Otto Von Habsburg

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘Those who do not stay with the abbot. Usually messengers, or officials from our estates come to discuss business.’

  I waved my hand around the dank little cell. ‘And what in God’s name is this horrible place?’

  He sighed. ‘This is the old monks’ prison. Most houses have them; in years gone by abbots used to imprison brethren who had sinned grievously. In canon law they still have the power, though it’s never used.’

  ‘No, not in these soft times.’

  ‘Prior Mortimus asked a few months ago whether the old cell still existed; he was talking of bringing it back into use for punishment. I told him so far as I knew it did. I haven’t been here since an old servant showed it to me when I took over as infirmarian. I thought the door was sealed off.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t. So Prior Mortimus asked about it, did he?’

  ‘He did.’ His voice hardened. ‘I would have thought you would have approved, the vicar general seems to want our life to be hard and cruel as can be.’

  I let a moment’s silence fall between us. ‘Be careful what you say before witnesses, Brother.’

  ‘Yes. It is a world full of new marvels, where the king of England will hang a man for speaking words.’ He made an effort to collect himself. ‘I am sorry. But Master Shardlake, for all that yesterday we had a scholarly discussion about the new ways, there is a weight of fear and anxiety on everyone here. I only want to live in peace, Commissioner. We all do.’

  ‘Not all, Brother. Someone could have come through this passage to the kitchen to kill Commissioner Singleton. It means they would not have needed a key to get to the kitchen. Yes, of course – that makes the kitchen the ideal place for someone to arrange to meet him, lie in wait and murder him.’

  ‘Alice and I were up all that night tending old Brother James. No one could have come past us without being seen.’

  I took his candle and held it up to his face. ‘But you could have done it, Brother.’

  ‘I swear by Our Lord’s holy blood I did not,’ he said passionately. ‘I am a physician, my oath is to preserve life, not take it.’

  ‘Who else knew of the passage? You said the prior spoke of it. When?’

  He put a hand to his brow. ‘He raised it at an obedentiaries’ meeting. I was there, the abbot, Prior Mortimus, Brother Edwig and Brother Gabriel. Brother Jude the pittancer was there too and Brother Hugh the chamberlain. Prior Mortimus was talking as usual of how discipline needed to be stronger. He said he’d heard tell of an old monk’s cell somewhere behind the infirmary. He was half-joking, I think.’

  ‘Who else in the monastery might know of it?’

  ‘New novices are told there is an old cell hidden in the precinct, to scare them, but I don’t think anyone quite knew where it was. And I had forgotten till you mentioned it the day you came. I told you, I thought it locked up for years!’

  ‘So people knew it existed. What about your friend, Brother Jerome?’

  He spread his hands. ‘What do you mean? He is not my friend.’

  ‘I saw you helping him yesterday with his book, in service.’

  Brother Guy shook his head. ‘He is a brother in Christ, and a poor cripple. Has it come to such a pass that to aid a cripple turn the pages of his book becomes the basis of accusations? I had not thought you such a man, Master Shardlake.’

  ‘I seek a murderer, Brother,’ I said curtly. ‘All the obedentiaries are under my watch, including you. So, anyone at that meeting could have had his memory stirred and decided to go ferreting for this passage.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  I looked round the dank cell again. ‘Let us go. This place makes my bones ache.’

  We returned up the passage in silence. Brother Guy went out first, and I bent to retrieve my handkerchief. As I did so I saw something glimmering faintly in the candlelight. I scraped the stone flag carefully with a fingernail.

  ‘What’s that?’ Mark asked.

  I held my finger close. ‘God’s death, so that’s what he was about,’ I whispered. ‘Yes, of course, the library.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Later.’ I wiped my hand carefully on my robe. ‘Come on, my bones will freeze before I get to sit by a fire today.’

  When we regained our room I dismissed Brother Guy, then stood warming my hands at the grate.

  ‘God’s nails, that place was cold.’

  ‘It surprised me to hear Brother Guy speak against the vicar general.’

  ‘He spoke against the king’s policy, but he would have had to speak against his headship of the Church to commit treason. In the heat of the moment he just said what they all think.’ I blew out my cheeks. ‘No, I found a trail in there, but it leads to someone else.’

