The Monastery Murders

by E. M. Powell

  ‘Yes, father.’ William kept his voice low and his attention on the blood that fell drip by drip from Reginald’s arm into the bowl, obviously not wanting to be drawn into the uncomfortable debate.

  ‘The other thing I heard,’ said Maurice, ‘is that the King’s man has been disturbing the cloister.’

  ‘Then you heard correctly, Maurice,’ said Reginald.

  Maurice frowned. ‘This is not acceptable. Not in the least.’

  The two old monks glared at Philip, united in the confident power that their years gave them.

  Philip squared his shoulders. Years, however many a monk had lived, could not match the power of his office. ‘I need you both to listen to me, and listen carefully. The King’s man, Aelred Barling, is doing what I have asked him here to do, which is to help find the devil who has murdered two of our brethren.’

  ‘But—’ began Reginald.

  ‘Enough, both of you.’ Philip raised a hand. ‘As father of this house, I am responsible for ensuring the safety and well-being of every soul here. To that end, I must carry the burden of the deaths of Cuthbert and Silvanus. Not you.’ His voice rose: he couldn’t help it. ‘So whatever I decide, those decisions must stand. Do I make myself perfectly clear?’

  He still had to wait a moment for their replies but at least they had the sense to make the correct ones.

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ said Reginald.

  ‘Of course, my lord abbot,’ said Maurice.

  Correct, yet their expressions did not match their humble words.

  They looked at their abbot, their lord, their father, with a barely concealed seething hostility.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Of all the monks that Barling could have ordered Stanton to speak to at this ungodly hour, Osmund was by no means the worst.

  Stanton had guessed from the chapter meeting that Osmund, the young black-haired monk who seemed so unsure of himself, wouldn’t be one to become angry or difficult.

  Judging by the raised voices that echoed over from the cloister where Barling had gone, somebody else was.

  As they stood in the wide passageway inside the gate, Osmund spoke calming words to his bearded lay brothers after their initial scare at finding Stanton and Barling standing in the darkness. It was clear that the monk had had more of fright than they had. Most ignored him, standing solemnly as cattle until he finished. A few exchanged furtive glances. Daniel looked at him with barely concealed scorn.

  ‘Brothers, here are the duties that need to be done today.’ Osmund folded his hands, obviously trying to look commanding. All his action did was draw attention to the fact that they trembled. Badly. ‘The . . . the forge will need to be fired up. We will need more firewood. The cows need milking. And there is a table in the monks’ refectory that needs mending. Also . . .’ He paused, clearly lost on whatever list he had made in his mind.

  ‘You told us everything last night, brother.’ This from an older lay brother. ‘We’ll be right. We know our work.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Thank you.’ Osmund raised his hand in a blessing. ‘May God grant you strength and purpose as you labour in praise of His divine mercy.’

  ‘Amen.’ The brothers dispersed at once without a backward glance at Osmund.

  ‘Well, sir.’ Osmund looked at Stanton, his voice still unsteady. ‘I am here and ready to answer your questions.’ He swallowed hard. ‘As you have ordered.’

  Hell’s teeth, the man was nervous as a field mouse. ‘It’s more of a request, brother. We’re standing in a very open place, though. Is there somewhere we can speak more privately?’ It was a genuine request for privacy. Stanton also knew that if they didn’t get out of this passageway through which the wind blew unceasing frigid air, his backside would freeze clean off.

  ‘We could go into the store room.’ Osmund pointed to a door a few feet away.

  ‘A good choice.’

  Once inside with the door shut, Osmund set about lighting a covered lamp.

  The store room was vast, crammed and piled high with caskets, barrels, sacks and bags and more. A large trestle table sat off to one side, holding a number of balances for weighing and untidy mounds of papers and documents.

  ‘This is where you do your work – your work as a cellarer?’ asked Stanton. He didn’t want to start with a question about murder. He needed to get this fellow to calm a bit first.

