Dissolution

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I did. But if you think Mark or I are papists you are wrong. You are both the same, reformers and papists, you fashion beliefs which you force the people to follow on pain of death, while you struggle for power and lands and money, which are all any of you truly want.’

  ‘That is not what I want.’

  ‘Perhaps not. You have a kind heart and I did not enjoy lying to you. But when it comes to what is happening in England now you are as blind as a newborn kitten.’ Pity mingled with anger in her voice. ‘You should see things through the eyes of common people, but your kind never will. Do you think I would care for any Church after what I have seen of it all? I felt more sorrow at having to kill that cock than at what I did at the altar.’

  ‘And what now?’ I asked. ‘Is this my death?’

  Mark swallowed. ‘I would not do that. Not unless you make me.’ He turned to Alice. ‘We can tie him up and gag him, put him in your cupboard. They’ll be looking for him, but they won’t think of looking here. When will Brother Guy find you are missing?’

  ‘I told him I was going to bed early. He won’t notice I’m gone till I don’t appear in the dispensary at seven. By then we will be at sea.’

  I struggled to collect my thoughts. ‘Mark, please listen to me. You are forgetting Brother Gabriel, Simon Whelplay, Orphan Stonegarden.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with their deaths!’ Alice said hotly.

  ‘I know. I had considered whether there might be two killers working in league, but I never thought of two separate killers. Mark, think of what you have seen. Orphan Stonegarden pulled from the fish pond, Gabriel crushed like an insect, Simon driven mad by poison. You have helped me, you have been with me. Would you let the killer loose?’

  ‘We were going to leave you a note, tell you Alice killed Singleton.’

  ‘Please listen to me. Brother Edwig. Is he taken?’

  Mark shook his head. ‘No. I followed you to the refectory door and heard Bugge say there was a message. Then I followed you to the gatehouse and saw you go back to the infirmary. But Prior Mortimus came up to me and said Brother Edwig was not in his counting house, nor in his cell. He seems to have fled. That is why I took so much time, Alice.’

  ‘He must not escape,’ I said urgently. ‘He has sold lands, I believe without the abbot’s knowledge, he has a thousand pounds hidden somewhere. That boat, it’s for his escape. Of course, he has been buying time until it arrived. That was why he killed Novice Whelplay, because he feared he would tell me about Orphan Stonegarden and I might have him arrested.’

  He lowered his dagger, his expression astonished. I had his attention now.

  ‘It was Brother Edwig who killed her?’

  ‘Yes! Then he tried to kill me in the church. In the snow it would be days or weeks before anyone came from London to replace me and by that time he would be away. You will be sharing that boat with a murderer.’

  ‘Are you sure of this?’ Mark asked.

  ‘Yes. I built a false pattern around Brother Gabriel, but this is the truth. What you tell me about the boat seals matters. Edwig is a great murderer and thief. In all conscience you cannot let him escape.’

  For a second I saw him waver. ‘You are certain Brother Edwig killed the girl?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Certain. It had to be one of the obedentiaries who visited Simon Whelplay. Prior Mortimus and Edwig had a history of troubling women; Mortimus bothered you, but Brother Edwig did not - because he feared he might lose control of himself as he had done with Orphan.’

  Mark bit his lip. ‘Alice, we cannot allow him to go free.’

  She looked at me desperately. ‘They’ll hang me, or more likely burn me. They’ll accuse me of witchcraft because I killed that cock.’

  ‘Listen,’ Mark said. ‘When we reach the boat we can tell them not to wait, leave tonight. Then he won’t get away with his pestiferous gold. They won’t want to wait on a murderer.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said eagerly. ‘We can do that.’

  ‘He will still be at large,’ I said.

  Mark took a deep breath. ‘Then you must catch him, sir. I am sorry.’

  ‘We must go now,’ Alice said urgently. ‘The tide will be turning.’

  ‘There is time. It is eight by the abbey clock, half an hour to full tide. We still have time to get across the marsh.’

  ‘Across the marsh?’ I said, unbelieving.

  ‘Yes,’ Alice said, ‘by the path I showed you. The boat is waiting in the estuary.’

  ‘But you can’t!’ I said. ‘Have you not seen the weather? The snow is almost melted, the marsh will be naught but liquid mud. I came in through the channel this afternoon, I saw what it was like and it’ll be worse now. Meltwater is pouring off the Downs. And there’s a heavy mist coming down. You’ll never make it! You must believe me!’

  ‘I know the paths well,’ she said. ‘I can find my way.’ But she looked uncertain.

  ‘Mark, in God’s name believe me, you will go to your deaths!’

  He took a deep breath. ‘She knows the way. And does not death wait for us here?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Let her escape. Let her go now and take her chance where she will. I will say nothing of your involvement, I swear. God’s death, I’m telling you I’ll be an accomplice after the fact, I’ll put my own life at risk for you both! But don’t go out on the marsh!’

  Alice looked at him desperately. ‘Mark, don’t leave me. I can get us through.’

  ‘I tell you, you can’t! You haven’t seen what it’s like out there!’

