The Monastery Murders

by E. M. Powell

  ‘Perhaps you need to consider a confession at chapter, Brother Elias. Always wise to unburden your conscience.’

  With that, Barling left. He’d given Elias plenty to think about.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Barling made his way into the guesthouse, grateful for its warmth and shelter. The hail had stopped and it was snowing now, and a light powdery covering lay across the ground. The air felt colder than ever. The dawn would still be at least an hour off and he’d had to take care on ice that had formed underfoot in several places.

  He went inside and made his way to his room. As he did so, he saw Daniel with a pail of hot water outside Juliana’s chambers. The lay brother gave a polite knock.

  ‘Your water, my lady,’ he said, putting the pail down and turning to leave.

  ‘Daniel?’ said Barling.

  The man paused. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Has Stanton returned yet?’

  ‘No, sir. I saw him with Brother Osmund not long ago. They were going into the forge.’

  Barling nodded, more to himself than to acknowledge Daniel. Stanton would take as much time as he needed to take. Hopefully, he would not be too long. ‘I shall require hot water for my room as well, Daniel. Please bring it as soon as possible.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Barling entered his room and started to update his records on his latest enquiries. He could hardly get his hands to work, such was the cold gripping them. He rubbed them hard together to warm them. As he did so, he thought of Reginald’s gnarled hands. No amount of rubbing would restore those to use of the pen. It must indeed be a painful loss for him.

  A knock came from the door.

  ‘Sir?’

  Daniel.

  ‘Come in,’ said Barling.

  As the brother did so, bearing the welcome sight of a large steaming pail of water and clean linen towels, Stanton entered the room behind him.

  ‘God above.’ Stanton’s teeth chattered. ‘Think it’s colder than ever out there.’

  Daniel plunked the pail down on the floor and left the linen next to the washing bowls. ‘Do you need anything else, sir?’ he asked Barling.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Sir.’ He left, Stanton closing the door behind him after checking that the lay brother had gone about his business.

  ‘Did your early rising pay off, Stanton?’ Barling used a jug to pour some hot water into one of the bowls.

  ‘It did.’ Stanton gave him a displeased look. ‘Although I’m sure that I could have got the same answers after a few more hours in bed.’

  ‘You got answers, and that is the main thing.’ Barling dipped his hands in the bowl, revelling in the warmth. ‘And how was the quality of those answers? Was Brother Osmund forthcoming?’

  ‘He was.’ Stanton took another bowl and did the same as Barling with the water. ‘My, that’s good.’ He splashed some on his face too. ‘I’m not sure that his answers helped much, though. As we had already observed in chapter, the man’s not really up to the task of cellarer. I think Abbot Philip was right when he said to you he’d made a mistake in appointing Osmund to the position.’

  ‘What of potential problems with Daniel?’ Barling was careful to keep his voice low as he dried his hands on a piece of fresh linen.

  ‘To be honest, I think most of the lay brothers have resentments against Osmund and against the rest of the monks too.’ Stanton scrubbed his face and hands dry. ‘And if they don’t, they should.’ He described the lesser circumstances in which the lay brothers lived and worked, compared to the monks.

  Barling could tell such treatment of the lay brothers annoyed Stanton a great deal, which concerned him. One should never get caught up in personal opinions when one was in pursuit of the truth, he thought as he placed his used linen to one side. It clouded one’s judgement.

  Stanton threw his own bunched-up cloth on top of Barling’s neatly folded one. ‘As I say, I’m not sure it has got us very far, other than identifying a whole number of people who have bad feelings towards the monks.’

  ‘But the lay brothers tend not to be alone or unsupervised,’ said Barling. ‘No matter how resentful they are, it is unlikely they would have had the chance to act on it. Except for Daniel, of course.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ replied Stanton. ‘Did you get anything of use from Elias?’

  ‘That this abbey has a magnificent library, though sadly that is not the purpose of my visit here. But, of more relevance, I had it confirmed that Elias has taught Daniel to read. So that was certainly one truthful thing the lay brother said to you, Stanton.’

