‘This is the matter you told me of when we spoke in the cloister?’ said Thomas. ‘There was some reference to another chronicle, you said?’
‘Long ago, I found another old parchment from those days, which listed the witnesses to Count Eustace’s grant of the manor and advowson of Kingweston, one of which was a Brother Francis of this priory. His name had been erased from the deed itself and there is no other record of him ever existing. I told the prior of the irregularity and tampering, but he became quite annoyed and told me to forget all about it, as it was of no consequence. He took the old document from me and I’ve not seen it since.’
John wondered what this had to do with anything and soon the old monk had warmed himself sufficiently and wandered off.
‘What was all that about?’ he demanded of his clerk, prodding Gwyn to silence his loud snores.
Thomas smiled slyly; he was always keen to probe into old stories and gossip. ‘From talking to several older monks, it seems that there was some scandal here many years ago. It was hushed up but refuses to be extinguished. The odd thing is that it also involved a royal ward – of the first Henry. She vanished along with a monk, and it is thought they eloped, though some claim she was murdered and is the cause of all these rumours of ghosts and evil spirits. Much of Brother Ignatius’s obsession with devils and imps seems to be fostered by this legend.’
De Wolfe grunted. ‘Then maybe poor Christina’s ghost will join the spirit band that haunts this place. But it doesn’t help us discover who killed her.’
An hour later Roger Beaumont and Jordan de Neville came to the warming room and sought out the coroner for a private word. The lord of Wirksworth was still offended by de Wolfe’s insinuations about his having most to gain by Christina’s death, but he concealed it under a stiff manner as he made his request.
‘I realize it is late, Sir John, but some of the family – as we consider ourselves to be – wish to see the spot where our poor Christina came to her death.’
De Wolfe looked surprised at this unexpected supplication. ‘Why ask me? The prior is the ultimate authority in this house.’
Beaumont scowled at the coroner, his face as red as a raw side of beef.
‘He has already consented, but as you are the law officer investigating the matter I thought I should have your agreement.’
John was mollified by this deference offered by the pugnacious baron and asked when they wished to visit the basement chamber.
‘Now, this very minute! The prior is to accompany us.’
Somewhat grudgingly, John followed Beaumont to the door, motioning for Gwyn and Thomas to accompany him. As they walked through the cloister, lit by hazy moonlight and a few guttering torches, he expressed surprise that the girl’s guardian had not seen the cellar at the time of her death.
‘The poor girl had been removed by the monks before we were informed,’ snapped Roger. ‘She was taken to the infirmary, where we saw her body. It was returned to the crypt when the justiciar insisted on you being called – for the sake of preservation, no doubt.’
Jordan de Neville, who had not yet said a word, added a few now. ‘We will all be leaving straight after the funeral, so this evening is the last opportunity. We do not wish to view her again,’ he added hastily. ‘Merely the fateful spot where she was found.’
In the corridor of the cellarer’s building, at the end furthest from the guests’ refectory, was a door which led into the alcove at the top of the steep stairway down into the vault below. At right-angles was the external door into the courtyard, through which John had entered the previous day. Gathered in the corridor were the prior, his chaplain and Brother Ferdinand, escorting Lady Avisa, her tirewoman, and Margaret Courtenay and her maid. Another portly monk, the cellarer Brother Daniel, was also hovering behind.
‘My daughter Eleanor is of too nervous a disposition to wish to accompany us,’ announced Avisa.
Robert Northam moved to John’s side and murmured conspiratorially in his ear. ‘I regret any inconvenience, coroner, but they were quite insistent. I thank God that this will all be over tomorrow.’
De Wolfe shrugged his indifference as they waited for Brother Daniel to open the door and waddle into the alcove, where he lit a bundle of candles from the tallow dip and handed them to each of the guests.
‘Be very careful on these stairs,’ warned the prior in a loud voice. The last thing he needed now was for one of the notables to fall down the treacherous steps.
