Dissolution

'Of course he did. He's taking bribes. But that's not why we're here. I'm with him on one thing: the murderer comes from within the monastery, not from Scarnsea. The five senior obedentiaries.' I ticked them off on my fingers. 'Abbot Fabian, Prior Mortimus, Edwig, Gabriel and Guy. Any of them is tall and strong enough to have despatched Singleton – except Brother Edwig, who was away. And any of them could have killed the novice. That is, of course, if what Brother Guy told us about deadly nightshade is true.'

'Why would he lie?'

Again I saw in my mind's eye the dead face of Simon Whelplay as we lifted him from the bath. The thought of him being poisoned because I might talk to him kept recurring, turning in my guts like a torsion.

'I don't know,' I replied, 'but I'm taking nothing on trust. They'll all lose heavily if the monastery closes. Where will Brother Guy find employment in the world as a healer, with his strange face? As for the abbot, he's wedded to his status. And I think the other three may all have things to hide. Financial chicanery by Brother Edwig? He could be hiding money away against the risk of the place going, though he'd need the abbot's seal on any land sales.'

'And Prior Mortimus?'

'There's little I'd put past him. As for Brother Gabriel, the old serpent of temptation still visits, I'm sure of that. He's not taken his eyes off you since you came. I can imagine he has his attachments among the monks, even if not to poor Whelplay, but then you come along showing a fine calf, in your good doublet and hose, and he starts dreaming of you out of them.'

Mark pushed his plate away, frowning. 'Must you adumbrate the details, sir?'

'Lawyers must spend their time adumbrating details, however sordid. Gabriel may appear gentle, but he is a tormented man, and tormented men do wild, irrational things. If recent acts of sodomy could be proved against him, he could face the rope. Rough questioning from Singleton could have made him desperate, especially if there are others to protect. And then there is Jerome. I want to see what he has to say. I'm intrigued by his calling Singleton a liar and perjurer.'

Mark did not reply. He was still frowning. 'Oh, wake up,' I said in a burst of irritation. 'Does it matter if the sacrist covets your arse? He's hardly likely to get it.'

There was a flash of anger in his eyes. 'I was not thinking of myself, sir, but Alice. The girl who disappeared was also Brother Guy's assistant.'

'That had occurred to me as well.'

He leaned forward. 'Would it not be better, and safer for all, to take the obedentiaries, and Jerome, and arrest them all on suspicion? Take them to London and get what they know out of them?'

'On what evidence? And how question them, the torture? I thought you disapproved of such methods.'

'Of course not. But – stiff questioning?'

'And what if I am wrong, and it is not one of them at all? And how would we keep such a mass arrest secret?'

'But – time and danger press.'

'Do you think I don't know that?' I burst out in sudden anger. 'But bullying won't fetch out the truth. Singleton tried that and look where it got him. You untangle a knot with slow teasing, not sharp pulling, and believe me we have here a knot such as I have never seen. But I will unpick it. I will.'

'I am sorry, sir. I did not mean to question…'

'Oh, question, Mark,' I said irritably. 'But question sensibly.' My anger had animated me, and I rose and threw some coins on the table.

'Come, let's go. We're wasting the afternoon, and I have a mad old Carthusian waiting.'

CHAPTER 16

We said little as we walked back to the monastery, under a sky that was rapidly clouding over again. I was angry with myself for my outburst, but my nerves were frayed and Mark's naivety had irritated me. I had found a new mood of determined resolution, though, and set a sharp pace on the road until I stumbled in a drift and Mark had to steady me, which irritated me further. As we neared the walls of St Donatus, a bitter wind began blowing and it started to snow once more.

I banged unceremoniously on the door of Bugge's gatehouse; he appeared, wiping food from his mouth with a dirty sleeve.

'I wish to see Brother Jerome. At once, please.'

'The prior has custody of him, sir. He's at Sext.' He nodded in the direction of the church, from which a faint chanting was audible.

Then fetch him out of it!' I replied sharply. The churl went off muttering, and we pulled our coats, already white with snowflakes, round us tightly as we waited. Shortly Bugge reappeared, accompanied by Prior Mortimus, a frown on his red face.

'Ye wish to see Jerome, Commissioner? Has something happened that I should be fetched from church?'

'Only that I have no time to waste. Where is he?'

'After his insults to you, he's kept locked in his cell in the dorter.'

'Then take us to him, please. I wish to question him.'

He led us away to the cloister. 'I dread to think what insults ye'll get, bearding him in his own den. If ye're minded to have him committed for treason, ye'll be doing us all a service.'

'Will I? He's friendless here, then?'

'Pretty well.'

'There's a few friendless people here. Novice Whelplay, for example.'

He looked at me coldly. 'I tried to teach Simon Whelplay a contrite spirit.'

'Better broken to heaven than in one piece to hell?' Mark muttered.

'What?'

'Something a reforming magistrate said to Master Poer and me this morning. By the way, I hear you visited Simon early yesterday.'

He reddened. 'I went to pray over him. I did not want him dead, just cleansed of what possessed him.'

'Even at the price of his life?'

He came to a halt and faced me, a harried look on his face. The weather was getting worse; snowflakes whirled round us as our coats and the prior's habit billowed in the wind.

'I didn't want him dead! It wasn't my doing, he was possessed. Possessed. His death wasn't my fault, I won't be blamed!'

I studied him. Had he gone to pray over the novice yesterday from some sense of guilt? No, I reflected, Prior Mortimus was not one to question the rightness of anything he did. It was strange; his air of brutal certainty reminded me of radical Lutherans I had met. And no doubt he had contrived some intellectual sophistry that allowed him to molest young women without trouble to his conscience.

'It is cold,' I said. 'Lead on.'

He led us without further converse into the dorter, a long, two-storey building facing the cloister. Smoke rose from many chimneys. I had never seen the inside of a monks' dormitory before. I knew from the Comperta that the early Benedictines' great communal dormitories had long since been partitioned off into comfortable individual rooms, and so it was here. We passed down a long corridor with many doors. Some were open, and I could see warm fires and comfortable beds. The heat was welcome. Prior Mortimus halted before a closed door.

'Normally, it's locked,' he said, 'to make sure he doesn't go wandering.' He pushed the door open. 'Jerome, the commissioner wishes to see you.'

Brother Jerome's cell was as austere as those I passed had been comfortable. No fire burned in the empty grate, and apart from a crucifix above the bed the whitewashed walls were bare. The old Carthusian sat on the bed dressed only in his nether hose; his skinny torso was twisted and bent around the shoulders, as knotted and crooked as my own but with the marks of injury not deformity. Brother Guy stood bent over him with a cloth, washing a dozen small weals that disfigured his skin. Some were red, others yellow with pus. An ewer of water