by Paul Doherty
‘I see the wounds,’ she called across. ‘Prior Anselm, I must insist – and I mean no disrespect – that the corpse be removed to the charnel-house, where it should be stripped and carefully washed.’
‘That can’t . . .’
‘It will be done,’ Kathryn insisted. ‘The robes.’ She held up one of the brown bandages. ‘Everything else must be burnt.’
Kathryn’s mind was all a jumble, scraps of information, memories, images. After the exertion of examining the corpse, she felt slightly faint and wished she had eaten more before she had left Ottemelle Lane.
‘I would like to reflect’ – she smiled thinly – ‘I am not as expert as I appear.’
‘And I am a busy man.’ Spineri had lost his bonhomie. He now played with the tassel of his black cape, impatient to be gone. Kathryn knew that, within the hour, he would be at Islip telling everything to the Queen Mother. Perhaps it was best if he went before more was discovered? Kathryn could tell from the friars’ faces, their guilty glances, and the way Brother Simon kept licking his dry lips that the good brothers knew more about the Blessed Roger’s death than they’d confessed.
‘Prior Anselm, is it possible I could have something to eat?’
‘I’ll see to that,’ Colum offered.
He grasped Kathryn by the elbow, picked up her cloak and writing satchel, and, followed by the rest, walked out of the nave through the porch onto the small, grassy enclave. Kathryn sat on a stone bench. Anselm insisted that he wanted to know more. Kathryn suggested that, after she had reflected, perhaps they could meet again in the parlour. Venables was now making hushed farewells to Spineri, who announced his departure as if he had an urgent appointment with the Holy Father. He left, absentmindedly sketching a blessing in the air. The others drifted off, Murtagh hurrying across to the kitchen.
Kathryn moved on the stone bench and studied the yellow roses on their rambling bush. The buds had recently broken, and the flowers were young and fresh, the petals still tightly coiled as they searched for the strengthening sun. Behind her Kathryn heard the lay brothers, shepherded by the infirmarian, enter the church to remove Atworth’s corpse to the charnel-house.
Kathryn decided not to consult any text but tried to remember everything she knew about arsenic, its deadly effects and temperamental nature. A mineral extract, her father had defined it. What else had he said? Ah, yes! How, after the person had died, the corpse gave off the very signs of poisoning so expertly hidden in life. ‘The Judgement of God,’ her father had called it. He had been unable to explain the reasons why, as had the authorities, but the signs always emerged after death. Nevertheless, Atworth’s corpse certainly bore all the traces of arsenic poisoning: that waxen appearance, the smoothness of the skin, the red dust, and the slowness of corruption. He must have taken a powerful infusion. Or was it something else? She heard footsteps and glanced up. Colum had returned with a lay brother bearing a tray with some dried meat diced into small portions and covered with a light herbal sauce, a small white loaf, and a cup of wine. He’d also brought fresh water and a napkin. Kathryn cleaned her hands. She thanked the lay brother, refused the wine, but took the bowl and ate carefully with the horn spoon from her own wallet. Colum wandered off as if fascinated by the rose bush.
‘I watched them serve it,’ he called out over his shoulder. ‘If you are correct, Kathryn, you must be careful what you eat and drink here.’
‘Oh, I don’t think we are in any danger,’ she replied. ‘At least not yet.’
‘So Atworth was poisoned?’
‘Undoubtedly! What we have to decide is how.’ Kathryn put down the bowl on the stone seat. ‘But come, we can’t keep the others waiting.’
She and Colum returned to the parlour. The four friars and Venables were present. The only person who looked pleased was Brother Gervase. Kathryn took a seat at the top of the table.
‘The corpse has been removed,’ Prior Anselm declared, ‘to the charnel-house. I have ordered the robe and cloths to be burnt, as well as the coffin.’
‘But that’s the only proof you have,’ Gervase drawled, almost hugging himself with pleasure. ‘They will be destroyed, Father Prior. I mean, we don’t want relics being kept.’
‘Brother Gervase,’ Kathryn asked, ‘why are you so pleased?’
‘I never liked Atworth.’ The sub-prior seemed totally at ease. ‘I wouldn’t call my late departed brother a liar, but he was a charade, a counterfeit, a cunning man.’