With the cellarer in the lead, holding his candle high, the procession trooped cautiously down the steps, John and his two assistants bringing up the rear with Brother Ignatius. At the bottom they all stood in a wide arc around the lower opening of the staircase. The flickering candlelight on the faces made the scene like some demonic ritual ceremony, until Prior Robert made a wide sign of the cross in the air and uttered a solemn prayer in Latin and led the others in a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and the creed. The loudest response came from Thomas de Peyne, who was almost overcome by this religious drama. The four guests seemed less moved by the solemn moment, but all followed the monks in crossing themselves and genuflecting.
‘This was the spot where the poor lady was found,’ said Daniel the cellarer, pointing to the floor near the bottom step. One of the maids began to sob but was sharply reprimanded by Lady Avisa, who seemed immune to the baleful atmosphere of the forbidding vault. Margaret Courtenay’s face was tense and drawn, but she made no sound as her hand stole out to grasp that of Jordan de Neville, who stood close to her. He and Roger Beaumont stared stonily at the patch of bare earth but said nothing.
There was a long silence, which soon became embarrassing and then unbearable, until Robert Northam felt forced to break it.
‘Have you seen enough, friends? Dear Christina still lies a few paces away, if you wish to see her before she is coffined in the morning.’
John frowned and began to protest that she was hardly in a fit state to be viewed by sensitive ladies, but the prior forestalled him.
‘Of course, I directed that offer to the two lords here, not the ladies.’
Though Jordan had not long ago declared otherwise, he reluctantly followed Roger Beaumont when the older man began to stalk after the prior deeper into the darkness of the vault. John and his men tagged on, and the coroner was surprised to find Margaret Courtenay at his side.
‘Mistress, this is not really a venture for a lady. You will appreciate the reason.’
The young woman shook her head and spoke in a determined voice. ‘She was my friend and I owe it to her to say goodbye, Crowner.’
He gave one of his habitual shrugs and walked on in silence. Brother Ferdinand was on his other side, but he noticed that Ignatius had declined to come with them, having followed the other women back up the stairs.
In the end bay, with the uneven far wall brooding over them in the wavering light, they all lined up around the ominously dripping box. This time it was Gwyn who had the task of uncovering the corpse and lifting the top of the wet linen sheet once again to reveal the features. Both he and John were mildly surprised to see that the signs of corruption had hardly advanced since their previous visit, thanks to the frequent replenishment of the ice.
Roger and Jordan looked on her face briefly, with stony expressions set firmly in place, possibly as a manly shield against showing any emotion. Margaret Courtenay swayed slightly and gave a choked sob, then again made the sign of the cross and whispered some private farewell to her young friend, before stepping back and stumbling with her candle towards the staircase. Thomas hurried after her, solicitous as ever to anyone in need of comfort.
‘Have you seen enough?’ asked the prior rather abruptly. He led the others away, leaving John and Gwyn with the makeshift coffin.
‘I suppose they’ve got a better box than this somewhere?’ grunted the Cornishman.
‘They are taking her into the church for the Requiem Mass, then to the cemetery on the other side,’ said de Wolfe. ‘We ha
d better give them a hand here in the morning to move the body.’
Gwyn looked with disfavour around the empty bay at the end of the long crypt. ‘Something about this place gives me the shudders,’ he said. ‘Must be my Celtic blood, though you have plenty of that too, Crowner, from your mother.’
John shivered and agreed. ‘No wonder some of these monks get these crazy notions, spending years stuck in this place on the marshes.’
He pulled his black cloak more tightly around him and made for the stairs, thankful to leave this forbidding place with its lonely corpse.
In spite of all the activity that day, it was still quite a few hours until the first of the religious offices at midnight, which inevitably Thomas de Peyne wished to attend. After another doze in the warming room, the coroner’s trio went back to the refectory, where Gwyn cadged bread, cheese and ale from the kitchen before they retired to their fleece-stuffed mattresses upstairs. De Wolfe disappeared into his cubicle, and the other two wrapped themselves in their cloaks and a blanket in the main chamber. Gwyn was snoring almost immediately, but Thomas catnapped, long used to waking himself in the middle of the night to attend Matins. When the bell of St Saviour’s tolled, he got up and padded down to the far door, where the night stairs led him down to join a stream of obidentiaries making for the church.
