Dissolution

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘There was a passage,’ he said. ‘It was closed off at the time of the Black Death, to minimize the spread of infection, and has never been reopened. A sensible measure.’

  ‘Last night when I saw that boy I feared he had the sweating sickness. I have seen it, it is terrible. But of course it is produced by the foul airs of the towns.’

  ‘Mercifully I have seen little plague. Mostly I have to deal with the consequences of too much standing at prayer in a cold church. And of old age, of course.’

  ‘You have another patient there who seems poorly. The ancient.’

  ‘Yes. Brother Francis. He is ninety-four. So old he is become a child again and now he has an ague. I think he may be near the end of his pilgrimage at last.’

  ‘What is wrong with the fat fellow?’

  ‘Varicose ulcers like Brother Septimus, but worse. I have drained them, and now he is enjoying some rest.’ He smiled gently. ‘I may have a task getting him up again. People do not like to leave the infirmary. Brother Andrew has become a fixture, his blindness came on him late and he fears to go outside. His confidence has gone.’

  ‘Have you many old monks under your care?’

  ‘A dozen. The brothers tend to be long-lived. I have four past eighty.’

  ‘They have not the strains or hardships of most people.’

  ‘Or perhaps their devotions strengthen the body as well as the soul. But here we are.’

  He led me through a stout oak door. As he had described the night before, a short passage led into the kitchen itself. The door was open and I heard voices and the clattering of plates. A rich smell of baking drifted out as we proceeded up the passage. Inside, half a dozen servants were preparing a meal. The kitchen was large, and seemed clean and well organized.

  ‘So, Brother, when you came in that night, where was the body?’

  The infirmarian paced out a few steps, the servants watching curiously.

  ‘Just here, by the big table. The body lay on its front, legs pointing to the door. The head had come to rest there.’ He pointed to an iron vat marked ‘Butter’. I followed his gaze, as did the servants. One crossed himself.

  ‘So he had just come through the door when he was struck,’ I mused. There was a big cupboard by the spot where he had fallen; the assailant could have hidden at the side and then, when Singleton passed, leaped out and struck him down. I paced out the steps and swung my staff in the air, making a servant jump back in alarm. ‘Yes, there’s room for a big swing. I’d guess that’s how it was done.’

  ‘With a sharp blade and a strong hand, yes, you could do it,’ Brother Guy said pensively.

  ‘If you were skilled, used to swinging a large sword about.’ I looked around the servants. ‘Who is head cook here?’

  A bearded man in a stained apron stepped forward, bowing. ‘Ralph Spenlay, sir.’

  ‘You are in charge here, Master Spenlay, and you have a key to the kitchens?’

  ‘Yes, Commissioner.’

  ‘And the door to the courtyard is the only way in and out?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Is the door to the kitchen itself locked?’

  ‘No need. The courtyard door is the only way in.’

  ‘Who else has keys?’

  ‘The infirmarian, sir, and the abbot and prior. And Master Bugge the watchman, of course, for his night patrols. No one else. I live in; I open up in the morning and close at night. If anyone wants a key they come to me. People will steal the viands, you see. No matter that it’s for the monks’ table. Why, I’ve seen Brother Gabriel hanging about the corridor some mornings, looking as though he was waiting for our backs to be turned before snatching something. And he an official—’

  ‘What happens if you are ill, or away, when someone wants access?’

  ‘They’d have to ask Master Bugge or the prior.’ He smiled. ‘Not that people like to bother either, if they don’t have to.’

  ‘Thank you, Master Spenlay, that is very helpful.’ I reached out and took a little custard from a bowl. The cook looked put out.

  ‘Very nice. I will trouble you no further, Brother Guy. I will see the bursar next, if you could point me to his counting house.’

  HE GAVE ME directions and I plodded off, the snow creaking under my overshoes. The precinct was much quieter today, people and dogs keeping indoors. The more I thought, the more I considered only an expert swordsman would have had the confidence to step out behind Singleton and strike off his head. I could not imagine any of the people I had seen managing it. The abbot was a big man, and so was Brother Gabriel, but swordsmanship was a craft for gentlemen, not monks. Thinking of Gabriel, I remembered the cook’s words. They puzzled me; the sacrist had not struck me as the kind of man to hang around a kitchen to steal food.

  I looked around the snowy courtyard. The road to London would be impassable now; it was not pleasant to reflect that Mark and I were more or less trapped here, with a murderer. I realized that unconsciously I had been walking in the centre of the courtyard, as far as possible from shadowy doorways. I shivered. It was strange walking alone through this white silence under the high walls and it was with a sense of relief that I saw Bugge by the gate, shovelling a path through the snow with the help of another servant.

  As I approached the gatekeeper looked up, red-faced with effort. His companion, a stocky young man with a face disfigured by warty growths, smiled nervously and bowed. Both had been working hard, and gave off a vile stink.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ Bugge said. His tone was unctuous; doubtless he had been ordered to treat me with respect.

