‘I found him staggering in the yard just now on my way to Lauds. When I got him into the infirmary he fainted. I was coming to wake you and Brother Peter.’
‘Take me to him.’
She turned, and Freize staggered after her into the long low room. There were about ten beds arranged on both sides of the room, poor pallet beds of straw with unbleached sacking thrown over them. Only one was occupied. It was Luca – deathly pale, eyes shut, breathing lightly.
‘Dearest saints!’ Freize murmured, in an agony of anxiety. ‘Little lord, speak to me!’
Slowly Luca opened his hazel eyes. ‘Is that you?’
‘Praise God, it is. Thank Our Lady that it is, as ever it was.’
‘I heard you shout and then I fell down the stairs,’ he said, his speech muffled by the bruise on his mouth.
‘I heard you come down like a sack of kindling,’ confirmed Freize. ‘Dearest saints, when I heard you hit the floor! And someone hit me . . .’
‘I feel like the damned in hell.’
‘Me too.’
‘Sleep then, we’ll talk in the morning.’
Luca closed his eyes. The Lady Almoner approached. ‘Let me bathe your wounds.’ She was holding a bowl with a white linen cloth, and there was a scent of lavender and crushed leaves of arnica. Freize allowed himself to be persuaded onto another bed.
‘Were you attacked in your beds?’ she asked him. ‘How did this happen?’
‘I don’t know,’ Freize said, too stunned by the blow to make anything up. Besides, she could see the open door to the storeroom as well as he, and she had found Luca in the yard. ‘I can’t remember anything,’ he said lamely and, as she dabbed and exclaimed at the bruises and scratches on his face, he stretched out under the luxury of a woman’s care, and fell fast asleep.
Freize woke to a very grey cold dawn. Luca was snoring slightly on the opposite bed, a little snuffle followed by a long relaxed whistle. Freize lay listening to the penetrating noise for some time before he opened his eyes, and then he blinked and raised himself up onto his arm. He could not believe what he saw. The bed next to him was now occupied by a nun, laid on her back, her face as white as her hood, which was pushed back exposing her clammy shaven head. Her fingers, enfolded in a position of prayer on her completely still breast, were blue, the fingernails rimmed as if with ink. But worst of all were her eyes, which were horribly open, the pupils dilated black in black. She was completely still. She was clearly – even to Freize’s inexperienced frightened stare – dead.
A praying nun knelt at her feet, endlessly murmuring the rosary. Another knelt by her head, muttering the same prayers. The narrow bed was ringed with candles, which illuminated the scene like a tableau of martyrdom. Freize sat up, certain that he was dreaming, hoping that he was dreaming, pinched himself in the hope of waking, and put his feet on the floor, silently cursing the thudding in his head, not daring to stand yet. ‘Sister, God bless you. What happened to the poor girl?’
The nun at the head of the bed did not speak until she finished the prayer but looked at him with eyes that were dark with unshed tears. ‘She died in her sleep,’ she said eventually. ‘We don’t know why.’
‘Who is she?’ Freize crossed himself with a sudden superstitious fear that it was one of the nuns who had come to give evidence to their inquiry. ‘Bless her soul and keep her.’
‘Sister Augusta,’ she said, a name he did not know.
He stole a quick glance at the white cold face and recoiled from the blackness of her dead gaze.
‘Saint’s sake! Why have you not closed her eyes and weighted them?’
‘They won’t close,’ the nun at the foot of the bed said, trembling. ‘We have tried and tried. They won’t close.’
‘They must do! Why would they not?’
She spoke in a low monotone: ‘Her eyes are black because she was dreaming of Death again. She was always dreaming of Death. And now He has come for her. Her dark eyes are filled with that last vision, of Him coming for her. That’s why they won’t close, that’s why they are as black as jet. If you look deeply into her terrible black eyes you will see Death himself reflected in them like a mirror. You will see the face of Death looking out at you.’
The first nun let out a little wail, a cold keening noise. ‘He will come for us all,’ she whispered.
