The Abbot's Agreement (4 page)

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 not 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.”

“Mayhap he went into the water to escape the man who attacked ’im,” Arthur said.

“That also,” I agreed.

There are two fishponds at Eynsham Abbey, one to the west, the other to the east of abbey precincts. Monks, or more likely lay brothers and abbey villeins, had created these a century past by diverting the flow of a small brook. The ponds are not large, but the abbey is a small house so there are few monks to feed.

Since it was closest to the guest house, we circled the west pond first. I sought some sign of struggle; broken reeds, perhaps, or footprints in the mud where earth and water meet, where no man would be likely to tread. I found nothing.

The east pond is past the monks’ dormitory and near to where the brook now flows. Beyond the brook is a wood, which extends to the south and west as far as the place where birds discovered John Whytyng’s corpse.

It was on the far side of the east pond, where bare oak and beech limbs cast interlacing shadows to the edge of the pond, that I saw the broken reeds. As I saw them I heard Arthur say, “When did it last rain?”

“What?”

“Rain,” he said. “Was it Wednesday last week?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Look there… footprints in the mud. Too dry an’ crusty for a man to leave footprints now.”

The broken reeds had so caught my attention that I had overlooked the footprints in the mud which Arthur saw. And they were not deep. My gaze followed Arthur’s extended arm and I saw that the footprints led to the place on the bank of the
pond where I had noticed the broken reeds. I put an arm out to stop Arthur, who was intent upon standing over the footprints for a better view.

“Stay back,” I said. “We must not trample upon this place. There may be something to learn from these marks.”

Arthur drew back as if a viper had appeared among the reeds. We stood where grass covered the bank. The footprints he had found extended only through a narrow, muddy section of the bank between the grass and the reeds.

I approached the footprints cautiously. It seemed to me at first glance that two people had left the marks. One set was large, nearly as large as my own shoes would leave behind should I step in such a place. The other footprints were small, made by a youth, I thought, or perhaps a woman.

John Whytyng was buried, so there was no way to learn how large the lad’s feet might have been. But he was nearly a full-grown man. Surely too large to have left behind the smaller of the footprints. Perhaps these marks were made by a father and son poaching fish from the abbey ponds, and had nothing to do with the death of a novice. I spoke so to Arthur, who nodded a silent assent.

Where the reeds were broken I saw the larger set of footprints slide down the bank toward the water, as if the maker had lost his footing and slipped into the pond. I was near to concluding that my supposition of poachers was the likely explanation for the footprints and broken reeds when I noticed that the larger set of footprints seemed of slightly different sizes, as if before me were the marks of three trespassers on abbey property, not two.

I knelt beside the reed bed and broke off a dried shoot. From this I snapped another length of reed until I had a segment the length of the largest muddy print. I then placed the reed over the other footprints. Just as I had supposed, the larger prints were not of the same size! What I had thought were the footprints of one man and a youth were in fact the marks of two men and a lad. It was the maker of the smaller of the large footprints who had
lost his footing and carved a sliding path through the mud of the bank and into the pond.

Three poachers? A father, older son, and child, all seeking fish from the abbey’s pond? This seemed likely, and I was about to turn from the place and resume circumnavigation of the pond when I saw the boot.

I did not know the object to be a boot when I first saw it. Light from a watery sun cast a beam through the branches of the trees which bordered the brook and pond, and in the shaft of sunlight I saw something illuminated just below the surface of the water about two paces from the bank. Arthur had watched silently as I measured footprints with the broken reed, and now followed my puzzled gaze. He also saw the submerged object.

“What d’you suppose that is?” he said.

By the time he asked the question I had decided that the object was a shoe. Perhaps the poacher’s lad had lost it, sucked from his feet by the mire, when he slipped into the pond.

“’Tis a shoe, I think. Let’s find a downed limb in that wood and see if we can drag it to shore.”

Eynsham Abbey’s tenants had thoroughly gleaned the wood of downed branches for their winter fuel. Nothing thicker than my little finger nor longer than my forearm was to be found. I was not fond of the idea of wading into the cold water to retrieve the shoe. I might have required Arthur to do it, and he would have, without protest, but rather than demand this of him I sent him to the abbey stables for a rake.

“And tell the lay brother who keeps the stable to tie a horseshoe to the rake to weight it, so it will sink and we may use it to fetch the shoe from its place.”

I had heard the sacrist ring the smaller bell to call the monks to prime while Arthur and I began to search the east pond. Now, as he returned with the rake, the bell rang for terce.

I took the rake from Arthur and thrust it into the pond. A moment later I drew a boot to the bank – for boot it was, and no shoe. Another thing not common to a fishpond was also entangled with the tines: a small pouch.

The sack was made of black woolen cloth, much like the fabric from which Benedictines stitch their habits. It was closed with a length of hempen cord so thin it might better be called string. This twine was tied tight to close the pouch, and inside the sodden bag I felt some oddly shaped object.

Because the cord was soaked it had swollen and was difficult to loosen. When the knot eventually came free and I was able to open the sack, I drew from it a crude key. Arthur, who had picked up the boot, peered at the key and spoke. He voiced my own question.