  ‘Cruel weather.’

  ‘Indeed it is, sir. Winter is come early again.’

  ‘Now we are met, I would like to ask about your night-time routine.’

  He nodded, leaning on his shovel. ‘The whole precinct is patrolled twice every night, at nine and three-thirty. Either me or David here makes a complete round, checking every door.’

  ‘And the gates? Are they locked at night?’

  ‘Every night at nine. And opened at nine in the morning, after Prime. Not a dog could get in here when the gates are shut.’

  ‘Not a cat,’ the boy added. His eyes were sharp; he might be ugly but he was no fool.

  ‘Cats can climb,’ I suggested. ‘And so can people.’

  A touch of truculence appeared in the gatekeeper’s face. ‘Not a twelve-foot wall, they can’t. You’ve seen it, sir, it’s sheer; no one could scale it.’

  ‘The wall is secure all round the monastery?’

  ‘Except at the back. It’s crumbled in places there, but it gives straight onto the marsh. No one would go wading through that, especially at night. People have taken a wrong step and disappeared over their heads in the mud -’ he lifted a hand and pushed it down - ‘glug.’

  ‘If no one can get in, why do you patrol?’

  He leaned close. I recoiled from his stench, but he seemed not to mind. ‘People are sinful, sir, even here.’ His manner became confidential. ‘Things were very lax in the days of the old prior. When Prior Mortimus came, he ordered the night patrols, anyone out of bed reported straight to him. And that’s what I do. Without fear or favour.’ He smiled happily.

  ‘What about the night of Commissioner Singleton’s murder? Did you see anything that might indicate someone might have broken in?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, sir, I’ll swear all was as it should have been between three-thirty and four-thirty, I made that round myself. I tried the courtyard door to the kitchen as usual and it was locked. I saw the commissioner, though.’ He nodded self-importantly.

  ‘Yes, I heard you did. Where?’

  ‘On my round. I was passing through the cloister when I saw something moving and called out. It was the commissioner, fully dressed.’

  ‘What was he about at that hour?’

  ‘He said he had a meeting, sir.’ He smiled, enjoying the attention. ‘He said if I met any of the brethren and they said they were on their way to see him, I was
to let them pass.’

  ‘So he was on his way to meet someone!’

  ‘I would say so. He was near enough the kitchens, as well.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘I’d say about a quarter past four. I was near the end of my round then.’

  I nodded at the great bulk behind us. ‘Is the church locked at night?’

  ‘No sir, never. But I went round it as usual before checking the cloister, and all was normal. Then I was back in my house at half-past four. Prior Mortimus has given me a little clock,’ he said proudly, ‘and I always check the time. I slept a little, leaving David on watch, then I was woken by the great hue and cry at five.’

  ‘So Commissioner Singleton was on his way to meet one of the monks. It does seem then that the great crime committed here a week ago was the work of a monk.’

  He hesitated. ‘I say no one broke in, that’s all I know. It’s impossible.’

  ‘Not impossible, but unlikely, I agree.’ I nodded. ‘Thank you, Master Bugge, you have been most helpful.’ I set my staff before me and turned away, leaving them once more to their labours.

  I RETRACED MY STEPS to where a green door marked the counting house. Entering without knocking, I found myself in a room that reminded me of my own world: whitewashed walls lined with shelves of ledgers, any bare patches covered with lists and bills. Two monks sat working at desks. One, counting out coins, was elderly and rheumy-eyed. The other, frowning over a ledger, was the young bearded monk who had lost at cards the night before. Behind them stood a chest with the largest lock I had ever seen; the abbey’s funds, no doubt.

  The two monks jumped to their feet at my entry. ‘Good morning,’ I said. My breath made a mist in the air, for the room was unheated. ‘I seek Brother Edwig.’

  The young monk glanced at an inner door. ‘Brother Edwig is with the abbot—’

  ‘In there? I’ll join them.’ I passed to the inner door, ignoring a hand half-raised in protest. Opening it, I found myself facing a staircase. It led to a little landing, where a window gave a view out over the white landscape. Opposite, voices could be heard behind a door. I paused outside, but could not make out what it was they were saying. I opened the door and went in.

  Abbot Fabian was speaking to Brother Edwig in peevish tones. ‘We should ask more. It doesn’t befit our status to let it go for less than three hundred . . .’

  ‘I need the money in my coffers now, Lord Abbot. If he’ll p-pay cash for the land, we should t-take it!’ Despite his stutter, there was a steely note in the bursar’s voice. Abbot Fabian looked round, disconcerted.

  ‘Oh, Master Shardlake—’

  ‘Sir, this is a private conversation,’ the bursar said, his face filled with sudden anger.

  ‘I am afraid there is no such thing where I am concerned. If I knocked and waited at every door, who knows what I might miss?’

  Brother Edwig controlled himself, fluttering his hands, once more the fussy bureaucrat. ‘N-no, of course, forgive me. We w-were discussing the monastery finances, some lands we must sell to meet the costs of the building w-works, a mat-mat—’ His face reddened again as he struggled for words.

