Belladonna at Belstone (9781471126345)

by Jecks, Michael

  ‘Only a man could slaughter a nun like that – and who else but the very one who enjoyed corrupting the young wenches in here? Only one man had an opportunity to get in here and chat to the novices regularly, didn’t he? You , Father. You enjoyed all three of the dead girls, didn’t you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t!’ he shouted.

  ‘Oh, I suppose that righteous little madam Moll refused your advances, and that was why you decided to kill her, so that she couldn’t let on. And Katerine – why did you do away with her? Was it that she was annoyed when you transferred your affections to Agnes?’

  Luke gawped, standing still. ‘Why should I hurt them? I couldn’t hurt them.’

  Margherita was relentless. ‘You had Agnes help you, didn’t you? You had her drop extra dwale into Moll’s cup, and then you killed the girl. Katerine was easy – you knocked her out down here and then tossed her from the roof like a sack of grain. And Agnes knew all about Moll, so as soon as you realised you couldn’t ensure her silence by using her as your concubine, you decided to murder her as well!’

  ‘You’re talking nonsense! This is a pack of lies, all lies, to hide your guilt, you murderous bitch!’

  ‘Me?’ she squawked.

  ‘Yes, you! Moll found out about your little game with the money, didn’t she? You never knew before, that your assistant could read and add up. Your precious Lady Elizabeth can’t, but a poor novice saw through your schemes and ruined your plans, so you killed her. Murdered her to cover up your own guilt! But you never realised Moll had shared the story with other novices, did you? That never occurred to you, oh no! And I guess that Katerine came to you with a demand for money and that was when you murdered her.’

  ‘Please enlighten me,’ Margherita said coldly. ‘What moronic reasoning can you use to explain my murdering little Agnes?’

  ‘Yes, please continue.’

  Luke felt the ice enter his bones at that voice; in the doorway stood Lady Elizabeth, the bailiff at her side, sword sheathed now, his hand on Elias’s shoulder, and all the novices and nuns filling the space behind. It was a sight to freeze the blood of a saint, and Luke felt the resolution fade from him at the expression on Lady Elizabeth’s face. A sob caught at his breast, making his shoulders jerk. He threw a look at the jewel-encrusted cross on the altar, feeling a desperate desire for a moment’s calm in which to pray and make his peace.

  Turning to the prioress, he tried to hold his head up, but couldn’t meet the steely contempt in her eyes. ‘Ask her where she was, my Lady,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘Lady Elizabeth, I was walking in the orchard when I heard the scream. I immediately rushed back and saw Agnes’s body. At once I realised that I must see whether someone could have entered from the men’s cloister and came here. I found the door locked, but a moment or two later this man appeared and tried to escape.’

  Luke protested, ‘Lady Elizabeth, I had found Agnes’s body and didn’t want to be thought of as her murderer so I fled.’

  ‘And it took you so long to get here that Margherita had time to find Agnes’s body and get to the church?’ Simon said disbelievingly.

  ‘Yes, Bailiff. As soon as I screamed I . . .’

  ‘It was you who screamed?’ Simon pressed.

  ‘Yes. It was horrible to find her like that. I wanted to get away, but there were feet coming from every direction.’

  ‘Margherita, you mean? Everyone else was asleep.’

  ‘Someone was coming through the frater, there was someone from the orchard –’ he threw a baleful look at Margherita as he realised he had confirmed her story – ‘and someone else coming the way I had, from the church.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  Luke went blank. ‘I don’t know. They never appeared.’

  Simon eyed him. ‘Could the steps have been running away?’

  ‘They might have been – I don’t know.’

  ‘Tell us all that happened,’ Simon said.

  ‘I admit I came to see Agnes; I had just got to the cloister when I heard steps and saw Denise. She was drunk, so I left her, and when she returned to the frater I went up the alley to meet Agnes, but there was a noise behind me. It worried me and I hurried to the chamber and tripped. When I realised . . .’ Luke paused, scarcely able to go on, then: ‘I screamed and ran out, but I heard people coming. I didn’t know what to do! I went to the frater’s wall and hid behind a buttress. When you sent to question Denise I slipped away.’ He faced the prioress. ‘Lady Elizabeth, Moll had told Katerine about Margherita embezzling priory funds. That was why Margherita killed them both. Agnes found out too.’