  He looked between us, his face an agony of indecision. I see it now, and think, how young he was, how young to have to decide his fate and hers in an instant. His face set hard and my heart sank.

  ‘We must bind you now, sir. I will try not to hurt you. Alice, where is your nightshift?’

  She took the garment from under her pillow, and Mark cut it into long strips with his dagger.

  ‘Lie on your front, sir.’

  ‘Mark, for pity’s sake—’

  He grasped my shoulder and twisted me over. He bound my arms fast behind me, then my legs, before rolling me over again.

  ‘Mark, don’t go out there—’

  They were the last words I ever said to him, for then he stuffed a great rag of the shift into my mouth, nearly choking me. Alice threw open the door of the little cupboard and they bundled me inside. Mark paused, looking down at me.

  ‘Wait a moment. His back troubles him.’

  Alice watched impatiently as he took the pillow from the bed and wedged it behind me, supporting my back as I lay crouched in the cupboard. ‘I am sorry,’ he whispered. Then he turned and shut the door, leaving me in darkness. A moment later I heard the outer door close gently.

  I wanted to vomit, but I knew if I did I would surely choke. I leaned back against the pillow, taking deep breaths through my nose. Alice had said Brother Guy would not look for her until she failed to appear in the dispensary at seven. I had eleven hours to wait.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  TWICE DURING THAT long, cold night I thought I heard distant shouts; people would be looking for Mark and me, and for Edwig as well. Somehow I must have slept, for I had a dream of Jerome’s face looking down at me as I lay tied, cackling maniacally, then woke with a start to the thick darkness of the cupboard and the bonds chafing at my wrists.

  I had been awake some hours when at last I heard footsteps in the room outside. I summoned up enough energy to kick my heels on the door and a moment later it opened. I winced and blinked at the sudden daylight as Brother Guy looked down at me, his mouth an ‘O’ of astonishment. Irrelevantly I thought he had done well to keep a full set of teeth to middle age.

  He untied my bonds and helped me to my feet, telling me to move slowly lest I injure my stiff back with sudden movement. He led me to my room, where I was glad to sit before a fire, for I was frozen. I told him what had happened, and when he learned Alice had been Singleton’s murderer he sat down on t
he bed with a groan.

  ‘I remember telling her of that passage when she first came. I was trying to make conversation; she seemed so lost and alone. And to think I gave her the care of my patients.’

  ‘I think it was only Singleton who was ever in danger from her. Brother Guy, tell me, is Edwig still at large?’

  ‘Yes, he has vanished as completely as Jerome. But he might have escaped. Bugge left his lodge unattended last night when the hue and cry broke. Or he could have got out at the back, by the marsh. But I did not understand why you were so keen to have him arrested. You have heard worse words than his since you have been here.’

  ‘He killed Gabriel, and Simon, and I believe the girl Orphan as well. And he has stolen a fortune in gold.’

  Guy sat stunned, then put his head in his hands. ‘Dear Jesu, what has this house become that it has nourished two murderers?’

  ‘Alice would not have been a murderess but for the times we live in. And Edwig would never have got away with this fraud had things been more stable. You might as well ask what a country England has become. And I have been a part of it.’

  He looked up. ‘Abbot Fabian collapsed last night. After you ordered Brother Edwig arrested. He seems unable to do anything or talk to anyone; he just sits in his room staring into space.’

  I sighed. ‘He was never capable of dealing with this. Brother Edwig took his seal and used it on the deeds when he sold those lands. He swore the buyers to secrecy and they must have assumed the abbot knew.’ I heaved myself up. ‘Brother Guy, you must help me. I need to go to the back of the monastery. I need to see whether Alice and Mark could have got away.’

  He doubted I was fit for such a journey, but I insisted and he helped me to my feet. I took my staff and we went outside. The monastery lay under a cloudy sky, the air mild and muggy. Its appearance had changed utterly. Everywhere in the courtyard lay little pools of water and piles of dirty slush that only yesterday had been mounds of snow.

  People going to and fro stopped and stared as I limped by. Prior Mortimus hurried over. ‘Commissioner! We thought ye dead like Singleton. Where is your assistant?’

  Again I told the story as a shocked audience of monks and servants surrounded us. I ordered Prior Mortimus to send for Copynger; if Edwig had escaped, the country must be roused to find him.

  I do not know how I made it through the orchard. I would not have done without Brother Guy’s support for my back was an agony after that night in the cupboard and I felt faint. At last, though, we reached the rear wall. I unlocked the gate and passed through.

  I found myself staring at a lake half a mile wide. The whole marsh was covered in water, the river distinguishable only as a ribbon of rapidly flowing current in the centre of an expanse that reached almost to our feet. It was shallow, no more than a foot covering the mud for everywhere reeds poked through, waving in the light breeze, but the soft ground beneath must have been saturated.

  ‘Look!’ Brother Guy pointed down at two pairs of footprints, a larger and a slightly smaller one, imprinted in the mud by the gate. They led down the bank, into the water.