  ‘A matter of no concern to your investigation,’ the abbot finished with a smile.

  ‘Brother bursar, there is a relevant issue I would discuss.’ I took a seat at an oak desk with many drawers, the only furniture in the little room apart from yet more shelves of ledgers.

  ‘I am at your service, sir, of course.’

  ‘Dr Goodhaps tells me that on the day he died Commissioner Singleton was working on an account book he had obtained from your office. And that afterwards it disappeared.’

  ‘It did not d-disappear, sir. It was returned to the counting house.’

  ‘Perhaps you could tell me what it was.’

  He thought a moment. ‘I cannot remember. The inf-firmary accounts, I believe. We keep accounts for all the different departments - sacristy, infirmary and so on, and a central set for the whole monastery.’

  ‘Presumably if Commissioner Singleton took account books from you, you would keep a record.’

  ‘I m-most certainly would.’ He frowned petulantly. ‘But more than once he took books without telling me or my assistant, and we had to spend the day hunting for something he had taken.’

  ‘So there is no actual record of all he took?’

  The bursar spread his arms. ‘How c-could there be, w-when he helped himself? I am s-sorry—’

  I nodded. ‘All is in order now, in the counting house?’

  ‘Thank the Lord.’

  I stood up. ‘Very well. Please have all the account books for the last twelve months brought to my room in the infirmary. Oh, and those from the departments as well.’

  ‘All the books?’ The bursar could not have looked more aghast had I ordered him to remove his habit and parade naked in the snow. ‘That would be very disruptive, it would bring the work of the counting house to a halt—’

  ‘It will only be for one night. Maybe two.’

  He seemed set to argue further, but Abbot Fabian interjected.

  ‘We must co-operate, Edwig. The books will be brought to you as soon as they can be fetched, Commissioner.’

  ‘I am obliged. Now, my lord Abbot, last night I visited that unfortunate novice. Young Whelplay.’

  The abbot nodded seriously. ‘Yes. Brother Edwig and I will be visiting him later.’

  ‘I have the m-month’s dole accounts to check,’ the bursar muttered.

  ‘Nevertheless, as my most senior official after Prior Mortimus, you must accompany me.’ He sighed. ‘As a complaint has been made by Brother Guy—’

  ‘A serious complaint,’ I said. ‘It appears the boy might have died—’

  Abbot Fabian raised a hand. ‘Rest assured, I shall investigate the matter fully.’

  ‘Might I ask, my lord, what exactly is the boy supposed to have done, to earn such punishment?’

  The abbot’s shoulders set with tension. ‘To be frank, Master Shardlake—’

  ‘Yes, frankness, please—’

  ‘The boy does not like the new ways. The preaching in English. He is much devoted to the Latin Mass, and the chant. He fears the chant will be put in English—’

  ‘An unusual concern for one so young.’

  ‘He is very musical, he assists Brother Gabriel with his service books. He is gifted, but has opinions beyond his station. He spoke out in Chapter, although as a novice he should not—’

  ‘Not treasonable words, I hope, like Brother Jerome?’

  ‘None of my monks, sir, no one, would speak treasonable words,’ the abbot said earnestly. ‘And Brother Jerome is not part of our community.’

  ‘Very well. So Simon Whelplay was set to work in the stables, put on bread and water. That seems harsh.’

  The abbot reddened. ‘It was not his only failing.’

  I thought a moment. ‘He assists Brother Gabriel, you said. I understand Brother Gabriel has a certain history?’

  The abbot fiddled nervously with the sleeve of his habit. ‘Simon Whelplay did speak in confession of - certain carnal lusts. Towards Brother Gabriel. But sins of thought, sir, only thought. Brother Gabriel did not even know. He has been pure since the - the trouble two years ago. Prior Mortimus keeps a close eye, a very close eye, on such matters.’

  ‘You have no novice master, do you? Too few vocations.’

  ‘Numbers in all the houses have been falling for generations, since the Great Pestilence,’ the abbot said in tones of gentle reasonableness. ‘But with a revived religious life under the king’s guidance, perhaps now our houses will be revitalized, more will choose the life—’

  I wondered if he could really believe that, be so blind to the signs. The pleading note in his voice made me realize he could; he really thought the monasteries could survive. I glanced at the bursar; he had taken a paper from his desk and was studying it, divorcing himself from the conversation.

  ‘Who knows what the future may
bring?’ I turned to the door. ‘I am obliged to you, gentlemen. Now I must brave the elements again, to see the church - and Brother Gabriel.’ I left the abbot looking after me anxiously, while the bursar examined his double-entries.

  AS I CROSSED the cloister yard an uncomfortable ache told me I needed to visit the privy. Brother Gabriel had pointed it out to me the night before; there was a quick way via the back of the infirmary across a yard to the reredorter, where the privy was housed.