Dissolution

'God's nails, that place was cold.'

'It surprised me to hear Brother Guy speak against the vicar general.'

'He spoke against the king's policy, but he would have had to speak against his headship of the Church to commit treason. In the heat of the moment he just said what they all think.' I blew out my cheeks. 'No, I found a trail in there, but it leads to someone else.'

'To whom?'

I looked at him, pleased his sulks seemed to be forgotten.

'Later. Come, we must go to the pond before they start emptying it themselves. We need to see if anything else is in there.' We left the room, my mind racing.

* * *

We retraced our way through the orchard, to where a little crowd of servants stood by the fish pond, holding long poles. Prior Mortimus was with them. He turned to us.

'The stream's been diverted, Commissioner, and the water drained out. But we'll have to let it through again soon or it'll flood the land by the sump.'

I nodded. The pond was now a deep empty bowl, shards of ice embedded in the thick greyish-brown silt at the bottom. I called over to the servants.

'A shilling for the man who finds anything in there!'

Two servants came forward and hesitantly climbed down into the silt, probing with their poles. At length one of them called out and held something up. Two gold chalices.

'Orphan was supposed to have taken those,' the prior breathed.

I had hoped we might find the relic, but another ten minutes of searching revealed nothing beyond an old sandal. The servants climbed out again, and the man who had found the chalices passed them to me. I gave him his shilling and turned to find the prior looking at them.

'They're the ones, no doubt.' He let out a long breath. 'Commissioner, remember, if you find the man who killed that poor girl, give me some time alone with him.' He turned and walked off. I raised an eyebrow at Mark.

'Does he really feel for her death?' he asked.

'There is no end to the strange depths of the human heart. Come, we must go to the church.'

CHAPTER 25

My legs were tired and my back hurt as yet again we plodded back to the monastery. I envied Mark as he ploughed on energetically, sturdy legs kicking up the snow. When we reached the courtyard I stopped to catch my breath.

'The trail in that room leads us back to Brother Gabriel. It seems he was concealing things after all. Let us go and find him. We'll look for him in the church first. When I talk to him I want you to stand just out of earshot. Don't ask, there is a reason.'

'As you wish, sir.' I could tell he was annoyed by my secrecy, but it was part of the plan I had made. I had been surprised by what I had found in that passage, but I could not help a feeling of satisfaction that my earlier suspicions of Gabriel had not, after all, been groundless. Truly the human heart holds strange and unaccountable depths.

The day was still cloudy and the church interior was dim as we walked down the nave. There was no susurration of prayers from the side chapels; it must have been the monks' recreation time. I made out the figure of Brother Gabriel halfway down the nave. He was supervising a servant polishing a large metal plaque set into the wall.

'The verdigris is coming off.' His deep voice echoed around as we approached. 'Guy's formula works.'

'Brother Gabriel,' I said, 'I fear I am always sending away your servants. But I must talk with you again.'

He sighed and bade the man depart. I read the Latin engraved into the plaque above the figure of a monk lying on a bier.

'So the first abbot is buried there in the wall?'

'Yes. That metalwork is exceptional.' He glanced at Mark, who stood a little way off as I had bid him, then turned back to me. 'Unfortunately it is a copper alloy, but Brother Guy came up with a formula for cleaning it.' He spoke rapidly, his manner nervous.

'You have a busy life, Brother, responsible for the church music and the decoration too.' I looked up at the railed walkway, the statue of Donatus with the tools lying beside it and the workmen's basket secured by its cat's cradle of ropes to the walkway and the bell tower. 'No progress with the works, I see. Are you still negotiating with Brother Edwig?'

'Yes. But surely you have not come to discuss that?' Irritation crept into his voice.

'No, Brother. Yesterday I put a case to you, a lawyer's accusation, you said. An accusation of murder. You said I was building a false picture.'

'Yes, I did. I am no murderer.'

'One thing, though, we haranguing lawyers develop is an instinct as to when people are holding things back. We are seldom wrong.'

He said nothing, eyeing me intently.

'Let me put another case to you, a set of suppositions shall we say, and you can correct me as we proceed if I err. Is that fair?'

'I do not know what trick this is.'

'No trick, I promise. Let me start with a meeting of the obedentiaries a few months ago. Prior Mortimus mentioned the old monks' cell and a passage leading from the infirmary to the kitchen quarters.'

'Yes – yes, I remember it.' He was breathing a little faster now, blinking more often.

'It was never followed up, but I think it rang a bell in your mind. I think you went to the library, where you knew all the old plans of the monastery could be found. I saw them when you showed me the library; I remember then you seemed anxious I should not see them. I think you found the passage, Brother; I think you went in there and bored a spyhole into what is now our room. The kitchener said you had been lurking round the kitchen, where I now know the entrance to the passage is.'

He licked dry lips.

'You do not contradict me, Brother.'

'I – I know nothing of this.'

'No? Mark has heard noises some mornings, and I scoffed at him, saying it was mice. Today, though, he explored our room and found the door and the spyhole. I wondered who had been in there, I even suspected the infirmarian, but then I found something on the floor, under the spyhole. Something that glistened. And I realized that the man who had been looking in at us had not been out to spy. He had a different purpose.'

Brother Gabriel let out a groan that seemed to issue from the depths of his being. He sagged like a puppet with its strings cut.

'You have a love of young men, Brother Gabriel. It must have come to consume you utterly if you would go to such lengths to watch Mark Poer dressing in the morning.'

He swayed and I thought he would fall. He put a hand against the wall to steady himself. His face when he looked at me was first deathly pale, then it reddened with a burning flush.

'It is true,' he whispered. 'Jesu forgive me.'

'God's death, that must have made a strange journey, through that dolorous old cell with your cock swelling in the dark.'

'Please – please.' He raised a hand. 'Don't tell him, don't tell the boy.'

I took a step closer. 'Then tell me all you have been concealing. That passage is a secret way into the kitchen, where my predecessor was murdered.'

'I never wanted to be like this,' he hissed with sudden passion. 'Male beauty has obsessed me so long, since I first saw the image of St Sebastian in our church. My mind fixed on it as those of other boys did on St Agatha's breasts on her statue. But they could turn to matrimony. I was left alone with – this. I came here to escape the temptation.'

'To a monastery?' I asked incredulously.

'Yes.' He laughed, a desolate sound. 'Healthy young men do not become monks these days, or few of them. Mostly it is poor creatures like Simon, who cannot cope with life in the world. I had no lust for Simon, let alone old Alexander. I have sinned with other men but few times these past years, and never since the visitation. With prayer, with work, I have achieved control. But then visitors come, reeves from our lands in the shire, messengers, and I sometimes see – I see a beautiful boy who sets me afire, then I scarce know what I do.'