‘Do you have proof of that?’ Jonquil, flushed with anger, demanded.
‘He wanted to flee the world’ – Gervase blew his cheeks out – ‘and yet he remained as confessor to the Queen Mother, meeting important people. He accepted her letters, not to mention the gifts she and others sent.’
‘That’s unfair.’ Prior Anselm rapped the table with his knuckles. ‘Brother Roger always shared what he had with the poor; he kept nothing for himself.’
Kathryn studied Gervase: his fat face, the vein-streaked cheeks, the cod-like mouth, and the cynical smile. He was a man who had gone through life, she concluded, with bounding ambition but not the talent to match. Gervase was probably jealous of Atworth and the patronage he enjoyed.
‘You should be careful, Gervase,’ the infirmarian warned.
‘No, no.’ The sub-prior held his hand up. ‘I’ll have my say. The Blessed Thomas a Becket may be a saint and martyr, and our founder St. Francis undoubtedly is. But Atworth? A soldier, a merchant, a man who ate, drank, and did what he wanted until it turned to ashes in his mouth!’ Gervase made a rude sound with his lips.
‘You were very interested in him,’ Jonquil almost shouted, ‘ever solicitous! Did you tell him you were so two-faced?’
‘Did he ever tell you,’ Kathryn intervened quietly, ‘that he was poisoning himself?’
‘What!’
Anselm held his hands up as if Kathryn had announced the Second Coming.
‘It’s common enough,’ Kathryn continued. ‘Let me see, Brother Simon, you are infirmarian; you keep a careful ledger of powders dispensed to your community?’
The infirmarian, clearly embarrassed, simply nodded, his face flushed.
‘And you have arsenic?’
‘Well, why yes,’ he stammered.
‘And like many physicians, you prescribe it in minute grains for stomach upsets – that includes the Blessed Atworth’s?’
The infirmarian reluctantly agreed. ‘He complained of stomach cramps, colic, retching, and diarrhoea for as long as he was here. The infirmarian before me had prescribed it, so I continued: They were the minutest grains, not enough to kill a sparrow. What are you saying? That I increased the dosage? You can scrutinise my ledger . . .’
‘You could have told me this earlier,’ Kathryn declared sweetly; it was obvious Anselm and Jonquil had also known of it. Gervase was quietly chuckling, shoulders shaking with glee.
‘I mentioned arsenic in the church,’ Kathryn continued, ‘and you said nothing! Brother Simon, please don’t act the innocent with me. You know full well the properties of arsenic. You may have even suspected what the exhumed body might look like and shared such knowledge with your colleagues!’
‘It was only the minutest dose,’ Jonquil stammered. ‘It could still be God’s work . . .’
‘Is this arsenic kept safe?’ Kathryn snapped.
‘Oh yes, like yours, Mistress Swinbrooke,’ Brother Simon replied spitefully, ‘in a coffer bound by three locks; only I and one of the helpers hold the keys. It can never be opened by one person or, indeed, by anyone else but us.’
‘You have a library?’ Kathryn asked. ‘A pharmacopeia?’
‘Oh yes, the works of the great masters: Hippocrates, Galen. Do you wish to see them?’
‘They won’t be necessary,’ Kathryn said. ‘I quote from a treatise my father brought from Salerno: “Arsenic, in minute proportions, is sometimes used for stomach ailments.” That is not uncommon for such powders: Belladonna is sometimes used as a cosmetic, foxglove for a
ilments of the heart. Now some potions are washed out of the body. According to my father and others, arsenic is different; being a mineral, it becomes part of the body’s humours, its fluids and flesh. It may help the stomach, but over a period of months, even years, its noxious effect accumulates.’
‘So why didn’t Blessed Roger die earlier?’ Anselm asked.
Kathryn looked at Venables, who was listening intently, his head slightly turned as if he was hard of hearing.
‘Arsenic is a mystery,’ Kathryn confessed, ‘a two-edged sword; at one extreme it can heal, or so they say, but eventually it will kill. Indeed, taken often and long enough, arsenic even has the property to make the recipient more resistant to it.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Venables spoke up. ‘Mistress Swinbrooke, I have no knowledge of physic.’
