The Lost Abbot (40 page)

‘We have been told that Nonton and Welbyrn regularly visited Lincoln.’ Michael took up the tale. ‘One of them must have laid hold of a die and brought it back to Peterborough.’

‘Counterfeiting is a capital crime,’ Bartholomew went on. ‘And Reginald would not have done it willingly. But he was coerced, perhaps on pain of being charged with killing his wife. The strain of his predicament almost certainly contributed to his death.’

‘It takes skill to manufacture coins,’ added Michael. ‘But one man was on hand to explain how it was done – Nonton, who was seconded to work in the Archbishop of York’s court for a year. Langelee saw him there.’

‘At the Mint,’ added Bartholomew. ‘York has one, as well as Lincoln. He—’

He broke off as Appletre snatched a knife from one of the archers and advanced with murder in his eyes.

There was little Bartholomew could do to defend himself when he was on the floor with two bows pointed at him. The archers smirked in anticipation of blood.

‘Do not do this, Appletre!’ cried Michael. ‘Think of your immortal soul.’

Appletre stopped abruptly. ‘True. I have heard there is not much singing in Hell.’

He dropped the blade and backed away, leaving both scholars and the archers gazing at him in astonishment. And Welbyrn thought
he
had been losing his mind, thought Bartholomew, deftly reaching out to snag the dagger when the archers’ bemused attention was on the precentor.

‘The granary is smouldering,’ Bartholomew said, glancing out of the window yet again. ‘You
must
sound the alarm. It could ignite at any moment, and if a spark lands on the hospital, Peterborough will lose its monks, bedesfolk and servants in a single stroke.’

Horror speared through him when he saw the unconcern on the precentor’s face.

‘Appletre!’ cried Michael. ‘You cannot risk the abbey for whatever wild scheme—’

‘It is not wild,’ shouted Appletre. ‘Nonton knows what he is doing. Besides, we shall be sent more monks if these die, and I am not averse to having some new basses. It—’

‘You are insane!’ cried Bartholomew, shocked. ‘You—’

‘I am not!’ screamed Appletre, fists clenching. Then he stepped backwards suddenly, and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was calm. ‘I will not let you aggravate me. As I said, I am not a violent man.’

Bartholomew was far from sure about that, and knew that he and Michael would not be allowed to leave Peterborough alive. With nothing to lose he decided he would have answers, even if getting them did goad the precentor to rage.

‘You killed Welbyrn.’ Again, it was a guess, but the guilty flash in Appletre’s eyes told him he was right. ‘He had started to brood about his father, wondering if he might go mad, too. You followed him to St Leonard’s and pushed him in the well, leaving him to drown—’

‘Stop!’ snarled Appletre, while Michael regarded Bartholomew uneasily.

‘But it is you who are mad,’ Bartholomew pressed on. ‘There was no need to harm—’

‘There was every need – he kept questioning our decisions, and he wanted to recruit Ramseye, which would have been a disaster. Our almoner may be a sly rogue, but he would never agree to what we intend. And then Welbyrn threatened to tell you everything in exchange for a cure for his creeping insanity.’

‘He was not—’ began Bartholomew.

‘But he thought you would refuse to treat him.’ Appletre cut across what the physician started to say. ‘So he tried to make friends first. He sent you Lombard slices, but when you were poisoned, he became more unpredictable than ever – the dismay of losing his chance of a remedy was too much for his fragile mind. I had no choice but to kill him.’

‘You are despicable,’ said Bartholomew in disgust.

‘Shoot him,’ ordered Appletre, turning to the bowmen.

Bartholomew struggled to his feet as the archers took aim, reluctant to die lying down. He gripped the knife behind his back, but despite his rage against the plump-cheeked little man who danced from foot to foot in front of him, he could not bring himself to lob it. He was a physician, not a killer, and he did not want his last act on Earth to be the taking of a life.

‘No!’ came an urgent shout from the doorway. ‘It will make a mess on my rugs.’

‘Robert!’ exclaimed Michael, as the Abbot stepped into the solar, resplendent in a clean habit. ‘Thank God! I came to talk to you, but this lunatic has been holding me captive and—’

‘Do not clamour at me,’ snapped the Abbot irritably. ‘Well, Appletre? Did you trick them into revealing all they have learned?’

‘I believe so,’ replied Appletre, smiling smugly at Bartholomew, who saw in that moment that the precentor was not deranged at all, but a cunning manipulator who had deceived him with ease. ‘They know about the Mint, so they will have to be eliminated.’