After the service, he returned to the dormitory to sleep until Lauds, the next office around dawn. Gwyn was humped on the next palliasse like a beached whale, making blowing and whistling noises. There were no pilgrims here tonight to close a loose shutter at the further end of the dormitory, which was tapping in the icy breeze. The clerk walked up to secure it and on returning glanced into the open cell where his master slept. His candle revealed a rumpled but empty mattress, there being no sign of the coroner.
Puzzled, Thomas went back to his own bed but lay awake waiting for de Wolfe to return. After a quarter of an hour, there was still silence and he reached out and prodded Gwyn on his large backside. It took several jabs to awaken him, and when he did surface he was irritated by the clerk’s concern.
‘He’s probably gone for a piss or a sit-down in the reredorter!’ growled the officer. ‘Shut up and go to sleep.’
However, after another half-hour went by, Thomas could stand it no longer and got up to shake the Cornishman again. Grumbling, Gwyn stumbled out of bed, still fully dressed, and after a sleepy discussion they decided to go back to the warming room to see if de Wolfe was there. It was deserted, and now the two men were becoming concerned.
‘Let’s try the cloister and the cellarer’s building,’ urged Thomas, leading the way in the gloom, which was relieved only by moonlight and a few guttering torches fixed in brackets. The cloister walk was empty, and only when they went the length of the corridor in the cellarium and went out into the inner courtyard did they see anyone. In the lodge at the inner gate, a night-watchman sat dozing under a tallow dip. He was a lay brother, not the usual monk who kept the gate in daytime, but he denied seeing the coroner or indeed anyone else for the past two hours.
Gwyn and the clerk stood indecisively outside the porter’s lodge, unsure of where to look next.
‘Maybe he’s with the prior?’ suggested Thomas, but Gwyn scoffed at the idea of him visiting anyone at this time of the morning. In the hope that he had returned to his bed, they began retracing their steps and went back into the cellarium corridor.
‘What the hell’s that?’ suddenly demanded Gwyn, as they were passing the inner door to the basement. Thomas cocked his head and heard a muffled thudding. With images of the icy corpse down below still fresh in his mind, he blanched and made to hurry on to the shelter of the dormitory, but Gwyn was made of sterner stuff.
‘Let’s get this damned door open,’ he growled and slid back the bolt, which squealed in rusty protest. Inside the alcove, the thudding was louder and obviously coming from behind the stout oaken door to the vault.
‘Give me a light, Thomas. This is no bloody ghost!’ snapped Gwyn.
The clerk fumbled for some half-used candles in the niche and lit them from the feeble tallow lamp. By their light, the coroner’s officer wrenched back the heavy bolt on the inner door, and as it swung open a tall figure stumbled into his arms. De Wolfe was dishevelled and blood was running from his nose and several grazes on his face. He staggered against the wall and slid to the floor, shivering and blaspheming roundly.
‘I thought I was going to be there until they came for the dead girl in the morning,’ he groaned. ‘They might have had to move two corpses by then!’
His two assistants helped him to his feet, and in the next few minutes they examined his injuries while he told his tale. Thankfully, he had no more than multiple bruises and a few cuts and grazes, though on the upper part of his forehead he had a lump under his hair the size of a pigeon’s egg.
‘Some bastard pushed me down the stairs and locked the door on me!’ he snarled when he had finished cursing. ‘I must have lost my wits, for I was lying on the floor at the bottom when I got my senses back. Jesus, these bruises are tender!’ He winced as he touched the front of his shins.
‘Who did it, Crowner?’ demanded Gwyn angrily. ‘I’ll go this minute and punch his lights out!’
John raised his hand painfully. ‘Cool down, Gwyn. I heard and saw nothing. I’ve no idea who did it; he was behind me – or possibly she! Now help me to my bed. I’ll be recovered by dawn.’
As they helped him hobble down the corridor and supported him up the stairs, Thomas ventured to ask him why he was going to the vault at that time of night, fearing that there was some supernatural reason for him to visit a decaying cadaver. John pointed to the large circular ring of silver that secured one corner of his cloak to the opposite shoulder, bearing a stout pin passing through holes in the material.