  Stanton gave a firm nod. ‘See? I said I thought he was truthful.’

  ‘As for the murders of Cuthbert and Silvanus, Elias also claims he knows nothing about them. When I asked him about tension between him and Cuthbert, he said that it did not exist. There were a few other things that stood out.’ He outlined them briefly to Stanton. Juliana’s many unsuitable donated books. The missing chalice and Cuthbert’s punishment.

  ‘I didn’t know the sacrist,’ said Stanton, ‘but I can’t help feeling sorry for him. Despite being surrounded by people here all the time, he seems to have led a lonely life.’

  Feelings again, noted Barling. ‘Not necessarily,’ he replied. ‘He may well have been an individual for whom his own company was the best company. I share such a fondness—’

  A knock came at the door. ‘Excuse me, sirs.’ Daniel’s voice.

  Barling got up and opened the door. ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sirs. But my lady has not taken her hot water in. She’s not answering her door, neither. What should I do?’

  Barling exchanged a look with Stanton.

  ‘We’d better go and check,’ said Stanton. ‘She was very upset yesterday.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Barling led the way, stopping outside her closed door with Stanton and Daniel. He rapped on it loudly with his knuckles. ‘My lady, it is me, Aelred Barling. Are you unwell?’

  Silence.

  He knocked again. ‘Lady Kersley?’

  Still nothing.

  He looked at Stanton.

  ‘Open it,’ said Stanton.

  ‘If it is locked, I shall need help from both of you.’ Barling tried the handle. It was not.

  The door swung open on a silent, empty room.

  Lady Kersley was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Stanton made his way along the claustral walk, hurrying towards Philip’s carrel. The monks were deeply engrossed in their prayer. Hard to believe that they’d been doing that since the early hours of the morning. He knew he’d be face down in a prayer book. Snoring.

  He reached the abbot’s carrel. He didn’t want to risk startling the man, who read in a steady hum, bent on his knees and with his cowl up against the cold. He gave a quiet respectful knock on the outside.

  Philip looked around and his dark brows drew into a concerned frown when he saw Stanton.

  ‘My lord,’ whispered Stanton, ‘Barling needs to speak to you urgently. He’s in the warming room with Daniel.’

  Philip nodded and got to his feet at once.

  Stanton entered the warming room behind the abbot and shut the door. The air in here was the warmest he’d felt since he’d arrived at the abbey. He needed to find some more reasons for being in here.

  ‘You needed to see me, Barling?’ said Philip. ‘What is it? Has something happened?’

  ‘I am afraid that the lady Juliana has gone missing.’

  ‘Missing? What do you mean?’

  ‘Daniel here tried to rouse her this morning and got no response,’ said Barling. ‘He asked for my help. I also failed to get a response. I entered her room in case something untoward had befallen her. But her room was empty.’

  Philip let out a long breath of relief. ‘Barling, with all due respect, I fear you are being caught up in the panic of many here. She will have gone riding. She does that in the morning.’

  Barling looked at Dan
iel. ‘I said the same to you, did I not?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then tell your abbot what you told me, boy.’

  ‘It’s too early for my lady to be out, my lord abbot.’ Daniel kept his gaze well down. No insolent looks for his abbot. ‘And she never goes out in the morning before she has washed. Brother Silvanus warned me about being late with the water for her.’

  ‘I am most concerned, Philip,’ said Barling. ‘We need to find her.’

  ‘We can help with the search, my lord abbot,’ added Stanton. ‘I’m quick on a horse.’

  ‘One moment.’ Philip held up a hand. ‘Daniel, please return to the guesthouse. At once. You need to be available for the lady Juliana’s return. At once, I say. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, my lord abbot.’ Daniel went without a backward glance.

  Stanton saw Barling’s look. It wasn’t a happy one.

