by Paul Doherty
‘But why?’ Eadwig insisted.
‘As I have said, to give the killer time to search the sub-prior’s possessions, as well as create an illusion – which your community fastened on – that Gervase’s death was linked to doubts about the Blessed Roger Atworth. Illusion often hides the truth.’
‘And the killer?’
‘God knows.’ Kathryn went and picked up her writing satchel. ‘The killer probably studied every inch of this ground. He has covered up his tracks. He may have been elsewhere by the time the fire fully caught hold. Look around you, Brother. The trees stretch on every side, the curtain wall, the deserted alleyway beyond. A coven of outlaws could hide here for hours without being traced.’
‘Gervase could have met this person in his chamber?’ Eadwig, immediately regretting his question, grinned apologetically. ‘In an enclosed community!’ he exclaimed.
‘Precisely,’ Kathryn agreed. ‘In a place like the friary, the walls have eyes as well as ears. Anyway, let me prove my theory is correct.’
Kathryn positioned Eadwig next to the scorched hawthorn bush and walked back across the lawn. She turned.
‘Bring your cowl up!’ she called. ‘Put your hands up your sleeves!’
Eadwig obeyed. Kathryn walked to the bench she’d sat on the previous evening.
‘Of course!’ she murmured.
Eadwig, motionless, looked like any other friar, whilst what might lie behind him was hidden. A whole horde of killers could have lurked there. The bushes and vegetation were densely packed to conceal any movement. Kathryn imagined the figure pushing the corpse forward, almost walking behind it. Indeed, because of the high grass which fringed the lawn, not to mention the scrub and brambles, Eadwig’s feet couldn’t be seen. Kathryn remembered what Brother Timothy had told her: ‘I glanced up, and he was just standing there.’
‘Mistress!’ Eadwig called plaintively.
Kathryn walked across. ‘Thank you. Now let’s visit Mistress Chandler. I wish I had brought some food. Brother, you’ll be a kindly soul to her, won’t you?’
‘Oh, of course! Last night, after we met you, Prior Anselm said someone must take over looking after her.’ He beamed a smile. ‘Perhaps I’ll volunteer?’
They left the lawn and went deeper into the trees. In the full light of day Kathryn appreciated what a suitable secret meeting place this was. Chandler heard them, and Kathryn was relieved when she called out a salutation.
‘I must see Colum about her.’ Kathryn paused.
‘Why?’ Eadwig asked.
‘I keep thinking of my midnight visitor. If I am going to ask Mistress Chandler about anything suspicious, the same thought must have crossed the assassin’s mind.’
‘She’s fairly safe in there,’ Eadwig replied.
‘Except for the aperture,’ Kathryn declared. ‘Tell me, what if something happened, if our killer poured oil through that slit?’
Eadwig pulled a face. ‘A steel plate guards the door. She wouldn’t be able to get out.’
‘What are you chattering about?’ Chandler’s voice was strong. ‘Mistress, have you brought food?’
Kathryn walked up to the small Judas squint and peered through.
‘Stand back!’ she ordered. ‘I want to see your face.’
Mathilda obeyed. Kathryn could make out a lined, rather dark face, a mass of iron-grey hair, bright eyes.
‘Are you well, Mistress Swinbrooke?’
‘Of course,’ Kathryn replied, ‘but I am concerned about you. You’ve seen and heard things, haven’t you, Mistress? Gervase was murdered. I don’t want to alarm you, but the killer may have his eye on you.’
‘I’ll go when God calls me.’ Chandler returned to the Judas squint and peered through.
‘It’s more about how that call will come,’ Kathryn replied. ‘Mistress Chandler, I am going to trust you. I am going to take it upon myself to order Eadwig here . . .’
‘Oh, I know him. He’s always scurrying about after Brother Timothy, isn’t he?’
‘The same,’ Eadwig cheerfully called back, but when he glanced at Kathryn, his eyes were troubled.
‘I know.’ Kathryn spoke his thoughts. ‘The law ruled she is to be confined, but the law also adds that she is to be kept safe. Mistress Chandler, I am going to have the iron steel plate removed so that, if you are in danger, or even if you wish to walk, feel the sun, take God’s air, you can do so.’
Mathilda stepped back, shaking her head.
‘No, no, they’ll punish me for that. I’d be taken down to the stocks and whipped.’
