Dissolution

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘I do.’ He thought a moment. ‘But - I cannot see him as a murderer. He seems a man of - strong affections, if you can call them that, but not one who would willingly do harm. Or be bold enough to strike.’

  ‘Oh, he can be bold enough when he wants. And he has very strong affections. Violently strong. And where there are violent affections there may perhaps be violent hatreds too.’

  He shook his head. ‘I cannot see it. Please believe me, sir, I am not being awkward, but I cannot see Brother Gabriel as a killer.’

  ‘I have felt sorry for the man, even liked him. But we can’t decide these things on the basis of emotion. We need cold logic. How can we know whether someone is capable of murder or not after a few days’ acquaintance? Especially in this place, where all our senses are heightened and distorted by danger?’

  ‘I still can’t see it, sir. He seems so - soft-natured.’

  ‘We might as well accuse Brother Edwig on the basis that he is a despicable creature, more like an animated calculus than a man. He is full of deceits too, and lusts as well, apparently. But that doesn’t allow us to say he is a murderer.’

  ‘He was away when Singleton was killed.’

  ‘And Gabriel wasn’t. And I can see a chain of motive for Gabriel. No, we must put emotion aside.’

  ‘As you would have me do with Alice.’

  ‘This is not the time to discuss that. Now, will you come with me to confront Gabriel?’

  ‘Of course. I do want this killer caught too, sir.’

  ‘Good. Then buckle on your sword again. Leave that other sword here, but bring the habit. Wring it out in the bowl first. Let us put these matters to the test.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  MY HEART WAS POUNDING as we went back outside, but my head was clear. It was well past midday now, and the sun hung low in a hazy sky; one of those great red winter suns that you can look straight into, as though all the fire were leached out of it. And, in that cold, so it felt.

  Brother Gabriel was in the church. He sat in the nave with the old monk I had seen copying in the library, examining a great pile of ancient volumes. They looked up at our approach, Gabriel’s eyes flickering uneasily between Mark and me.

  ‘More ancient books, Brother?’ I asked.

  ‘These are our service books, sir, with the musical notations. No one prints them, we have to copy them when they fade.’

  I picked one up. The pages were parchment; Latin words were marked phonetically and interspersed with red musical notation, different psalms and prayers for each day of the calendar, the ink faded at the edges from long years of handling. I dropped it on a bench.

  ‘I have some questions, Brother.’ I turned to the old monk. ‘Perhaps you could leave us?’ He nodded and scuttled away.

  ‘Is something amiss?’ the sacrist asked. There was a tremor in his voice.

  ‘You have not heard, then? About the body found in the fish pond?’

  His eyes opened wide. ‘I have been engaged, I have just come from fetching Brother Stephen from the library. A body?’

  ‘We believe it to be a girl who disappeared two years ago. One Orphan Stonegarden.’

  His mouth dropped open. He half-rose, then sat again.

  ‘Her neck was broken. It appears she was killed and thrown in the pond. There was a sword there too; we think the one that killed Commissioner Singleton. And this.’ I nodded to Mark, who passed me the habit. I waved the badge under the sacrist’s nose. ‘Your robe, Brother Gabriel.’

  He sat there gaping.

  ‘The badge is yours?’

  ‘Yes, yes it is. That - it must be the robe that was stolen.’

  ‘Stolen?’

  ‘Two weeks ago I sent a habit to the launderer and it never came back. I enquired, but it was never found. The servants steal habits now and then; our winter robes are good wool. Please, sir, you cannot think—’

  I leaned over him. ‘Gabriel of Ashford, I put it to you that you killed Commissioner Singleton. He knew of your past, and discovered some recent felony you could have been tried and executed for. So you killed him.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No!’

  ‘You hid the sword and your bloodied robe in the pond, which you knew to be a safe hiding place as you had used it before to hide that girl’s body. Why kill Singleton in such a dramatic way, Brother Gabriel? And why did you kill the girl? Was it jealousy because Brother Alexander befriended her? Your fellow sodomite? And Novice Whelplay too, your other friend. He knew what had become of her, didn’t he? But he wouldn’t betray you. Not until the end, when he started talking in his illness, so you poisoned him. Since then you have seemed racked with pain, as one in an agony of conscience. It all fits, Brother.’

  He stood up and faced me, gripping the back of his chair while he took a couple of long breaths. Mark’s hand strayed to his sword.

  ‘You are the king’s commissioner,’ he said, his voice shaking, ‘but you harangue like a cheap lawyer. I have killed nobody.’ He began to shout. ‘Nobody! A sinner I am, but I have broken none of the king’s laws these two years! You may enquire of every soul here, and in the town too if you wish, and you will find nothing! Nothing!’ His voice echoed round the church.

  ‘Calm yourself, Brother,’ I said in measured tones. ‘And answer me civilly.’

