Dissolution

'More ancient books, Brother?' I asked.

'These are our service books, sir, with the musical notations. No one prints them, we have to copy them when they fade.'

I picked one up. The pages were parchment; Latin words were marked phonetically and interspersed with red musical notation, different psalms and prayers for each day of the calendar, the ink faded at the edges from long years of handling. I dropped it on a bench.

'I have some questions, Brother.' I turned to the old monk. 'Perhaps you could leave us?' He nodded and scuttled away.

'Is something amiss?' the sacrist asked. There was a tremor in his voice.

'You have not heard, then? About the body found in the fish pond?'

His eyes opened wide. 'I have been engaged, I have just come from fetching Brother Stephen from the library. A body?'

'We believe it to be a girl who disappeared two years ago. One Orphan Stonegarden.'

His mouth dropped open. He half-rose, then sat again.

'Her neck was broken. It appears she was killed and thrown in the pond. There was a sword there too; we think the one that killed Commissioner Singleton. And this.' I nodded to Mark, who passed me the habit. I waved the badge under the sacrist's nose. Your robe, Brother Gabriel.'

He sat there gaping.

'The badge is yours?'

'Yes, yes it is. That – it must be the robe that was stolen.'

'Stolen?'

'Two weeks ago I sent a habit to the launderer and it never came back. I enquired, but it was never found. The servants steal habits now and then; our winter robes are good wool. Please, sir, you cannot think-'

I leaned over him. 'Gabriel of Ashford, I put it to you that you killed Commissioner Singleton. He knew of your past, and discovered some recent felony you could have been tried and executed for. So you killed him.'

'No.' He shook his head. 'No!'

'You hid the sword and your bloodied robe in the pond, which you knew to be a safe hiding place as you had used it before to hide that girl's body. Why kill Singleton in such a dramatic way, Brother Gabriel? And why did you kill the girl? Was it jealousy because Brother Alexander befriended her? Your fellow sodomite? And Novice Whelplay too, your other friend. He knew what had become of her, didn't he? But he wouldn't betray you. Not until the end, when he started talking in his illness, so you poisoned him. Since then you have seemed racked with pain, as one in an agony of conscience. It all fits, Brother.'

He stood up and faced me, gripping the back of his chair while he took a couple of long breaths. Mark's hand strayed to his sword.

'You are the king's commissioner,' he said, his voice shaking, 'but you harangue like a cheap lawyer. I have killed nobody.' He began to shout. 'Nobody! A sinner I am, but I have broken none of the king's laws these two years! You may enquire of every soul here, and in the town too if you wish, and you will find nothing! Nothing!' His voice echoed round the church.

'Calm yourself, Brother,' I said in measured tones. 'And answer me civilly.'

'Brother Alexander was neither my friend nor my enemy; he was a foolish, lazy old man. As for poor Simon,' he gave a sigh that was almost a groan, 'yes, he befriended the girl in his first days as a novice, I think they both felt lost and threatened here. I told him he should not be mixing with servants; that it would do him no good. He said she had told him she was being pestered-'

'By whom?'

'He would not say, she had sworn him to silence. It could have been one of half a dozen monks. I said he should not become involved in such things; he should get the girl to tell Brother Guy. He had just been made infirmarian after Alexander died. Of shame,' he added bitterly.

'And then she disappeared.'

A spasm twisted his face. 'Like everyone else I thought she had run away.' He looked at me bleakly, then went on in a new voice, cold and calm. 'Well, Commissioner, I see you have created a theory that gives you a solution. So perhaps now someone will be paid to give false testimony and send me to the gallows. Such things are done these days. I know what happened to Sir Thomas More.'

'No, Brother Gabriel, there will be no false witnesses. I will uncover the evidence I need.' I stepped closer to him. 'Be warned. You are under the gravest suspicion.'

'I am innocent.'

I looked into his face a moment, then stepped back. 'I will not have you arrested now, but for the present you will not leave the monastery precincts. If you attempt to leave that will be taken as an admission of guilt. You understand?'

'I will not leave.'

'Be available to speak to me whenever I require. Come, Mark.'

I got up and strode away, leaving Brother Gabriel amidst his pile of books. Outside the church I struck the stone doorway with my hand.

'I thought I had him.'

'Do you still think him guilty?'

'I don't know. I thought if I confronted him and he was guilty he'd collapse. But,' I shook my head, 'he's hiding something, I know it. He called me a haranguing lawyer and perhaps I am, but if twenty years about the courts have taught me anything it's when a man is concealing things. Come.'

'Where now?'

'The laundry. We can check his story and see this Luke at the same time.'

***

The laundry was housed in a large outhouse next to the buttery. Steam issued from ventilator grilles, and I had seen servants going in and out of there with baskets of clothes. I unlatched the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. Mark closed it behind him.

Within it was warm and very dim. At first I could see only a big stone-flagged chamber with baskets and buckets dotted around. Then Mark said, 'Jesu,' and I saw them.

The chamber was full of dogs, a dozen of the great lurchers that had been roaming the yard on our first day, before the snow came. The room stank of their piss. They all rose slowly to their feet and two stepped forward growling, hackles raised and lips flickering back over yellow teeth. Mark slowly unsheathed his sword, and I grasped my staff hard.

I could hear noises behind an inner door and thought of shouting, but I had been brought up on a farm and knew that would only startle the dogs and make them spring. I gritted my teeth; we would not come out of this unmarked. I gripped Mark's arm with my free hand. I had led him to the horror in the pond; and now to this.

There was a creak and we spun round as the inner door opened and Brother Hugh appeared, a bowl of offal in his plump hands. At the sight of us his mouth dropped open. We stared at him desperately, and he collected himself and called to the dogs.

'Brutus, Augustus! Here! Now!' He tossed chunks of offal onto the flags. The dogs looked between him and us, then one by one slunk over to the food. The leader stood growling for a few seconds more, but finally turned and joined the others. I took a shuddering breath. Brother Hugh waved at us urgently.

'Inside, sir, I pray you. Now, while they're eating.'

Circling round the slobbering animals, we followed him to the inner room. He closed the door and latched it. We found ourselves in the steam-filled laundry room. Supervised by two monks, servants were labouring over cauldrons of clothes boiling over fires, or squeezing habits and undershirts out in presses. They looked at us curiously as we took off our heavy coats. I had started to sweat profusely and so had Mark. He gripped the edge of a table and took deep breaths; he was pale and I feared he would faint, but after a moment his colour returned. My own legs were unsteady as I turned to Brother Hugh, who stood bobbing agitatedly, wringing his hands.

'Oh sirs, my lord Commissioner, thank Jesu I came when I did.' He bowed at Our Lord's name, as did the others.