  ‘Part of it. This is where many of the provisions are stored and we have a cellar underneath. I keep all the accounts and records as well, for here and for the granges, the lands we hold elsewhere. Make sure we have money coming in from things like our wool sales.’ The monk looked more and more defeated as he listed off everything he had to do.

  ‘Quite a responsibility, then.’

  ‘It is. So much. And on top of that, there’s what you saw just now. I have to give the lay brothers their work and oversee it as well. Hold their chapter meetings. Make sure they are disciplined for any transgressions.’

  Discipline lay brothers like Daniel, who deeply resented Osmund for it. The looks on the faces of the other brothers who had waited for Osmund to give them their work hadn’t been the most content, either.

  ‘How long have you been cellarer?’ Stanton knew full well: Barling had passed on what the abbot had said. He just wanted to try to put the man at ease.

  ‘Since last summer, sir. Since Abbot Ernald died. It was Abbot Philip before that.’ He chewed his lip in anxiety. ‘Philip was much better at this than I am. I try my best. But it’s a lot to remember. I get a lot of things wrong.’ He waved a hand over at the mess of records on the table. ‘Mixed up. No matter how hard I try.’

  ‘I’m sorry if this is difficult for you, brother, but I have to ask you about the murders of Brother Cuthbert and Brother Silvanus.’

  Osmund nodded.

  ‘Were you close to either of them?’

  ‘No, sir. They were my brothers and I loved them. But they were both obedientiaries. They had been in those high positions for years. I was only a choir monk. I got to know them better once I became cellarer. They were very good, the very best. They knew their duties down to the last detail and never failed. Unlike me.’

  ‘I’m sure they weren’t perfect. And certainly not at the start.’

  ‘Perhaps not. I don’t know. I wasn’t here then. They were a lot older than me.’

  ‘Where were you the night Cuthbert died?’

  ‘Asleep in the monks’ dormitory. With the other monks.’

  ‘And Silvanus, only yesterday morning?’

  ‘I was with my lay brothers, giving them their work like you saw earlier. I was in church, with the other monks, before and after. In the cloister, with the other monks, at my devotions. Until I had to leave again for my own work. Inspecting the lay dormitories and the lay brothers’ day room. And all the other things I mentioned.’

  ‘Does that mean you leave the cloister whenever your duties require it?’

  ‘I have to. Same as all the other obedientiaries. I have great responsibility now. I have to live up to it.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, brother.’ Stanton gave him the most reassuring smile he had.

  It wasn’t returned.

  ‘Now that I’ve seen the store,’ said Stanton, ‘perhaps you could show me around everything you are responsible for?’

  Stanton needed to see every nook and cranny of this place. He’d seen a lot of it along with Barling, but they’d yet to properly enter the lay brothers’ areas. This would be a useful way in.

  Stanton had been expecting the lay brothers’ domain to be almost identical to that of the monks. Some of it certainly was.

  Their dormitory on the first floor above the store room was the same size, but there the similarity ended. Even though it didn’t have the sacrist’s chamber, it was much more crowded, with the lay brothers’ mattresses pushed in closer to each other. Instead of a covering of warm wool, each one had a worn-looking hide. The rough sacking that doubled as pillows may have held some persona
l items. There were no individual chests to store the brothers’ belongings. A few larger ones were dotted about.

  At Stanton’s request, he and Osmund had come up to the dormitory via the lay brothers’ night stairs. The stairs led up from the church, but from the nave in the west rather than the choir in the east. As the lay brothers prayed separately, they slept separately. A monastery within a monastery, if you will: Abbot Philip’s words as he had guided him and Barling around on the first morning. Now he saw what that meant. A lesser house.

  ‘Were all the lay brothers asleep in here on the night of Cuthbert’s murder?’ asked Stanton.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Osmund. ‘I had to rouse them from sleep as I had been, for there had been no bell. Their door was also locked.’

  But Daniel said he’d slept in the stables that night. ‘All of them? Are you sure?’ He might have caught Daniel in a lie.