‘
You
are involved?’ asked Michael, regarding the Abbot in shock.

Robert smiled coldly. ‘You do not think Appletre and Nonton could have managed all this alone, do you?’

There was silence in the solar after the Abbot had made his declaration, but it did not last. A drunken cheer from the revellers drifted through the window. Then Lullington walked in, gloriously clad in more robes paid for with his murdered wife’s jewels. Michael pointed accusingly at him and started to stand, but Robert snapped his fingers and the archers’ bows came up simultaneously. He sat again.

‘I am the Bishop’s Commissioner,’ he said. ‘You cannot hold me against my will.’

‘Is that so?’ murmured Robert, going to his table and beginning to sort through the documents that lay there. He cocked his head. ‘Can I hear Kirwell singing?’

Lullington laughed softly. ‘Wailing, not singing. The old fool cannot understand why he remains alive after parting with Oxforde’s prayer.’

At the mention of Kirwell and the parchment passed to him by a criminal on the gibbet, the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place in Bartholomew’s mind. He spoke to Michael.

‘Robert was never abducted – he went missing of his own accord. To look for treasure.’

Robert regarded him coldly. ‘I did it for my Order. Running an abbey is expensive.’

‘It started when Kirwell decided to die and gave Oxforde’s prayer to Robert,’ Bartholomew explained to Michael. ‘The one he had promised never to show to another person. Except it was not a prayer, was it, Father Abbot?’

Robert smiled. ‘Kirwell was almost blind when he was Oxforde’s confessor, so he had never read what had been written.’

‘It was instructions,’ Bartholomew went on, ‘which told the reader how to find the money that Oxforde stole during his life of crime.’

‘Of course,’ breathed Michael. ‘That is why there has been a recent rumour that Oxforde gave it to the poor – to stop anyone else from looking. Not that they would have done after all this time, but nothing has been left to chance.’

Robert inclined his silver head. ‘It also made Oxforde’s cult more popular, thus increasing donations. We could not lose.’

‘So that is where you have been?’ asked Michael in distaste. ‘Not held prisoner by outlaws, but grubbing about for a burglar’s hoard?’

‘On Aurifabro’s land,’ elaborated Bartholomew. ‘While Spalling and the
defensores
kept him and his mercenaries distracted with spats.’

‘You went out with a spade
in person
?’ asked Michael, regarding the Abbot askance. ‘Most senior churchmen delegate that sort of thing to minions.’

‘He does not trust anyone,’ said Bartholomew.

‘Too right!’ muttered Robert. ‘There is a fortune at stake.’

‘I would have helped you, Father Abbot,’ said Appletre reproachfully. ‘If I had, Gynewell would not have sent commissioners to make a nuisance of themselves.’

‘True,’ acknowledged Robert, although he said no more and his silence revealed far more than words: he did not trust his precentor, either.

‘So where is this fabled treasure?’ asked Michael, while Bartholomew stole an agitated glance towards the granary. Smoke was pouring from it now, and he fancied he could hear the crackle of the flames within. ‘Or has a month in the wilderness left you empty handed?’

‘Finding it has been more difficult than I anticipated.’ Robert turned back to Appletre. ‘You failed me this morning. You promised that Aurifabro would be killed or ousted, but he is still in residence, preventing me from conducting a proper search of his estates.’

‘Spalling’s people crumbled at the first hurdle,’ explained Appletre, rolling his eyes. ‘And Nonton’s idiots ran away. I was on my way to fetch the real
defensores
when I saw you had run into the bedesfolk, at which point it seemed more prudent to let the matter go. You must have thought so, too, or you would not have ordered everyone home.’

A billow of white sailed past the window. ‘The granary,’ said Bartholomew urgently. ‘You will have no abbey to rule if you do not put out the fire.’

‘I shall rebuild on a much grander scale once I have Oxforde’s hoard,’ said Robert. ‘And my munificence and vision will be remembered for centuries to come.’

‘And your monks?’ asked Bartholomew archly. ‘They cannot be rebuilt with money.’

Robert did not deign to reply. He glanced at the table. ‘Are those my seals and gold?’

‘Michael says he found them in Lullington’s quarters,’ replied Appletre. ‘Is it true?’

It was the knight who answered. ‘Robert could hardly take them with him, and he is not such a fool as to leave them where Yvo and his devious nephew might have got hold of them. So he gave them to me to mind.’

