The Serpent’s Tale

“Rest be damned,” Rowley said, but he looked toward Adelia, who must go with him when he went, or why was she here?

She shook her head. We need rest, Rowley. You need it.

The abbess’s eyes had followed the exchange and, if it had told her nothing else, though it probably had, she’d learned enough to know the matter was settled. “When you have disposed of the unfortunate gentleman’s body, Sister Havis will see to your accommodation,” she said.

It was still very dark and very cold. The nuns were chanting Lauds in their chapel, and everybody else with a duty to do was performing it within the complex of buildings, out of sight of the main gates, where a covered carriage containing a dead man had been left just inside them.

Walt and the men-at-arms were guarding it. They stood, stamping and slapping their arms to keep warm, stolidly ignoring the inquisition of the convent porter, who was leaning out of a bottom window in the gatehouse. Sister Havis told him sharply to withdraw his head, close the shutters, and mind his own business. “Keep thy silence, Fitchet.”

“Don’t I?” Fitchet was aggrieved. “Don’t I always keep it?” The shutters slammed.

“He does,” Sister Havis said. “Mostly.” Holding the lantern high, she stalked ahead of them through the snow.

Walt led the horses after her, the bishop, Oswald, and Aelwyn marching beside him, with Adelia and Mansur above them on the cart’s driving seat.

Rowley, aware now that he had tired her, would have left Adelia in the room that had been prepared for her and Gyltha and the baby in the guesthouse, but this dead young man was her responsibility. However good the reason, his body was being treated disgracefully at her behest; she must accord it what respect she could.

They were following the wall that ringed the convent’s extensive buildings and gardens to where it ran into the woods in which, on the other side, lay the dead man’s dead horse.

The rush of water that they’d heard from on the bridge became loud; they were close to the river, either the Thames itself or a fast stream running into it that gushed up even colder air. The noise became tremendous.

Mansur pointed; he and Adelia were seated high enough on the cart to see over the wall and, when trees allowed, across the water itself. There was their bridge and, on its far side, a water mill.

The Arab was saying something-she couldn’t hear him-perhaps that the mill had been in darkness when they’d stood on the bridge so that they hadn’t noticed it. Now light came through tiny windows set in its tower, and its great wheel was being turned by the race.

They’d pulled up. Sister Havis had stopped at a large stone hut built flush with the wall on this side and was unlocking its door.

The nun’s lantern showed the inside of the hut to be empty apart from a ladder and a few tools. The floor was slabbed with stone, but most of its space was taken up by a great curve of iron set with handles, like the lid of an immense pot.

Sister Havis stood back. “It will need two to lift it.” She had the same emotionless voice as her mother.

Aelwyn and Oswald exerted themselves to raise the lid, displaying the blackness of a hole and releasing a chill that was palpable even in the air of the hut, and with it a smell of straw and frozen meat.

The bishop had taken the lantern from the prioress and was down on his knees by the side of the hole. “Who built this?”

“We do not know, my lord. We discovered it and maintain it. Mother Abbess believes it was here long before our foundation.”

“The Romans, I wonder?” Rowley was intrigued. The ladder was carried over and put in place so that he could descend. His voice came up with an echo, still asking questions, Sister Havis answering them with detachment.

Yes, its position so far from the convent butchery was inconvenient, but presumably its builders had placed it here to be close to a part of the river that was embanked so that the chamber would suffer no erosion while yet benefiting from the cooling proximity of running water.

Yes, the convent still pickled and salted most of its animals after the Michaelmas slaughter, since even Godstow could not provide feed for them all during the winter, but freezing some carcasses enabled its people to have occasional fresh meat into the spring, or later.

Yes, of course, the mill pond over the way needed a very cold winter to turn to ice, but all winters were cold these days and the last freeze had been exceptional, providing them with sufficient frozen blocks to last until summer. Yes, his lordship would see a drain that took away any melted water.

“Marvelous.”

Adelia coughed with intent. Rowley’s head appeared. “What?”

“The obsequies, my lord.”

“Oh, of course.”

The body was lain on the slabs.

Rigor mortis had passed off, Adelia was interested to see, but that would be from the comparative warmth provided by the wrapping of straw and the shelter of the cart; down in that freezing hole, it would return.

The sure, strong voice of the Bishop of Saint Albans filled the hut. “Domine, Iesu Christe, Rex gloriae…Free the souls of all faithful departed from infernal punishment and the deep pit…nor let them fall into darkness, but may the sign-bearer Saint Michael lead them into the holy light which you promised…”

Adelia silently added her own requiem prayer: And may those who love you forgive me for what we do.

She went down the pit ahead of the body, joining Oswald and the bishop. A dreadful place, like the inside of an enormous brick egg insulated throughout by thick, netted straw over which more netting held the ice blocks. On their hooks, butchered sides of beef, lamb, venison, and pig, whitened by frost, hung so close together that she could not pass through without brushing her shoulders against them.

She found a space and straightened, to have her cap caught in the talons of game birds hanging from their own gallows.

Teeth chattering-and not just from the cold-she and the others guided the feet of the dead man as Aelwyn and Walt lowered him.

Together they laid him down under the birds, positioning him so that if there were drips, they would not fall on his face.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” When the others had climbed out of the hole, she stayed by the dead man for a moment to make him a promise. “Whether we catch your killers or not, I will not leave you here for long.”

It was almost too long for her; she was so cold she couldn’t manage the ladder and Mansur had to hoist her out.

The abbess gave up her house to Rowley, saying it was a relief to do so; its steep steps to the front door had become difficult for her. In that he was her superior in God, she could do no less, although it gave him access to the inner courtyard with its cloister, chapel, refectory, and nuns’ dormitory, which were otherwise barred to men overnight. Having taken a look at Father Paton and deciding that he wasn’t a sexual threat, either, she put the secretary in with his master.

Jacques, Walt, Oswald, and Aelwyn were accommodated in the male servants’ quarters.

Mansur was given a pleasant room in the men’s guesthouse. Gyltha, Adelia, the baby, and the dog were accommodated just as pleasantly in the females’ wing next to the church. Angled outside steps led up to each guest’s private door, which, since they were on the top floor, gave the two women a view westward over the track to Oxford and the abbey’s fields where they sloped down to the Thames.

“Duck down,” said Gyltha, examining a large bed. “An’ no fleas.” She investigated further. “And some saint’s put hot bricks to warm it.”

Adelia wanted nothing so much as to lie down on it and sleep, and, for a while, all three of them did just that.

They were awakened by bells, one of them tolling as if in their ear and setting the water ewer shivering in its