‘I do,’ Colum intervened. ‘It’s like training a war-horse. At first you expose him slightly to the smell of blood, and his fear subsides. You then take it forward by steps. I have known those who train war-horses to finally put the bloodied corpse of a sheep in a stable.’
‘Yes,’ Kathryn agreed, ‘something like that. So it is with the bodily humours. They harbour this strange guest; they may draw strength from it. Only over time does it overcome their defences. Brother Simon, surely you knew this, as well as the important fact that the presence of arsenic in the body only reveals itself after death, though God knows why?’
‘I have heard of it,’ he confessed. ‘But the grains were so small. Anyway, why would Brother Roger die now?’
‘Like a key turning in a lock,’ Kathryn replied. ‘He said he was ill, yes?’
‘Yes, he had the rheums, a chesty cough.’
‘His heart could have been weakened,’ Kathryn pointed out, ‘his body depleted, and so he died in his sleep.’
‘What did he eat and drink?’ Venables asked.
‘I served him his food,’ Brother Jonquil declared. ‘In the week before his death it was meagre; the kitchen will affirm this. Watercress soup with small pieces of meat, fragments of bread, and a little honey and watered ale. Brother Atworth ate like a sparrow.’
‘Yes, I am interested in that,’ Kathryn declared. ‘Brother Roger died on the morning of the Feast of the Annunciation, or at least that’s when he was found dead. For the previous two days he had been confined to his chamber?’
‘Yes,’ Prior Anselm confirmed, rolling back the cuffs of his brown gown. ‘Brother Roger kept to himself. Some of the brothers could be curious. He always kept his chamber locked and bolted. The only people who could approach him were those seated here before you – in particular, Brother Jonquil.’
‘And no one else saw him?’ Kathryn demanded.
‘No.’ Prior Anselm held her gaze.
‘But he had promised to correspond with the Queen Mother?’
‘He had grown weak; he was out of sorts.’
‘These letters,’ Venables interjected, ‘which the Queen Mother sent him? Where are they now?’
‘He kept them in a wallet on his girdle. Where he went, so did they.’
‘But now they’ve gone,’ Venables declared crossly. ‘Her Grace the Duchess would like them returned.’
‘Perhaps Brother Roger destroyed them,’ the Prior retorted. ‘He had a brazier in his room. He was a man who kept to himself: He knew his days were numbered and wished to destroy everything that was his before he died. He was a holy man who may have experienced a premonition that he was not long for this vale of tears.’
Gervase chuckled noisily.
‘It’s true,’ Jonquil interjected. ‘He wouldn’t answer the door the night before. When silence greeted me the next morning, I alerted Father Prior. We broke in, and the brazier was full of ash. You could see he had been burning something.’
‘What things?’ Kathryn asked.
‘Oh, his ave beads were gone, and so were the little items he kept: a wooden crucifix, a triptych of the passion.’
‘What is important,’ Prior Anselm spoke up, ‘is what Mistress Swinbrooke is implying. I do not think,’ he added softly, ‘the Blessed Roger was deliberately poisoned.’
Kathryn did not answer.
‘He just died in his sleep,’ the Prior continued. ‘Perhaps he had a spasm and realised his hours were numbered. He did live in the true spirit of poverty. He may have got up and burnt all his possessions, including the letters. Now’ – he waved a hand – ‘the arsenic may be the reason for his body being preserved, but the other phenomena?’
‘I’ll investigate those.’ Kathryn pushed back her chair. ‘I must also re-examine the corpse. Now, however, I would like to see Atworth’s chamber.’
‘It’s not far, just above the stairs,’ Anselm replied. ‘There are three chambers: my own, Jonquil’s, and Brother Roger’s.’
‘Why didn’t he live with the rest?’ Kathryn asked.
‘Because he was a saint.’ Gervase raised his eyes to heaven and joined his hands in mock prayer.
The rest ignored him. They left the parlour and went up the wooden staircase, which stood across the small hallway. Kathryn was aware of how serene these lodgings were, except for their many wall paintings. These depicted harrowing scenes of martyrdom and suffering portrayed in dark colours. What the artist lacked in skill, he compensated for with crude vigour: St. Sebastian, pierced by arrows; Appollonia having her teeth removed by pincers; St. Lawrence, slowly grilled to death over a roaring fire. Colum paused and stared at these.
