Fire & Faith

by Steven Veerapen

  The Prior’s lieutenant nodded them upstairs, and they began to climb without acknowledging him. They found the Prior seated. He looked, thought Danforth, more harried than before.

  ‘Good afternoon to you, Father.’ They received only a tight smile, as the Prior’s eyes slid down to the marks their muddy boots were leaving on his Turkish carpet.‘Have you received letters from your speedy messenger?’

  ‘The Cardinal has written you, gentlemen,’ he replied, rifling the desk. ‘Here.’ He passed Danforth a folded and sealed paper. ‘I should have had it sent by one our servants directly. You need not have come.’ Danforth took the letter and folded it into his robe.

  ‘That was certainly fast,’ he said.

  ‘Not so very surprising, sir. Our boy had passed through Glasgow and the letter awaited you there. He has only just taken your own.’ The prior reached down again and picked up a leather purse. ‘This was sent also. A purse of money from his Grace, less the post riders’ fees. A generous man, your master. As long as you are in the burgh I repeat there is no need for you to come down to the Abbey for your correspondence.’

  ‘It was our pleasure,’ smiled Martin.

  ‘But not all pleasure, alas,’ added Danforth. The Prior raised his brows, the wrinkles on his forehead deepening. ‘You know, I think, of the murder of Brody’s girl, your Abbot’s tenant?’

  ‘I do, sir. And we have prayed ceaselessly for her wretched soul.’

  ‘And you know, of course, that her father stands accused.’

  ‘Indeed, and I am sorry that we have harboured such a vile creature in our holy place. He shall swing for it, I trust shortly, and be cast upon God’s great mercy.’

  ‘The man pleads innocence.’

  ‘As do they all. Then he is doubly damned for a murderer and a liar.’

  ‘You do not believe that a man is innocent unless caught red-hand, as he was not, or proven beyond doubt to have done the deed?’ Silence fell between them, the only sound the crackling of the logs in the grate. The door to the bedchamber beyond was closed. Walker apparently wanted his secrets better hidden.

  ‘A very English manner of thinking,’ said the Prior. ‘The matter is regrettable. A servant dead, and another servant soon to be. Most regrettable. I shall have to provide another report, move funds.’

  ‘Brody protests his innocence with great passion,’ said Martin, hand on hip. ‘He claims that his daughter was molested by the monks here, that she had conceived some fondness for them herself.’

  As on their first visit the Prior’s glacial composure appeared to falter, the first tendrils of fear creeping into his face. ‘That is a slanderous lie. There is no truth at all to it.’

  ‘Yet you called the girl a whore.’

  ‘And that she was, little better than a hobby horse.’

  ‘Is that so, and ridden by your monks?’ Danforth sickened at his own words. For one terrible moment he thought of Cromwell and his commissioners. This had been their work: threatening clergymen, throwing sordid gossip and hearsay in his face. He reddened. Even Martin had turned to look at him, his eyes wide.

  ‘No!’ The Prior had begun to tremble. ‘Never. I merely heard rumours of her conduct about the burgh, never within these walls. You are wicked, sir, to even speak of such things. In seeking to defame my monks, you slander yourself as the one possessed of a foul mind and tongue.’

  ‘Peace,’ said Danforth, ‘we are all servants of the Church, and would protect it well. And for that purpose we would know of any troubles concerning this girl and the brotherhood here.’ Again, he was conscious of how unctuous his words must sound. How much like a honeyed trap. He wondered if, had he been the Prior, he would have believed them. If only the man was honest, if only he shared all he knew with his coreligionist rather than seeing enemies, this unpleasant scene might not have been necessary.

  ‘There was – there is no trouble. A murder has been undertaken, and the murderer will be rightly hanged.’ He gave them a malicious smile. ‘Our tenant – this vile creature – is no clergyman, and his evil deed was not committed on hallowed soil. His death shall be at the king’s pleasure, and none of my house. And that shall be an end to the affair. And you have no authority here, sir, Cardinal or otherwise, to pry into the working of the monastery and its divines. By the raising of this place to an Abbey we were assured that we answer only to the Holy Father in Rome. And at the present time, with the great battle to commence in very few days ...’

