The Abbot's Agreement (19 page)

“Your penalty must be severe,” the abbot said.

“My guilt has encompassed me,” Brother Adam replied. “I seek a rigorous penance to make me pure again.”

“Very well. It is your due, and you shall have it,” Abbot Thurstan whispered, then fell silent.

The abbot did not speak for some time, whether considering Brother Adam’s punishment or harboring his strength I could not tell.

“You will be excluded until Ascension Day, and receive only
bread and water during that time. Each Friday, before chapter, you will confess your sin anew and receive twenty stripes upon your back.”

I thought the monk might rebel at this severe chastisement. He did not. He knelt beside the abbot’s bed.

“I do not resent this discipline. It will purge my sin. I welcome the correction.”

Brother Adam had barely finished this affirmation when Abbot Thurstan wheezed and shuddered. His back stiffened, and his breath seemed to stop. His mouth fell open, his eyes closed, then his chest began to rise and fall again.

Brother Adam stood and looked to me. “He is near to death,” he said. There was panic in his voice. “You heard the penance he required of me.”

“Aye, I did.”

“You must make it known to my brothers. I must be cleansed of my sin.”

“I will do so… but I have a demand of you also. I cannot pardon you of any sin, but the Lord Christ will surely look with favor upon a man who assists those who seek to see justice done.”

“What is it you wish?”

Before I could reply Abbot Thurstan coughed and his body trembled under the blanket. The monk and I gave our attention to the dying man, his question and my need both forgotten.

“He spoke true,” I said. “He may see the Lord Christ before lauds.”

“The brothers must be assembled,” Brother Adam said, “to keep vigil and read from the psalter.”

“I dismiss you. Call the monks from their slumber.”

I soon discovered how approaching death in a monastery is announced. A few moments after Brother Adam departed the chamber I heard a series of loud, rapid blows seemingly delivered against some door. I learned later that Brother Adam had taken a staff and pounded with it upon the cloister door, this being the accustomed method of making approaching death known to all who reside in an abbey.

A few moments later I heard numerous footsteps shuffling in the corridor outside the abbot’s chamber door, which, in haste, Brother Adam had neglected to close after his departure. I thought briefly of retreating to the abbot’s closet, but decided such evasion would be only a temporary escape from discovery. Of the monks who knew of my presence in the abbey at least one would likely tell others.

Monks crowded into the chamber. Most looked to the abbot’s bed first when they entered, but soon turned to see who it was who stood against a wall in a dark corner. If these brothers were surprised by my attendance upon their abbot they hid it well. None stared openly at me. Rather, they returned their silent gaze to Abbot Thurstan.

When all were present I heard a monk speak. This was, I learned later, the precentor. With Prior Philip away and his abbot near death, responsibility for shepherding his abbot from this world to the next now devolved upon this monk.

He directed his fellows to leave the chamber, explaining that Abbot Thurstan must be shriven, and that he would call them back when the work was done. I retreated to the closet and shut the door. This was evidently distant enough for the precentor, for he watched me enter the closet and said nothing. After a brief time I heard him go to the chamber door and recall his brothers. I left the closet and rejoined the monks. The precentor assigned two monks to sit with Abbot Thurstan and read to him from the psalter. Two others were appointed to replace these in two hours, and two others would perform the task after lauds.

The bench was conveniently near to the abbot’s bed, so the monks assigned to read to Abbot Thurstan sat upon it to carry out the duty assigned to them. The single cresset was moved close upon a stand, and one by one the other monks left the chamber, awaiting recall when Abbot Thurstan died. I remained in the dark corner, watching. No monk paid me heed. More important considerations occupied their minds. This would aid my search for evidence, but after Abbot Thurstan was buried their thoughts
would drift back to a heretical bailiff. By that time I must have evidence of the prior’s guilt, or it was likely I would never have such proof.

The precentor was last to leave the chamber. Abbot Thurstan had recovered his wit enough that he saw and knew what was his condition. I heard him whisper for Brother Wakelin. Although his voice was weak, the precentor also heard this, since the readers had not yet begun the solace of the psalter.