  ‘She told you this?’ Margherita demanded. ‘It is not true!’

  ‘Prove it! Swear it before God, on the gospels, on His cross.’

  Margherita stepped to the altar and rested her hand on the book. Meeting Luke’s gaze, she declaimed loudly so all could hear: ‘I had nothing to do with the death of the novice Moll, the novice Katerine or the novice Agnes. I had no part as an accomplice, nor as the instigator of any one or all of their deaths.’

  ‘Bitch!’ he swore, making the sign of the cross. ‘You dare lie on God’s own book?’

  ‘Enough!’ Lady Elizabeth snapped.

  Simon had remained silent, surveying the pallid priest. Now he nodded towards Luke. ‘Do you dare declare your innocence in the same way?’

  Luke immediately stepped up to the altar. As he did so, Margherita moved quickly out of his reach. So that there could be no doubt of his conviction, Luke picked up the book reverently and kissed the symbol of the cross on its calfskin cover, then rested it on his left palm, his right hand flat over the top. ‘I declare my innocence of the killing of any of these novices. I affirm my innocence in the sight of this congregation and in the sight of God, and if I am guilty in any way of any of these deaths, if I knowingly or unknowingly took any active part in them, if I persuaded or incited or aided or abetted any person in these murders, may God strike me dead here and now. As I believe in the resurrection and the life to come, I had nothing to do with these deaths.’

  ‘And that,’ Simon observed grimly, ‘leaves us much better informed, doesn’t it?’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bertrand was called to the cloister as soon as the convent had finished Prime. Simon left him closeted with the prioress, and strode off to the infirmary to allow Hugh, who was nodding with the effort of standing guard, to take his own rest. Simon was happier spending his time mulling over the events of the evening while sitting next to Baldwin. For some strange reason, Simon was sure his friend was in danger. Intuition told him so.

  Meanwhile, he could come to no logical conclusion about the trio of murders. No matter how he reviewed the affair he could see no connection between the dead girls that made any sense. Moll was ultra-religious, a bit of a pain, by all accounts, who took everyone else’s guilt on her own shoulders and informed them of their offences to make them confess and gain forgiveness; Katerine was nosy, pushy, keen to get on, and unscrupulous, prepared to use blackmail to achieve her ends; Agnes appeared unconcerned by the priory and the people within it, she was simply a child who probably shouldn’t have been put there in the first place. Certainly she wasn’t religiously driven.

  Simon had heard one thing the previous night that had intrigued him: the wild allegation made by Luke to the effect that Margherita had been creaming off the income and profits from the priory. It was hard to credit that a nun would do such a thing, but looking at the state of the place it was all too easy to believe that someone had been fleecing it.

  Margherita had always appeared coldly contemplative, a very genuine Christian, yet he realised that although the treasurer had denied any part in the murders, she had not denied the charge of embezzlement. If his reasoning was correct, and she wouldn’t swear before God to innocence of theft, clearly the fact that she was happy to do so regarding the murders meant she was telling the truth about them.

  So he was no further forward, he thought with a heavy sigh
.

  Baldwin groaned, and Simon leaned forward. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘As if someone’s trying to cut through my skull with a rusty saw,’ Baldwin said with his eyes tight shut.

  Simon chuckled and passed Baldwin the pot of wine, which the knight soon emptied.

  ‘I doubt it’ll stay down,’ the knight said, resettling himself on his side. ‘I feel like you do after a night drinking all my wine and ale.’

  ‘At least the wound’s healing,’ Simon said, his tone gentle.

  ‘I can assure you that from my perspective it appears to be getting worse,’ Baldwin said drily. ‘How does your enquiry progress?’

  Simon gave him a doubtful look. ‘Constance said you should rest.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool. I need something to take my mind off this!’ Baldwin hissed painfully.

  ‘All right. Well – there was another murder last night.’

  ‘God’s teeth!’

