“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 E
la 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 repaired 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.
Bishop Stapledon looked at the main gate to St Mary’s, Belstone with a significant seriousness in his expression. It didn’t go unnoticed by Jonathan when he pulled the little side door open and gaped at the cavalcade before him.
“Open the gate in the name of your bishop,” ordered Stapledon’s ecclesiastical staff-bearer, his crosier, who sat before his master near the gate, his trumpet resting on his thigh.
Jonathan swivelled slowly to stare. “Which?” he squeaked.
Stapledon kicked his horse forward until its head was pushing Jonathan backwards. “This one, Canon. I am your bishop. Now open that damned gate!”
As he spurred his mount, Stapledon took in the state of the precinct, squinting shortsightedly. His eyes had been failing him regularly for some time now, and he felt the need for his spectacles, but even without them the sight was not one to please the eye.
For Bishop Stapledon, a man used to residing with the King in the best abbeys and halls, it was shocking to see a place so derelict. The entire area appeared so rundown as to be ready for demolition. Still worse was the attitude of the workers. Those who should have been in the fields stood gaping at the sight of his entourage; those who should have been indoors seeing to the horses, working in the dairy, or producing the ale upon which the whole priory depended, thronged the lane to the stables.
Stapledon clenched his jaw and carefully lifted himself from his saddle, his eyes squeezed tight shut, standing in the stirrups with a small shiver of exquisite pain, holding his breath. Then, giving a little sigh of pure relief, he opened his eyes and permitted himself a faint smile as he leaned forward and swung his leg over the horse’s rump to dismount.
It was something that he had tried to think of as a minor cross to bear in this vale of adversity, but most of all he thought of it as a damned irritating affliction. Piles! he thought to himself as he stood a moment, feeling for a second’s sheer bliss, the lack of the agony that was so like a dagger thrust between his buttocks.
“Bishop!”
Stapledon turned and smiled gently as Simon bent to kiss his ring. “Ah, Bailiff Puttock. Good of you to come and welcome me.”
“I had no idea you were to be visiting, my Lord.”
“Neither had I until a short while ago. Sir Baldwin’s wife sends him her love… but where is he?”
“I fear Sir Baldwin is in the infirmary. He was struck by a falling slate.”
“Good God!” Stapledon surveyed the buildings about him. “The Lady Elizabeth has a great deal to explain.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” Simon muttered, and explained about the three deaths while he led the bishop through to the canons’ cloister. Stapledon’s expression hardly altered as Simon told him of the catalogue of disasters since their arrival here with Bertrand. He only showed emotion when Simon mentioned the stabbing of Agnes.
“She is also dead?”
“I am afraid so, Bishop.”
“Dea
r God!” Stapledon shook his head, standing still for a full minute. He remembered Agnes: a cheerful young girl. That was at least seven years ago now, when he had last seen Sir Rodney. He could picture her in his mind’s eye, a young slip of a thing, fragile as a flower, pretty with her tip-tilted nose and freckles, and with an engaging smile. She had captured Sir Rodney’s heart too.
It was difficult to believe that the young woman was dead. Stapledon knew that her death could have an impact on the future of the convent, that Sir Rodney might change his mind and bestow his money and church on a different institution, but that was unimportant to Stapledon. The Bishop had plenty of money himself; he could make good any financial losses from Agnes’s death, but he could do nothing to bring her back from the dead. He murmured softly, “Godspeed, Agnes. Go with God.”
But a moment later the bishop shook off his mood. “Right, Bailiff. However Sir Rodney feels about this girl’s death, we have work to do. Take me to see the Lady Elizabeth. And tell me what else has happened here. How has that fool Bishop Bertrand been behaving himself?”
Simon filled him in on the letter from Margherita, but also mentioned the missing money and pressed the key into the bishop’s hand.
Stapledon looked at it, his lip twisted. “She took the money to make the place appear in the worst possible light, solely in order to justify her own claim to the leadership; at the same time as harming the reputation of the prioress. Such corruption! Somehow it feels worse to be confronted with deceit and betrayal here in a convent, although I should be used to it after the dishonest and thieving politicians who surround the King. Bastards! Crosier, come with me and the bailiff. The rest of you, see to the horses.”
And with these words he swept forward, the episcopal staff-bearer and Simon trotting along in his wake.
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