He returned to Abbot Thurstan’s bed and bent low until his ear was a hand’s breadth from the abbot’s lips. I could not hear what he was told, but when his abbot was done speaking I heard him say, “I will do so.” And then he left the chamber.

I remained. ’Twas pleasant to hear the words read from the psalter, until I recalled the reason for the readers’ presence. I began to grow drowsy. I decided that no one would be much troubled if I sat in the abbot’s chair and rested my head upon his desk. And indeed, the monks who read to Abbot Thurstan paid me no heed.

I must have fallen to sleep. The next thing I knew, one of the monks had stood and opened the chamber door. Its hinges awakened me. The remaining monk continued to read.

A few moments later, through the open chamber door, I again heard the vigorous thumping of a staff upon the cloister door. A short time earlier the din had called the monks to their dying abbot. I thought it likely it would do so again, and that it would be best not to be found with my feet under the abbot’s desk, even if he had no further need of it. So when the monks again entered the chamber I had resumed my place in the dark corner.

I am half a head taller than most men, so could see over the monks who were crowding into the chamber. The precentor motioned to a monk who carried a wooden bucket, and the fellow proceeded to empty the bucket’s contents upon the planks of the chamber floor. Cold ashes poured from the bucket.

Another monk then laid sackcloth upon the ashes, then two others drew back Abbot Thurstan’s blanket and lifted his frail body from the bed. They placed him upon the sackcloth, then two
other monks began to read from the psalter again. But I believe the words did Abbot Thurstan no comfort. He yet lived, but was no longer sensible. I heard the death rattle in his throat.

The grey light of a November dawn was becoming visible through the chamber windows when Abbot Thurstan died. I could see nothing of this, for the monks of the house crowded near to him, and he was upon the floor. The precentor had knelt, then I saw him stand and announce the death.

He then called Brother Theodore and bid him approach the cresset. To the assembled monks he said, “Abbot Thurstan required of me this night that a copy of his letter to Bishop Bokyngham be read to you upon his departure from this life. Brother Theodore has it.”

The monks turned as one to the abbot’s clerk, and there was silence but for the shuffling of feet upon planks as monks shifted their place the better to see and hear Brother Theodore.

Before the clerk could speak the church bell began to ring. The sacrist had departed the chamber to announce to the lay brothers and the village that there was this night a death at Eynsham Abbey.

When the bell fell silent Brother Theodore explained that he held in his hand a copy of the letter which even then Prior Philip was delivering to Bishop Bokyngham.

Mouths opened in astonishment as the clerk read of Prior Philip’s part in Abbot Thurstan’s injury. When the letter concluded with the abbot’s nomination of Brother Gerleys to the abbacy all heads turned to a far wall and there I saw the novice-master and his charges. The chamber had been so crowded that I had not before noticed them. The application of a stout staff against the cloister door had awakened even those who slept far from the door, in the novices’ chamber.

In such circumstances ’tis common for a dying abbot to nominate several possible successors and allow the brothers to choose among them. I saw a few of the monks whisper to each other, but most heard the nomination with little expression that I could see, as if the proposal was expected and acceptable.

“Now ’tis time for lauds,” the precentor said. “Brother Jocelyn, Brother William, remain here with Abbot Thurstan.”

The monks filed from the chamber but for the two who had been assigned to keep vigil over their abbot’s corpse. They abandoned the bench and sat cross-legged upon the floor in a sign of respect for Abbot Thurstan.

When the celebration of lauds was completed some monks, I knew, would, upon the precentor’s command, return to the chamber to prepare Abbot Thurstan for burial. This would include washing the corpse. I had no wish to be present for this. It seemed a sacrilege that I should look upon the abbot’s naked, shrunken body. And I had questions for Brother Herbert. I silently left the chamber and walked in the half light of dawn to the guest house.

I
found Arthur seated before the hearth, enjoying the blaze, and Brother Herbert stretched out upon my bed. To my questioning frown Arthur said, “Has a headache.”

“Rise,” I said to the monk. He did so slowly, and as he did the firelight revealed the cause of his discomfort. His left cheek was puffy, his upper lip split and bloody, and his left eye was soon to be swollen shut. His visage resembled Arthur’s after his confrontation with Squire Ralph.