  ‘Let me think.’ Osmund chewed his lip again. ‘Yes. No. No, not all. Daniel slept in the stables, looking after one of the animals. He sought my permission first. I’m sorry, it slipped my mind.’

  ‘No need for apologies, brother.’ Saints alive, the man was a ditherer. ‘Should we move on?’

  The day room below told the same story of a separate life. No grand Chapter House. No special refectory in which to eat.

  ‘The lay brothers don’t need as much space as the monks, as they’re out working most of the time,’ said Osmund. ‘So everything happens in this one room.’

  A room which held marked, chipped tables and worn-looking stools and little else, save a huge cross hanging from one wall.

  Osmund went on. ‘I hold the chapter meetings here but only once a week. It’s where I lead them in prayer and then hear about and punish any breaking of the sacred Rule. It gets broken often, believe me.’

  A room where Daniel, exhausted from his work, like all the others, could be made to sit on the cold floor and eat his dinner, day after day. For a reason like reading a book.

  Stanton couldn’t reply to Osmund and trust himself to be polite. Instead, he merely nodded and asked to move on.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Barling followed Brother Elias into the sacristy of the late Cuthbert and through the partition to enter the library proper.

  ‘My apologies that there is nowhere to sit, sir,’ said Elias.

  ‘That is of no consequence, brother,’ replied Barling. ‘What is of greater importance is that we can speak privately without being overheard.’ Although the last time he’d stood here and had become aware of a listener, it had been Elias. The man moved quietly even for a monk. Barling had had no warning of the man’s arrival in the cloister a few minutes ago, either.

  ‘I shall keep an eye on the passageway, sir.’ If the monk had realised that Barling’s comment was directed at him, his polite expression gave no indication of it.

  ‘Excellent.’ Barling’s gaze swept over the room in which they stood. A beautifully constructed one for the storage of books, and, more importantly, a dry one. Tall recessed arches in the stone walls had cupboards set into them, with stout locks keeping them closed. Other locked chests were stacked in the room. It struck him that this room was far more orderly than the books and manuscripts that were stored in the sacristy. ‘I do not wish to unduly keep you from your devotion, brother.’

  ‘I am at your command, sir.’

  ‘You shared the space in the sacristy with the late Brother Cuthbert. In fact, you still use it. That is correct?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Was there any conflict between the two of you over how much you took of his room?’

  Elias looked a little surprised. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You are sure?’ Philip had said that Cuthbert despaired of Elias and his books. ‘No arguments, no tension?’

  ‘None, sir. None at all. Cuthbert and I got along quite well.’

  ‘Would you say you were his friend?’

  ‘No. In truth, I don’t think he had any special friendships. He was a very quiet man. He was devoted to his duties and his God. And he was very good at those duties. I admired that about him.’

  ‘Then there was no issue of strife or upset between you?’

  ‘Not between us, no. But he was upset about one thing. Very upset.’

  ‘What might that be?’

  ‘A couple of months ago, he lost a chalice.’

  ‘How does one lose a chalice?’

  ‘That was what Cuthbert kept saying. He was frantic. As I say, he was very good at his duties. He kept every item needed for the church in beautiful condition and order.’

  ‘But he mislaid a chalice. The most sacred of objects.’

  ‘Not only sacred. It was a particularly fine silver one, gilded inside. I knew which one he meant for of course I’d seen it so many times on the altar. He searched and searched: the sacristy, the church. Everywhere. I helped him. We went through everything in this room, every cupboard and chest. But we could not find it. The very next day, he confessed at chapter, when Abbot Philip made the usual request for any statements or witnesses of sin. Cuthbert prostrated himself on the ground at once and begged for forgiveness for his transgression. My lord abbot was deeply angry, as one would expect.’

  ‘Could someone else not have stolen it? It would be a sinful crime indeed, but the chalice will have been worth a great deal.’

  ‘Abbot Philip asked that very question. He demanded to know whether there were any witnesses to such a crime or other confessions. Nobody said a word and so Cuthbert was punished.’