  Simon told all he had learned the previous day, finishing with the discovery of Agnes’s body. ‘The prioress has locked up Luke and Elias, thinking that a man who dares enter the convent against God’s laws would be capable of murder,’ he said.

  Baldwin snorted feebly. ‘By the same token she should arrest herself! She too must be suspect for she once had an affair and got pregnant. No, that is rubbish. And of course we can assume that Elias was innocent.’

  Their voices had woken Hugh. ‘But he was found there!’ the servant objected sleepily.

  ‘Precisely. Whoever killed the girl would have run. No one would have stood about waiting to be discovered. Luke is a different matter, of course.’

  ‘Except,’ Simon interrupted, ‘Luke had no dagger on him. Come to that, neither did Elias. So where was the murder weapon?’

  ‘What of Margherita?’ Baldwin enquired.

  ‘She wasn’t searched,’ Simon admitted shamefacedly.

  ‘Wonderful!’ Baldwin muttered. He remained staring up at the beams of the roof for a few minutes. ‘All this makes little sense, especially if we take my own wound into account. Three girls, all very different, and me as well. There must be some kind of pattern to all four attacks; something that ties us together.’

  Simon gave his friend a smile of sympathy. ‘The last thing you need right now is to fret about something like this, and I need to get on as well.’

  ‘Why? What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to ask Margherita what she saw last night.’

  Simon left Hugh once more guarding Baldwin. Already, before Simon left the infirmary, Baldwin was sleeping again, and as the bailiff opened the door to the landing, Constance appeared at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Sister, could you tell me where the treasurer is likely to be?’ he asked, and she told him to look in the cloister.

  Her eyes were red and raw from weeping, and even as he studied her, he saw her blink to keep the tears at bay.

  It was this sign of her distress that made him touch her shoulder. She took a quick pace back on feeling his hand, and stared at him with alarm, but he smiled. ‘Sister, don’t fear. I am sure Agnes died quickly.’

  ‘It wasn’t her I was thinking of,’ Constance said. She sadly let her head drop forward, feeling ridiculously feeble. It was mere mawkishness to pine for him. ‘It was Elias . . . Oh, Bailiff – do you think he could have killed them?’

  Simon gazed at her blankly. ‘Elias? No, not really. Why do you ask that?’

  ‘I gave him dwale to keep the prioress’s dog silent when he came to visit me,’ she said, colouring. ‘I thought he could have dropped some into Moll’s drink, and then he could have thrown Katerine from the roof, and last night . . . last night . . .’

  Simon patted her shoulder as she began to sob. ‘The dwale didn’t kill Moll,’ he said.

  ‘But I’d already given her some! I gave it to Joan and Cecily as well so Elias and I wouldn’t be interrupted. If he gave them more, it could have poisoned them.’

  ‘It didn’t, though, did it? The killer smothered Moll, then cut her, so my friend thinks, and I’ve never known him to be wrong. As for last night, I don’t think Elias is guilty – but you might be able to help me with some other thoughts.’

  ‘Anything, if it will help you to discover who is doing all this!’

  ‘Show me where Margherita would normally sleep.’

  She turned and led the way to the dorter, stopping at a bed only a short way inside.

  It was far from the hole in the roof, but close to the door. Simon pointed to the single bed between Margherita’s and the prioress’s chamber. ‘Who sleeps there?’

  ‘That’s Joan’s.’

  Beside the treasurer’s bed was a large chest, which Constance said was Margherita’s. It was of heavy wood and bound with iron. Simon idly tried to lift the lid. It was locked.

  Seeing Simon’s questioning glance moving over the rest of the beds, Constance gave the names of the occupants. ‘At the far side, that is Denise’s, and that one, nearer the stairs, is Ela’s, the kitcheness’s.’

  ‘So Ela could have risen last night without waking anyone.’

  Constance pulled a face. Simon could see her nose wrinkling above her veil. ‘She wouldn’t have woken anyone anyway. Margherita often walks around late at night. Especially recently, with these murders and the pressure of the election. And Denise is usually downstairs with a pot of wine until very late. If Ela rose, I doubt anyone would have been here to stir.’

  Godfrey’s anxious face appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Constance? Oh, there you are. You have a patient who needs my help?’

