‘What do you say?’ Prior Henry asked.
Baldwin glanced at Simon. Now that the bailiff had been able to quench his thirst again with a jug of wine, he was feeling a shade more lively, and the change showed in his face.
It was Simon who shrugged. ‘We would need to see the place where it happened; the body, where he died, anyone who could have been about at the time, and we’d need to see where the stolen things were kept, of course.’
‘What was stolen?’ Baldwin asked.
Prior Henry looked at the coroner, then sighed. ‘It was a phial of oil A very valuable oil indeed.’
‘Just some oil?’ Simon repeated disbelievingly. ‘You say your monk died for some oil?’
‘This was no ordinary oil. You see, many years ago, while St Thomas Becket was in exile in France, he had a vision. He saw the Virgin Mary come to him. She gave him this oil, and told him to hold on to it until the time of the sixth king after his own. That would be Edward, our King. But although the oil was there for his coronation, it was not thought … er … necessary to use it. There were disputes, I believe, about its authenticity. So it was not used for the anointing of the King. Instead, it was returned here, and placed in the reliquary with St Thomas’s bones. And there it should still be.’
‘If someone had not taken it.’ Baldwin nodded.
‘Quite so. And then killed our poor monk, too.’
‘This Gilbert — he was trying to guard it, you think?’
‘Of course.’
Baldwin could not help but notice the quick glance from the coroner. He wondered about that for a moment, but he continued without mentioning it. To him it looked as though the coroner was somewhat less convinced of Gilbert’s innocence than the Prior.
He cleared his throat. ‘Prior, how well did you know this Gilbert?’
The Prior had been studying the floor as he considered the matter yet again, but now he looked up sharply. ‘If you are going to cast any malicious rumours against this poor, dead fellow, I will be-’
‘Prior, the lad was up and about at a time when he should have been asleep, just like all his brother monks, from what you tell us. He alone rose in the middle watches, while all his brethren lay sleeping. Was he a uniquely light sleeper?’
‘Well, not-’
‘So we can exclude the idea that he alone of all the brothers might have heard something, then. Which leads us to the next question: what would have made him wake? Perhaps it was a call of nature. He needed the reredorter. Where is it?’
The prior wordlessly pointed.
‘Fine. So, if he had sought that relief, he would have walked even further from the scene of the theft, and further from the barn where he was to meet his death. It is inconceivable that he might have seen something from the reredorter, so that is easy to dismiss. If not a call of nature, perhaps there was something he realised he had omitted to do the night before. Was there any such omission on his part?’
‘No.’
‘So that too, we can exclude. And we are left with any number of other possibilities: that he had a nightmare and woke — but commonly a dream so painful as to force a man to wake will also cause others to be disturbed. None other woke? No. Perhaps he was tormented with a pain — a tooth that ached, a twisted ankle, a blocked ear … did he make any mention of such an affliction?’
The Prior shook his head.
‘So we come again back to the most obvious possibility — no more than that, it is just a possibility — that he may himself have been involved in the theft.’
Prior Henry shook his head, unconvinced and unconvincing. He wanted to respond waspishly to this accusation, but the conviction in Baldwin’s voice kept returning to him. ‘You are very certain of your reasoning, sir.’
‘Pray, do not be offended. I seek the truth. It is all any man can do. I never seek to judge a man unless I am sure. I would prefer to allow ten guilty men to go free than convict even one innocent who was undeserving. I do not wish to malign Brother Gilbert post-mortem, Prior. All I seek is the truth, so that we can attempt to recover your treasure.’
‘He was an easy fellow to like,’ Prior Henry said. Now that the barrier had weakened, his determination to protect the boy’s memory was undermined. ‘We bring many boys here from about the diocese, for without their education here at the priory, many of them, boys with good brains and hearts, would otherwise be lost to the Church. It is one thing for the world to lose another merchant, butcher or baker, but another thing for the world to lose a man capable of inspiring love for the Word of God. Gilbert was one of those.
‘I think he had been a novice for only a matter of weeks, when I saw his potential. He had a purity of thought, and an astonishing facility with a brush or reed. His depictions of scenes from the Gospels were marvels of the art, truly astonishing from a lad of such tender years. And yet there was always something at the edge of his work, a certain humour on occasions, and when the subject deserved it, a bleakness to show that some men could be truly evil.’
‘How long was he here as a monk?’
‘Only a matter of some seven months. Before that he was still a novice. I called him into the chapter when I thought he was ready. The brothers all agreed with my judgement.’
He was sounding quite defensive, Baldwin thought, and he could see that Simon felt it too. It surprised him. ‘It is not your fault if a brother decides to steal from the priory. You should not blame yourself, Prior.’
Now the prior and the coroner exchanged a look, and Baldwin understood that there was another point at issue. What it might be, though, he had no idea. ‘Prior?’
‘I think you should tell him,’ Coroner Robert said.
Chapter Eight
Beaulieu
The King was growing irrational, Sir Hugh le Despenser said to himself. It was not the sort of comment he would dare to make aloud, but when the man was raving about things like this, it was enough to make a man want to weep. There were the troubles with the French, the ever-present risk of another incursion from the damned Scots, not to mention the rabble in the country who seemed always to be seeking the next miracle and saviour.
First it had been the body of Thomas of Lancaster. Dear Christ! If there was ever a man who was more suited to the devil than him, Sir Hugh had yet to meet him. Lancaster was a grasping, mean, cretin. Most nobles were happy enough to seek to improve their lot, and there was nothing wrong with that. It was a natural inclination to win greater rewards, and sometimes a man would stretch the law a little to do so. If a fellow had ballocks, he’d ignore the laws, like Sir Hugh, or preferably have the King change them to suit him. But Lancaster was a fool to himself. He persuaded himself that he had a brain and could win against Despenser and the King; he was wrong.
Still, after his death a cult built up around him. It was said that he had died a saint, and some men were prepared to countenance his canonisation. Sweet Christ, they even started visiting the little plaque which he had painted and hung on the wall in St Paul’s, celebrating the ordinances which had been forced upon the King. It had grown to such a nuisance that the King himself had ordered the damn plaque to be removed.
Intolerable! The man was a fool and a traitor.
Still, there was now the added problem that the King’s mind was turning to the matter of the oil of St Thomas. That was something which could not be brought up again.
Originally, the oil had been hidden. Some said it had been given by St Thomas to a monk in a monastery in some Godforsaken part of France, and buried securely with a gold plate that said what it was, and explained that it should be used to save the King. The King anointed with this special oil would become a lion, raging against the heathens who had overrun the Holy Land. Eventually, the King would reconquer Jerusalem. He would become the most praised King in Christendom.