Bloodstone (18 page)

‘The Genoese tried to use them at Crecy,’ Mahant explained after a particularly skilful throw. ‘Clumsy and unreliable, they were. We have our war bows, our quivers, yard long shafts and bracers, none of us would trust such a weapon.’ He clapped his hands against the cold and stared down at Brokersby putting up the pins.

‘Why these questions, Brother? We are glad you joined us yet you seem agitated. Has something happened?’

Athelstan shook his head. He made his excuses and wandered off into Mortival meadow. The river mist was thickening muffling even the cawing of the rooks and the strident calls of the many magpies who flashed in a blur of black and white. The grass was still frozen, the ground hard as iron. Athelstan walked down to the watergate. He paused where Hyde’s corpse had been found and studied the bloody spots and flecks he had noticed earlier. He opened the watergate and followed the path he’d taken previously. The smattering of blood along the quayside had disappeared. Athelstan stopped, staring out over the river; here and there misty glows of moving light showed where barges and boats made their way through the gloom. Cries and shouts echoed eerily. Athelstan listened for other sounds. He heard a clatter and whirled round, moving away from the edge of the quayside, but the noise was only the gate creaking in the strong breeze. ‘I wonder,’ Athelstan murmured, recalling what he’d learnt. He made his way back across Mortival meadow and into the abbey precincts where he asked directions from a wizened old lay brother. Chattering like a sparrow on the branch, the monk took him round to the barbican, an ancient, slate-roofed squat tower which served as the armoury. Athelstan pushed the door open; the ground floor was deserted. He glanced around. Weapons glimmered in the glow of a tallow candle, all neatly stacked in barrels and war chests: swords, daggers, halberds, a few maces, war bows, quivers of arrows, shirts of chain-mail, conical helmets, small targes, shields and, hanging on wall-hooks, a range of arbalests and crossbows. Athelstan made his way in. The room smelt of oil, iron and fire smoke. He stood, warming his fingers over a chafing dish, listening to the silence. The air was thick with dust. Athelstan sneezed loudly and a young lay brother, eyes heavy with sleep, tumbled down the stairs leading to the upper storey. The monk stopped halfway down, peering at Athelstan.

‘Ah, er, what  . . .?’ He rubbed his smutty face and came down. ‘I was asleep. You’re the abbot’s guest, aren’t you? What do you  . . .?’

‘I have a question for you.’ Athelstan smiled. ‘Weapons are distributed from here?’

‘Only with the prior’s approval.’

‘But someone could come here when you are otherwise engaged and help themselves?’

‘But who would do that in an abbey?’

‘Have any weapons been recently distributed or taken?’

‘Oh no, just the execution party who escorted the felon down to the watergate. They carried staves.’

‘Has anyone taken an arbalest?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure? Have you taken a tally?’ Athelstan patted the young man on the arm. ‘Would you please make careful search and tell me if anything is missing? I suspect there is.’ With the lay brother’s assurances ringing like a chant, Athelstan left the barbican. He continued on past different brothers now hurrying to prepare the sanctuary for the Sunday Masses. Athelstan decided to wander, observe and reflect. He found himself out in the main garden and stood watching the wavering wisps of mist. Were the souls of the departed like that? he wondered. Did Hanep and Hyde still hover here unwilling to journey into the light? Did they press his soul? Did they see him as their avenger? He walked across the grass and stood at the entrance to the great maze. The privet hedges, all prickly and leaf-shorn at the height of winter, rose like walls of sharp points at least eight feet high. The trackway into the maze was pebble-dashed, deliberately uncomfortable for all those who wished to crawl on hands and knees to the Pity in the centre. A fascinating puzzle, a place of mystery with its labyrinthine branching paths, Athelstan was tempted. He entered, stopped, then murmured a prayer. He should be more prudent. A twig snapped, sharp and abrupt. Athelstan turned and strolled quickly back. He panicked. The entrance was not where it should be. He paused, remembering how he’d turned left coming in so he must always walk to the right on his return. He did so and sighed with relief when he glimpsed a stretch of frost-gripped lawn. He pulled up his cowl, strolled out then stifled a scream as two figures abruptly emerged from the mist.

‘Good day, Brother Athelstan, we glimpsed your black and white robes.’

Athelstan bowed as Eleanor Remiet and Isabella Velours approached. Both women wore thick woollen cloaks, ermine-lined hoods and elegant gloves which stretched past the wrist.

‘Ladies,’ Athelstan pushed his hands up the sleeves of his gown, ‘I have tempted the cold enough. I need some warmth.’