  ‘Brother Alexander was neither my friend nor my enemy; he was a foolish, lazy old man. As for poor Simon,’ he gave a sigh that was almost a groan, ‘yes, he befriended the girl in his first days as a novice, I think they both felt lost and threatened here. I told him he should not be mixing with servants; that it would do him no good. He said she had told him she was being pestered—’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘He would not say, she had sworn him to silence. It could have been one of half a dozen monks. I said he should not become involved in such things; he should get the girl to tell Brother Guy. He had just been made infirmarian after Alexander died. Of shame,’ he added bitterly.

  ‘And then she disappeared.’

  A spasm twisted his face. ‘Like everyone else I thought she had run away.’ He looked at me bleakly, then went on in a new voice, cold and calm. ‘Well, Commissioner, I see you have created a theory that gives you a solution. So perhaps now someone will be paid to give false testimony and send me to the gallows. Such things are done these days. I know what happened to Sir Thomas More.’

  ‘No, Brother Gabriel, there will be no false witnesses. I will uncover the evidence I need.’ I stepped closer to him. ‘Be warned. You are under the gravest suspicion.’

  ‘I am innocent.’

  I looked into his face a moment, then stepped back. ‘I will not have you arrested now, but for the present you will not leave the monastery precincts. If you attempt to leave that will be taken as an admission of guilt. You understand?’

  ‘I will not leave.’

  ‘Be available to speak to me whenever I require. Come, Mark.’

  I got up and strode away, leaving Brother Gabriel amidst his pile of books. Outside the church I struck the stone doorway with my hand.

  ‘I thought I had him.’

  ‘Do you still think him guilty?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought if I confronted him and he was guilty he’d collapse. But,’ I shook my head, ‘he’s hiding something, I know it. He called me a haranguing lawyer and perhaps I am, but if twenty years about the courts have taught me anything it’s when a man is concealing things. Come.’

  ‘Where now?’

  ‘The laundry. We can check his story and see this Luke at the same time.’

  THE LAUNDRY was housed in a large outhouse next to the buttery. Steam issued from ventilator grilles, and I had seen servants going in and out of there with baskets of clothes. I unlatched the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. Mark closed it behind him.

  Within it was warm and very dim. At first I could see only a big stone-flagged chamber with baskets and buckets dotted around. Then Mark said, ‘Jesu,’ and I saw them.<
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  The chamber was full of dogs, a dozen of the great lurchers that had been roaming the yard on our first day, before the snow came. The room stank of their piss. They all rose slowly to their feet and two stepped forward growling, hackles raised and lips flickering back over yellow teeth. Mark slowly unsheathed his sword, and I grasped my staff hard.

  I could hear noises behind an inner door and thought of shouting, but I had been brought up on a farm and knew that would only startle the dogs and make them spring. I gritted my teeth; we would not come out of this unmarked. I gripped Mark’s arm with my free hand. I had led him to the horror in the pond; and now to this.

  There was a creak and we spun round as the inner door opened and Brother Hugh appeared, a bowl of offal in his plump hands. At the sight of us his mouth dropped open. We stared at him desperately, and he collected himself and called to the dogs.

  ‘Brutus, Augustus! Here! Now!’ He tossed chunks of offal onto the flags. The dogs looked between him and us, then one by one slunk over to the food. The leader stood growling for a few seconds more, but finally turned and joined the others. I took a shuddering breath. Brother Hugh waved at us urgently.

  ‘Inside, sir, I pray you. Now, while they’re eating.’

  Circling round the slobbering animals, we followed him to the inner room. He closed the door and latched it. We found ourselves in the steam-filled laundry room. Supervised by two monks, servants were labouring over cauldrons of clothes boiling over fires, or squeezing habits and undershirts out in presses. They looked at us curiously as we took off our heavy coats. I had started to sweat profusely and so had Mark. He gripped the edge of a table and took deep breaths; he was pale and I feared he would faint, but after a moment his colour returned. My own legs were unsteady as I turned to Brother Hugh, who stood bobbing agitatedly, wringing his hands.

  ‘Oh sirs, my lord Commissioner, thank Jesu I came when I did.’ He bowed at Our Lord’s name, as did the others.

  ‘We are grateful to you, Brother. But those dogs should not be there, they could kill someone.’

  ‘But, sir, they know everyone; by your leave it was only seeing strangers. The abbot said to keep them here while the snow lasted.’

  I wiped the sweat from my brow. ‘Very well, Brother Chamberlain. You have charge of the laundry?’

  ‘I do. How can I help you? The abbot said we are to assist however we can. I heard someone has drowned in the pond.’ His red-rimmed eyes were full of curiosity.

  ‘The prior will be making an announcement about that. I have come with an enquiry for you, sir. Have you a table?’

  He led us to a corner, away from the others. I signalled Mark to lay out Brother Gabriel’s habit and pointed to the badge.

  ‘Brother Gabriel reported he had a habit disappear a couple of weeks ago. Do you remember?’