“Didn’t fancy stayin’ here ’till you’d had words with ’im,” Arthur said.

“What happened?”

“Brought ’im in here, as you said to do. Didn’t much want to come. Fire had burned low, so we’d been ’ere but a short while when I put more logs on the fire. Whilst I did so ’e come up behind me, seized yon poker, an’ would’ve whacked me aside of me ’ead had I not been too quick for ’im.

“First blow missed, but ’e swung again an’ caught me in the ribs. Made me angry, that did. I smacked ’im, an’ ’e dropped the poker an’ took to your bed.”

“Sleep long, did he?”

“Should be well rested,” Arthur said.

“Did he take to the bed, or did you take him?”

“Little of both.”

“Brother Adam,” I said to the swaying monk, “has told all. You, he, Brother Guibert, and several lay brothers are of the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit, and Prior Philip is your adept.”

Brother Herbert opened his mouth as if to speak.

“Do not deny it,” I said. “Brother Adam has confessed his sin and welcomes the penance assigned him to cleanse his soul.”

The monk’s mouth closed, as nearly as could be with half of his upper lip swollen the size of an onion.

“There are yet some matters about which I am unclear,” I said.

“Ask Brother Adam,” Brother Herbert mumbled.

“I have. His remorse for his sin weighs heavily upon him, but there are a few things I need to know which he could not tell me. Perhaps you will be able to do so.”

“Why should I speak to you of abbey matters?”

“Because your abbot assigned me the work of discovering who murdered John Whytyng, and because you would prefer not to hang or burn.”

This caught his attention, but he was not yet cowed. “The novice’s death has naught to do with me or Prior Philip or any other you imagine to be of some brotherhood. And Abbot Thurstan no longer governs here. I heard the bell toll for his death. Prior Philip now rules Eynsham Abbey.”

“He might, but for two things,” I said. “He is on the road to Lincoln, and the letter he carries tells Bishop Bokyngham of the reasons he should not be made abbot, and nominates Brother Gerleys to the post.”

The monk seemed ready to spit to show his disdain at this information, and perhaps would have, but the condition of his lips allowed only a drooling rivulet down his chin. ’Twas most unseemly.

“Few of the obedientiaries are among the heretics of the abbey,” I continued. “So Brother Adam says. Not the sacrist nor the precentor nor the cellarer. Only the infirmarer. You should consider your position. Brother Adam regrets his past allegiance. If Brother Gerleys is confirmed as abbot of this house, and the bishop’s court turns you over to the Sheriff of Oxford to receive the king’s justice, you will likely hang. A prior might escape, but a common monk has little influence.”

I said no more, but allowed Brother Herbert to consider my words in silence. ’Twas not the first time I had threatened the monk, but when I first spoke of the penalty he gave such peril little credence. Now, I believe that he did, and the thought caused
his shoulders to droop and his attitude to soften. The thought of hempen rope will often work such a change.

When the monk had had enough time to consider a possible future in the hands of the Sheriff of Oxford, I again spoke.

“Brother Adam said that Prior Philip did not seek him in the night a fortnight or so past. The prior had some man’s aid. If not Brother Adam, then you or Brother Guibert. If Brother Gerleys is confirmed as your new abbot ’twill go easier for you if you confess all.”

The monk sat silently, weighing the implications of my words. “Brother Prior has never awakened me in the night,” he said, “not a fortnight past nor any other time.”

“Have you heard Brother Guibert speak of such?”

“Nay… will you indeed send me to the bishop’s court and the sheriff?”

Brother Herbert had seemed immune to threats, but I saw now ’twas not so. Perhaps his imagination was lacking, and unlike Brother Adam he could not readily visualize himself being led to a scaffold. Until now.

“That will be your new abbot’s decision,” I replied. “And his choice will depend upon your abandoning heresy and giving aid in rooting it out of the abbey.”

“Prior Philip said we would soon be numerous enough that we would rule the abbey. Henry and Osbert and John would join our brotherhood, he said. But John is dead. We must seek more novices, the prior said, and be patient. Perhaps in five years, sooner if he became abbot, we might possess the abbey.”