  Once the door was shut, Philip spoke again, lowering his voice still further. ‘Barling, thank you for your concerns about the lady Juliana. But the likelihood is that she has gone for a walk or is in a private Mass with one of the monk priests. Were I to start a huge fuss in tracking her down, what would that say? It would suggest that I, abbot of this abbey, believe that some harm has perhaps come to one of our most generous benefactors. That’s what. What would she think of us once she has been safely located?’

  ‘Philip,’ began Barling.

  ‘I’ll tell you what she would think,’ said the abbot with a frown. ‘She would think that this abbey is no longer a place of order and prayer but a place of utter misrule. Presided over by me. She would take her generous gifts and move them elsewhere and we would never again be the beneficiaries of her generosity. I will ask Maurice to discreetly locate her. He knows her of old and she him. I’m sure he’d be able to carry this out with the necessary tact.’

  Stanton wasn’t sure about the tact. Maurice could have sudden flares of real temper.

  The deepest of the monastery’s bells sounded.

  ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ said Philip, ‘I need to send Maurice to his task before I begin Lauds.’ He walked out, his long strides showing his ire.

  Stanton looked at Barling. The clerk wore the irritated look that he always did when he was thwarted, abbot or no abbot. ‘He’s probably right, Barling. At least, I hope he is.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so too. Daniel is the one who raised concerns that the lady Juliana was missing. Daniel is also the one who found the body of Silvanus. And yet Philip allows me no opportunity to put my case to him. He shows me his back and walks away.’

  Stanton said nothing.

  ‘Nevertheless, it is his abbey. Things are tense enough here as it is. I do not wish to add to his troubles.’ Barling gave a sharp sigh. ‘But Philip has also disrupted my plan for today. I was going to speak to Maurice. Now he, just like Reginald, is unavailable. I shall accompany you to the gatehouse, Stanton, where Brother Lambert is no doubt ensconced. At least our time will not be utterly wasted.’

  Stanton thought it probably would. And he’d far rather stay in the warm. Not that he was about to say so to the prickly Barling.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘Brother Lambert!’ Barling knocked hard on the door of the gatehouse, the bitter wind that carried powdery flakes of snow whipping into his face. ‘Show yourself, please.’

  The main gate stood open, presumably to allow the carts of the lay brothers to pass in and out quickly at this busy time of day. He could see one heading off on the road now, four bearded brothers in it. The gate was otherwise deserted. No beggars crowded around it as they had the other morning.

  The door opened a crack and Lambert’s scarlet, fleshy face appeared. ‘What do you want? The gate is open.’

  Barling could smell the ale on him, despite the clean, cold wind. ‘Let me in, brother. My assistant and I wish to speak to you.’

  ‘Perhaps later, sir. I am not well.’ The monk went to close the door again.

  But Stanton shoved his foot in the crack. ‘Now, brother.’

  Lambert took a stagger back and Stanton forced the door wide on to Lambert’s cosy little lair. The stink of ale and stale flesh came heavy on the air.

  A sleepy female voice. ‘What’s happening, Lambert?’

  For a moment, Barling thought it must be the lady Juliana. But no, the voice was far too young. And it was not Juliana that looked back at him.

  A wooden partition that reached halfway to the ceiling cut off about a third of the room. Peering over the top was the face of a tousle-haired young woman, her shift slipping from her naked shoulders. She met Barling’s eye and her face stiffened in surprise. Then she ducked out of sight with a stifled oath.

  ‘Agatha?’ Stanton’s question was a mixture of recognition and amusement.

  Agatha. Barling frowned to himself. The impertinent beggar girl who had accosted Stanton so boldly on the ride out to Gottburn. ‘Come out, girl,’ ordered Barling. ‘At once.’

  ‘Nothing is happening.’ Lambert made his ridiculous declaration as he swayed on his feet.

  Barling caught Stanton looking away to hide a smile and his irritation grew even further. None of this was a laughing matter.

  Scuffling noises told of Agatha’s haste in getting dressed. ‘I’m very sorry, sirs, I was simply sheltering here from the cold.’

