Dissolution

'Who is it? They say someone drowned in the pond.'

I turned to the bearers. 'Take the corpse to the infirmary for Brother Guy to examine. Mark, go with him. And take this, put it in our room.' I handed him the soaked habit. 'Careful of the sword,' I murmured. 'It is sharp.'

'I should tell the brethren something,' the prior said.

'Only that a body has been found in the pond. Now, my lord Abbot, I would talk with you.' I nodded towards his house.

* * *

Again he faced me across his desk, still covered with papers and with the abbey seal resting on its lump of red wax. His face seemed to have aged a decade in a few days, the confident glow in his cheeks replaced by grey, exhausted fear.

I laid the sword on his desk. He looked at it with distaste. I placed the little silver chain beside it, and pointed at it. 'Do you recognize that, my lord?'

He bent and looked at it. 'No, I have never seen it. Was it on – on –'

'The body. Yes. And the sword?'

He shook his head. 'We have no swords here.'

'I won't ask if you recognize that body as Orphan Stonegarden, it is beyond recognizing. I will have to see if Goodwife Stumpe recognizes the pendant.'

He looked at me with horror. 'The poorhouse overseer? Does she have to be involved? She has no love for us.'

I shrugged. 'And she will have less if it transpires her ward was murdered and thrown in your fish pond. She told me the girl was unhappy working here. What can you tell me about that?'

For answer he buried his head in his hands. I thought he would begin sobbing, but after a moment he lifted his face.

'It is not good to have young girls working in monastic houses. There I agree with Lord Cromwell. But Brother Alexander was infirmarian then, he was getting old and needed help. The girl was sent and he wanted to take her on.'

'Perhaps he liked her looks. I hear she was comely.'

He coughed. 'Not Brother Alexander. In fact I thought it safer than having a boy to assist him. That was in the days before the visitation, when – er –'

'I see. When a boy might have to watch his arse. But Brother Guy was infirmarian by the time she disappeared?'

'Yes. Brother Alexander was named in the bishop's visitation. It broke him, he died of a seizure soon after. Then Brother Guy came.'

'So who was it that bothered the girl? I believe somebody did.'

He shook his head. 'Commissioner, it is a temptation to have a pretty girl around the cloister. Women tempt men, as Adam tempted Eve. Monks are only human –'

'From what I have heard she did no tempting, but was harried and pestered. I ask again, what do you know?'

His shoulders sagged. 'There were complaints from Brother Alexander. A young monk called Brother Luke, who works in the laundry, was said to have – molested her.'

'You mean he took her forcibly?'

'No, no, no. It did not go so far. I spoke to Brother Luke, forbade him her presence. He troubled her again and I told him if he did not stop I would make him leave.'

'And others? Obedentiaries, perhaps?'

He looked at me with scared eyes. 'There were complaints against Brother Edwig and Prior Mortimus. They had – had made lewd suggestions, Brother Edwig persistently. Again I – I warned them.'

'Brother Edwig?'

'Yes.'

'And your warnings had effect?'

'I am the abbot, sir,' he said with a touch of his old pomposity. He hesitated. 'Could it not be the girl drowned herself, if she was – in despair?'

'The story was she stole two gold chalices and fled.'

'So we thought when they vanished from the church at the time she went. But – could she not have repented of what she had done, thrown them in the pond and drowned herself?'

'I want the pond drained, but even if those chalices are found it proves nothing. Her killer could have taken them and tossed them in after her, to throw enquiry off the scent. This matter must be fully investigated, my lord. It may need the involvement of the civil authority. Justice Copynger.'

He bowed his head and sat in silence for some moments.

'It's all over, isn't it?' he said suddenly, his voice muffled.

'What do you mean?'

'Our life here. The monastic life in England. I have been deluding myself, haven't I? Legalities will not save us. Even if Commissioner Singleton's killer should turn out to be from the town.'

I did not answer him.

He took a paper from his desk, his hand trembling slightly. 'Earlier I looked again at the draft Instrument of Surrender Commissioner Singleton gave me.' He quoted: '"We do profoundly consider that the manner and trade of living which we and others of our pretensed religion have practised and used many days, doth most principally consist in dumb ceremonies and in certain constitutions of Roman and other foreign potentates." I thought at first Lord Cromwell wanted our lands and wealth, that passage was merely a bonus for the reformers.' He looked up at me. 'But after what I have heard from Lewes – it's a standard clause, isn't it? All the houses are to come down. And after this Scarnsea is finished.'

'Three people have died most horribly,' I said, 'yet you seem concerned only with your own survival.'

He looked puzzled. 'Three? No, sir, only two. One, if the girl killed herself –'

'Brother Guy believes Simon Whelplay was poisoned.'

He frowned. 'Then he should have told me. As abbot.'

'I asked him to keep it to himself for the time being.'

He stared at me. When he spoke again it was almost a whisper.

'You should have seen this house just five years ago, before the king's divorce. Everything ordered and secure. Prayer and devotion, the summer timetable then the winter, unchanging, centuries old. The Benedictines have given me such a life as I could never have had in the world; a ship's chandler's son raised to abbot.' He gave a sad flicker of a smile. 'It's not just myself I mourn for, Commissioner; it's the tradition, the life. Already these last two years order has started to break down. We all used to have the same beliefs, think the same way, but already the reforms have brought discord, disagreement. And now murder. Dissolution,' he whispered. 'Dissolution.' I saw two great tears take form in the corners of his eyes. 'I will sign the Instrument of Surrender,' he said quietly. 'I have no alternative, have I?'

I shook my head slowly.

'I will get the pension Commissioner Singleton promised?'

'Yes, my lord, you will get your pension. I wondered when we would come to that.'

'First, though, I will have to obtain the formal agreement of the brethren. I hold everything in trust for them, you see.'

'Do not do so quite yet. But when I give the word, tell them.'

He nodded dumbly, lowering his head again to hide his tears. I looked at him. The prize Singleton had sought so earnestly had fallen into my lap, the murders had broken the abbot. And now I thought I knew who the murderer was, who had killed them all.

* * *

I found Brother Guy in his dispensary. Mark sat on a stool beside him, still in his servant's clothes. The infirmarian was cleaning knives in a bowl of water, stained brownish-green. The cadaver lay on the table, covered with the blanket, for which I was grateful. Mark's face was pale, and even the infirmarian's dark features had an underlying pallor, as though there were ashes under his skin.

'I have been examining the body,' he said quietly. 'I cannot be sure, but from her height and build I think it is the girl Orphan. And the hair was fair. But I can tell you how she died. Her neck was broken.' He lowered the blanket, exposing that dreadful head. He rotated it slowly; it swung loose, the vertebrae dislocated. I fought down nausea.