They both crossed themselves and returned to their muttered prayers as Freize shuddered and bowed his head in a prayer for the dead. Gingerly, he got up and, gritting his teeth against his swimming head, walked cautiously around the nuns to the bed where Luca still snored. He shook his shoulder: ‘Little lord, wake up.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that,’ said Luca groggily.
‘Wake up, wake up. One of the nuns is dead.’
Luca sat up abruptly then held his head and swayed. ‘Was she attacked?’
Freize nodded at the praying nuns. ‘They say she died in her sleep.’
‘Can you see?’ Luca whispered.
Freize shook his head. ‘She has no head wound, I can’t see anything else.’
‘What do they say?’ Luca’s nod indicated the praying nuns who had returned to their devotions. To his surprise, he saw Freize shiver as if a cold wind had touched him.
‘They don’t make any sense,’ Freize said, denying the thought that Death was coming for them all.
Just then, the door opened and the Lady Almoner came in, leading four lay sisters. The nuns at the head and foot of the corpse rose up and stood aside as the women in brown robes carefully lifted the lifeless body onto a rough stretcher, and took it through an arched stone doorway into the neighbouring room.
‘That is our mortuary. They will dress her and prepare her for burial tomorrow,’ the Lady Almoner said in reply to Luca’s questioning glance. She was white with strain and fatigue. The nuns took their candles and went to keep their vigil in the cold outer room. Luca saw their shadows jump huge on the stone walls, big as black monsters, as they set down their lights and knelt to pray, then someone closed the door on them.
‘What happened to her?’ he asked quietly.
‘She died in her sleep,’ the Lady Almoner said. ‘God alone knows what is happening here. When they went to wake her early, for she was to serve at Prime, she was gone. She was cold and stiff and her eyes were fixed open. Who knows what she saw or dreamed, or what came to torment her?’ Quickly she crossed herself and put her hand to the small gold cross that hung from a gold chain on her belt.
She came closer to Luca and looked into his eyes. ‘And you? Are you dizzy? Or faint?’
‘I’ll live,’ he said wryly.
‘I’m faint,’ Freize volunteered hopefully.
‘I’ll get you some small ale,’ she said, and poured some from a pitcher. She handed them both a cup. ‘Did you see the assassin?’
‘Assassin.’ Freize repeated the word, strange to him, which usually meant a hired Arab killer.
‘Whoever it was who tried to kill you,’ she amended. ‘And anyway, what were you doing in the storeroom?’
‘I was searching for something,’ Luca said evasively. ‘Will you take me there now?’
‘We should wait for sunrise,’ she replied.
‘You have the keys?’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘Then Freize will let us in with his key.’
The look she gave Freize was very cold. ‘You have a key to my storeroom?’
Freize nodded, his face a picture of guilt. ‘Just for essential supplies. So as not to be a nuisance.’
‘I don’t think you are well enough to walk over there,’ she said to Luca.
‘Yes I am,’ he said. ‘We have to go.’
‘The stair is broken.’
‘Then we’ll get a ladder.’
She realised that he would insist. ‘I’m afraid. To be honest, I am afraid to go.’
‘I understand,’ Luca said with a quick smile. ‘Of course you are. Terrible things happened last night. But you have to
be brave. You will be with us and we won’t be caught like fools again. Take courage, come on.’
‘Can we not go after sunrise, when it is fully light?’
‘No,’ he said gently. ‘It has to be now.’
She bit her lip. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Very well.’
She lifted a torch from the sconce in the wall and led the way across the courtyard to the storerooms. Someone had closed the door and she opened it, and stood back to let them go in. The wooden ladder was still on the floor, where it had been thrown down. Freize lifted it back into place, and shook it to make sure that it was firm. ‘This time, I’ll lock the door behind us,’ he remarked, and turned the key and locked them in.
‘Oh, she can get through a locked door,’ the Lady Almoner said with a frightened little laugh. ‘I think she can go through walls. I think she can go anywhere she wishes.’
‘Who can?’ Luca demanded.
