by Mel Starr
In times past I would have climbed upon the broad back of Bruce, an old dexter Lord Gilbert had provided for my use. The beast had carried my employer into battle at Poitiers many years past, and I had grown fond of the creature, although his gait was lumpy and left my nether portion tender whenever I was required to ride any distance. But the old beast had died two days before Michaelmas. His eyes were rheumy with age, so I know not if the pestilence took him as well as men and women of town and castle. The palfrey I rode now was a more agreeable seat, but I missed my old companion nevertheless.
Arthur, I, and the lay brothers greeted the Eynsham Abbey porter as the monks of the house were leaving the church after nones. Abbot Thurstan shuffled along at their head, followed by Brother Gerleys and a tall monk who I soon learned was Brother Philip, the prior.
The abbot’s eyes traveled to our horses as they were being led to the abbey stables, and he looked to the gatehouse and recognized me. He lifted a hand and motioned for me to follow. I nodded to Arthur and we fell in behind the tottering old abbot. The prior did likewise.
“We buried John Whytyng this morning,” the abbot said as he led us to his chamber.
“Has his father been told?”
“I sent a lay brother to Wantage this morning. Sir Henry has been a reliable benefactor. He will be much displeased that we were unable to keep his son safe.”
There was a thought left unspoken in Abbot Thurstan’s words. Eynsham Abbey would not like to lose the favor of a prosperous knight who had been generous with his coin. If I could find who had slain the novice the discovery might go far to assuaging the father’s anger, or at least turning his wrath to the felon and away from the abbey. Unless the murderer was a monk of the house. Certainly Abbot Thurstan wished for me to discover the felon, yet he was likely fearful of what I would learn and how the discovery would affect his abbey.
Abbot Thurstan coughed, collapsed into his chair, motioned for me to take another, and Prior Philip sat in a third. Arthur glanced about the chamber and seated himself upon a bench drawn up against a wall.
The abbot sighed deeply, then spoke. “I set much store by John Whytyng. Brother Gerleys spoke often of his brilliance. I thought perhaps some day, when I have gone to meet the Lord Christ, and Brother John had become a respected monk, his fellows of this house might select him for their abbot.”
“Brother Gerleys,” I said, “told me he was not happy as a novice here, and when he disappeared, thought he had gone to his father.”
The abbot sighed again. “I wish Brother Gerleys had spoken to me of this. Of course, he may have done and I paid him no heed. I have the disease of the ears.
“My eyes are clouded, my ears hear little, my joints creak and groan, my fingers ache and will no longer grip a pen. But it is all well. If an old man could see and hear and leap as well as when he was a lad, no man would ever be content to die. The frailty of age brings a man to welcome the release of death from the gaol his body has become. I pray daily that the Lord Christ will soon free me from this prison.”
“Perhaps He has work for you yet to do,” the prior said. I noticed that he smiled while he spoke.
“I do not question His will,” the abbot said, “although I admit it is often a mystery to me.”
“To us all,” I agreed. “Since I was last in this chamber, have you learned any new thing about the novice’s death?”
“Nothing,” Prior Philip said, “but this morning, after John was buried, Brother Gerleys took a boar’s head to the edge of the meadow near to where John was found. He said you advised him to do so.”
“I did. Birds will soon discover it, and we may learn how long it will take them to do to a pig’s head the same harm that was done to the novice.”
“You believe that John did not lie in the forest from the time he left the abbey until you found him?”
“I do not know. We may soon learn.”
“Was he struck down there?” the abbot asked.
“I think not. He was pierced three times, but I found no blood under him.”
“Three times,” Abbot Thurstan repeated softly. “Brother Gerleys told me of this. How will you begin your search?”
“I must seek Brother Gerleys and his novices. Perhaps they know of some enemy which John feared, or heard him speak of some danger.”
“I’ll see you to the novices’ chamber,” the prior said. “Brother Gerleys insisted that they be about their studies, even though their companion was buried this morn.”
