Pilgrimage of Death

by Sally Spencer

  The prioress was lying on her back, in the centre of the bed. She was totally naked and – God forgive me for even noticing it in the circumstances – I saw that she had a body so fine that it would undoubtedly drive most normal men wild with desire.

  The monk had been right when he’d said that she was surely dead. Like the devout child in her tale, her throat had been slit from ear to ear, but – quite unlike him – she seemed to have absolutely nothing to say about the matter.

  ‘So another one of our company has died,’ said a voice from the doorway. ‘And will the beadles claim that this, too, was the work of a robber?’

  I turned and saw the knight standing there, his big broadsword held firmly in his hand.

  Day the Fourth

  Morning

  There was no formal election, with each of our party formally casting his vote - nor even an election by popular acclaim - yet the other pilgrims seemed to accept without question that a committee made up of myself, the knight and the franklin, should investigate this second murder. And so it came about that we found ourselves sitting at a table in the tavern’s common room and questioning those who might perhaps shed light on this new tragedy.

  It was the nuns who we chose to speak to first. Some time had now passed since they had peered through the slightly open bedchamber door and seen the body, and they were somewhat calmer than they had been earlier.

  ‘Your prioress slept alone last night, did she not?’ the franklin asked, before I had time to frame a question of my own.

  The three sisters hesitated for a second, then the boldest of them - a young women of some three and twenty years, with a broad forehead and curious eyes - said, ‘Yes, sir franklin, she did.’

  ‘Did she always sleep alone?’

  The nun shrugged. ‘In the priory, it is the rule. We each have our own cell in which to sleep and meditate.’

  ‘What I meant was, did she always sleep alone when you are travelling,’ the franklin explained.

  The nuns looked at each other again, as if wondering how to answer the question.

  ‘We have not travelled much together, for she had only recently entered our priory,’ the boldest sister admitted, ‘but from the little we have done, I must tell you that she normally shared her room with us.’

  ‘But not last night?’

  ‘No, not last night.’

  ‘Nor the night before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor the night before that?’

  ‘When we were in Southwark, at the Tabard, we all slept together in the same room.’

  ‘So why did you not continue that practice once you set out on the road to Canterbury?’

  ‘We … Madam Eglantyne said that we three would lodge together, and she would lodge alone.’

  ‘And did she give a reason for this change?’

  ‘No, she is – she was - our prioress. She did not need to give reasons for any of her decisions.’

  ‘How came you to go to her room so early in the morning, before any other soul in the tavern had risen?’ the franklin said.

  It was a question I had been just about to ask myself, though I would not have been so blunt about it. Indeed, had the franklin left it up to me, we might have been rewarded with a truthful answer instead an awkward silence.

  ‘Were you there because you were following your prioress’s instructions?’ the franklin demanded. ‘Did she tell you to be at her door at that early hour?’

  Still silence.

  ‘I will have an answer,’ the franklin persisted. ‘Did she instruct you to be there?’

  The nuns shook their heads, almost guiltily. ‘No.’

  ‘Then what was your reason for your presence on the gallery, sisters?’ I asked gently, in the hope of counterbalancing the franklin’s inquisitorial tone with one which was much more sympathetic.

  ‘We were curious,’ confessed one of the nuns who had been silent until that point.

  ‘Curious? About what?’

  The nuns all looked down at their feet. ‘About nothing in particular. Just curious,’ one of them mumbled.

  ‘And so you rose long before the first cock crowed in order to satisfy a curiosity about nothing in particular?’ the franklin persisted.

  ‘Yes.’

  They were lying, of course. That much was evident. But I had no idea why they were lying - or even what they were lying about.

  They might, I believe to this day, have been persuaded into telling the truth, then and there, if the franklin had approached the questioning with the subtlety of a poacher tickling a trout. But since he had chosen, instead, to model his behaviour on a crusader who only has ten minutes to convert an infidel to Christianity before returning to battle, he had done no more than succeed in driving the secret back deep into the nuns’ bosoms.

  ‘Did you see anyone enter or leave your prioress’s room?’ asked the franklin, who was too intent on congratulating himself over his own cleverness to see that his methods meant the game was already up. ‘Well, answer me! Did you see anyone leave the room?’

  ‘No, but that was what…’ the boldest nun began, before one of the others dug her in the ribs and she trailed off in confusion.

  ‘Finish what you were going to say, sister,’ I said softly, hoping yet to save a little something from the questioning.

  Then the nun bit her lower lip, and I knew it was a false hope.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say anything,’ she said defiantly. ‘Nothing at all.’

  *

  We dismissed the nuns, and called for beer.

  ‘We are in no doubt, are we, that the miller and the prioress were killed by the same hand?’ asked the franklin.

  His tone made it plain that though he considered I had stolen a march him the morning before, his contribution to this morning’s business meant that he was now the head of our small group.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded, looking at me challengingly.

  ‘There is no doubt,’ I agreed.