‘You will not profit from poisoning your wife, Lullington,’ warned Michael. He sounded as despairing as Bartholomew felt. ‘I have already written to the Bishop about it.’

It was satisfying to see the smugness fade from the knight’s face.

‘What?’ demanded Robert, shocked. ‘You did away with her?’

‘She started asking me awkward questions about your disappearance,’ replied Lullington. ‘And she was tenacious – she would have found the truth. She was supposed to die quickly, but the potion was defective, and when I saw her corpse…’

‘There was nothing wrong with the poison.’ Bartholomew made no attempt to conceal his contempt. ‘It was your ineptitude that sentenced her to a lingering death.’

‘Damn!’ cried Robert. ‘This could ruin everything! The Bishop will come for an explanation and—’

‘And you will inform him that there is no truth in Michael’s accusation,’ the knight flashed back. ‘Or I shall tell him exactly what has been going on here.’

Suddenly, Lullington’s face contorted in agony, after which he pitched forward and lay still. Appletre was behind him, holding a dagger.

‘So much for not being violent,’ muttered Michael.

‘You believed that, did you?’ asked Appletre mildly. He turned to his Abbot, who was scowling as he toed the bleeding body away from his rugs. ‘We shall tell the Bishop that Lullington killed himself in a fit of remorse.’

Michael released a sharp bark of mocking laughter. ‘Do you really imagine that Gynewell will see nothing suspicious in the deaths of Lullington, his wife, Welbyrn, Reginald, Joan, Spalling
and
us? He will tear your abbey to pieces looking for the culprits.’

‘Joan?’ asked Robert sharply. ‘And Welbyrn? When did this happen?’

‘I will explain later,’ said Appletre quickly. ‘After we have—’

‘He killed them both,’ interrupted Bartholomew. ‘Welbyrn was murdered in cold blood because he was loyal to you: he was the only one who insisted you were still alive—’

‘You know why we encouraged people to think you dead, Father Abbot,’ said Appletre. ‘To see who would take advantage of the situation and thus show themselves to be your enemies. And it worked: Yvo and Ramseye are the two who must be watched.’

‘What happened to Welbyrn?’ asked Robert flatly.

‘He committed suicide,’ replied Appletre briskly. ‘Like his father. He had become very unpredictable, so it was for the best.’

‘Appletre murdered him,’ countered Bartholomew. ‘And Joan.’

‘Ignore him, Father Abbot,’ said Appletre irritably. ‘He is trying to create a rift between us with his lying accusations. Well, it will not work.’

Robert said nothing, and Bartholomew felt the stirrings of hope. The Abbot would see he had recruited a dangerous accomplice, and would have second thoughts about what he had set in motion. But any spark of optimism died when Robert addressed his precentor.

‘If Gynewell does descend on us, I am sure we can devise a tale that will satisfy him. And if not … well, I have never liked him. It is time we had a new Bishop.’

There was nothing Bartholomew and Michael could do as they were bundled into a corner and told to stand with their hands on their heads, Bartholomew struggling to keep the knife hidden as he did so. The Abbot became businesslike. He snapped his fingers, and several more
defensores
appeared. He ordered them to toss Lullington’s body in the granary.

‘Then we can say that
he
started the fire as a way to end his own life,’ he explained. ‘But first, don these scholars’ clothes and make a show of leaving town. Keep your hoods up, so no one can see your faces. When they fail to arrive home, we shall blame their deaths on robbers.’

‘You will kill me?’ asked Michael reproachfully. ‘A fellow Benedictine?’

Robert shrugged. ‘Why not? I killed Pyk, and he was a better man than you. He would have been a useful asset with his sharp wits and local knowledge, but he said he wanted nothing to do with Oxforde’s treasure. He left me no choice but to tap him on the head.’

Bartholomew stared at him. Pyk had endured a lot more than a ‘tap’. Something else became clear, too.

‘Aurifabro’s shepherd saw you, and raved about it in his “delirium”,’ he said. ‘But Fletone did not die of mountain fever, and I suspect he was ill far longer than the few hours stipulated by his friends on the basis of his own amateur diagnosis. You poisoned him.’

‘I persuaded him to swallow something from Pyk’s medical bag,’ said Robert, full of arrogant disdain. ‘He obliged eagerly, the fool! Of course, it was Reginald’s idea.’

Bartholomew supposed that explained how the cutler had known that Fletone had been poisoned, and why he feared the same fate might have befallen him.