‘No one will punish you,’ Kathryn assured. ‘What’s more, I’ll bring you food and wine. Brother Eadwig will help.’
They moved round the stone cell. Kathryn crouched down and, with Eadwig’s help, pulled the rusty steel plate from between the wooden slats which kept it up against the wooden door.
‘Mistress,’ he whispered, ‘she’s not the only one who will be in trouble.’
‘Murtagh will take care of everything. Now look, Brother, I want you to go across to the kitchens. We’ll break our fast in the open air. I also want you to get a knife, sharp and pointed; I am going to give it to Mistress Chandler to protect herself.’
Eadwig looked as if he was about to refuse. Kathryn grasped him by the hand. ‘Brother, I don’t want her blood on my hands. It’s only a matter of time.’
‘Then she should be removed to the castle prison.’
‘Perhaps! But for now, please do what I ask.’
Eadwig crossed himself and hurried off. Kathryn stared at the wooden door. The steel plate was no more than a foot square, fastened between two wooden slats to prevent the door from being opened from the inside. Kathryn noticed how the door had been freshly painted and re-hung.
‘Mathilda,’ she opened the door. ‘If you wish to leave, you can do so.’
Kathryn stepped back. At first there was silence, then she heard a faint sobbing. She was tempted to lead the poor woman out. Instead, Kathryn went, sat on a fallen tree, and waited. At last the door was pushed open. Mathilda Chandler crept out. She shielded her eyes against the light and, for a while, leaned against the wall of her prison. Kathryn reckoned that she was well past her forty-fifth summer: She was comely enough, small, her shoulders rather hunched, her face ravaged by the pain of her long imprisonment.
‘Over here, Mathilda!’
The woman got up and walked across. She paused and stared up at a branch. She came and sat by Kathryn, head down, hands resting in her lap.
‘You’ve shown me a great mercy, Mistress, and for that I am truly grateful.’
‘How often are you released?’ Kathryn asked curiously.
‘Two, perhaps three times a year, for no more than an hour, around the great feasts of Easter, Christmas, and Michaelmas. It’s good, isn’t it, to stand under God’s sky?’
Kathryn grasped her hand; the skin was calloused; Mathilda’s nails were bitten to the quick.
‘I will do what I can for you,’ Kathryn promised. ‘But Mistress Chandler, time is short. I will take you into my confidence.’
Kathryn quickly described what had happened to Gervase and how the assassin had struck; she even mentioned Jonquil.
‘I can only speak of what I see and hear,’ Chandler replied. ‘Now and again I hear footsteps, or what I think are footsteps, a twig snapping, sounds as if someone is climbing the wall. On one occasion a muttered curse. But don’t forget, Mistress Kathryn, everyone knows I am here. My little window on the world is narrow and blocked, and many times I sleep or doze.’
‘Did Gervase ever speak to you?’ Kathryn asked.
‘On a few occasions.’
‘And Jonquil?’
‘Oh, I saw him with Brother Atworth. On one occasion I glimpsed him by himself, but I could not go on oath.’
‘And Gervase?’ Kathryn insisted. She was confident that this woman knew more than she was saying.
‘He used to come over.’ Mathilda’s fingers laced together. ‘On
one occasion I heard voices raised in argument. Also the clink of coins.’
‘Coins?’ Kathryn asked.
‘It was a very clear day, just after noon; the friary was silent, and certain sounds carry. Gervase was amongst the trees: I heard the clink of coins, but don’t forget, Mistress, in a court of law they would say I am fey.’
‘What else do you know?’
Mathilda sat, head down. Eadwig returned, bearing a platter, three bowls of steaming oatmeal, bread wrapped in a linen cloth, a small jar of butter, and a pot of honey, three horn spoons, and a wicked-looking meat knife. He was about to join them, but Kathryn indicated with her eyes that he should take his food elsewhere. Eadwig picked up a bowl, took a horn spoon, and walked out of earshot. Kathryn persuaded Chandler to eat.
‘I couldn’t get any ale!’ Eadwig called out. ‘The kitchen was too busy, and a new cask had to be broached.’
‘I have a small cask myself,’ Mathilda muttered. ‘Mistress, this is good.’
She took the honey, poured some of it over the oatmeal, and began to eat hungrily. Kathryn followed suit. The oatmeal was hot and delicious, very similar to what Thomasina would make. She waited until Chandler had finished the bowl and put it back. The woman snatched one of the small, white loaves, using the meat knife to smear it with butter and the remains of the honey.