  ‘I should think so. Dreadful weather.’ Lambert nodded to Barling and Stanton as if somehow that would lend weight to his nonsense. ‘Are you warmed up now, girl?’ Lambert turned to speak and almost lost his footing. Only a grab at the partition saved him. He let go a stream of curses.

  ‘This is intolerable,’ said Barling in a low voice to Stanton. ‘You take the girl into that room at the back. See if you can get any useful information from her.’ He fixed his assistant with his best glare. ‘And do not allow yourself to become side-tracked in any way. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘As always,’ replied Stanton, his features perfectly solemn.

  Agatha stepped from behind the partition, not as modestly clad as Barling would have liked. But at least not as shamelessly unclothed as she had been a few minutes ago.

  ‘Agatha, I need you to come with me,’ said Stanton.

  ‘I’d be happy to, good sir,’ she said with a dimpled smile.

  He did not react in kind, simply held a hand out for her to go into the next room.

  Good.

  The door shut, leaving Barling alone with a Lambert who was looking just as confused and unsteady as previously, but who now also appeared very annoyed too.

  ‘Where’s she gone?’ asked the monk.

  Barling ignored his question. ‘Brother Lambert, as you know I am here on the business of the King. That business concerns the murder of brothers Cuthbert and Silvanus. I wish to ask you about them.’

  ‘Me?’ The man gaped at him, a new wave of stale ale coming from his slack lips. ‘What would I know about them?’

  ‘Where were you on the night of the eve of Christmas, the night Cuthbert was murdered?’

  Lambert screwed up his face as if Barling had asked him a challenging question. ‘Round and about, I would say.’

  ‘Round and about?’

  The monk gave an extravagant nod. ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Yesterday morning?’ The morning when Barling had seen this drunkard of a monk give out bread to the beggars while shouting insults at them.

  ‘I’d say the same.’

  ‘Round. And about?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’ Lambert gave a long, low belch.

  Barling would keep trying. And he hoped Stanton was getting a little more sense out of his interviewee.

  Brother Osmund sat at his table in the store room and went through the same pile of written accounts for what he guessed was the fourth time. The shortening candle told him how long he’d spent at it. Hours, though he wished he’d had longer. He’d had to waste so much time with the King’s man.

  The notes that he had made about the latest sa
cks of wool sent to York must be here somewhere. They must be and yet he couldn’t find them.

  He’d been fretting about their loss for the last two days. He remembered writing them so clearly, remembered where he’d left them.

  Then they were gone, and he’d not found them yet.

  At Vigils, he’d prayed so hard that he might find them. Begged God that he would not have to face Abbot Philip with such a loss. Again.

  Philip had been kind at first when he’d made him, Osmund, cellarer. Osmund had hardly been able to believe his own appointment. He knew that others had shared that disbelief, especially the older ones.

  It hadn’t been long before their disbelief had turned to open scorn. His lord abbot’s kindness had changed to a testy patience. Then irritation. Then, a few times, to outright anger.

  Before his appointment, Osmund had had no idea how important the cellarer was to the abbey. When he’d joined as a novice, he’d thought, somehow, that the abbey just . . . was. That all he needed to do was read and pray and sing to the glory of God.

  And he did. And he loved it.

  He wasn’t the best at some of it, especially the reading. Brother Maurice, trying as his novice master to instruct him yet again in a passage of the Bible, would shake his head.

  Oh, Osmund, Osmund. You, I fear, will be one of those novices that acquires years far sooner than understanding.

  Osmund hadn’t quite understood what Maurice had meant. Now he did. Maurice thought, Abbot Philip thought, everyone thought, that he was slow-witted. Even some of the lay brothers did. He could tell it from their pitying looks whenever he had to address them or allocate their work.

  But he wasn’t slow-witted. He was perfectly aware that there were things he was good at, such as singing. He knew he had the best voice in choir. ‘That of an angel,’ Maurice had said. And other things he’d excelled at before he came here. Like playing the fiddle.

  He was equally aware that there were things for which he had no talent, like this pile of accounts and records before him. So many covered in numbers that swam before his eyes. Records that he tried and tried and tried to keep in order, but never could.