She shrugged. ‘Go on up, I will tell you everything. I will keep no more secrets. A nun has died under this roof, in our care. The time has come for you to know everything that has been done here. And you must stop it. You must stop her. I have been driven far beyond defending this nunnery, far beyond defending this Lady Abbess. I will tell you everything now. But first you shall see what she has done.’
Luca went carefully up the steps, the Lady Almoner following, holding her robe out of the way as she climbed. Freize stood at the bottom with the torch, lighting their way.
It was dark in the loft, but the Lady Almoner crossed to the far wall and threw open the half-door, for the dawn light. The beams from the rising sun poured into the loft through the opening and shone on glistening fleeces of gold, hanging up to dry, as the gold dust sifted through the wool to fall onto the linen sheets spread on the floor below. The room was like a treasure chamber, with gold dust underfoot and golden fleeces hanging like priceless washing on the bowed lines.
‘Good God,’ Luca whispered. ‘It is so. The gold . . .’ He looked around as if he could not believe what he was seeing. ‘So much! So bright!’
She sighed. ‘It is. Have you seen enough?’
He bent and took a pinch of the dust. Here and there were little nuggets of gold, like grit. ‘How much? How much is this worth?’
‘She harvests a couple of fleeces a month,’ the Lady Almoner said. ‘If she is allowed to continue it will add up to a fortune.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
She closed the half-door to shut out the sunlight, and barred it. ‘Ever since the Lady Abbess came. She knows the land, being brought up here; she knows it better than her brother, for he was sent away for his education while she stayed at home with their father. The stream belongs to our abbey, it is in our woods. Her slave, being a Moor, knew how her people pan for gold and she taught the sisters to soak the fleeces in the stream, telling them it would clean the wool. They have no idea what they are doing, she plays them for fools – she told them that the stream has special purifying qualities for the wool, and they know no better. They peg out the fleeces in the stream and bring them back here to dry; they never see them drying out and the gold pattering down on the linen sheets. The slave comes in secretly to sweep up the gold dust, takes it to sell, and the sisters come in when the gold is gone and the loft is empty, and take the fleeces away to card and spin.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Sometimes they remark how soft the wool is. They are fools for her. She has made fools of us all.’
‘The slave brings the money to you? For the abbey?’
The Lady Almoner turned to go down the ladder. ‘What do you think? Does this look like an abbey that is rich in its own gold? Have you seen my infirmary? Have you seen any costly medicines? You have seen my storeroom, I know. Do we seem wealthy to you?’
‘Where does she sell it? How does she sell the gold?’
The Lady Almoner shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Rome, I suppose. I know nothing about it. She sends the slave in secret.’
Luca hesitated, briefly, as if there were something more he would ask, but then he turned and went down after her, ignoring the bruise on his shoulder and the pain in his neck. ‘You are saying that the Lady Abbess uses the nuns to pan for gold and keeps the money for herself?’
She nodded. ‘You have seen it for yourself now. And I think she hopes to close the nunnery altogether. I believe that she plans to open a gold mine here, on our fields. I think she is deliberately leading the nunnery into disgrace so that you recommend it should be closed down. When it is abolished as a nunnery she will say she is free from her father’s will. She will renounce her vows, she will claim it as her inheritance from her father, she will continue to live here, and she and the slave will be left here alone.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ Luca demanded. ‘When I opened the inquiry? Why keep this back?’
‘Because this place is my life,’ she said fiercely. ‘It has been a beacon on the hill, a refuge for women and a place to serve God. I hoped that the Lady Abbess would learn to live here in peace. I thought God would call her, that her vocation would grow. Then I hoped that she would be satisfied with making a fortune here. I thought she might be an evil woman, but that we might contain her. But since a nun has died – in our care—’ She choked on a sob. ‘Sister Augusta, one of the most innocent and simple women who has been here for years—’ She broke off.