  ‘Or that the murderer is one of our party?’

  ‘It is almost certain that he is.’

  For though I considered it possible that the two men following us had played some indirect part in the murders, it was unlikely they would have taken the risk of entering the building itself, in order to kill with their own hands.

  ‘Are we to infer any significance from the way in which they each met their death?’ the franklin asked.

  ‘I do not understand,’ said the knight, whose portcullis, I had already decided, never quite managed to reach the ground.

  The franklin sighed. ‘Do you want to explain it to the good knight?’ he asked me.

  ‘No, for I do not have the command over words, nor the powers of persuasion that you possess,’ I replied, suppressing the laugh of malicious glee which was forming in my belly.

  The franklin turned to the knight.

  ‘Very well,’ he said reluctantly. ‘The miller told a tale in which a red-hot iron was thrust up his victim’s backside, did he not? And that is how the man died himself. And in the prioress’s tale the child had his throat cut, which was just the way in which she died.’

  ‘I see,’ the knight said.

  The franklin turned to me. ‘Do you see any connection?’ he asked.

  And I was forced to admit that though there did seem to be one, I had not the slightest idea what it might be.

  ‘Then let us put that question aside for the moment and consider who had the opportunity to commit the crimes,’ the franklin said.

  ‘And how may we do that?’ the knight asked, as once more his portcullis stopped several inches from the drawbridge.

  ‘We must question each of our travelling companions in turn,’ the franklin explained. ‘We must ask them where they were at the time of the two murders, and whether they can prove it.’

  ‘I am still not sure that I understand,’ the knight said, bemused.

  The franklin sighed again. ‘Take as an example those poorer members of our party who
were sleeping in the stables,’ he said, slowly and carefully. ‘They will have been awoken by the nuns’ screams, as we were ourselves. And when they opened their eyes they will have noticed which of their companions who had gone to sleep beside them were still there – and which were not.’

  ‘And what would that tell us?’

  ‘Take another example,’ the franklin said wearily. ‘We know that you could not have committed the murders. And how do we know that? It is because you do not sleep alone but instead share a bedchamber with your son, the squire. When he was awakened by the miller’s scream, he would have seen that you were lying on the bed frame next to his. And since it is impossible for any man to be in two places at the same time, that means you could not have killed the miller. By the same token, since you saw him on his bed, that means he could not have killed the miller, either. Do you understand now?’

  The knight looked as if he had understood more than just the franklin’s explanation. He looked, in all truth, as if he had just seen a ghost walk into the room.

  ‘And what if my son had not been there when I awakened?’ he asked in a slightly trembling voice. ‘Would that mean that he was the murderer?’

  The franklin shook his head and tried to hide his exasperation.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There are many reasons why your son could have been absent from the room. He may have felt a sudden urge to check on your horses. He may have been paying a visit to the thunder-box.’

  ‘Then I do not see…’

  ‘It does not mean that he has to have committed the murder, but it does not rule him out, either. But some people will be ruled out by such a process. Which means instead of suspicion falling on all of us, it will fall only on some.’

  ‘And how will that help us?’ the knight asked.

  ‘If you are searching for your enemy in the woods, it is sometimes useful to cut down some of the trees, is it not?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ the knight agreed.

  ‘And why is that so?’

  ‘Because it leaves the enemy with fewer places to hide.’ A look of understanding came to the knight’s face. ‘So what you call ‘ruling out’ some of our fellow pilgrims is the same as cutting down some of the trees?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the franklin, thankfully.

  ‘Then that is what we must do,’ the knight told him.

  ‘Before we question anyone else, I have one question of my own,’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’ the franklin said cautiously, as if he suspected that I was about to try to wrench his newly found authority from him.

  ‘It is this,’ I said. ‘The prioress’s chamber was not bolted from the inside, or the nuns could not have entered it. Why was it not bolted?’

  ‘Perhaps she simply forgot to bolt it,’ the franklin said, though he did not sound as if he were quite convinced by the argument himself.

  ‘Did you forget to bolt your door last night?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I did not,’ the franklin admitted.

  ‘Nor did I! Nor would most people who had been woken that morning by the sound of a travelling companion’s screams. So why did the prioress forget?’

  ‘That I do not know,’ the franklin confessed mystified. Then mystification drained from his face, and was once more replaced by suspicion. ‘But I am sure that you have an explanation!’

  ‘You are wrong,’ I told him. ‘Had I known the answer, I would not have asked the question.’

  The knight, who did not appear to have been listening to what we had been saying, suddenly cleared his throat. ‘Before we begin questioning the others, I must seek out my son,’ he said.

  ‘On what matter?’ I asked.

  ‘On a matter which is of purely private concern,’ the knight replied, refusing to meet my gaze.

  *

  As I sit here now, quill in hand and half-completed manuscript lying in front of me, I inevitably find myself speculating on the future of the who-hath-done-it. It is possible, of course, that after my first faltering attempt, it will have no future at all - for once a man with home-made wings has jumped from the top of a tall tower and demonstrated that man was never meant to fly, there are few others willing to follow his example.