‘Oh, God!’ Mathilda whispered, ‘this is heaven!’ She turned, eyes filled with tears. ‘The simple things of life, eh, Mistress?’
‘Tell me what you know,’ Kathryn urged.
Mathilda took another mouthful. ‘I told you there are comings and goings.’
‘The truth,’ Kathryn insisted.
‘Atworth was a very frightened man,’ Chandler began. ‘He claimed how his past sins haunted him. I told him to put his trust in God. He replied with a story about how in France he’d raped a young woman and hanged an old crone who had objected. She’d prophesied Atworth would die a violent death.’
‘But he didn’t,’ Kathryn broke in. ‘He died in his bed, in something akin to the odour of sanctity.’
‘Did he?’ Chandler looked mischievously out of the corner of her eye. ‘Atworth told me other things, not in great detail; he held secrets about the Great Ones. I suspect he was talking about the Duchess, and he linked these secrets to his fears.’
Kathryn glanced to where Eadwig was sitting, his back to a tree, happily eating. The morning seemed to have lost its brightness. Kathryn felt afraid, not only for herself but for this woman.
‘Continue,’ Kathryn urged.
‘Atworth said that others would love to know his secrets.’
‘Who? Did he mention the French?’
‘Oh, he told me about his imprisonment in France. Someone called de San . . . San . . .?’
‘De Sanglier?’ Kathryn offered.
‘That’s it. How the man had treated him most cruelly. How burning irons had been placed against his flesh.’
‘Was the holy Atworth frightened of death?’
Chandler laughed abruptly, a short bark.
‘I asked him that myself. Sometimes, Mistress, when I am walled up in there,’ she gestured with her hand, ‘death loses some of its horror: it becomes more like an old friend eager to visit. Atworth was the same: He said if it wasn’t such a great sin, he would take his own life.’
‘So what was he frightened of?’
‘That they would come for him, those who wanted to know his secrets.’
Kathryn closed her eyes and smiled. She had found it! There must be a link between Atworth and the murder of Mafiach.
‘He didn’t say who they were. When I questioned him,’ Chandler chose her words carefully, ‘he just said those who had power. He claimed to have murdered a man.’
‘But didn’t he murder many?’
‘Ah yes, Mistress, but this was one murder which seemed to haunt his soul.’
‘Did he fear vengeance for that?’
‘No, he said he was suffering for what he had done.’
‘Are you all right?’ Eadwig called.
‘Oh, yes.’
Kathryn put her arm round Chandler’s shoulder. Up close the woman didn’t smell pleasant, and the gown she wore was threadbare and stained. Kathryn felt a pang of compassion at seeing her bony, stooped shoulders.
‘Isn’t it strange?’ Chandler looked up, and her hand crept across and rested softly against Kathryn’s thigh like a child’s would against her mother’s. ‘Here was Atworth, the holy one, the confessor of the Duchess and God knows who else, confiding in Mathilda Chandler. Do you know, Mistress Swinbrooke, when he talked to me that day, he was truly frightened. Only heaven knows what secrets he carried! I asked him to share these. He shook his head and loudly proclaimed that when he talked to me he was hearing my confession; he always pretended to give me absolution, sketching a sign of the cross in the air. On a number of occasions he even brought me the viaticum. He swore me to secrecy. I am breaking that vow now because I think he would have liked you.’
Kathryn strove to curb her excitement.
‘You want to know the secrets?’ Mathilda’s eyes held a shrewd and calculating glance. ‘As God is my witness, Atworth never told me. He said that if he did, and others learnt, I would be marked down for death; that could easily be arranged. The sentence passed against me is that if I leave the Friary of the Sack, I can be killed on sight.’
Kathryn brushed the crumbs from her gown.
‘Did Atworth ever return to this matter?’
‘No, but I noticed that this year, certainly in the last few months before he died, Atworth’s serenity was shattered; he was ill-at-ease and nervous. He complained how the pains in his stomach were growing more intense.’
‘And his death?’ Kathryn prodded.
‘As I have told you, I was informed.’
‘He died on the Feast of the Annunciation?’ Kathryn asked.