  ‘To whom?’

  I looked at him, pleased his sulks seemed to be forgotten.

  ‘Later. Come, we must go to the pond before they start emptying it themselves. We need to see if anything else is in there.’ We left the room, my mind racing.

  WE RETRACED our way through the orchard, to where a little crowd of servants stood by the fish pond, holding long poles. Prior Mortimus was with them. He turned to us.

  ‘The stream’s been diverted, Commissioner, and the water drained out. But we’ll have to let it through again soon or it’ll flood the land by the sump.’

  I nodded. The pond was now a deep empty bowl, shards of ice embedded in the thick greyish-brown silt at the bottom. I called over to the servants.

  ‘A shilling for the man who finds anything in there!’

  Two servants came forward and hesitantly climbed down into the silt, probing with their poles. At length one of them called out and held something up. Two gold chalices.

  ‘Orphan was supposed to have taken those,’ the prior breathed.

  I had hoped we might find the relic, but another ten minutes of searching revealed nothing beyond an old sandal. The servants climbed out again, and the man who had found the chalices passed them to me. I gave him his shilling and turned to find the prior looking at them.

  ‘They’re the ones, no doubt.’ He let out a long breath. ‘Commissioner, remember, if you find the man who killed that poor girl, give me some time alone with him.’ He turned and walked off. I raised an eyebrow at Mark.

  ‘Does he really feel for her death?’ he asked.

  ‘There is no end to the strange depths of the human heart. Come, we must go to the church.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  MY LEGS WERE TIRED and my back hurt as yet again we plodded back to the monastery. I envied Mark as he ploughed on energetically, sturdy legs kicking up the snow. When we reached the courtyard I stopped to catch my breath.

  ‘The trail in that room leads us back to Brother Gabriel. It seems he was concealing things after all. Let us go and find him. We’ll look for him in the church first. When I talk to him I want you to stand just out of earshot. Don’t ask, there is a reason.’

  ‘As you wish, sir.’ I could tell he was annoyed by my secrecy, but it was part of the plan I had made. I had been surprised by what I had found in that passage, but I could not help a feeling of satisfaction that my earlier suspicions of Gabriel had not, after all, been groundless. Truly the human heart holds strange and unaccountable depths.

  The day was still cloudy and the church interior was dim as we walked down the nave. There was no susurration of prayers from the side chapels; it must have been the monks’ recreation time. I made out the figure of Brother Gabriel halfway down the nave. He was supervising a servant polishing a large metal plaque set into the wall.

  ‘The verdigris is coming off.’ His deep voice echoed around as we approached. ‘Guy’s formula works.’

  ‘Brother Gabriel,’ I said, ‘I fear I am always sending away your servants. But I must talk with you again.’

  He sighed and bade the man depart. I read the Latin engraved into the plaque above the figure of a monk lying on a bier.

  ‘So the first abbot is buried there in the wall?’

>   ‘Yes. That metalwork is exceptional.’ He glanced at Mark, who stood a little way off as I had bid him, then turned back to me. ‘Unfortunately it is a copper alloy, but Brother Guy came up with a formula for cleaning it.’ He spoke rapidly, his manner nervous.

  ‘You have a busy life, Brother, responsible for the church music and the decoration too.’ I looked up at the railed walkway, the statue of Donatus with the tools lying beside it and the workmen’s basket secured by its cat’s cradle of ropes to the walkway and the bell tower. ‘No progress with the works, I see. Are you still negotiating with Brother Edwig?’

  ‘Yes. But surely you have not come to discuss that?’ Irritation crept into his voice.

  ‘No, Brother. Yesterday I put a case to you, a lawyer’s accusation, you said. An accusation of murder. You said I was building a false picture.’

  ‘Yes, I did. I am no murderer.’

  ‘One thing, though, we haranguing lawyers develop is an instinct as to when people are holding things back. We are seldom wrong.’

  He said nothing, eyeing me intently.

  ‘Let me put another case to you, a set of suppositions shall we say, and you can correct me as we proceed if I err. Is that fair?’

  ‘I do not know what trick this is.’