It was difficult to take my gaze from the prior’s face during this conversation. He was, I thought, the ugliest man I had ever seen. His forehead and chin sloped back above and below a large nose which was afflicted with lumps and pustules. His upper teeth protruded over his lower lip, and his cheeks were red and crusted with cast-off skin. He was a man who, unless he was wealthy and possessed lands and a title, few women would find appealing. No wonder he sought life in a monastery.
We found the novices and their instructor at a silent lesson. The novice-master was teaching his charges the signs they would use to communicate when in the cloister and refectory, where silence reigned. Brother Gerleys faced the door to this chamber, so he saw me, Arthur, and the prior while his pupils had their backs to us. The lads saw his fluttering fingers hesitate and his eyes rise to us. They turned to see what had interrupted their exercise.
The classroom was warm, heated by a small blaze upon a hearth. Benedictines deal gently with novices, perhaps not wishing to deter them from taking their vows. The only other heated room in the abbey would be the calefactory, where monks warm themselves when winter comes.
The novices sprang to their feet when they saw the prior at their door. One lad was quite small, a frail youth with pale hair and skin, his features blotchy with that scourge of youth, pimples. I thought him likely no more than fifteen years old, although his reed-like form may have clouded my judgment. The other lad was much larger, nearly a full-grown man. A few scattered whiskers grew from his chin and upper lip. The novice-master would soon need to instruct this one in the fortnightly use of a razor.
“Master Hugh wishes to speak to you and the lads,” Prior Philip said to Brother Gerleys. I did not expect the tone I heard in the prior’s voice. He had seemed an amicable sort of man while with Abbot Thurstan, but there was no friendship in his words to Brother Gerleys.
The novice-master bowed silently, and the prior turned and walked from the chamber. Arthur had also noted the prior’s hostility, and glanced toward me with an expression which said silently, “What think you of that?”
“Master Hugh,” Brother Gerleys said when the prior’s footsteps had faded, “here are Osbert Homersley and Henry Fuller, novices of this house.”
The youths bowed to me by way of greeting and I motioned them to return to their bench.
Brother Gerleys had seemed to take no offense to the prior’s curt greeting and announcement. “How may we serve you?” he said in a level voice.
“I wish to speak to you of John Whytyng. Abbot Thurstan has charged me with the task of discovering his murderer. When did you last see him?” I asked the two novices.
I expected Henry, being the older of the two, to speak, but ’twas Osbert who replied. He spoke in fractured tones, not yet a man, but no longer a child.
“Thursday,” the lad said. “He was seated with us in the retrochoir for compline, and returned to our chamber with us. When we rose for lauds his bed was cold.”
“What of vigils?” I asked.
“Novices of this house are not required to rise in the night for that office,” Brother Gerleys said.
To Osbert I said, “I have heard that John was not well suited for the vows he was soon to take. Did he speak to you of this?”
“Aye. I was not surprised to find him away.”
“Had he ever departed your chamber in the night before?”
Neither novice replied, until Brother Gerleys nodded, then Osbert spoke. “Twice, that I know of.”
“That you know of? You believe he was often away in the night?”
“Once I heard him rise to visit the reredorter and I saw him return. ’Twas near dawn. Another time I lay awake but Henry slept. John thought we both did, and crept from his bed.”
“When did he return?”
“Don’t know. Finally I fell to sleep. He was in his bed when the sacrist rang the bell for lauds.”
“Did you tell Brother Gerleys of this?”
“He did,” the novice-master replied. “I questioned John sharply about these nocturnal prowls.”
“What did he say?”
“Claimed that when he could not sleep he would walk the cloister and meditate.”
“You believe this?”
Brother Gerleys was silent for some time. The two novices stared at him, open-mouthed, awaiting his answer.