  But let us take a more optimistic view and say that it will survive. How will it develop? What rules will be attached to it? For there will be rules of construction and content. Of that there is no doubt - since without the formulation of such restrictions the grey-haired scholars who create nothing of artistic merit themselves will have no way of justifying their existence.

  The only question, then, is how rigid these restrictions will be. Will a scene like the one which follows – and which, for want of a better title, I have called my ‘interrogation’ scene – be bound by conventions and formulae? Will the greybeards decree that in such a scene every word spoken and every gesture made must be scrupulously chronicled?

  Should that indeed turn out to be the case, then my interrogation scene will be of great value to them. As they lecture and pontificate to their students, they may read out parts of it – I give them permission now! – as an example of what should not be done. For I have no intention of dealing with such minutiae myself. Instead I shall be as the birds in the sky, taking in the general view below, and only swooping down occasionally when I spot a particularly juicy worm to offer to my reader. Yet be warned, and do not swallow what I offer you blindly, for I was new at the game of hunting worms back then, and some of the ones which I held up in triumph at the time – and do so again for the reader to admire – may, on closer examination, turn out to be nothing but straws.

  To deal with our interrogations, then: those we saw first, as they themselves no doubt felt befitted their status, were the group of pilgrims I have chosen to call the ‘professional’ men.

  The doctor of medicine, after delivering his learned and considered opinion that the cause of the prioress’s death was a slit throat, admitted he could not prove directly that he had not killed her himself, but said that, should we care to have him guide us through his own astrological chart, we would undoubtedly find the proof in it that he was incapable of such an act.

  The merchant looked like a man hiding a guilty secret, and as he spoke he glanced down at his boots (which would have been well served by a visit to the cobbler’s). He was a sociable man who often craved companionship, he explained, making an extravagant gesture which revealed that the sleeve of his gown had been badly darned. Thus, though he could obviously have hired the best room in the inn had he wished it, he had chosen instead - for company’s sake - to bed down in the kitchen with some of the servants, who would confirm that was where he had been when the nuns started to scream.

  The merchant left, and the sergeant at law took his place. When the franklin asked him where he had been at the time of the prioress’s murder, the sergeant at law complained that it was below his dignity to be questioned in this manner.

  Would he then, as a man well versed in all matters legal, prefer to join us on the other side of the table? the knight asked.

  No, the sergeant replied firmly, for he did not play at the law, as we did. He was a professional man, and, as such, it would be unseemly to work without a fee. Thus far, the reader waiting patiently is bound to agree, there were no worms worth displaying – but then we came to the friar.

  *

  As was only proper, under the circumstances, the twinkle I had noticed in the friar’s eye the previous evenings was no longer in evidence. Yet what had replaced it was not so much signs of mourning for his departed sister as a wariness which suggested he had some concerns about his own preservation.

  ‘Would you tell us where you were at the time the prioress died?’ the franklin asked.

  ‘Where else would a Christian man be, but in his bed?’ the friar countered, looking away.

  ‘In your bed? Yes, that is how I would have expected you to answer,’ the franklin said. He paused, as if he had something of great weight to say. ‘And yet, one of the ostlers saw you
entering the inn from the street, a few minutes after the body had been discovered,’ he continued dramatically.

  I gazed – taken aback – at the franklin. How could he have kept such a significant piece of information from me? I would not have held it back from him, had I been in his place. And with that came the realisation that although I had always known the franklin saw this investigation as something of a contest between us, he was taking that contest much more seriously than I had ever imagined.

  The monk seemed to be as unbalanced by the question as I had been.

  ‘Well, good master friar?’ the franklin demanded.

  ‘I … I was out and about doing God’s business,’ the friar said, somewhat unconvincingly

  ‘Out doing God’s business? Well before dawn?’ the franklin asked sceptically.

  ‘Satan never sleeps, and neither can we who must fight against him,’ the friar replied.

  ‘And where were you conducting this particular battle with the devil, may I ask?’

  ‘That I cannot say.’

  ‘You must say,’ the franklin insisted.

  The friar looked to myself and the knight for support and - finding no sign of any - sighed heavily.

  ‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘I was fighting the Devil and all his works in the house of a local merchant.’

  ‘And will this merchant support your claim that you were there?’

  The friar shook his head apologetically. ‘He cannot do so, even if he would. He is away on business.’

  The franklin stroked his lily-white beard.

  ‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully – and it was not difficult to guess what those thoughts concerned. ‘Then who was in the house? The servants?’

  ‘There may have been servants. Indeed, in a house of that size, there must have been,’ the friar said, evasively. ‘But I did not see them.’

  ‘Then who did you see?’

  ‘I spent most of the long, hard night deep in prayer with the mistress of the house.’

  ‘And so she will speak up for you, will she not?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ the friar conceded. ‘But it would be understandable if she were unwilling to.’