They walked back into the cloisters and crossed the yard into the buttery where fresh bread was being sliced for the waiting platters from the refectory. Isabella, gossiping about this and that, thankfully fell silent as she crammed her mouth with bread smeared with honey. Athelstan chose his slice holding the cold, grey gaze of Eleanor Remiet, who’d hardly spoken a word.

‘You’ve been here since when?’ Athelstan broke the uncomfortable silence.

‘Since Advent began. We will return to my house in Havering once Epiphany has come and gone, though Abbot Walter says Christmas is not over until the Baptism of the Lord and the commencement of the Hilary Term.’

Athelstan questioned her about her life at Havering. Eleanor’s replies were quick and curt. She told him how Isabella was the daughter of the abbot’s only beloved sibling, namely herself. Isabella’s father had died so she, Eleanor, had become her official guardian. Athelstan sensed the woman’s deep dislike of him from her clipped tone, the way her eyes kept looking him up and down.

‘You’re not overfond of priests or friars, are you, Mistress?’

‘Brother Athelstan, once you’ve met one you have met them all.’

‘Except for Uncle Walter,’ Isabella broke in and trilled volubly about the gifts she expected at Christmas.

Athelstan listened and wondered how a young woman could be so spoilt and empty-headed. A pampered life, Athelstan reflected, but Eleanor Remiet is different. The woman’s face was harsh and severe, yet Athelstan could detect, beneath the layers of age and hardship how, in her youth, Eleanor must have been a most remarkable beauty.

‘You’ll stay here long, Brother?’

‘I hope not.’

‘You should go.’

‘Is that a warning?’

‘Yes, Brother.’ She divided a piece of bread with her long, delicate fingers. ‘It is a warning. This is a field of blood. We are in the world of men.’ She paused. Isabella rose and went across to help herself to ale from a barrel on a trestle near the door.

‘Isabella hardly hears what others say let alone understands,’ she remarked. ‘You be careful, Brother. The old soldiers who are being slaughtered here? Kilverby, whose fingers were in every juicy pie? They’ve all gone. The Passio Christi has disappeared.’ She popped a piece of honeyed bread into her mouth. ‘The root grows silently but eventually it erupts through the soil and harvest time always comes.’ She rose, brushing the crumbs from her cloak. ‘So yes, Brother, I think you should go before the evil flourishing here entangles you.’ She nodded brusquely and walked over to Isabella, now gossiping loudly with the lay brother who supervised the refectory.

Athelstan stood reflecting on what she’d said, finished his bread and left. He decided to stay in the precincts. The day was greying and the bells would soon toll for the next hour of divine office. He went across to the library and scriptorium; he stood just within the doorway revelling in the sights and smells. For Athelstan this was heaven. Shelves, lecterns and racks all crammed with books of every size bound in calfskin or leather. Capped candles, judicially placed, glittered in the polished oaken woodwork and silver chains kept precious volumes secured to their shelf or ledge. The windows on either side were sealed with thick painted glass, now clouded by the poor light though some colours still glowed, springing to life in the reflection from the candle flame. Down the centre of the scrubbed, pave-stoned floor ranged long tables interspersed by the occasional high stool and sloping desk where monks worked at copying or illuminating manuscripts drawn from a cluster of pigeon-hole boxes attached to the walls. Covered braziers, perforated with holes, exuded warmth and a sweet fragrance from the herb pouches disintegrating between the glowing coals. Other sweet odours, ravishing in the memories they provoked, mixed and swirled: ink, paper, paints, sandalwood, vellum freshly honed, wax soft and melting. A hive of learning, the scribes busy with pens or delicate brushes. Athelstan recalled his own days as a novice in the rare world of books, of cleaning a piece of vellum until it glowed white and innocent as a newly baptized soul.

‘Brother Athelstan?’ Richer was standing before him, his delicate, handsome face all concerned.

Athelstan blinked, shook his head and apologized. Richer demanded that he join him. He took Athelstan down past the tables, pointing out the different books and manuscripts: theological tracts by Aquinas, Anselm and Albert the Great; the writings of the early Fathers, Origen, Tertullian, Boethius and Eusebius. The abbey’s collection of Books of Hours bequeathed by the rich and powerful. The works of the Ancients: Aristotle, Plato, Cicero and Lactantius. By the time they’d reached the end of the library, Athelstan had recovered his wits. The distractions of that beautiful, well-endowed scholars’ paradise faded as he followed Richer into the scriptorium. The room was richly furnished with lecterns, shelves and pigeon boxes. Two glowing triptychs adorned either wall depicting St Jerome studying the Bible in his cave at Bethlehem. The far wall was dominated by a huge crucifix with a twisted figure of the crucified Christ beneath the shuttered window. Athelstan, however, was more concerned with the great desk littered with manuscripts and books. Richer had apparently pulled across large sheets of blank vellum together with a napkin from a nearby lavarium to hide what he’d been working on. Athelstan moved towards the table. Richer stepped quickly into his path.