  ‘You have had news of the war?’

  ‘I have heard bruits, sir.’ The Prior avoided their eyes. Our messenger has picked them up on the road. You will allow no one knows when the battle will come who does not know the movement of the English. And it is on that business that I must apply my mind to silent prayer. You have your letters, gentlemen, and I think we are done. You have your own affairs and those of your master to get in order.’ He flopped down and made a show of busying himself, but he could not disguise the tremor in his hands.

  Danforth turned to Martin, who shrugged. They bowed without much deference and left. On the staircase Danforth pocketed the purse of coins, but kept the Cardinal’s letter out. When they were out of the Abbot’s House, he opened it, the seal sliding off. He read aloud to Martin. Beaton had written from Haddington. The king was to attempt seizure of Carlisle on the western march, against only a small English force. ‘The army has mustered munitions from the shires as best it could,’ said Danforth, handing the letter to Martin and crossing himself. ‘The great thrust that will thwart Henry’s enterprise of Scotland is likely to take place as soon as the king judges it best. Perhaps it is even now being fought. May the Lord protect us.’

  ‘He’s read this,’ cried Martin. ‘The Prior opened this letter, the corrupt ass. That’s how he knows of the battle.’

  ‘I do not doubt it.’

  ‘And the rents and tithes the place earns – yet he deduces fees for the post, can you believe the tightness?’

  ‘Ah, taxation of the Church is heavy under the present king. Yet I agree that this Prior is a hard man. I have no liking for him, though it grieves me to say it.’

  ‘Yet his Grace doesn’t recall us.’

  ‘No. I should think he has other matters to attend to. We must tarry here. It will do neither us nor his Grace good to miss each other’s letters upon the highway. It is happening, Martin, do you realise it? Somewhere far from here, there is to be a great battle against the heretics. No mere scrimmage, no tulzie such as have plagued us, but a battle.’

  ‘Aye. I confess I’d divert my mind from that knowledge. We can’t influence it.’

  ‘Can we not? Cannot our little movements and words and doings play their hand?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  They were approaching the archway under the wall from cloister to outer wall. As they passed under it, a hooded figure detached itself from the shadows, like a gargoyle come alive. Danforth started as the hood was pulled back. It was the young monk who had watched them so intently from the infirmary.

  ‘What do you mean, Brother, hiding in shadows to accost strangers?’ snapped Martin. The monk cast down his head, revealing his tonsure. Danforth placed him at about twenty. When he spoke, it was in low tones.

  ‘Forgive me, gentlemen. You are the Cardinal’s men?’

  ‘We are that.’

  ‘I would speak with you, sirs, touching affairs here. I would find friends to help me, and whom I might help. I have fears, grave fears.’ The little monk had a curious voice; it sounded like it came from a much older man. That is learning, thought Danforth. He approved of it. Speech, he had been taught from the knee, should be adorned with learning’s ornaments. It kept the world at bay, making agreeable inferiors of everyone save his betters.

  ‘Pray do, Brother ...?’

  ‘Brother James, sir.’

  ‘What fears are these, Brother James?’ The monk raised his head and they read the fear in his eyes. Danforth found himself becoming inur
ed to the sight.

  ‘I cannot speak freely here. Meet me tonight, beyond the Abbey’s walls. Eight o’clock, by the Bridge Port.’

  ‘You have liberty to leave the Abbey at night?’ Danforth’s mouth turned down in a frown. Again, the Abbey was revealing itself to be a disappointment.

  ‘The Prior,’ said Brother James meaningfully, ‘cares little for our comings and goings. We are free to do private business, to hunt and fish in the burgh as we list. The great gate,’ he sniffed, ‘opens and closes more freely than the legs of a whore, that the burgesses might wander hither and thither, buying beer and ale from our brew-house.’