‘According to common report. Now something very strange happened the night before.’ Chandler had apparently decided to tell Kathryn everything. ‘Those two days before the Blessed Roger’s death were very strange! You talk about people coming and going through this small wood. During those two days I heard more movement than at any other time. I heard a creak as if a door was being opened, groans as if someone was in pain. I remember the evening of the Annunciation well because, it being a feast day, Gervase brought across some sweetmeats, a delicacy for me.’ Chandler screwed her eyes up and stared across at the open door to her cell. ‘You’ll leave the steel plate off?’ she asked.
‘It will stay off,’ Kathryn replied.
‘And the knife?’ Mathilda picked this up from the tray. ‘Eadwig won’t miss this when he returns to the kitchens?’
Kathryn only smiled.
‘On that night,’ Chandler continued, ‘I definitely heard Anselm and Jonquil and one other; they were over there screened by the bushes.’
‘Any words?’ Kathryn asked.
‘No, Mistress, but Anselm had a high-pitched voice, especially when he was querulous. He’d visited me on a few occasions. On that particular evening he was agitated. They then left. I ate and I drank. I said my ave beads. When darkness fell, and I am sure of this, Mistress, more than one person returned here. They carried no lanterns or torches so they stumbled about.’
‘For what?’ Kathryn asked.
‘I don’t know. It lasted for a while.’
‘Did they go over the wall?’
‘No, I am sure they came from the friary and returned there.’
Mathilda opened the small, battered purse she carried on the simple cord round her waist. She took out her ave beads and held them in one hand as well as what looked like a piece of membrane, thin and clear, which she began to stretch backwards and forwards.
‘It’s animal skin.’ She smiled at Kathryn. ‘It’s worn thin over the years. I play with it often when I am agitated.’ She rolled the piece of membrane up in her fingers and lifted the ave beads. ‘Atworth gave me these.’
Kathryn examined the battered rosary: its chain was now slightly rusting, whilst the black, hardened beads were chipped and cut.
‘He said it was a present. Mistress, that’s all I can tell you.’
Chandler got to her feet and stretched. Kathryn noticed that the knife had disappeared, hidden in the folds of the woman’s dress.
‘I’d best go back in.’ She walked across then turned. ‘You are frightened, aren’t you, Mistress?’
Kathryn nodded.
‘For me as well as for yourself?’
‘God save us, yes.’
Chandler, however, almost as if she hadn’t heard, entered her cell, slamming the door shut behind her. Eadwig came wandering over.
‘The hour is passing, Mistress. The Prior has summoned the miracle seekers.’
‘Oh yes.’ Kathryn got to her feet and gestured at the tray. ‘Don’t tell anyone what you saw and heard this morning. Brother, will you return these to the kitchens?’
Eadwig picked up the tray. He threw the crumbs onto the ground; they crossed the lawn just as the friary bell began to toll for the mid-morning divine office.
Eadwig began asking questions about Chandler. Kathryn replied absent-mindedly. What could she do? She felt a slight resentment at Bourchier and Luberon; surely they could have told her more? Kathryn was also convinced that Mafiach’s and Atworth’s deaths were linked. The more she investigated, especially in this so-called cloistered, hallowed place, the more certain she became that Atworth’s death was not due to natural causes: it was shrouded in lies and half-truths, trickery and illusion. Kathryn recalled the old proverb about sleeping dogs and the hideous dangers which might confront her if these savage dogs, whoever they might be, were roused.
Chapter 9
‘And somme seyen that we loven best
For to be free, and do right as us lest . . .’
– Chaucer, ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale,’
The Canterbury Tales
Kathryn sat at a desk in the beautifully polished library of the Friary of the Sack. It was a long, church-like room under its raftered ceiling, its coloured windows high in the wall illuminated by the streaming sunlight. Kathryn vaguely remembered coming here as a child, holding her father’s hand as he consulted with the librarian of the day on one of the great works of medicine by the masters. Kathryn gazed around: The same fragrant smell of calfskin, leather, and ink pervaded the room, what her father had called ‘the perfume of books.’ The library was certainly well endowed with rows of shelves with manuscripts, tomes, ledgers, and folios divided into sections: Theology, Philosophy, History, Chronicles, works of devotion. Usually the library was busy, but the events of the previous day had shattered the harmony of the brothers’ routine. The librarian now sat at his high desk at the end of the gallery, peering at a manuscript, talking to himself under his breath. He raised his head. Kathryn couldn’t make out his face because of the sunlight streaming behind him.
