services of a professional, the local barber, when they needed their veins opened.
“I understand it was considered that a canon trained in surgery would be safer than an outsider when it came to dealing with a nun. Yet it was unorthodox,” Bertrand agreed.
Baldwin sipped thoughtfully at his wine. At last he set his cup on the ground. “You clearly have reason to believe that someone wished to kill her. Why?”
“It’s not my view, Sir Baldwin – I hardly knew the child, I only saw her a couple of times.”
“Then why leap to this conclusion? Your friend the phlebotomist may well be experienced, but sometimes a sharp knife will nick a vessel, and the harm may not be apparent for a day or more. That is why phlebotomists are generally safe from accusations of murder: if they were not, the courts would be filled.”
“Ah, I misled you by my answer. I have no reason to think someone might have wanted to kill her – it is not my belief, Sir Baldwin, but the belief of the priory’s treasurer. It was she who wrote to me to state her conviction that the poor girl was murdered.”
“Did she say by whom?”
Bertrand looked down at his withered hand as if wondering at the accusation he had heard. “By the prioress herself, Sir Baldwin,” he said eventually.
Peter leaned forward. “You see the good bishop’s difficulty? Bishop Stapledon is away and cannot be consulted, and if news of this were to be rumoured about…”
“I cannot ignore the accusation of so senior a nun,” Bertrand murmured.
“Not that you would wish to,” Baldwin stated sharply. Now he understood Bertrand’s expression. The suffragan would have preferred to burn the letter and put this novice’s death down to an accident so that the Bishop of Exeter would have a shining example of a perfect deputy when he received Bertrand’s report. Clearly that was impossible now the treasurer had put her suspicions in writing; but Bertrand could still win the good bishop’s gratitude by clearing up the business quickly or performing some sort of cover-up. “If this is truly an act of murder,” Baldwin growled, “it must be investigated.”
“Quite,” said Peter. “So could you go and look into it?”
“Me? But I have no jurisdiction,” Baldwin protested with surprise.
“Of course not! This matter falls under the Canon Law, but you have experience, and you may be able to assist the good bishop,” said Peter.
“Surely you would do better to seek the aid of a coroner.”
“Sir Baldwin, this matter is utterly confidential,” Peter said with emphasis.
Baldwin nodded and grinned his understanding. The King’s man in Exeter was a hard-drinking, whoring fool, to Baldwin’s mind. Coroners were among the most corrupt of all the King’s officers, for they had much work to see to and received no pay – other than what they could extort from felons prepared to pay for their release.
“No, we need someone on whom we can rely not only to advise Bishop Stapledon’s man, but who shall also be discreet,” Peter said.
“Well, the Warden’s Bailiff, then. Simon Puttock does at least have some secular authority in Dartmoor.”
“I have already sent a message asking him to meet you there,” Peter smiled. “He will be at the inn at the road to Belstone, the one at the foot of the cleave.”
Baldwin remembered it. A small tavern at the bottom of the Belstone Valley, near a mill, where the Taw
