the Great; the writings of the early Fathers, Origen, Tertullian, Boethius and Eusebius. The abbey’s collection of Books of Hours bequeathed by the rich and powerful. The works of the Ancients: Aristotle, Plato, Cicero and Lactantius. By the time they’d reached the end of the library, Athelstan had recovered his wits. The distractions of that beautiful, well-endowed scholars’ paradise faded as he followed Richer into the scriptorium. The room was richly furnished with lecterns, shelves and pigeon boxes. Two glowing triptychs adorned either wall depicting St Jerome studying the Bible in his cave at Bethlehem. The far wall was dominated by a huge crucifix with a twisted figure of the crucified Christ beneath the shuttered window. Athelstan, however, was more concerned with the great desk littered with manuscripts and books. Richer had apparently pulled across large sheets of blank vellum together with a napkin from a nearby lavarium to hide what he’d been working on. Athelstan moved towards the table. Richer stepped quickly into his path.
‘Brother Athelstan, can I help you? I am very. .’ Richer, now visibly reluctant at the friar’s curiosity, relaxed as the abbey bell sounded the next hour of divine office. He tactfully shooed Athelstan back towards the door, voluble in his apologies and promises that Athelstan must return, when he would show him particular books and manuscripts. Indeed, was there, Richer asked, any work the Dominican would like to study? He’d heard about Athelstan’s absorption with the stars and St Fulcher possessed a number of valuable treatises by Aristotle and Ptolemy, as well as Friar Bacon’s musings? Athelstan smiled his thanks and left.
‘Now there’s a monk with a great deal to hide,’ Athelstan whispered to the carved face of a satyr hiding in the sculpted foliage at the top of a pillar in the passageway outside. ‘Oh, he has much to hide. As has Mistress Eleanor. She threatened me and wants me gone from here. Why? What does she hide?’
Athelstan returned to his own comfortable chamber. He did not attend divine office but recited the hours kneeling on a prie-dieu. Afterwards he laid out clean clothes borrowed from the good brothers for the morrow, looked at the readings for the Sunday Mass then lay on the bed letting his thoughts drift. Worries about St Erconwald’s, the whereabouts of Cranston, what he’d learnt that day and that sense of brooding danger as he walked this abbey. He fell into a deep sleep and, when he woke, glanced at the hour candle and groaned. Compline must be finished. The abbey was settling for the night. He was wondering if he could get something to eat from the kitchens when the bells began to clang warningly — not the usual measured peals but strident, proclaiming the tocsin. Athelstan grabbed a cloak, thrust his feet into his sandals and hastened out. Others, too, had been aroused. Torches flickered. Lanterns swung in the chilly blackness.
‘Fire, fire!’
Athelstan left the yard, following the lay brothers hurrying along the passageways into the courtyard before the main guest house. Few had yet reached the place. Athelstan immediately realized the fire was serious. The doors of the guest house had been flung open and smoke plumed out. Wenlock, Mahant and Osborne were there coughing and spluttering. Athelstan pushed his way though knocking aside restraining hands. A lay brother, a wet cloth across his nose and mouth, emerged from the smoke.
‘Brokersby’s chamber,’ he gasped. ‘God help the poor man. I cannot get him out.’
Athelstan seized the rag and entered. Smoke choked the corridor. He saw one door open; the near one was locked. Sheets of fire roared at the grille and the stout oak was beginning to buckle. Smoke scored Athelstan’s nose and mouth. Heat and the smell of burning oil closed in. He could do nothing. He retreated to cough and gasp with the rest in the clear night air.
‘The building is made of stone.’ Richer appeared out of the darkness. ‘I understand the door to where the fire started is locked.’ He turned to the assembled line of bucket carriers. ‘Go round,’ he ordered. ‘Force the windows. Use dry sand, not water, at least not yet.’
Marshalled by the sacristan, the lay brothers hurried off. Athelstan crossed to Wenlock and his companions.
‘What happened?’
‘Brother, we do not know. We were aroused by the smoke.’ Mahant pointed to Wenlock and Osborne. ‘They have chambers on the upper floor. Mine was next to poor Brokersby’s. I fell asleep until roused by the smoke and heat.’
‘The door?’
‘Brother, I hammered on it. The fire was already raging. I saw Brokersby slumped half off the bed. I pushed but the door was locked and bolted from the inside. Brokersby must have done that. I mean, since the other murders. .’
‘So you think this was murder?’
‘Heaven knows, Brother! Poor Brokersby! Well,’ Mahant turned back towards the smoke, ‘the least we can do is help.’
Athelstan walked away. He put his hand in the pocket of his cloak and drew out his Ave beads. He recited a Pater and three Aves even though he was distracted. Brokersby was dead. Athelstan recalled that locked door, the sheer ferocity of the flames and returned to his chamber, convinced the fire was no accident. Brokersby had been murdered.
The next morning Athelstan celebrated his Jesus Mass in a side chapel, broke his fast in the refectory and went immediately to the death house. Brother Odo showed him the mangled, blackened human remains. Brokersby had been consumed by the inferno: his eyes had melted, the flesh shrivelled to mere lumps of congealed fat with scorched black skin clinging to charred bone. All vestiges of clothing and footwear had also been consumed whilst his ring and the silver chain around his neck were burnt beyond all recognition.
‘You discovered nothing else?’ Athelstan asked.
‘Nothing,’ Brother Odo replied mournfully. ‘He doesn’t smell now but when they first brought him in he reeked of oil.’
Athelstan knelt down and sniffed; the stench of oil was still very pungent.
‘Brother Athelstan?’
He turned and recognized the keeper of the Barbican, who took one look at the charred corpse and hastily withdrew, indicating with his hand that Athelstan follow. Once outside the lay brother retched and coughed.
‘Brother Athelstan,’ he gasped.
‘The weapons?’
‘There’s no crossbow or arbalest missing.’
‘What?’
‘Brother, I counted most scrupulously — the only weapon missing is a sword.’
‘Who took that?’
‘No one can, no one should without permission of the prior, yet the ledger has no entry. I am sure; I checked it.’
Athelstan thanked him and walked back to the still-smouldering chamber. Only a senior lay brother was present. He explained how the Wyvern Company had moved all their belongings to the abbot’s guest house whilst the damage was inspected and repaired. Like Virgil did with Dante, the monk led Athelstan through the devastation. The guest house was built of solid stone. This, and the heavy oaken door sealing Brokersby’s chamber, had confined the fire, the greatest damage being to the ceiling and the supporting beams as well as the chamber above. Ignoring the good Brother’s warning about the heat, the fiery cinders and acrid smoke, Athelstan insisted on inspecting the dead man’s chamber. The fire still smouldered despite the layers of wet sand thrown in. Everything had been consumed or deeply scorched, whilst the stench of oil remained strong.
‘Where’s the source?’ Athelstan murmured.
‘Pardon?’
‘Talking to myself,’ Athelstan replied. ‘If I could have a pole?’
The lay brother left and brought one back. Athelstan was grateful that his stout sandals and thick woollen leggings protected him from the floating sparks of red-hot fragments. He began near the door sifting carefully through the debris. He swiftly concluded how the traces of oil were fainter, less congealed and thinner nearest to the door, whilst close to where the bed and lantern table must have stood the oil appeared much thicker.
‘Would Brokersby have a night candle?’
‘Yes, he did, or so I learnt from his comrades. He had a large stout tallow candle under a metal cap. He liked to keep it burning. He had trouble sleeping. He also took a potion of poppy juice.’
‘But a tallow candle would not create the fires of hell here,’ Athelstan declared. ‘Was there oil in the chamber?’