“And what then? The bishop and his archdeacon would yet oversee Eynsham Abbey.”

“Bishop Bokyngham has never visited the abbey, and archdeacons can be bribed.”

This was no doubt true, but if the monks of St. Mary’s Abbey of Eynsham elected Brother Gerleys their new abbot, Prior Philip’s scheme would fail. A prior may have enough influence that he will not hang for his heresy, but for doing murder even Holy Church will demand some penalty.

“Your brothers are preparing for Abbot Thurstan’s funeral,” I said. “Go to the precentor and explain your absence at lauds, then seek Brother Gerleys and beg his pardon for your heresy. When he is made abbot he will assign your penance. Now go.”

Brother Herbert did not hesitate, although he did seem unsteady as he walked to the guest house door and passed from view.

“That prior may ’ave done for the novice on ’is own,” Arthur said, “but someone helped haul the corpse to the wood. Think it was the infirmarer, then?”

“Him, or a lay brother.”

Before the sacrist rang the bell for terce I questioned Brother Guibert. I examined the infirmarer sharply, but although I left him also with the hint of rope about his neck, and gained an admission of knowledge of the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit, he was adamant that he had never left the dormitory in the night to assist Prior Philip. I had no way to prove otherwise.

Lay brothers of the abbey reside in their own dormitory. When Eynsham Abbey was larger this must have been a crowded space. Even now a lay brother who stretched upon awakening might give his neighbor a knock. It seemed likely that if Prior Philip roused any of his three followers among the lay brothers some others would know of it.

Prime was well past when I sought the lay brothers’ dormitory, so most were about their day’s work. But as I entered the room an ancient lay brother tottered to his feet and began a wavering path toward a door at the far end of the narrow chamber.

He must have been afflicted with the disease of the ears, for although I scuffed my feet against the rushes and coughed loudly, yet the old man continued his halting pace, paying no heed to the noisy fellow behind him.

I tapped the feeble lay brother upon a shoulder to gain his attention and nearly caused him to collapse upon an adjacent bed. Had I not caught and steadied him I think he might have done so, or pitched headlong upon the rushes.

Cots lined the narrow dormitory, and I guided the lay brother to one of these and invited him to sit upon it.

“Eh?” he replied.

I pointed to the bed, sat upon it, and patted the blanket next to me. He understood the gesture and collapsed beside me.

“Three lay brothers,” I said loudly, “accompanied Prior Philip to Lincoln. Where are their cots? Can you show me?”

“Cats?” he said. “No cats ’ere. Some in stables. Catch mice an’ rats there.”

“Cots,” I repeated, louder.

“Cots? Whose cots?”

I repeated the question, and the fellow pointed a wizened finger toward the far corner of the chamber.

“The three who travel with Prior Philip, their beds adjoin each other?”

“Aye.”

“Where do you sleep?”

I knew that unless I wished to ask each question twice, I must speak forcefully. The old man heard, but so did another who entered the dormitory as I spoke.

The elderly lay brother pointed to the bed where I had first seen him upon entering the chamber and said, “Just there. Who are you, an’ why do you ask who sleeps where?”

“Aye,” the newcomer said in a hostile tone. “Why do you trouble Aylmer?”

“I am Hugh de Singleton, bailiff to Lord Gilbert Talbot at Bampton. Abbot Thurstan assigned me to discover who murdered the novice John Whytyng.”

“Oh… ’eard about you. Too bad about the lad. But how can Aylmer help you?”

“The novice was slain in the night, near to the east fishpond. Some man, from village or abbey, found him there and did murder.”

This lay brother could hear my questions without my being required to shout in his ear. For this I was much pleased.

“Aylmer,” I said, “sleeps there,” and I pointed to his bed. “Who sleeps in the far corner?”

I pointed to the bed next to those Aylmer had indicated as the sleeping spaces of the lay brothers now accompanying Prior Philip on his way to Lincoln.

“So happens,” the newcomer said, “I do. What is that to you?” The hostile tone had returned to the man’s voice.

“The three who sleep near and across from your bed, did any man come to them, one or all three, in the night, a fortnight past?”