‘Well, now it is all over,’ she said with dignity. ‘I can’t hide what she is doing. She is using this place of God to hide her fortune-hunting, and I believe that her slave is practising witchcraft on the nuns. They dream, they sleepwalk, they show strange signs, and now one has died in her sleep. Before God, I believe that the Lady Abbess and her slave are driving us all mad so that they can get at the gold.’
Her hand sought the cross at her waist and Luca saw her hold it tightly, as if it were a talisman.
‘I understand,’ he said, as calmly as he could, though his own throat was dry with superstitious fear. ‘I have been sent here to end these heresies, these sins. I am authorised by the Pope himself to inquire and judge. There is nothing that I will not see with my own eyes. There is nothing I will not question. Later this morning I will speak to the Lady Abbess again and, if she cannot explain herself, I will see that she is dismissed from her post.’
‘Sent away from here?’
He nodded.
‘And the gold? You will let the abbey keep the gold so that we can feed the poor and establish a library? Be a beacon on the hill for the benighted?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The abbey should have its fortune.’
He saw her face light up with joy. ‘Nothing matters more than the abbey,’ she assured him. ‘You will let my sisters stay here and live their former lives, their holy lives? You will put them under the discipline of a good woman, a new Lady Abbess who can command them and guide them?’
‘I will put it under the charge of the Dominican brothers,’ Luca decided. ‘And they will harvest the gold from the stream and endow the abbey. This is no longer a house in the service of God, as it has been suborned. I will put it under the control of men, there will be no Lady Abbess. The gold shall be restored to God, the abbey to the brothers.’
She gave a shuddering sigh and hid her face in her hands. Luca stretched his hand towards her to comfort her and only a warning glance from Freize reminded him that he was still in holy orders and he should not touch her.
‘What will you do?’ Luca asked quietly.
‘I don’t know. My whole life has been here. I will serve as Lady Almoner until we come under the command of the Brothers. They will need me for the first months, no-one but me knows how this place is run. Then perhaps I will ask if I may go to another order. I would like an order that was more enclosed, more at peace. These have been terrible days. I want to go to an order where the vows are kept more strictly.’
‘Poverty?’ Freize asked at random. ‘You want to be poor?’
She nodded. ‘An order that respects the commands, an or
der with more simplicity. Knowing that we were storing a fortune of gold in our own loft . . . not knowing what the Lady Abbess was doing or what she intended, fearing she was serving the Devil himself . . . it has been heavy on my conscience.’
The bell tolled the call to chapel, echoing in the morning air. ‘Prime,’ she said. ‘I have to go to church. The sisters need to see me there.’
‘We’ll come too,’ Luca said.
They closed the door to the storeroom and locked it behind them. While Luca watched, she turned to Freize and held out her hand for his key. Luca smiled at her simple dignity as she stood still while Freize patted his pockets in a pantomime of searching, and then, reluctantly, handed over the key. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘If you want anything from the abbey stores you may come to me.’
Freize gave a funny little mock bow, as if to recognise her authority. She turned to Luca. ‘I could be the new Lady Abbess,’ she said quietly. ‘You could recommend me for the post. The abbey would be safe in my keeping.’
Before he could answer she looked beyond him at the windows of the hospital, suddenly paused, and put her hand on Luca’s sleeve. At once he froze, acutely aware of her touch. Freize behind him stopped still. She held her finger to her lips for silence and then slowly pointed ahead. She was indicating the mortuary beside the hospital, where a little light gleamed from the slatted shutters, and they could see someone moving.
‘What is it?’ Luca whispered. ‘Who is in there?’
‘The lights should be shielded, and the nuns should be still and silent in their vigil,’ she breathed. ‘But someone is moving in there.’
‘The sisters, washing her?’ Luca asked.
‘They should have finished their work.’
Quietly, the three of them moved across the yard and looked in the open door to the hospital. The door leading from the hospital ward through to the mortuary was firmly closed. The Lady Almoner stepped back, as if she were too afraid to go further.
‘Is there another way in?’
‘They take the pauper coffins out through a back door, to the stables,’ she whispered. ‘That door may be unbolted.’
Order of Darkness Page 9