‘When I was going to my bed, I found this was missing. The only place I could have lost it was when we all went to that damned cellar.’
‘Couldn’t you have left it until morning?’ grunted Gwyn as they entered the dormitory.
‘It’s valuable – and a certain lady gave it to me many years ago,’ growled John. ‘With God knows who coming to fetch the body tomorrow, I wanted to make sure of it. With my candle out when I came to, I had to crawl and grope on my hands and knees to find it in that bloody cellar.’
Thomas shuddered to think of being in the dark with a dripping corpse-box for company and decided that John de Wolfe must have stronger nerves than anyone he knew. After their master gingerly lowered himself on to his mattress, Thomas went off to the far side of the priory and roused the old infirmarian, who hobbled across with bandages and salve to clean up the coroner’s scrapes and bruises. They told him that de Wolfe had fallen downstairs, but omitted to mention which ones.
‘Shall I rouse the prior as well?’ enquired Gwyn, who was still simmering with anger at this outrage on his master, but John wearily forbade him.
‘No point in hauling him from his bed. I just want to rest now. I’ll see him in the morning.’
‘Perhaps he was the sod who pushed you down the steps,’ muttered Gwyn under his breath.
The day of the funeral dawned with a pale clear sky and an iron-hard frost in place of the snow flurries of previous days. Every drop of water was frozen, even in the jugs in the guest dormitory. Stiff and aching, but otherwise none the worse for his fall, John de Wolfe rose shivering from his pallet and joined Gwyn and Thomas in the refectory downstairs, where hot gruel and warm bread, combined with ale mulled in the kitchen with a red-hot poker, helped them to thaw out.
‘What are we going to do about it, Crowner?’ demanded Gwyn. ‘I reckon it was that bastard Beaumont, trying to put you out of action!’
Thomas nodded excitedly. ‘Perhaps he had been fiddling his share of the estate profits and was scared you would find out. Maybe that was why he killed his ward, to keep his embezzlement secret by hanging on to the lands?’
John paused in his attack on a slab of boiled salt ham and three eggs
fried in beef dripping, for his injuries had not blunted his appetite.
‘Don’t get carried away. We’ve not a shred of proof to accuse anyone. I’m off to see the prior after this, Gwyn, but you had better get down to see what’s happening to that corpse.’
Thomas was thankful that this order seemed to exclude him, and he hurried away to yet another service in the church, where he could gossip and question the monks again. When de Wolfe accosted Robert Northam as he returned from Prime, the prior was aghast at being told of the attack during the night.
‘That vault is accursed!’ he said with a vehemence that seemed too extreme for the occasion. ‘I should have it bricked up, but the cellarer is adamant that he needs the space for storage. That place has been nothing but trouble for this house since we were founded.’ He did not enlarge on this, and John was more concerned with discovering who had tried to kill him.
‘I was lucky to receive nothing more than cuts and bruises, though I was knocked senseless for a time.’ He grinned wryly. ‘It proves beyond any doubt that Christina never fell down those stairs, when her lack of injuries are compared with my poor face and legs!’
‘Who could have done such a thing?’ expostulated Robert. ‘Surely not one of my flock!’
‘Then that leaves only your guests, prior,’ observed de Wolfe.
Brother Ignatius, who lurked like a shadow behind his master, muttered something about the power of the Horned One surviving after death, but he was ignored as the prior and coroner discussed possible motives and culprits. They came to no conclusions and soon Ignatius was tugging at Robert’s cloak to remind him that they should prepare for the coffining of Christina.
De Wolfe had other business and limped rather than strode over to the favoured guest-rooms near the inner gate. Here he rapped on the door and confronted Roger Beaumont, who appeared with Jordan de Neville close behind.
‘Were you abroad in the building in the early hours of this morning?’ he rasped without any pretence at diplomacy. ‘And if you were, did you attempt to kill me by pushing me down the cellar steps?’
House of Shadows Page 7