  ‘No trick, I promise. Let me start with a meeting of the obedentiaries a few months ago. Prior Mortimus mentioned the old monks’ cell and a passage leading from the infirmary to the kitchen quarters.’

  ‘Yes – yes, I remember it.’ He was breathing a little faster now, blinking more often.

  ‘It was never followed up, but I think it rang a bell in your mind. I think you went to the library, where you knew all the old plans of the monastery could be found. I saw them when you showed me the library; I remember then you seemed anxious I should not see them. I think you found the passage, Brother; I think you went in there and bored a spyhole into what is now our room. The kitchener said you had been lurking round the kitchen, where I now know the entrance to the passage is.’

  He licked dry lips.

  ‘You do not contradict me, Brother.’

  ‘I – I know nothing of this.’

  ‘No? Mark has heard noises some mornings, and I scoffed at him, saying it was mice. Today, though, he explored our room and found the door and the spyhole. I wondered who had been in there, I even suspected the infirmarian, but then I found something on the floor, under the spyhole. Something that glistened. And I realized that the man who had been looking in at us had not been out to spy. He had a different purpose.’

  Brother Gabriel let out a groan that seemed to issue from the depths of his being. He sagged like a puppet with its strings cut.

  ‘You have a love of young men, Brother Gabriel. It must have come to consume you utterly if you would go to such lengths to watch Mark Poer dressing in the morning.’

  He swayed and I thought he would fall. He put a hand against the wall to steady himself. His face when he looked at me was first deathly pale, then it reddened with a burning flush.

  ‘It is true,’ he whispered. ‘Jesu forgive me.’

  ‘God’s death, that must have made a strange journey, through that dolorous old cell with your cock swelling in the dark.’

  ‘Please – please.’ He raised a hand. ‘Don’t tell him, don’t tell the boy.’

  I took a step closer. ‘Then tell me all you have been concealing. That passage is a secret way into the kitchen, where my predecessor was murdered.’

  ‘I never wanted to be like this,’ he hissed with sudden passion. ‘Male beauty has obsessed me so long, since I first saw the image of St Sebastian in our church. My mind fixed on it as those of other boys did on St Agatha’s breasts on her statue. But they could turn to matrimony. I was left alone with – this. I came here to escape the temptation.’

  ‘To a monastery?’ I asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes.’ He laughed, a desolate sound. ‘Healthy young men do not become monks these days, or few of them. Mostly it is poor creatures like Simon, who cannot cope with life in the world. I had no lust for Simon, let alone old Alexander. I have sinned with other men but few times these past years, and never since the visitation. With prayer, with work, I have achieved control. But then visitors come, reeves from our lands in the shire, messengers, and I sometimes see – I see a beautiful boy who sets me afire, then I scarce know what I do.’

  ‘And usually visitors are lodged in our room.’

  He bowed his head. ‘When the prior mentioned the passage I wondered if it might lead behind the visitors’ room. You are right, I looked at the plans. God help me, I cut the spyhole to see them in their nakedness.’ He looked over at Mark again, this time with a trapped, angry expression. ‘Then you came, with him. I had to see him, he is so fine, he is like the culmination of – of my quest. For the ideal.’ He started to speak quickly, almost gabbling. ‘I would go into the passage when I guessed you would be rising. God forgive me, I was there yesterday, and on the day poor Simon was buried. I went again this morning, I could not resist. Oh, what have I become? Can a man be more humiliated before God?’ He clenched his fist and raised it to his mouth, biting his hand till a bead of blood appeared.

  It occurred to me he would have watched me dressing too, seen the bent back from which Mark always tactfully averted his gaze. It was not a pleasant thought.

  I leaned forward. ‘Listen to me, Brother. I have told Mark nothing yet. But you will tell me all you know about the deaths here, you will tell me what you have been holding back.’

  He took his hand from his mouth and stared at me in puzzlement.

  ‘But Commissioner, there is nothing else to tell. My shame was my secret. Everything else I told you was true, I know nothing of these terrible deeds. I was not spying. The only reason I used that passage was to – to watch the young men who came.’ He drew a shuddering breath. ‘I only wanted to look.’

  ‘And you are concealing nothing else?’

