‘I’d better make a start on the rooms then, otherwise we will have more guests arriving before we are ready. Did all the pilgrims get away safely?’
Menma pondered the question before answering.
‘The pilgrims? I think so.’
‘You only think so?’ Colla teased. ‘You would make a fine host, not to ensure that your guests have departed.’
The young man ignored his master’s sarcasm.
‘Well, there were a dozen other guests demanding food and only myself in the place to serve them,’ he protested sulkily. He thought again. ‘The man and woman, the religieux who arrived after the main meal last night — they’d both gone before light. I wasn’t even up. I found that they had left money on the table here. You were out and about early. Did you see them leave?’
Colla shook his head.
‘I met only one group of religieux on the road and they were coming from the Abbey, heading for the quay. Oh, and a short while after, another religieuse was following. Perhaps they were keen to be on the quay early?’ He shrugged indifferently. ‘Well, so long as they paid their dues. Out of a dozen guests we had only one other, apart from those two, bound for The Barnacle Goose this morning — the young religieuse who arrived so late. Surely you would know if she was up and sailed with the tide or not?’
Menma disclaimed knowledge.
‘I cannot remember her. But as she is not here, I presume that she either sailed or went a different way.’ He shrugged. ‘I have only one pair of eyes and hands.’
Colla pressed his lips together in annoyance. Were Menma not the son of his sister, he would make his ears sting with the back of his hand. He was turning out to be a lazy youth and always complaining. Colla had the impression that Menma seemed to think working in the tavern was a task below his station in life.
‘Very well,’ Colla replied, biting back his resentment. ‘I’ll startcleaning the guest rooms. You let me know when the Gaulish merchant returns.’
He turned up the wooden stairs to where the guest chambers were situated. These rooms were well-appointed, with one large room in which a dozen or more could squeeze in at a reduced fee, and with a half-a-dozen rooms for those who could afford to reward their host more generously. The communal room had been filled to capacity last night, mostly with drunken Gaulish sailors who were not able to row back to their own merchant ship due to a surfeit of alcohol and food. Of the rest of the rooms, five had been occupied. Three of the guests had been visiting merchants. Then there had been the religieux who, for one reason or another, had declined the hospitality of the Abbey on the hill. That was not unusual.
Colla had not seen the youthful monk and the young Sister who, so Menma had told him, had arrived without baggage after the main meal had been finished. They had not even asked for food but had taken one of the separate rooms. He did, however, recall the third late arrival, the young religieuse, because she had arrived very late and seemed so nervous and ill-at-ease. She had hung around outside the tavern for some time, as if expecting someone to join her, and had eventually asked Colla if anyone had been enquiring for her. He tried to remember the name she had given but could not. He had wondered whether she would be happier in the cloisters of the Abbey but she had insisted on taking a room and told him that it was too dark to make her way up the steep hill to the protection of the Abbey. She had also told Colla that she had to be up early to meet some fellow religieux and join them aboard a pilgrim ship. As only Murchad’s The Barnacle Goose was sailing with the morning tide, he had assumed that it could be no other vessel. He should have left Menma with specific instructions to see that the girl was roused in time. The taverner took his duties concerning the welfare of his guests very seriously.
Colla paused on the landing at the top of the stairs for a moment, as if summoning his enthusiasm for the task. He hated cleaning. It was the worst aspect of keeping a tavern. Colla had been hoping that his sister’s son would share the burden of work, for he himself had never married, but the boy was turning into a liability.
Taking a broom, he pushed open the door of the communal room, immediately screwing up his face at the stench of stale wine fumes, old sweat and other odours that hung above the jumble and chaos of the discarded sleeping mattresses. Then, deciding to take the easier option, he turned towards the individual rooms. At least they would be easier to clean first and he would return to the general disorder afterwards.
The doors of the rooms all stood ajar, except for one at the end of the row. That was the room in which he himself had installed the young female latecomer. Colla believed himself to be a good judge of human character. He guessed that the young woman was a fastidious person, the type to tidy her room and shut her door when leaving it. He smiled in self-satisfaction at his perspicacity, mentally promising himself a drink if he turned out to be right. It was a game he often played, as if he needed some excuse to take a drink from his own stores. Then, unable to present himself with any further distractions, he forced himself to set to work.
He surprised himself by cleaning each room swiftly but with a thoroughness that belied the quick movements with which he tidied up. He was feeling pleased with his progress by the time he came to the fifth chamber, the one used by the young religieux couple. He entered it. It had been left in almost pristine condition, with the bed neatly made. If only all his guests were so clean and tidy! He was just congratulating himself on not having to do much work in here, when he caught sight of something on the floor. It was a dark stain. It looked as if someone had trodden in something, and yet there was no foul odour of excrement. Cautiously, Colla bent and dabbed at it with his finger. It was still damp yet nothing came off on his hand.
To reassure himself, he glanced around the room. His first impression had been correct: it was tidy enough. He stared back down to the single stain, and frowned in bewilderment.
In retrospect, he did not know why he turned from the room, without cleaning it. As he did so, he saw another stain on the floor outside the entrance to the sixth room. He hesitated a moment, tapped on the door and then lifted the latch, pushing it open.
The room was in shadows for the curtain covering the window had not been drawn back, but it was light enough to see that someone was still lying in the bed.
Colla cleared his throat. ‘Sister, you have overslept,’ he called nervously. ‘Your ship is gone — sailed. Sister, you must wake up!’
There was no movement from the form under the blankets.
Colla moved slowly forward, dreading what he would find. He could tell instinctively that something was very wrong. When he reached the window at the head of the bed, he drew back the curtain so that light flooded into the room. At the same time he noticed that the blanket covered the head as well as the body which lay still on the bed. There was a meat-knife on the floor. He recognised it as one from his own kitchen.
‘Sister?’ There was desperation in his voice now. He did not want to believe what his mind was already telling him.
With a trembling hand he took hold of the edge of the blanket. It was sodden to the touch. Even without looking, he knew that it was not with water. Very gently, he pulled the blanket away from the face beneath.
The young woman lay there, eyes wide and glazed, her mouth twisted into a final grimace of pain. Her skin was waxy. She had been dead some time. Deeply shocked, Colla forced his eyes to drop from her pallid stare to her body. The white linen of her shift was ripped and torn and suffused in blood. He had never seen such savagery inflicted with a knife before. The body had been cut — hacked — as if a butcher had mistaken the young woman’s soft flesh for that of a lamb to be slaughtered.