  I confess I hoped for a denial, but he nodded promptly. ‘Yes, sir. We hunted up and down for it. The bursar gets angry if things go missing, that’s why I keep a book.’ He disappeared into the steam, returning with a ledger. ‘See, sir, there is the entry for it coming in, and that is the note of it being reported lost.’ I studied the date. Three days before Singleton was killed.

  ‘Where was it found, my lord?’ he asked.

  ‘Never mind that. Who could have had the opportunity to steal it?’

  ‘In the day we’re always here working, sir. The laundry’s locked at night, but—’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Keys have been lost. My assistant can be - well, a bit careless, shall I say.’ He smiled nervously, running his hand over the wen on his face. ‘Brother Luke, over here!’

  Mark and I exchanged glances as a tall, powerfully built monk in his late twenties came over to us. He had red hair, heavy features and a surly expression.

  ‘Yes, Brother?’

  ‘You have lost two sets of keys since you’ve been with me, haven’t you, Luke?’

  ‘They slip out yer pocket,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘They do if you are careless,’ I agreed. ‘When was the last time you lost a key?’

  ‘In the summer it was.’

  ‘And before that? How long have you worked in the laundry?’

  ‘Four years, sir. The other time was a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Thank you, Brother Hugh. I would have a word with Brother Luke in private. Where can we go?’

  Brother Luke’s eyes swivelled anxiously as the chamberlain, looking disappointed, led us to an anteroom where clothes were drying. I faced the young monk sternly.

  ‘Do you know what has been found in the fish pond?’

  ‘They say a dead body, sir.’

  ‘A woman’s body, that we think is a girl called Orphan. We have been told that you used to trouble her.’

  His eyes widened with terror, then suddenly he was on his knees on the floor, grasping the hem of my robe with thick red fingers.

  ‘I didn’t do it, sir. I sported with her only, nothing more! And I wasn’t the only one! She was a wanton, she tempted me!’

  ‘Let me go! Look at me!’

  He looked up, still kneeling, his eyes wide. I leant forward.

  ‘I want the truth. On your life. Did she tempt you, or did you trouble her?’

  ‘She - she was a woman, sir. The very sight of her was temptation! Her image filled my mind, I was always thinking of her. Satan placed her in my path to tempt me, but I have confessed. I have made confession!’

  ‘I don’t give a rush for your confession. You pestered her even after the abbot warned you off, didn’t you? Brother Guy had to complain a second time!’

  ‘But I did nothing after that! The abbot said he’d make me leave! By Jesu’s blood, I left her alone after that! By his holy blood!’

  ‘The abbot didn’t place the matter in the hands of the prior?’

  ‘No, the prior—’

  ‘Well? Well, boy, what?’

  ‘He - he had been guilty of the same thing, and the bursar too.’

  ‘Yes. Any others? Who was it made the girl’s life such a misery towards the end?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I swear, I swear, I never went near the infirmary after the abbot’s warning. By Our Lady—’

  ‘Our Lady!’ I snorted. ‘I doubt even she would be safe from the likes of you were she to return to earth. Get out, begone!’

  I glared after him as he scrambled up and fled back into the laundry.

  ‘You scared him to the marrow,’ Mark said with a sardonic grin.

  ‘It’s easy with cowardly churls like that. The prior and the bursar, eh? Look, there’s a door, we can get out that way and avoid those dogs.’

  We stepped back into the courtyard. The confrontation with the dogs came back to my mind. I felt drained and it was my turn to lean against the wall for a moment. A babble of noise made me look round.

  ‘God’s death, what’s going on now?’

  People had stopped to watch a procession that was making its way towards the gates. Two monks held up a statue of St Donatus in his Roman robes, hands folded in front of him and wearing a pious expression. The tall thin figure of Brother Jude the pittancer followed, carrying a leathern bag. Finally came Bursar Edwig himself, a winter coat over his habit and gloves on his hands. They approached the space under the gatehouse, where Bugge stood ready to open the gates.

  ‘The dole day,’ Mark said.

  BY THE TIME we reached the gate, Bugge had opened it. A crowd outside stood looking at the statue, which the two servants had elevated to their shoulders. Brother Jude raised his bag and called to them.

  ‘Behold! The image of our patron, most holy and sainted Donatus, martyr to the heathen! In the name of his great goodness this charity is given. Pray to him for remittance of your sins!’

  We shouldered our way through the onlookers. There were forty or fifty adults crowded round in the snow, old widows and beggars and cripples, some wearing little more than rags and blue-faced with cold. A separate group of whey-faced children was gathered round the p
lump figure of Mistress Stumpe. The smell from the crowd, even on this cold day, was dreadful. The sea of wretches, who had trudged the mile from the town, bowed and crossed themselves at the monk’s words. He stopped abruptly as I appeared at his side.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I snapped.

  ‘Just - just distributing the doles, sir—’

  ‘You are asking those poor souls to worship that piece of wood.’

  Brother Edwig scuttled forward. ‘Only in r-remembrance of the saint’s g-goodness, Commissioner.’