Dissolution

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘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 tears 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.

  Just ahead the platform was level with the top of the rood screen. It ran from one side of the nave to the other, seven feet wide with, on the top, the statues at which I had previously peered from ground level. From there they had appeared quite small, but now, glancing at the dim figures through the gloom, I saw they were life-sized.

  Cautiously, carefully gripping the rail, I moved down the platform past the screen. The rail creaked with every few steps and once I felt it wobble under my hand. I told myself that the mason and his men clattered along safely whenever they worked up here, but could not help wondering whether the blocks crashing over might have weakened it.

  Across the church I made out Mark moving slowly along in parallel. He raised his sword and I waved my staff in acknowledgement. Between us, now, we must have the killer trapped. I gripped the staff hard. My legs had begun trembling and I cursed at them to be still.

  I moved steadily on, staring ahead into the gloom. Nothing. No sound. As I approached the top of the church the walkway bent round in a half-circle, and a few moments later Mark and I were staring at each other, standing fifty feet apart at either end of the presbytery. And between us nothing, nobody. He looked at me incredulously.

  ‘He came this way, I saw him,’ he called.

  ‘Then where is he? There’s nobody this end of the church. You must have been mistaken, he must have headed down the other way, towards the door.’ I stared back the way I had come, past the rood screen to where the end of the walkway was lost in the darkness.

  ‘I’d swear on my life he came this way, I’d swear it.’

  ‘All right.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Keep calm. If he’s down the other end of the church we still have him. No one has gone down the stairs, we would have heard. We’ll go back to the other end.’

  ‘Perhaps we should go down. One of us could fetch help.’

  ‘No, it’s hard to keep an eye on both staircas
es at once, in a place this size he could slip away if he gets down.’

  We took a parallel course once more, back the way we had come. My eyes were sore from peering intently ahead. As I passed the rood screen with its statues, something nagged at my mind. I was well past before it came to me: there had been the usual three statues: St John the Baptist, Our Lord and the Virgin. But there was a fourth as well.

  Even as I paused and turned something whistled through the air and struck the wall beside me. A dagger clattered onto the walkway at my feet as I turned, realizing that what I had taken for the middle statue was in fact a living man in Benedictine habit. Even now a dim figure was clambering over the railing onto the walkway. I turned and ran towards him, but my foot caught in the mesh of the walkway and I fell forward onto the railing. For a second my head and shoulders hung out over the nave and I stared terrified over the drop, then I managed to haul myself upright. The figure had gone. I heard footsteps clattering down the stairs.

  ‘Mark!’ I called. ‘This side! He’s escaping!’

  Mark was some distance ahead and by the time he had run back to the top of the stairs on the far side the monk had descended. I heard footsteps pattering away; he ran beside the wall on my side, making it impossible to see him. I ran down the stairs and arrived at the bottom just as Mark appeared opposite. In the distance the church door slammed shut.

  ‘He was standing on the rood screen, with the statues!’ I shouted. ‘Did you see who it was? He was gone in a flash.’

  ‘No, sir, he was down on the stairs by the time I reached you.’ He stared up at the screen. ‘He must have climbed out on the screen as we were going up the stairs. God’s wounds, he must have courage to stand up there with no rail or support.’

  ‘Hoping reformers would instinctively avert their eyes from statuary. He’s got away.’ I looked at the dagger I had picked up from the walkway. A sharp, unornamented weapon of steel. No clue there. I banged my fist on the wall, sending a wave of pain shooting up my arm.

  ‘But, sir, what about Gabriel? Did you not think him the killer after all? What did you find in the hidden passage?’

  I hesitated. ‘I was mistaken, completely mistaken. He had no secrets. And now someone else has died because of me. Despite my prayers,’ I added, looking angrily up at the roof for a moment. ‘But I swear he shall be the last.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  I HAD ORDERED the four surviving senior obedentiaries to the church. Abbot Fabian, Prior Mortimus, Brother Edwig and Brother Guy stood with Mark and me in the nave as servants hauled lumps of stone from Gabriel’s body. Strangely, I found I could bear the terrible sight, a shocked, numbed feeling had descended on me. I watched the obedentiaries’ reactions: Brother Guy and Prior Mortimus stood impassive, Brother Edwig wrinkled his face with distaste, Abbot Fabian turned away and vomited into the aisle.

  I ordered them to accompany me to Gabriel’s little office, where stacks of books for copying sat on the floor, and the broken statue of the Virgin still leaned mournfully against the wall. I asked them where the monks had been an hour before, when the stone fell.

  ‘All over the precinct,’ Prior Mortimus replied. ‘It’s recreation hour. Not many would be out in this weather, most would be in their cells.’