  ‘Hard words, Brother, against your Prior and his governance,’ said Danforth. His voice had turned caustic. ‘Whether you approve of your Prior or not, he is your Prior nonetheless, and his words ought to be your law. To rebel against them is to be a traitor rebelling against his sovereign. No, Brother James,’ he repeated, ‘your words are dangerous.’

  ‘Yet they are true,’ said Brother James. ‘Thought I do not much like them, and it pleases me not at all to speak them. It is no sedition to speak the truth, nor is it slander. I am sorry if what you have heard disappoints you, sir. This place is my mother and my father, now, and good parents discipline their children, as my true parents did before God called them. Right good discipline, not slackness and liberty. Yet you will meet with me beyond the walls?’

  ‘You have some knowledge of the murdered girl?’ asked Martin. In response, the monk gave them only a brief nod and another glance from his expressive eyes, before biting down on his bottom lip. ‘Are the bruits true, and some brother here had immoral traffic with her?’

  ‘Tonight, please, sir, away from here. For the nonce, I shall say only this: though the Prior now tells the world that there are only fifteen amongst the company of the order here, there was another. Where he is, I cannot say, but may suspect. I will open my heart to you tonight.’ He backed away from them, replacing his hood against the rain and hurrying back towards the infirmary, a little raven in flight.

  9

  Danforth let Martin to return to the inn whilst he took himself to the barber’s. It was a gloomy little bolt-hole on the St Mirin Wynd. As he approached it, the now familiar sound of carousing echoed from a lodging deeper down the wynd. The shop was empty, the ancient barber delighted at the prospect of custom. Small stools stood around the room beside a table littered with water lavers and brushes. A polished steel mirror reflected candlelight dully.

  ‘In out o’ the rain, sir? Wise indeed.’ The barber was a tiny man, his white hair and beard oiled. His fingers were laced with scars, proof of his long experience if not his efficiency. ‘What brings you? You’re not hurt, are you, wounded? Hair needing cropped? Nails needing trimmed?’

  ‘I should like a shave,’ said Danforth, pulling his eyes away from the calloused hands.

  ‘Very good, sir. You would like, perhaps, the king’s fashion? It’s very well liked at Court, sir, is the king’s fashion. You’ve too narrow a face for the square cut favoured by the English king, though that’s very much beloved by young gentlemen. Suits a fat face, mind you, and a broader neck. O’ course the fashion is growing for straggling beards.’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Danforth put his knuckles to the thin, fair stubble on his cheek. ‘I wish to be rid of it all.’ He did not like beards. They struck him as fripperies – either the trifling ornaments of courtiers or the unkempt thatches of the unwashed poor. They had no business on a serious man.

  ‘Very good,’ repeated the barber, a note of disappointment in his voice. ‘Please sit.’ He did, as the old man prepared his water and razor. ‘You’d be a rich man, then, sir?’ Danforth sighed. One had to pay a barber for any information received with information given. He wondered what information Martin had been induced to impart.

  ‘Not so very. I am in the employ of his Grace the Lord Cardinal Beaton.’

  ‘Is that so? I said it when you walked in here, sir – “carries himself rich, this fellow”, I said.’ He looked around the empty shop as though inviting disagreement. ‘You’ll be the fellow the other spoke o’, the young man with the black beard, then? Aye, a jolly young man, that. Said he was travelling with a companion, another Cardinal’s man, though a wee thing older and not so given to conversation. Said you flew from the King Henry – he o’ the square beards and the army on our doorstep. That young man took an excellent cut.’ There was the answer to Danforth’s question. ‘And you’re investigating some naughty words against his Grace, is it?’ Danforth gave a brief nod, hoping his frown would discourage the drift of discussion. ‘Well, I see yon fellow spoke the truth.’ He draped a towel around Danforth’s shoulders and set about mixing a bowl of sour, tangy soap.

