Gurdyman looked at him doubtfully. ‘I hope you are right. It appears to me that we have a very clever, devious killer here.’ He waved a hand. ‘Carry on with what you were saying.’
‘We can, I think, safely conclude that all three poison victims were meant to die,’ Hrype said, ‘although it is impossible to say what the killer had in mind for Elfritha, nor why, indeed, he was unable to carry out his scheme. It may be that the girl has some natural resistance to the particular substances that she consumed, and that she was thus able to remain conscious long enough to seek help. Once she was in the infirmary, the murderer had lost his opportunity, and any further plans would have to be abandoned.’
‘Or postponed,’ Gurdyman added darkly.
Hrype frowned. ‘I do not wish to-’
‘Acknowledge the danger, Hrype,’ Gurdyman interrupted quietly. ‘It exists, and you must surely recognize that.’
Hrype bowed his head. ‘I do.’ He straightened up again. ‘We should ask ourselves what the three victims have in common. Lassair found out that Herleva — that’s the name of the dead nun — came from the Lynn area, which is roughly where the boat picked up the corpse of the man in the fen. Whether or not we should view this as significant remains to be seen.’
‘Elfritha has no connections with Lynn,’ Gurdyman said. ‘Or does she?’
‘Not that I know of. Lassair would have mentioned it if it were so.’ He leaned towards Gurdyman. ‘But what if Herleva revealed some secret to Elfritha? Supposing she knew some fact that was dangerous to the murderer, so that he had to kill her before she spread it about? She might not even have shared it with her friend — perhaps she did not appreciate the significance of what she knew — but the murderer had no way of knowing that. He could not take the risk, and so he killed Herleva, taking the opportunity of turning her death into another sacrifice, and then attempted to do the same to Elfritha.’
Gurdyman sat silent for some time, and Hrype guessed he was thinking hard. ‘And the man in the fen? Did he possess this dangerous knowledge as well?’
‘It’s possible,’ Hrype agreed. He paused, taking a few steadying breaths. This was where sound logic stopped and speculation began.
‘Come on, you may as well tell me,’ Gurdyman said mildly.
Hrype smiled briefly. ‘The death of the man in the fen is no great mystery,’ he said, ‘for he was presumably attacked out in the open. But I have been trying to think who had access to the two young nuns. The abbey at Chatteris is secure behind its walls, although the gates frequently stand open to admit visitors and those in need of the nuns’ help, and it is quite a simple matter to climb over the walls, as I know from my own experience. But the two young nuns were — are — both novices, whose comings and goings are strictly monitored. It is difficult to imagine a situation where their attacker would have access to them.’
‘He is, we agreed, a clever and devious man.’
‘Yes.’ Hrype hesitated. Then he said, ‘Lassair had a theory. She wondered if she herself were the cause of the attacks on her sister and Herleva. I told her that Father Clement, the abbey’s priest, is a fanatic who will not tolerate the smallest deviation from his religion. She feared that her conversations with her sister had been overheard and reported to the priest, who would undoubtedly have seen their content as heretical.’
‘Lassair having been unable to resist the temptation of bragging a little, impressing her sister with the extraordinary things that I have been teaching her,’ Gurdyman said. ‘It is understandable, Hrype.’
‘She should keep such matters to herself,’ Hrype grumbled. ‘They are not for the entertainment of outsiders.’
Gurdyman watched him. ‘You are a stern man, my friend,’ he murmured. ‘So,’ he went on before Hrype could comment, ‘Lassair is berating herself because she thinks this fanatical priest learned that an apprentice healer, who also receives tuition from a wizard, had been whispering her secrets to her sister, who probably shared them with her best friend, leading him to the conclusion that both young nuns had to die. And why, then, kill them by the method of the Threefold Death?’
‘This is Lassair’s theory,’ Hrype pointed out, ‘not mine. But, to answer your question, I imagine he thought that by dressing the deaths up as sacrifices, he would avert suspicion from himself, being the last man to use such methods.’
‘She reasons thoroughly, if not very convincingly,’ Gurdyman remarked. ‘But you think differently, Hrype. Let me hear how you see it.’
‘I consulted the runes,’ Hrype said, his voice dropping to a whisper. ‘I asked them who had poisoned Elfritha, and who had killed Herleva and the man in the fen. As I had expected, they gave the same answer: one person was responsible for all three attacks.’
‘Did they reveal who it was?’ Gurdyman, too, spoke very quietly.
‘I thought not, at first, for the figure they went on showing to me could not have been the killer, and I was left with the conclusion that I had not asked the right question.’ He looked up, meeting Gurdyman’s eyes. ‘They showed me a priest; a shadowy figure dressed in the unmistakable robes of a minister of the church. They indicated that he belonged to the place I was then in; to the abbey. Odal, the rune for home and hearth, was in conjunction with Thorn, the rune of warning and magical power, and in prominence was Beorc, the symbol of growth and new beginnings; a new broom, as they say. There were other indicators, too; the pattern was extremely complex.’ Again he leaned closer to Gurdyman. ‘Father Clement has been at Chatteris only since last autumn. They refer to him as a new broom.’
Gurdyman nodded slowly. ‘The runes told you Father Clement is the killer. Yet you could not accept this?’
‘No, I could not; I cannot,’ Hrype agreed. ‘I have met him, you see. I was very near to Crowland once, the abbey where Father Clement was before he went to Chatteris. Crowland burned down last year, and most of the monks have dispersed while it is rebuilt.’
‘Was your presence there anything to do with the fire?’ Gurdyman asked.
‘No. It was some months before the fire that I was there. But I was careless, Gurdyman. I was preoccupied with another matter — I will not explain, if you don’t mind — and I allowed Father Clement to witness something that no man should have seen, especially a fanatic like him. He accused me of the usual list of crimes: witchcraft, being in league with the devil, raising evil spirits. You know the rest.’
‘Only too well,’ Gurdyman said with a sigh.
‘But he only threatened me,’ Hrype repeated. ‘He had all the evidence he needed to have me tried and put to death, believe me. Yet he did not. Instead he commanded me to leave aside my sinful ways and turn to his Lord. I sensed then that he was a good man: hard and tough, unrelenting in his battle to save souls in the way that he thinks is right, yet fundamentally merciful. I managed to speak to others who knew him well, and my first impression was verified. I learned in addition that he was as hard on himself as on those for whom he was responsible. He fasted frequently and was rumoured to administer the whip on his own back.’
Gurdyman’s eyes narrowed. ‘I see,’ he murmured.
‘Father Clement was not a man to kill,’ Hrype stated flatly. ‘It is inconceivable that he murdered two people and tried to poison a third.’
‘And so you conclude what?’ Gurdyman prompted. There was a new light in his blue eyes, and Hrype had the strong suspicion that he already knew what was coming.
‘The man at Chatteris Abbey who claims to be Father Clement is an impostor,’ Hrype said. ‘For some reason he needed to gain access to the abbey, and so he murdered the real Father Clement, made the death a sacrifice and gave him to the waters of the fen.’
‘But you have been at the abbey,’ Gurdyman protested suddenly. ‘Surely you would have noticed if the man calling himself Father Clement was not the man you knew?’
‘I made sure he did not see me,’ Hrype said grimly, ‘and so, naturally, I did not see him either. Both Lassair and Edild did, but by the time I had worked it all out, Lassair had already gone and so could not describe him to me. And when I asked Edild if she knew what this Father Clement looked like — she only met him once — she said it had been too dark to make out his face.’