  Constance apologised to Simon and led the canon to the infirmary. They left the door wide open behind them, and Simon saw them march straight to Cecily’s bed. While he watched, he saw Godfrey begin to unwrap the dressing on the girl’s arm; the canon winced with distaste at the smell, while Cecily suddenly gave a great cry of agony.

  Simon could stand most things, but not surgery. Such slicing of flesh and sawing of bone reminded him too forcibly of his own physical frailty. He turned and walked down the stairs while behind him Cecily’s voice rose to an insane shriek.

  In the cloister he found Margherita sitting with Joan. Joan rose, giving Simon a deeply disapproving look. For her part, Margherita stared white-faced up at the infirmary’s window. In her left hand she gripped her string of prayer beads, which she paid out through her right.

  Joan appeared enraged. ‘So, Master Bailiff, you consider that Margherita is a murderer?’

  ‘I have said no such thing,’ he replied. ‘But others have, and I must question her.’

  ‘Ridiculous! A woman more dedicated to the priory you’ll never meet!’ Joan looked at Margherita as if expecting a word from her, but the treasurer sat silently. After a moment Joan gave an exasperated ‘Oh!’ and left them.

  Margherita shivered as a fresh shriek came from the window. ‘How is she?’

  ‘I don’t know. If Godfrey’s as good as some of you think, then Cecily may survive.’ There was no need to stress the point: both knew even a young, healthy person could fade astonishingly quickly when gangrene set in. If the infected part was hacked off, the patient often died from shock. ‘May I have a few words with you?’

  She looked him up and down. ‘After last night, I suppose I have little choice. The alternative would be to leave you still more suspicious of me.’ She led Simon to a bench at the northernmost wall of the cloister. ‘I didn’t kill any of them, you know.’

  ‘But you have stolen money from the priory.’

  ‘No!’ she declared, her eyes flashing as she spun to face him. ‘I would never take money from this place. I saved it so it could be used to serve the community better.’

  As she spoke she turned away from Simon and glowered over the garth towards the church. ‘Look at it, just look! Roof falling in, tiles smashed – it’s a miracle only one man’s been hit by falling slates.’

  ‘If you’d not embezzled the funds, the prioress could have re
paired them.’

  ‘Oh, the prioress!’

  Simon snapped. ‘If you hadn’t concealed the true state of the accounts, maybe she could have repaired the roofs and wouldn’t have been forced to resort to begging a local knight to give her more money – and don’t tell me you were acting in the priory’s interests! You were hiding it so you could produce it later, when you had won the prioress’s job, in order to make yourself look better in the other sisters’ eyes.’

  As Margherita turned to face Simon, there came a terrible scream from the infirmary, which faded slowly to a whimpering sob. ‘Benedicite!’ she said in horror.

  ‘They’re taking her arm off,’ Simon said relentlessly. ‘Because she slipped on the laundry stairs and broke her wrist. You said the stairs were rotten – don’t you feel guilt for what you’ve done?’

  ‘No. I did it for God and for this community!’ she gasped. ‘I have done nothing for my own benefit, only for that of the people about me.’

  ‘Would that include killing the girls?’ Simon pressed. ‘Were they enough of a threat to your community for you to seek to destroy them all?’

  ‘You imagine that I could . . .’ She stared at him once more, her attention drifting from his stern brown eyes to his forehead, then his mouth and chin, as if seeking confirmation of his seriousness. Sinking back against the wall, she looked drained of all energy. Silently she reached inside her tunic and flung a key at him. ‘Take it! It’s all in my chest, and on top you’ll find a parchment with the amounts scribbled down so that everyone can witness nothing is stolen.’

  Simon picked up the key from where it had fallen. Margherita sat like someone shrivelled, as if she had lost much of her substance; her head bowed, shoulders hunched. She didn’t meet his gaze. Very slowly she lifted both hands to her face and covered it as she began to sob.

  He was about to make his way to the dorter to fetch the hidden money when he heard the brazen call of a trumpet. Surprised, he spun around, but here in the cloister he could see nothing beyond the surrounding walls. Filled with uneasiness, he strode towards the communicating door in the church.