‘Everything but the horrors of hell,’ he whispered.
The gallery above was clean, its walls washed in a light-green shade. Small, oriel windows overlooked a garden, and on the other side stood three chambers.
‘Atworth’s was at the end,’ the Prior explained. ‘It was really a store-room, but he claimed it would be good enough for him.’
The door was off the latch. Anselm pushed it open, and they entered. It was nothing more than a small, white-washed box with a black-timbered ceiling, a small, shuttered window high in the wall, and beneath that a table, a stool, a bench, and an empty coffer with its lid thrown back. A stark, black wooden crucifix hung on the far wall. Just within the doorway stood a narrow cot-bed stripped of all its sheets and blankets; only the thin, straw-filled mattress remained. A lantern on a chain hung from one of the beams, but its candle had been removed. Jonquil opened the shutters. Kathryn realised the room had been stripped of candle-sticks and every possible ornament. She had never seen a room so stark, so bleak. She examined the door where it had been broken down and knelt beside the bed. She sniffed at the mattress and smelt a faint perfume mingled with body odours.
‘So you broke the door down? And where was Brother Roger?’
Jonquil gestured. ‘Lying as if asleep, hands crossed above his lap.’
‘Show me.’
Jonquil obeyed. Rather self-consciously he spread himself out on the mattress and turned his head slightly to one side, crossing his hands over his groin.
‘It was like that?’ Kathryn turned to the others.
‘Oh yes,’ Anselm assured her.
‘But the blankets?’ Colum asked. ‘Wouldn’t he be prepared for bed?’
‘Oh no’ – Jonquil got up – ‘it seems he just lay down on the bed and died.’
‘And where was the brazier?’
Anselm pointed to the far corner.
‘Over there. It was dead, full of ash. He also had a candelabra of bronze; all three candles had burnt down. Everything’s now been cleared away.’
Colum was about to ask another question, but Kathryn warned him with her eyes, so he fell silent.
‘Well, well, well.’ Venables went and perched himself on the edge of the table. ‘Her Grace the Duchess is going to be interested.’
‘As I am.’ Kathryn was now intrigued. ‘Tell me, what did Roger do here, apart from praying, fasting, and corresponding with the Duchess?’
‘He had good eyesight,’ the Prior declared. ‘The library contains a book of his prayers. H
e often liked to illuminate the capital letters. But apart from that, as you say, prayer, good works, fasting.’
‘Did he have enemies?’ Colum asked, staring at Gervase.
‘None that I know of,’ the sub-prior answered curtly. ‘Had his eyes not on this world but the next, did Brother Roger.’
‘He liked walking,’ Jonquil added. ‘He often strolled in Gethsemane; it’s a garden at the far end of the priory. It has a lush green lawn fringed by trees near the curtain wall. Brother Roger claimed Gethsemane had the best of both worlds: It was serene and quiet, but he could still listen to the bustle of the city. The wall is high; there’s no postern gate . . .’
He was about to continue when Kathryn noticed how the Prior gestured with his hand for silence.
‘Can I wander here?’ Kathryn asked.
The Prior looked surprised but agreed.
‘To your heart’s content, Mistress.’
Colum came and stood beside her, and Kathryn tapped his boot with her own.
‘I also want to stay tonight in your guest-house. It would save me going backwards and forwards. Tomorrow I have to investigate the miracles of Brother Roger.’
‘Do you doubt them?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Kathryn smiled tactfully. ‘However, I would now like a word with Master Murtagh alone.’
Venables made his excuses and left. He shouted from the gallery that he was returning to Islip but might come back on the morrow. Colum closed the door.
‘What’s the matter, Kathryn?’
She walked over, opened the door, glanced down the now empty gallery, and then closed the door.
‘Everything is wrong,’ she murmured. ‘I really do doubt if Brother Roger died in his sleep.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Colum took her by the hand; they went and sat on the edge of the bed.
‘Do you remember the way Jonquil lay down?’ Kathryn patted the mattress. ‘I have seen many a corpse, Colum, including those who’ve died in their sleep. I’ve never heard of that: feet together, hands clasped over the groin, face serene.’
‘They could be lying.’ Colum picked at a burr on his hose. ‘These friars want Brother Roger to be a saint. They have to depict him as dying in the odour of sanctity.’