“I wanted to. But now that he has been found slain outside the abbey precincts, I believe it must not be so. No man would stab him in the cloister, I think, then drag him half a mile to the place you found him. And if murder was done in the cloister, how did the felon get himself and a corpse from the abbey in the night?”
“Two men might,” I said.
“Oh… aye, perhaps.”
“What of the explorators?” I asked. “Have you spoken to them? Did they never see John out of his bed?”
“They have never said so. It is their duty to see to the locks and that all of the brothers are abed in the dormitory after compline. Then they seek their own rest. ’Tis not required of them then to prowl the abbey throughout the night.”
“Come,” I said. “We will seek permission from Abbot Thurstan for me and Arthur to enter the cloister. If he grants it, we will walk the cloister and seek any sign that murder may have been done there.”
Abbot Thurstan’s lodging, as with most Benedictine houses, is in the west range of the abbey. We found the abbot there in conversation with the prior and another monk I had not before seen. I was introduced. Brother Gerald was the guest-master, and would be responsible for my comfort in the guest parlor while Arthur and I remained at the abbey.
Abbot Thurstan readily granted permission for Arthur and me to visit the cloister any time I thought necessary. I invited Brother Gerleys and his novices to assist us.
“What do we seek?” the novice-master asked.
“John was stabbed three times. He surely bled freely. Look for bloodstains.”
“Would not the villains have scrubbed away such defilement?”
“Probably. But they might have overlooked a drop. A similar thing happened six months past and led me to a felon.”
The late-afternoon sun left much of the cloister in shadows. If there were bloodstains upon the flags they would have been difficult to see. Osbert and Henry entered into the search with the enthusiasm of youth, but after circling the enclosure twice the five of us accepted defeat. Either there was no murder done in the cloister, or all trace of the felony had been wiped away, or the approaching night obscured evidence of death.
“I am pleased we found nothing,” Brother Gerleys said. “Had we done so, ’twould mean that a brother of this house was guilty. I would not want to think it could be so.”
“I am told that you took a boar’s head to the edge of the wood, near to where John was found,” I said to Brother Gerleys as we returned to the novices’ chamber.
“Aye.”
“We will see it tomorrow, after terce,” I said, “to learn if the birds have found it yet.”
“’Tis an odd thing,” the novice-master then said, “about John. Most did not see, for a man might swoon to look upon a face so ravaged as was John’s, but when we covered the lad with a black linen shroud this morning, and took him to his grave, I saw water leaking from his mouth and nose… or what remained of the poor lad’s mouth and nose.”
His words caught my attention. “Water, you say? Not blood?”
“Nay. ’Twas but a trickle, but ’twas water.”
When I turned the novice to discover the wounds in his back I had not noticed water, or any other fluid, draining from his nose or mouth. Of course, I was not seeking such a thing, and after I saw the lacerations in John’s back and the slashes in his habit I had eyes only for these signs of death. There may have been water I did not then see, but if so, from whence had it come?
“This water you saw, did it appear while the novice was laid out upon his back, or when he was turned?”
“He was upon his back before the altar. And ’twas but a trickle. We have buried several brothers of this house recently, but I never before saw water issue from a dead man’s mouth. You think it due to the manner of his death… being stabbed so many times?”
“Nay. I’ve seen men slain with dagger and sword, but none was ever found with water coming from his lips.”
Brother Gerleys told Osbert and Henry to remain in his chamber until his return, then walked with us to the guest house. The way took us past one of the abbey fishponds, its calm waters reflecting the stars and the sliver of new moon in the fading light. The tranquil scene belied the wickedness which had visited the abbey.
The guest-master showed us to our chamber in the guest house and told us that a lay brother would soon arrive with a meal. The monk spoke true, for the words were but out of his mouth when two men appeared at the door with a bowl of water for washing hands, a roasted capon, maslin loaves, and ale.