  ‘By Abbot Philip?’

  ‘Yes. He gave Cuthbert a beating on the back with a stick and Cuthbert had to fast for a month.’

  ‘A harsh response.’

  ‘Not compared to our old abbot, Ernald. If it had been Ernald, he’d have taken the skin off Cuthbert’s bare back with a switch. Ernald despised any and all sin. He believed punishment should be as severe as possible, for it was the only way to stop a sinner falling back.’

  The old abbot again. The late Ernald cast a long shadow over this place. ‘Was the chalice ever found?’

  ‘No, sir. And Cuthbert’s distress at its loss carried on. Carried on until the day he died, in fact.’

  ‘I would now like to turn to that,’ said Barling. ‘Can you tell me where you were the night he was killed?’

  ‘Asleep in the dormitory, with all the other monks.’

  Barling had not really expected a different answer.

  ‘What about yesterday, when Brother Silvanus was murdered?’

  ‘I was in church, for the Offices and Mass. In the cloister for devotion and prayer. Also here in the library.’

  ‘Do you know anybody who would have wished harm to Silvanus?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Did you?’ Barling watched him carefully, as much for his expression as his words.

  ‘No. Nor to any man.’

  ‘In your movements as you described for yesterday, were you ever alone?’

  ‘From time to time, yes. But never for long. I have a store of ink and other writing materials for the scribes. If any of those monks need anything, I have to fetch it for them to minimise disturbance in their work. If a monk asks me for a book, I will go and get it.’

  ‘Like you did for Brother Reginald, the time I was in here with Abbot Philip and my assistant?’

  ‘Yes, he does suffer very much with his joints. It’s a sad affliction. He was an outstanding scribe once. Now he cannot even grasp the pen.’ He shook his head. ‘But I also fetch and carry because I don’t want others in here if at all possible. People put things in all the wrong places.’ He gave a small frown. ‘After the disappearance of the chalice, I don’t want any of my books to go missing.’

  ‘Your books?’

  Elias looked embarrassed. ‘I mean the abbey’s books, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I look after them as carefully as if they were mine. It was Abbot Ernald who started the collection when he set up this h
ouse three decades ago. Many have been written here. We have copies of the Bible and biblical commentaries. Collections of sermons. Writings of the founder of our order, the great Bernard of Clairvaux. Lives of the saints. Tracts on canon law. Medical texts for Brother William. Instructional texts for the lay brothers.’ Elias’s face lit up as he described his treasured library.

  ‘It sounds wonderful.’ Barling spoke from his heart. Books to him were a singular treasure.

  ‘It is. I could go on. Some of them are the very finest manuscripts. They are worth even more than the chalice. I keep all of those secure in here, locked away.’

  ‘Yet you have many stored next door in the sacristy, where anybody could take them?’

  ‘Most of those are from the lady Juliana’s recent donation.’ He looked and sounded less enthused now. ‘I am checking through them and examining them. Some are – how can I put this? – not the most suitable for a collection in a monastic house.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘It is often the case with donations. Benefactors know how much a book is worth and think that is all that matters. But we make a careful choice of the books that we need and use. We may for instance receive a romance. Not only is the subject matter not suitable, but such a manuscript is likely to be lavishly illustrated. That is not how the manuscripts of the White Monks should be decorated. They should be without excessive adornment and have the plainest colouring.’

  ‘Then what will you do with the unsuitable donations?’

  ‘As I said, they can be worth a great deal, so we shall sell them. It means that the donation can be gratefully received and not turned down, which might upset a benefactor.’

  ‘I see.’ Barling thought that perhaps the murder of two monks might be far more likely to upset a benefactor. ‘I will leave you to your sorting, Elias. You have much to do.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Barling went to the door. Then paused. ‘One more thing.’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Have you been teaching Daniel the lay brother to read?’

  A shocked flush swept across the monk’s face. He swallowed hard. ‘Yes, sir.’