‘Yes. Even in this cold he was still warm,’ said Adam.
‘And you were summoned here shortly after that?’
‘I had time to say but a few prayers over the fallen man. It could not have been long.’
‘So Ronan might have been the first to die,’ said Hempe. ‘Was he still warm as well?’
‘I removed my gloves to bless him and say prayers …’ The precentor frowned down at his feet. ‘Not so cold as to make me think he had been out in the snow for long, but not so warm as the other. I regret I cannot be more precise.’
‘Anything you noticed is helpful,’ Owen assured him.
When the men returned with a board Owen and Hempe helped them place Ronan’s body on it. In the process the cloak fell open. Blood soaked the squirrel lining over the chest. Owen crouched to examine the corresponding wound. He had been stabbed through the heart.
Once the body was settled, those gathered stood with heads bowed, their breath rising like smoke about their heads, as Master Adam said a prayer. Owen was about to give the order to take Ronan to the deanery when someone approached from the chancellor’s property.
It was Master Thomas himself, his long gown caught up in a belt so he might pick his way through the snow. The chancellor greeted all but the two clerks. ‘You are welcome to bring him into the house while we send for a cart to carry him to the chapel in the Bedern.’
After Owen and the precentor agreed to the plan, the chancellor stepped over to the body and bowed his head, whispering a prayer.
‘To look at him, one would guess he had lain down in the snow to sleep,’ Master Adam said as the chancellor turned away.
Hardly, thought Owen. Adam had been right about the bloodied nose, the bruising.
‘He would never be such a fool,’ said Thomas.
Spoken with some emotion. Was he Ronan’s friend, or more? Owen glanced at Michaelo, who was studying the chancellor with interest.
‘Had he cause to come to your home this morning?’ Owen asked.
‘At this hour?’ Thomas looked at him askance. ‘He would not be so bold.’
‘Unless he sought help,’ Hempe suggested. ‘Would he have felt confident you would open the door to him in need?’
The chancellor blinked. ‘I had not considered that. I would turn away no one in such a circumstance. He would know that. But your house is just beyond, Adam.’
Too eager to distance himself? Michaelo met Owen’s eye, raised a brow.
Hempe asked again whether he had been warm to the touch.
‘Touch him? No. And in any case I was wearing gloves.’
So he had not rushed out the door unprepared. ‘Were you on your way out?’ Owen asked.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘The gloves.’
‘The cold is unkind to aging bones, Captain.’ A stiff smile. ‘Shall we move inside?’
The precentor had been shifting from foot to foot and huddling deeper into his cloak. ‘Bless you, Thomas, it is cold out here.’
Little came of the talk in the chancellor’s hall, where they huddled round a brazier to warm themselves. The chancellor and the precentor seemed most keen to lay the trouble at each other’s feet. Thomas did not seem to connect the ‘Frenchman’ with anyone in particular, but Owen sensed the chancellor knew who might want Ronan dead.
Taking his leave of him for now, Owen reviewed with Michaelo all that he had noticed about the body so that the monk might record it when he returned to his lodgings. The stab wound, the injuries on the face suggesting a broken nose, the ice on the front of the hat. As if he had been pushed face down in the snow, then rolled over and stabbed. Whoever stabbed him knew how to do it, and where.
‘I cannot think of anyone in the minster liberty likely to be experienced with stabbing a man through the heart,’ said Michaelo. ‘Perhaps a guard?’
Owen approached the precentor, who was talking with Hempe. ‘Any former soldiers among the vicars? Or in service here in the liberty?’
‘One or two guards,’ said the precentor. ‘But I cannot think why any of them would attack Ronan.’
Master Adam led them to the deanery garden, where the other body had been laid out in a storage shed behind the kitchen. Looking at the damage to the head, Owen guessed the man’s neck had snapped on impact, killing him at once. A blessing of a sort. The man was short but muscular, younger than Owen, mid- to late twenties. His hands were calloused and scarred, his nails jagged, dirty. Yet he seemed a tidy man, his thatch of brown hair trimmed with care, face shaved, his clothing well made, a leather jerkin beneath a padded jacket and heavy wool cloak, good boots, with wear from chafing caused by riding. No marks of livery, but when Owen pulled up the shirt, the scars on the torso were those of a soldier or guard. This was no traveling merchant. All this he shared with Michaelo, Hempe leaning close to catch it.
‘I don’t like the look of him,’ said Hempe.
‘Nor I,’ said Owen. ‘He would have had the strength to be Ronan’s murderer. But the timing troubles me.’ He handled the man’s dagger, testing the balance, appreciating the quality. ‘Well crafted. He fell with his weapon sheathed. No time to draw it,’ he noted to Michaelo. It was not his dagger Michaelo had taken from the young woman. Glancing up at the precentor, who had been drawn aside by the servants guarding the body, ‘Now the blood’s washed off his face, do you know him?’
Adam sent his clerks off and returned his attention to Owen, his expression markedly less officious. ‘Know him? No, Captain. Nor can I guess what business he had in the chapter house. Or how he gained access.’
‘So the door would have been locked.’
‘The clerk assigned to the evening rounds yesterday says he found the door unlocked and rectified that. We have warned the masons time and again to ensure
