‘We have come to visit Brother Leger. He is uncle to my wife.’
‘He is? Oh, Christ!’
The grille was slammed closed, leaving Geoffrey staring at it in astonishment. Roger’s expression hardened.
‘That was plain rude. Shall we break down the door and teach them a lesson? Hilde said there are only twelve monks here, and I doubt they have more than six lay brothers. Few will be armed, and we could take the place easily. And if they harbour Satan-worshippers, then the town and the castle will not object.’
‘No,’ said Geoffrey, seeing his friend was perfectly serious. ‘We are not in the business of sacking monasteries.’
‘We did it in Antioch,’ Roger pointed out. ‘On the Crusade.’
‘That was different. We are here to help Hilde’s uncle, not besiege his home.’
Roger grimaced, then wiped his face again with his filthy piece of silk. ‘We should not have worn armour today — it is far too hot. I am being roasted alive.’
‘Wait for me in a tavern,’ suggested Geoffrey, suspecting gaining access to Leger might take some time and loath to have Roger complaining while he persuaded the brothers that he was not there to accuse them of drunkenness, dishonesty or failing to save children from drowning. ‘I will join you there later.’
‘Very well,’ agreed Roger. ‘But fetch me if there is any fighting. I will not be pleased to hear you have enjoyed yourself without me.’
Geoffrey was relieved when Roger disappeared into a large, neat tavern with a sign outside indicating it was the White Lion. He was about to knock on the priory gate again when the grille snapped open and a different pair of eyes inspected him. This time, they belonged to a monk with white hair, the kind of nose that said he liked a drink, and a large wooden cross around his neck, like the one Aidan wore.
‘Who are you?’ he demanded haughtily. ‘What do you want?’
‘I am here to visit Leger,’ replied Geoffrey patiently. ‘He sent word to his niece, Hilde, that he might be in trouble.’
‘That is one way of putting it,’ muttered the monk. ‘He is dead.’
It was not easy persuading the Benedictine to open the door so that the conversation did not have to take place in a busy thoroughfare. Geoffrey did not like the fact that people were stopping to listen, and if it had not been for his promise to Hilde he might have turned around and gone home.
‘It might be better if we had this discussion inside,’ he said to the monk. ‘A crowd is gathering, and I understand you are already the subject of rumours-’
‘All lies, put about by the evil Walter,’ declared the monk. But he, too, was eyeing the spectators. Some were muttering that Leger’s demise was because the monks harboured a Satanist, while others claimed Walter had arranged the death. A few discussions were growing rancorous. Then the door opened, and a beckoning finger indicated that Geoffrey was to step through it.
‘I am Prior Odo,’ said the red-nosed monk. ‘I am sorry to give you the bad news. Poor Leger died last night, I am afraid.’
‘How?’ asked the knight. ‘My wife told me he is not yet fifty, so it cannot-’
‘It is an internal matter,’ said Odo stiffly. ‘I am not at liberty to discuss it with you.’
‘Hilde will want to know what happened,’ warned Geoffrey. ‘So you can either tell me, or you can tell her — because she will descend on you herself if she is not satisfied with my answers. If you have ever met her, you will know I am right.’
Odo gulped. ‘I have met her, and there is nothing I would like more than to furnish you with the information that will keep her away. But I cannot, because I have no idea what happened.’
‘Then tell me what you do know.’
‘A few days ago, Leger said someone was trying to kill him, and grew very agitated — he wrote to your wife, begging for help. He claimed there was poison in his food, and the cat did refuse to eat it when offered, but it is a fussy creature and may not have been hungry.’
‘He told Hilde someone threw a knife at him.’
‘He told me that, too. But we live a very secluded life here. We have no enemies.’
‘Are you saying he died of natural causes, then? Or that he killed himself?’
Odo crossed himself. ‘He was stabbed in the back, which is decidedly unnatural.’
‘It is not easy to do if you are trying to commit suicide, either,’ remarked Geoffrey. ‘And that leaves murder, which means he had at least one enemy and that he was perfectly justified in being afraid for his life.’
‘I suppose it does,’ acknowledged Odo reluctantly. ‘Perhaps I should have heeded his concerns.’
Geoffrey regarded him askance. ‘After two attempts on his life? Yes, you should!’
Odo looked sheepish. ‘Would you like to see his body? You are obviously a soldier, so you will be familiar with wounds. Perhaps it might tell you something.’
Inspecting corpses was not a way Geoffrey would have chosen to spend a summer afternoon, but he followed Odo across a cobbled yard to the church. It was a beautiful building, with one of the finest carved doors he had ever seen. He stopped to admire it, but the prior was disinclined to spend time on pleasantries and indicated impatiently that he was to enter.
The building was blessedly cool after the heat outside. It was also dark, and Geoffrey tripped over several uneven flagstones as he followed Odo to one of the transepts. Leger, dressed in a clean habit and with his hands folded over his chest, lay in a plain wooden coffin. It was a kindly face, browned by the sun, and Geoffrey had the immediate impression that he probably would have liked him. The insight surprised him, because he did not care for many members of Hilde’s large and bellicose family.
‘This is where he was stabbed,’ said Odo, hauling the body into a sitting position and sliding the robe down its back so Geoffrey could see.
It was not a large wound, although a faint bruising around it suggested it had been delivered with considerable force. Geoffrey peered at it in the gloom and imagined it went very deep. He had no doubt at all that it would have killed Leger all but instantly.
‘Where did he die?’ he asked, watching the prior lay the corpse back down again. ‘You said it was last night. Was he asleep?’
‘He refused to come to the dormitory with the rest of us — said he would be safer here.’
‘He was dispatched in a church?’ Geoffrey was shocked. He was not particularly devout, but the notion of committing murder on consecrated ground was anathema, even to him.
Odo nodded. ‘As he knelt to pray in this very lady chapel. The rest of us retired to bed after compline, and we found him dead at matins. Ergo, he was struck down during the night.’
‘He sounded terrified in his letter, so I am sure you would not have left him here alone while you went to sleep,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Who was with him?’
Odo looked sheepish. ‘No one.’ He became defensive when he saw the knight’s disapproval. ‘He said he would be safe in here. We tried to persuade him to come with us to the dormitory, but he refused. In the end we gave up — we are busy men and need our sleep.’
‘Then who was in the priory, other than you and your monks?’
‘No one — the lay brothers go home at dusk. We lock the gate behind them and do not open it to anyone until the following morning. No one can come in or go out.’
Geoffrey frowned. ‘So one of your monks killed him.’
‘No! They are all as shocked by this as I am.’
‘Leger’s wound was not self-inflicted,’ said Geoffrey, ‘and clearly it was no accident. That leaves two possibilities: he was killed by a monk, or he was killed by an intruder. You say no one can come in or out…’
Odo swallowed hard. ‘What are we going to do? Leger was loved in the town, because of his kind heart. People will demand answers — but we have none to give!’
‘Do you have any idea why he suddenly became so fearful?’
Odo tried to calm himself with several deep breaths. ‘None at all, although I suppose I should not be surprised that the current feud with the castle has ended in bloodshed.’