  ‘By Jesu,’ he said. ‘They went in there.’

  ‘They can’t have gone a hundred yards,’ I breathed. ‘In that mist, in the dark, in all that water.’

  ‘What is that? Over there?’ Brother Guy pointed to something floating, some way out.

  ‘It’s a lamp! One of those little candleholders from the infirmary. They must have been carrying it. Oh God.’ I grabbed at the infirmarian for support, for my senses failed at the thought of Mark and Alice losing their footing and falling, lying now somewhere under that flooded morass. Brother Guy lowered me to the bank and I sat taking deep breaths until my senses cleared. I looked up again to see the infirmarian praying quietly in Latin, hands clasped in front of him, his eyes fixed on the lamp drifting gently over the face of the waters.

  BROTHER GUY helped me back to the infirmary. There he insisted I rest and eat, sitting me down in his kitchen and serving me himself. Food and drink revived my body, though my heart lay dead within me like a stone. I kept seeing pictures of Mark in my head; laughingly exchanging jests on the road; arguing with me in our room; holding Alice in the kitchen. At the end it was him I mourned most.

  ‘There were only two sets of footprints going out through that gate,’ Brother Guy said at length. ‘It does not seem Edwig went that way.’

  ‘Not him,’ I answered bitterly. ‘He’d have been out through the gate when Bugge’s back was turned.’ I clenched my fists. ‘But I’ll hunt him down if it takes me the rest of my days.’

  There was a knock at the door and Prior Mortimus appeared, his face grim.

  ‘Have you sent to Copynger?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, he should be here soon. But Commissioner, we’ve found—’

  ‘Edwig?’

  ‘No. Jerome. He’s in the church. You should come and see.’

  ‘You’re not able,’ Brother Guy said, but I shook off his hand and grabbed my staff. I followed the prior to the church, where a crowd had gathered outside. The pittancer stood guard on the door, keeping them out. The prior shouldered through the crowd and we went inside.

  Water was dripping somewhere; the only other sound was a faint weeping, a keening. I followed Prior Mortimus down the great empty nave with its candlelit niches, our footsteps echoing, until we came to the niche where the Thief’s hand had stood. The heap of crutches and braces that had lain at the base of the plinth were scattered across the floor. I saw now that the block was hollow, there was a space underneath large enough to hold a man. Inside, sitting crouched over and holding something, was Jerome. His white habit was torn and filthy and a great stink rose from him as he sat, weeping piteously.

  ‘I found him half an hour ago,’ the prior said. ‘He’d crawled under there and pulled the crutches back in front to hide himself. I was looking round the church and I remembered that space under there.’

  ‘What has he got? Is it—?’

  The prior nodded. ‘The relic. The hand of the Penitent Thief.’

  I knelt before Jerome, wincing as pain shot through my joints. I could see he held a big square box, encrusted with jewels that sparkled in the candlelight. A dark shape was dimly visible inside.

  ‘Brother,’ I said gently, ‘was it you that took the relic?’

  For the first time since I had met him, Jerome’s voice was quiet. ‘Yes. It is so dear to us, to the Church. It has cured so many people.’

  ‘So you took it in the confusion after Singleton was killed.’

  ‘I hid it under here to save it, to save it.’ He clutched it tighter. ‘I know what Cromwell will do, he will destroy this holy thing which God gave as a sign of his forgiveness. When they locked me up I knew you might find it, I had to protect it. Now it is lost, lost. I cannot resist any more, I am so tired,’ he concluded in a sad, matter-of-fact voice. He shook his head and stared before him, his eyes blank.

  Prior Mortimus reached in and took his shoulder. ‘Come, Jerome, it’s all over. Leave it and come away with me.’ To my surprise the Carthusian made no demur. He climbed painfully out of the niche, pulling his crutch after him, and kissed the casket before depositing it carefully on the floor.

  ‘I’ll take him back to his cell,’ the prior said.

  I nodded. ‘Yes, do that.’

  JEROME DID NOT look at me, or the relic, again, but allowed Prior Mortimus to lead him down the nave in a painful shuffle. I watched him go. If Jerome had told me he had seen Alice visit Mark Smeaton the day I questioned him, instead of playing games, I could have arrested her there and then and with Singleton’s killing solved I might have uncovered Edwig sooner. Then Mark would not have died, nor Gabriel. Yet somehow I did not feel anger towards him; all emotion seemed to have been leached out of me.

  I knelt and peered at the relic where it lay on the floor. The casket was of richly decorated gold, the stones set in it the largest emeralds I had ever seen. Through the glass I made out a hand,
skewered by the wrist to a piece of ancient black wood with a broad-headed nail, lying on a cushion of purple velvet. It was a brown, mummified thing, but discernibly a hand; I could even make out what looked like calluses on the fingers. Could it truly be the hand of the thief who had died with Christ, accepted him on the Cross? I touched the glass, with a second’s mad hope that the pains I felt in every joint might vanish, my hump disappear and my back become whole and normal like poor Mark’s that I had so envied. But there was nothing, only the sound of my fingernail tapping the glass.