  ‘Jerome? Is he safe?’

  ‘Locked in his cell since yesterday.’

  ‘And you four. Where were you?’

  Brother Guy said he had been studying alone in his dispensary; Prior Mortimus had been in his office, again alone. Brother Edwig told me his two assistants would verify he had been in the counting house, while Abbot Fabian had been giving his steward instructions. I sat looking at them; even those with alibis could not be trusted, those who served them could be persuaded or threatened to lie. The same would be true of any alibis the monks gave each other. I could question every single servant and monk in the place, but how long would that take and where would it get me? I suddenly felt helpless.

  ‘So Gabriel saved you?’ Prior Mortimus broke the silence.

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘With respect, sir, why should he give his life for you?’

  ‘Perhaps it is not so surprising. I think he had been led to believe his own life was of little worth.’ I stared hard at the prior.

  ‘Then I hope his act is helping him now at his judgement. He had many sins to weigh in the balance.’

  ‘Perhaps not such great matters in God’s eyes.’

  There was a hesitant knock at the door, and the frightened face of a monk appeared.

  ‘Pray pardon, there is a letter for the commissioner from Justice Copynger. The messenger says it is urgent.’

  ‘Very well. Gentlemen, stay here for now. Mark, come with me.’

  AS WE MARCHED down the church we saw Gabriel’s body had been removed; two of the servants were washing the flags; steam rose from the hot water as they swabbed away the blood. When we opened the door a sea of faces looked at us, monks and servants, all murmuring anxiously. Grey clouds of breath issued from fifty mouths. I saw Brother Athelstan, his eyes alight with curiosity, and Brother Septimus staring round in bewildered anxiety, wringing his hands. At the sight of us, Brother Jude called on the crowd to clear a way. We strode through them, led by the monk who had fetched us. At the gatehouse Bugge stood holding a letter, his sharp little eyes full of curiosity.

  ‘The messenger said it was most urgent, Commissioner, I hope you’ll forgive the interruption. Is it true Brother Gabriel’s been killed in an accident in the church?’

  ‘No, Master Bugge, it was no accident. He died saving my life from a murderer.’ I took the letter and walked away, halting in the centre of the courtyard. I felt safer away from high walls just then.

  ‘That’ll be all over the precinct in an hour,’ Mark said.

  ‘Good. The time for secrecy is over.’ I broke the seal and read the single sheet. I bit my lip anxiously.

  ‘Copynger has begun his enquiries. He’s ordered Sir Edward and another local landowner named in that book to attend him. Messages have come back saying they’re cut off on their estates because of the snow, but if a messenger can get in they can get out, so he’s sent for them again. This smacks of delaying tactics. These people have things to hide.’

  ‘You could confront Brother Edwig now.’

  ‘I don’t want that slippery eel saying it was all just exercises and projections. I want to confront him with hard evidence. But I won’t have it by tomorrow, or the day after - not at this rate.’ I folded the letter. ‘Mark, who could have known we were going to the church this morning? I told you by the pond. Remember I said we must go to the church.’

  ‘Prior Mortimus was there, but he was walking away.’

  ‘Perhaps he has sharp ears, like yours. The point is, no one else knew we were going. Assuming, that is, that someone did go up there to lie in wait for me.’

  He thought. ‘But how would anyone know you would come to rest just under those blocks of stone?’

  ‘You’re right. Oh God, I cannot think straight.’ I kneaded my brow with my fingers. ‘All right. What if our killer was up on that walkway for a different reason? What if he just took the opportunity to rid the world of me when I paused where I did?’

  ‘But why would anyone go up there? There aren’t even any works going on.’

  ‘Who would know most about the works now Gabriel is dead?’

  ‘Prior Mortimus is in charge of the daily running of the house.’

  ‘I think I will talk to him.’ I paused, folding the letter away. ‘But first, Mark, there is something I must tell you.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  I looked at him seriously. ‘That letter you took to Copynger about the land sales. I asked him also to find out if there were any boats going to London. It would take a week to cross the Weald in these snows, but after that letter of Jerome’s I need to see Cromwell. It occurred to me there might be a boat going and there is; one is leaving on the afternoon tide with a ca
rgo of hops. It should arrive in London in two days, returning the day after. If we’re lucky with the weather I’ll be away four days. I mustn’t miss the chance. And I want you to stay here.’

  ‘But should you leave now?’

  I paced up and down. ‘I have to take this opportunity. Remember, the king doesn’t know what’s been going on here. If Jerome got any other letters out and the king saw them, Cromwell could be in trouble. I don’t want to go, but I must. And there’s something else. Remember that sword?’