“What lock does that key work, you think? An’ why is it found here? An’ look at this boot. No poacher ever wore such a boot.”

I transferred my attention to the boot, and Arthur held it before me as to emphasize his appraisal. He spoke true. The boot was of finest-quality leather, well sewn, and it had not been long in the pond, for it showed no sign of decay. On one side of the boot was a small rip in the leather, which had been carefully stitched closed.

Water had issued from John Whytyng’s lips when he lay upon his bier. I had found him shoeless at the fringe of the abbey’s wood. Here in the abbey fishpond was a boot, and sign that some man had slipped into the water. Had he drowned here, and been drawn from the pond by those whose footprints were also visible upon the muddy bank?

John Whytyng had been stabbed. Was it here that the attack took place? Did the novice plunge into the pond to escape? Was he so near death from the wounds that he could not save himself, and filled his lungs with water as he tried to breathe?

If this was so, who stood upon this bank and watched Whytyng die? Did the same man, or men, or man and boy, pull him from the pond and set him down where the birds and I found him? Why do so? Surely his corpse would have been quickly found if he remained in the pond, but sooner or later he would be found where he was left, at the fringe of the wood. Why leave him there? Why not hide the corpse where it would not be found, if it was to be moved from the fishpond?

Here were many questions and no answers. I was not even sure that John Whytyng had met his death here among the broken reeds at the edge of the pond.

While these thoughts occupied my mind Arthur studied the boot, then bent to the dried mud to compare it to the prints there. ’Twas a match to the footprints of him who had slipped from bank to pond.

I told Arthur of my thoughts, and the questions this discovery had raised in my mind.

“If the folks what did away with the lad murdered ’im here, an’ ’e tried to escape, where did they draw ’im from the water?”

Arthur’s point was well taken. ’Twas plain to see the long, sliding path of a foot as it entered the pond, but no place was there any sign that some man had been dragged dead from the water.

“Let’s seek some other place where such a thing might have happened,” I said.

We walked north no more than five paces when we saw more broken reeds. “Here is the place,” I said. “See how the rushes are laying broken toward the bank, rather than toward the water. Something was drawn from the pond here, not toward it.”

Grass here covered the bank, so that no footprints were to be seen. But I had no doubt that the large and small footprints left in the mud five paces away would also be found here but for the sod.

One shoe, or boot, looks much like another, unless it is made for some gentleman of great wealth. Nevertheless, I thought it possible that John Whytyng’s companions might recognize the sodden boot we had found in the pond because of the tear. If indeed it had belonged to Whytyng. I took the boot from Arthur and he followed as I led the way to the novices’ chamber, where I thought they had likely returned after terce.

Brother Gerleys led his charges into the chamber as we approached. The three looked up as Arthur and I followed them through the door, and as one their eyes went to the boot I held
out before me. I saw Henry Fuller’s mouth drop open and his eyes widen when he saw what was in my hand.

The lad drew in his breath sharply, so that Brother Gerleys and Osbert turned from me to Henry.

“This,” I said, “was found in the east fishpond. Do you recognize it?”

Henry’s mouth opened and closed like a fish drawn from the pond and tossed upon the bank. He finally found words.

“’Tis John’s,” he gulped. Osbert nodded agreement.

“How can you be sure?” I asked.

The novice pointed to the boot. “See there, where a tear has been repaired. I watched John stitch the rip not a fortnight past. We’d been set to work cutting rushes to replace those covering the floor of the refectory. John swung his scythe and the point went through his boot. Angry about it, he was. His father’d bought them for him before he came to us, just after St. John’s Day.”

“Abbot Thurstan allowed him to keep them,” Brother Gerleys said.

Osbert pointed to his feet. “Henry and I wear shoes… nothing so fine as John’s boots.”

Brother Gerleys also looked to his own feet, and I saw below his habit and trousers a pair of well-worn shoes which would do little to warm his feet in the months to come. John Whytyng’s father must be a man of influence for his son to be permitted to keep such fine boots.

“John was stabbed,” Brother Gerleys said. “How came his boot to be in the fishpond, and where is the other?”

“You told me yesterday that water issued from John Whytyng’s mouth,” I said. Brother Gerleys nodded. “’Tis my belief that he was pierced while standing upon the bank of the pond. There are footprints in the mud which reveal that three souls, one small and perhaps but a child, were there at one time some days past, before the mud dried.

“One of these plunged a dagger into the novice’s back three times. I believe he fell into the water, or leaped there to escape his assailant, and in the water he died.”

“His other boot, then, is somewhere in the pond?” Brother Gerleys asked.

“No doubt.”

I handed the boot to the novice-master, then withdrew the crude bag and key from my own pouch.

“This also came from the pond when I used a rake to draw the boot to shore. Was it John’s?”

Brother Gerleys and the novices studied the pouch and key and shook their heads.

“What novice would need a key?” Brother Gerleys said. “Monks own nothing and so have no need of keys to lock away possessions; nor novices, either.”

“What locks are found in the abbey?” I asked.

The novice-master absent-mindedly scratched his chin, where several days’ stubble was flowering into what would become a beard if a razor was not soon applied.