  The barber began to shave, humming discordantly as he worked. Danforth despised the act. He always had a strange feeling that the blade would slip, by accident or design, blood spurting. Were it not for his dislike of beards he would reject the whole exercise happily. Yet he had come for another reason. ‘Master Barber, you seem to know a great deal of me. I wonder if I might ask you about some of the burgh’s business? Unless, of course, you are not privy to it ...’

  ‘Now that might depend on the business,’ said the barber, careful not to be drawn too easily. Danforth cursed inwardly. He had been hoping for a stupider man. ‘Now o’ private matters I say nothing.’

  ‘I was thinking on matters now public. What know you of this young lass who has been murdered?’

  ‘Old Brody’s daughter? Oh, that’s a sorry tale.’

  ‘Do you think her father her killer?’

  ‘Do you not, sir?’ The old eyes glittered. Danforth merely tilted his head back to let the man at his throat. ‘Och, it may be so. Though in truth that girl had many men after her. The pretty ones always do.’

  ‘Men of what nature?’

  ‘Men o’ every nature. Some even o’ the better sort. Or as like to the better sort as we have in a wee town.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes indeed, sir. Are you sure I cannot leave a little beard on your neck?’

  ‘No. Which men have you in mind?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, a conspiratorial look on his face. ‘I shan’t name names nor point no fingers, but there’s a fellow who isn’t too far from the keys in a certain office in the burgh, sir. A fellow with a red beard, in here for a trim often enough. Never kept his mouth closed about the looks of young Kate Brody, that one. Though I shan’t say nothing about that, save she was too young and too fair to look at that great lump.’

  Logan, thought Danforth: the repellent burgh gaoler who had spoken of Kate Brody as nothing but a body. Somehow there was little to be surprised about in the man being a lecherous bawd. ‘I think I know the fellow,’ he said, realising he must play the game and abide by its rules. ‘He is not a married man, I think?’

  ‘No, though not for lack o’ trying. He’d try and force the affections o’ any maiden, and think them his due because of his station.’

  ‘This man forces himself upon women?’ Danforth’s voice had turned sharp; he had not meant it.

  ‘Now I didn’t say that, sir. I say only that he thinks highly of himself – he reckons himself a fine catch to any lassie, rich or poor, fair or uncomely. You know what some men are like when they fancy they have some authority and wealth. It addles him the more that no lass has ever shown herself inclined to him. He must feel himself a grand baker with a tray o’ freshly made pies, yet every hungry customer turns up their nose and strolls past him.’ He licked his mottled lips. Danforth could see Logan, puffed up, believing himself deserving of women and entitled to press his suit. It was not pleasant. Disappointed men could be desperate men. Savageness could be the result of their bitterness.

  ‘I do. Was there any talk of the girl having a lover in the burgh? Some gentlemen or lad with whom she might have taken up?’

  ‘You think a lover may have tired o’ her, sir?’ Danforth bit his tongue. He was tiring of the man
answering his questions with questions. It was irritating.

  ‘I cannot say. I am no baillie.’

  ‘Yet your mind runs on the matter?’

  ‘It is natural.’

  ‘That’s so, sir. There. What do you think?’ He had finished shaving. Danforth, for the first time, looked in to the mirror. He was surprised. How long had it been, he wondered, since he had looked at himself? For weeks, or perhaps longer, he had been content to button and lace himself without benefit of a looking glass, confident that experience would turn him out presentably. His only glimpses of his reflection had been the fleeting, distorted images allowed by water and the occasional spoon. It was a shock to see a man older than his twenty-nine years looking back, even without the beard growth. His cheeks had hollowed and his fair hair had grown thick. He looked sad and solemn. He nodded at himself. ‘That is well done of you, Master Barber. Your work pleases me.’ He looked quickly down and fumbled for coins. ‘What is the reputation of the monks in the burgh?’ he asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.