  ‘Nothing, I swear. If I could do anything to help you solve these terrible crimes, by Jesu I would.’

  He crouched against the wall, shamed almost beyond bearing. I felt a wave of anger that I had, once again, followed a trail that led to a dead end. I shook my head, expelling my breath angrily.

  ‘God’s death, Brother Gabriel, you have led me a dance. I had thought you the killer.’

  ‘Sir, I know you would have the monastery down. But I beg you, do not use what I have done. Do not let my sins cause the end of Scarnsea.’

  ‘God’s blood, you exaggerate these sins of yours. Such solitary vice is not even enough to justify prosecuting you. If this house closes, it will be for other reasons. I only wonder sorrowfully that a man should waste his life on such a strange idolatry. You are as silly a creature as any under heaven.’

  He closed his eyes in shame, then looked up and I saw his lips move in prayer. Then his mouth fell open and his eyes, still looking upward, seemed to bulge from his head. Puzzled, I edged closer. So quickly I had no time to move, he turned and, with a shout, launched himself at me with arms outflung.

  What happened next is etched into my mind so vividly my hand trembles as I write. He shoved me violently in the chest. I fell over backwards, landing on the stone with an impact that knocked all the breath from me. For a moment I thought he had gone mad and would kill me. I looked up and for a second I saw him standing there, his eyes wild. Then something else appeared, descending from above in a rush of air, a great figure of stone that landed where I had been standing a moment before, smashing Gabriel to the earth. I can hear it now, the great ringing crash of the stone hitting the floor mingling with the dreadful crunching of Gabriel’s bones.

  I RAISED MYSELF on my elbows and lay there stupidly, mouth open, staring at the painted statue of St Donatus, now shattered into pieces on top of the sacrist, whose arm stuck out underneath as a lake of blood spread out across the floor. The statue’s head had broken off and lay at my feet, staring at me with an expression of pious sorrow, painted t
ears white under the eyes.

  Then I heard Mark’s voice, a yell such as I had never heard.

  ‘Get away from the wall!’

  I looked up. The plinth the statue had stood on was teetering on the edge of the walkway, fifty feet above. I could just make out a cowled figure behind it. I scrabbled away just before it hit the ground where I had lain. Mark grabbed me and helped me up, his face deathly pale.

  ‘Up there!’ he cried. I followed his gaze. A dim figure was heading away along the walkway, towards the presbytery.

  ‘He saved me.’ I stared at the wreckage of the sacrist’s limbs under the stone, the lake of blood. ‘He saved me!’

  ‘Sir,’ Mark whispered urgently. ‘We have him. He’s on the walkway. The only way down is the stairs either side of the rood screen.’

  I collected my scattered wits, and looked at the stone staircases at either side of the screen. ‘Yes, you’re right. Did you see who it was?’

  ‘No. Just a figure in a habit, with the cowl up. He’s gone towards the top of the church. If we go up the stairs, one on each side, we can cut him off. We’ll have him, there’s no other way down. Can you do it, sir?’

  ‘Yes. Help me up.’

  Mark helped me to my feet. He drew his sword and I grasped my staff, taking deep breaths to try and calm my pounding heart. ‘We’ll go parallel and keep each other in sight.’

  He nodded and ran quickly to the right-hand staircase. Averting my eyes from Gabriel’s body, I took the left.

  I mounted slowly. My heart was thumping so hard it made my throat pulse, and white flashes danced before my eyes. I took off my heavy coat and laid it on the stairs. The cold chilled my bones but I had greater freedom of movement as I crept upwards.

  The stairs led onto the narrow platform running round the interior. It was of iron mesh and, looking down, I could see far below the candles winking before the altar and the saints’ shrines, the heap of stone and the great scarlet pool of Gabriel’s blood. The platform was no more than three feet wide and only an iron rail separated me from the drop. Just ahead the mason’s tools lay in an untidy heap beside the ropes, secured to the workmen’s basket hanging out over the gap by rivets driven into the walls. I peered along the platform, cursing the poor light. All the windows were underneath the walkway and it was no more than twilit up there. I could not see far ahead, but there was someone ahead; there must be. I carefully manoeuvred my way along, bending to get under the ropes.