Arthur and I ate by the light of a single cresset. Arthur was silent but for the smacking of lips and licking of fingers as he consumed his portion of the fowl and loaves. Nor did I speak. Brother Gerleys’ tale of water leaking from John Whytyng’s torn lips as he lay upon his bier would not leave my mind. As it happened, the announcement also puzzled Arthur. He drank the last of his ale, pushed his bench back from the table, and unburdened his mind.
“Seen men dead before, but never seen one what leaked.”
“And his wounds did not,” I replied.
Arthur peered at me quizzically.
“Yesterday,” I said, “when we found the lad, do you remember? There was no blood upon his habit, nor upon the soil and leaves beneath him, nor even upon his flesh.”
“How could that be?” Arthur asked. “Even was he slain somewhere else and left where the birds found ’im, there would be blood upon ’is habit.”
“Unless he was already dead when his assailant plunged a dagger into him. Dead men do not bleed.”
“Oh,” Arthur said thoughtfully. “Then why stab a dead man three times?”
“Perhaps he was yet alive when the felon pierced him.”
“But you said… would he not then bleed?”
“Aye,” I said. “Much.”
“You speak in riddles,” Arthur complained.
“Nay. I show you a riddle. And I have no solution for it.”
The guest-master had seen that a blaze was laid upon the guest house hearth to warm us, but this fire now burned low. I placed another log upon the embers and sought my bed.
Whenever I share a sleeping chamber with Arthur the fellow always falls to sleep before me. He snores like an ungreased mill wheel and this makes slumber difficult for any near. So I lay abed, tried to ignore Arthur’s rattling and wheezing, and thought of a bloodless corpse from which water drained rather than gore. I finally fell to sleep with the issue unresolved.
Some time in the night I awoke. The fire had burned down to just a few glowing embers. The blanket provided was too thin to ward off the November chill. And Arthur was snoring as loudly as a novice musician tootling upon a sackbut. A possible answer to the riddle of John Whytyng’s death came to me there in the darkened chamber, and I lay for the remainder of the night impatient for the dawn to try my speculation and see if I might find evidence that it was so.
I am accustomed to waking in our chamber at Galen House to Father Thomas de Bowlegh’s clerk ringing the Angelus Bell in the tower of the Church of St. Beornwald. So when the sacrist rang Eynsham Abbey’s great bell for lauds I was no
t much startled. Indeed, I welcomed the deep, thunderous peal, for it meant that the notion which had come to me in the night could soon be investigated in the light of day.
Monks do not break their fast, but ’tis common for abbey guests to be offered a loaf. A short time after the monks were called from their beds an elderly lay brother appeared with two loaves and a ewer of ale. Arthur and I consumed the meal – the ale was quite foul – and waited for the misty dawn to become day. While we ate I told him of my supposition, and he nodded understanding while munching upon his loaf.
A day of sunshine in November is a rare thing, and as the sun appeared it seemed that Eynsham would enjoy its fifth in succession. Perhaps the Lord Christ smiled upon my endeavor and wished to provide the illumination necessary for success.
“You think the lad maybe drowned in a fishpond, an’ got stabbed after somebody fished ’im out, eh?” Arthur reviewed what I had explained to him between his last bites of maslin loaf.
“This might explain the lack of blood upon his slashed habit. If he drowned, he would not have bled much, as dead men do not do so. If he was first stabbed, then fell into the fishpond, blood from his wounds would have been washed away, and he might yet have been alive when he went into the water, so that his lungs filled as he died.”
“But why’d the water come from ’is mouth?”
“Dead men soon begin to bloat, as decay sets upon them. This happens soonest when ’tis warm, but even in cool November putrefaction will soon begin. A corpse begins to swell from the rot within.”
“But how’d that cause the lad to leak so?”
“The bloating put pressure upon his lungs, and forced water there out through his throat.”
“Ah… so what do you think,” Arthur said thoughtfully, “drowned first, then stabbed, or other way ’round?”
“Stabbed first, I think, and he would surely have died of his wounds had he not fallen or been cast into a fishpond.”
