Dissolution

She sighed. 'Poor Orphan.'

'You knew her?' I asked.

'I brought her up. She was a waif left in the yard of this building nineteen years ago. A newborn baby. Poor Orphan,' she said again.

'What was her name?'

'Orphan was her name, sir. It's a common name for foundlings. We never found out who her parents were, so she was given Stonegarden as a surname by the men's warden, as she was found in the yard.'

'I see. And she grew up under your care?'

'I have charge of all the children. A lot die young, but Orphan was strong and she thrived. She helped me round the place, she was always cheerful and willing –' She suddenly looked away.

'Go on, Goodwife,' Copynger said impatiently. 'I have told you before, you are too soft with these children.'

'They often have a brief stay on earth,' she replied spiritedly. 'Why should they not have some enjoyment of it?'

'Better go broken to heaven than in one piece to hell,' Copynger said brutally. 'Most that live end as thieves and beggars. Go on.'

'When Orphan reached sixteen the overseers said she must go out to work. It was a shame, she had a swain in the miller's son and if that had been allowed to develop she'd have been married off.'

'She was pretty, then?'

'Yes, sir. Small with fair hair and a sweet, gentle face. One of the prettiest faces I have ever seen. But the men's overseer has a brother working for the monks; he said the infirmarian needed a helper, so she was sent there.'

'And this was when, Mistress Stumpe?'

'Two years ago. She would come back and visit me on her free days, every Friday without fail. She was as fond of me as I was of her. She didn't like it at the monastery, sir.'

'Why not?'

'She wouldn't say. I teach the children never to criticize their betters, or they'll be done for. But I could see she was frightened.'

'Of what?'

'I don't know. I tried to find out but she wouldn't say. She worked for old Brother Alexander first, and then he died and Brother Guy came. She was afraid of him, with his strange appearance. The thing was she'd stopped seeing Adam, the miller's son. He'd come to see her, but she'd tell me to send him away.' She gave me a sharp look. 'And when that happens it often means a woman's been ill used.'

'Did you ever see any marks, bruises?'

'No, but she seemed lower in spirits each time I saw her. Then one day, six months or so after she started at the monastery, she just didn't turn up one Friday, nor the next.'

'You must have been worried.'

'I was. I decided to go there and find out what I could.' I nodded. I could imagine her marching stoutly along and banging on Master Bugge's gate.

'They wouldn't let me in at first, but I stood making noise and trouble till they fetched that Prior Mortimus. Scottish barbarian. He stood and told me Orphan had stolen two gold chalices from the church one night and disappeared.'

Copynger inclined his head. 'Perhaps she did, it happens often enough with these children.'

'Not Orphan, sir, she was a good Christian.' Mistress Stumpe turned to me. 'I asked the prior why I hadn't been told, and he said he knew nothing of the girl's contacts in town. He threatened to swear out a warrant against her for theft if I didn't go away. I reported it to Master Copynger, but he said without evidence of ill-doing there was nothing he could do.'

The magistrate shrugged. 'There wasn't. And if the monks had sworn out a warrant against her, that would have been one up for them against the town.'

'What do you think happened to the girl, Mistress Stumpe?'

She looked me in the eye. 'I don't know, sir, but I dread to think.'

I nodded slowly. 'But Justice Copynger is quite right, he could do nothing without evidence.'

'I know that, but I knew Orphan well. It wasn't in her to steal and run away.'

'But if she was desperate…'

'Then she'd have come to me rather than risk the rope for stealing. But nothing's been seen or heard of her these eighteen months. Nothing.'

'Very well. Thank you, Goodwife, for your time.' I sighed. Everywhere I turned suspicions remained suspicions; there was nothing I could grasp hold of and tie to Singleton's murder.

She led us back to the hall, where the children picking rags looked up with pale, wizened faces from their tasks. The sickly stench of the old clothes carried clear across the room.

'What are your charges doing?' I asked her.

'Looking through the rags people give for something to wear tomorrow. It's dole day at the monastery. It'll be a hard walk in this weather.'

I nodded. 'Yes, it will. Thank you, Mistress Stumpe.' I turned in the doorway as we left; she was already back with the children, helping them pick through the festering piles.

* * *

Justice Copynger offered us dinner at his house, but I said we must return to the monastery. We set off, our boots crunching through the snow.

'We will have missed dinner,' Mark said after a while.

'Yes. Let's find an inn.'

We found a respectable enough coaching house behind the square. The landlord ushered us to a table looking out on the wharf and I watched the boat we had seen earlier, laden with bales, being oared carefully through the channel towards the waiting ship.

'God's wounds,' Mark said, 'I'm hungry.'

'Yes, so am I. But we'll keep clear of the beer. Did you know, under the original rule of St Benedict the monks only had one meal a day in the winter – dinner? He made the rule for the Italian climate, but they kept it in England as well to begin with. Imagine standing in prayer for hours a day, in winter, on one meal a day! But of course, as the years passed and the monasteries got wealthier, it became two meals a day, then three, with meat, with wine…'

'At least they still pray, I suppose.'

'Yes. And believe their prayers intercede with God for the dead.' I thought of Brother Gabriel and his anguished intensity. 'But they are wrong.'

'I confess it sends my head to spinning, sir, all this theology.'

'It shouldn't, Mark. God gave you a brain. Use it.'

'How is your back today?' he asked, changing the subject. I reflected it was becoming a talent of his.

'Bearable. Better than it was first thing.'

The innkeeper brought us dishes of rabbit pie, and we ate silently for a while.

'What do you think became of that girl?' Mark asked at length.

I shook my head. 'Jesu knows. There are so many threads of enquiry, they merely multiply. I had hoped for more from Copynger. Well, now we know women have been molested at the monastery. By whom? Prior Mortimus, who troubled Alice? Others? As for the girl Orphan, Copynger's right. There's no evidence she didn't just run away, and the old woman's fondness for her could be colouring her judgement. There's nothing to lay hold of.' I clenched a fist on the empty air.

'What did you think of Justice Copynger?'

'He's a reformer. He will help us where he can.'

'He talks of true religion and how the monks oppress the poor, yet he lives richly while turning people off their land.'

'I don't like him either. But you should not have asked him about Alice's mother. It's not your place. He's our only reliable source of information and I don't want him crossed. We've little enough help. I'd hoped for more information on the land sales, to connect with the bursar's books.'

'It seemed to me the Justice knew more about the smugglers than he said.'

'Of course he did. He's taking bribes. But that's not why we're here. I'm with him on one thing: the murderer comes from within the monastery, not from Scarnsea. The five senior obedentiaries.' I ticked them off on my fingers. 'Abbot Fabian, Prior Mortimus, Edwig, Gabriel and Guy. Any of them is tall and strong enough to have despatched Singleton – except Brother Edwig, who was away. And any of them could have killed the novice. That is, of course, if what Brother Guy told us about deadly nightshade is true.'