“Don’t know. I’d be asleep myself, wouldn’t I?”

“You never heard any of these three leave his bed in the night?”

“Well… some do. To seek the privy. Need to meself, usually.”

“And is a cresset kept burning here, as in the monks’ dormitory, so that a man can see his way?”

“Aye.”

“But none of the three who travel this day to Lincoln have risen in the night because some other man came to them and awakened them?”

“If so, the fellow did not awaken me.”

If the lay brother whose bed was closest to those who were of the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit did not hear any of the three rise in the night, it was unlikely that any other lay brother whose cot was more distant from the three would have done so. I was thwarted. My design had been to find the man who aided Prior Philip, monk or lay brother, in transporting John Whytyng’s corpse to a distant corner of the abbey grounds, and threaten him with the king’s justice until he told of the prior’s felony. I had failed.

In a few days the incensed prior would return to Eynsham Abbey. He would soon after learn that a heretic bailiff was partly responsible for his troubles. Abbot Thurstan was dead. Who of the monks would believe a bailiff over their prior – and a bailiff accused of heresy by Brother Guibert – that the prior had cast
Abbot Thurstan down the stairs? The abbot had written of this to Bishop Bokyngham, and Brother Theodore had read a copy of the letter to the monks, but I had no doubt that Prior Philip had wit enough to explain how Abbot Thurstan had been mistaken, and would likely blame me for the abbot’s error.

And if I accused the prior of the heresy of the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit, who then would believe me? Would Henry Fuller summon enough courage to testify of Prior Philip’s demand, when the prior might control his destiny? Would the monks of Eynsham Abbey abide by Abbot Thurstan’s wishes and select Brother Gerleys as their next abbot? Prior Philip would disavow knowledge of the Brotherhood of the Free Spirit, which would be no sin, according to the heresy.

Prior Philip had his own private chamber on the upper level of the west range, near to the abbot’s chamber, where rank permitted him to sleep undisturbed by the snores of other monks. I was so baffled that I decided to enter the chamber while the monks were assembled in the church for terce. Perhaps I might find some incriminating evidence there. I returned to the guest house, told Arthur of this desperate plan, and sat upon my bed to await the bell calling the monks to the office.

We did not wait long, and when the tolling ceased we walked through the empty refectory to the stairs leading to the upper level of the west range.

Monks have no need of locks, for they are to own no private possessions. Yet the door to the prior’s chamber was locked. Perhaps this was a clue. Was there something within his chamber that Prior Philip did not want other men to know of? Or was the lock there because, like many Benedictines, he had strayed far from the Rule and owned goods valuable enough to be worth stealing?

I was ready to turn away from the prior’s door, secured as it was against entry, when Arthur placed a hand upon my arm, grinned, and drew his dagger. Arthur is a man of many skills. I learn of more of them each day. He inserted the point of his dagger into the lock, twisted it about until he heard a click, then turned the latch and pushed open the door.

Prior Philip’s chamber was not so large or well furnished as the abbot’s chamber, but was equipped with a bed with a thick mattress and a large chest. I wondered when I saw the chest what possessions a Benedictine would own which would require such a box.

I opened the unlocked chest and investigated its contents. Two black habits of finest wool were there, three cowls, and three silver objects: a spoon, a platter, and a small salver. What use these might be to a monk I know not. Over all of these was laid a fur-lined coat.

I had yet in my pouch the tuft of fur I had plucked from a thorn a fortnight past. I set this bit of pelt upon the fur lining of the prior’s coat and was dismayed. The fur I had found near to the place where John Whytyng’s corpse had lain was chestnut brown in color, perhaps from a fox. A rabbit’s grey fur had kept the prior warm. The fur patch from my pouch was surely not torn from this coat.

Arthur saw me staring disconsolately at the open chest and peered into it from behind me. “Silver?” he said, assuming that my dismay was due to discovering that a Benedictine, and a prior at that, refused to live in harmony with the Rule.

“Aye, silver, and a fur-lined coat.”

“We have our man, then,” Arthur said.

I did not reply, but pointed to the reddish-brown tuft I had laid upon the grey rabbit fur.