‘Brother Athelstan, can I help you? I am very  . . .’ Richer, now visibly reluctant at the friar’s curiosity, relaxed as the abbey bell sounded the next hour of divine office. He tactfully shooed Athelstan back towards the door, voluble in his apologies and promises that Athelstan must return, when he would show him particular books and manuscripts. Indeed, was there, Richer asked, any work the Dominican would like to study? He’d heard about Athelstan’s absorption with the stars and St Fulcher possessed a number of valuable treatises by Aristotle and Ptolemy, as well as Friar Bacon’s musings? Athelstan smiled his thanks and left.

‘Now there’s a monk with a great deal to hide,’ Athelstan whispered to the carved face of a satyr hiding in the sculpted foliage at the top of a pillar in the passageway outside. ‘Oh, he has much to hide. As has Mistress Eleanor. She threatened me and wants me gone from here. Why? What does she hide?’

Athelstan returned to his own comfortable chamber. He did not attend divine office but recited the hours kneeling on a prie-dieu. Afterwards he laid out clean clothes borrowed from the good brothers for the morrow, looked at the readings for the Sunday Mass then lay on the bed letting his thoughts drift. Worries about St Erconwald’s, the whereabouts of Cranston, what he’d learnt that day and that sense of brooding danger as he walked this abbey. He fell into a deep sleep and, when he woke, glanced at the hour candle and groaned. Compline must be finished. The abbey was settling for the night. He was wondering if he could get something to eat from the kitchens when the bells began to clang warningly – not the usual measured peals but strident, proclaiming the tocsin. Athelstan grabbed a cloak, thrust his feet into his sandals and hastened out. Others, too, had been aroused. Torches flickered. Lanterns swung in the chilly blackness.

‘Fire, fire!’

Athelstan left the yard, following the lay brothers hurrying along the passageways into the courtyard before the main guest house. Few had yet reached the place. Athelstan immediately realized the fire was serious. The doors of the guest house had been flung open and smoke plumed out. Wenlock, Mahant and Osborne were there coughing and spluttering. Athelstan pushed his way though knocking aside restraining hands. A lay brother, a wet cloth across his nose and mouth, emerged from the smoke.

‘Brokersby’s chamber,’ he gasped. ‘God help the poor man. I cannot get him out.’

Athelstan seized the rag and entered. Smoke choked the corridor. He saw one door open; the near one was locked. Sheets of fire roared at the grille and the stout oak was beginning to buckle. Smoke scored Athelstan’s nose and mouth. Heat and the smell of burning oil closed in. He could do nothing. He retreated to cough and gasp with the rest in the clear night air.

‘The building is made of stone.’ Richer appeared out of the darkness. ‘I understand the door to where the fire started is locked.’ He turned to the assembled line of bucket carriers. ‘Go round,’ he ordered. ‘Force the windows. Use dry sand, not water, at least not yet.’

Marshalled by the sacristan, the lay brothers hurried off. Athelstan crossed to Wenlock and his companions.

‘What happened?’

‘Brother, we do not know. We were aroused by the smoke.’ Mahant pointed to Wenlock and Osborne. ‘They have chambers on the upper floor. Mine was next to poor Brokersby’s. I fell asleep until roused by the smoke and heat.’

‘The door?’

‘Brother, I hammered on it. The fire was already raging. I saw Brokersby slumped half off the bed. I pushed but the door was locked and bolted from the inside. Brokersby must have done that. I mean, since the other murders  . . .’

‘So you think this was murder?’

‘Heaven knows, Brother! Poor Brokersby! Well,’ Mahant turned back towards the smoke, ‘the least we can do is help.’

Athelstan walked away. He put his hand in the pocket of his cloak and drew out his Ave beads. He recited a Pater and three Aves even though he was distracted. Brokersby was dead. Athelstan recalled that locked door, the sheer ferocity of the flames and returned to his chamber, convinced the fire was no accident. Brokersby had been murdered.