The Monastery Murders

by E. M. Powell

  An unexpected pulse of temper went through him.

  ‘By Saint Peter of Rome! Where is it?’ He flung the documents he held across the table.

  ‘Brother?’

  He froze at the deep voice behind him.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Osmund turned to see Daniel two steps behind, the tall lay brother looming over him as he sat here at his desk.

  ‘Yes, I am fine, Daniel.’ He fought to compose himself. ‘What is it? I am very busy.’ He heard the sharpness in his tone and hated himself for it. He was speaking to the lay brother exactly as Abbot Philip spoke to him.

  ‘There’s a problem with the pipes, brother.’

  ‘Pipes? What pipes?’ Oh, no. If Osmund was bad at numbers, the workings of the monastery’s water were an even bigger mystery to him. But he oversaw the lay brothers now and the lay brothers oversaw the pipes.

  ‘The guesthouse, brother,’ said Daniel. ‘I’ve not looked properly yet. But I think there’s some sort of blockage.’

  ‘The guesthouse? Then can’t you ask Silvanus to—’ The words were out of Osmund’s mouth before he could stop them. May God strike him down. He’d forgotten in his anxiety over his lost account.

  Daniel didn’t answer. Gave him the look that told him his foolish, unforgivable remark would be a huge joke among every one of the lay brothers within a couple of hours.

  ‘Then show me.’ Osmund got to his feet, aware that his face was hot with his embarrassment. ‘And quickly, as I have much work to do.’

  He followed Daniel outside into the bitter cold of the bleak morning, with snow coming down fast and hard.

  Only the heavy clump of Daniel’s boots on the snow as the brother walked beside him broke the muffled silence.

  As they approached the guesthouse, Daniel pointed to the latrine block. ‘I reckon the problem could be under there. The flow’s not good inside. Hardly anything. If not there, we can try further upstream.’

  Osmund’s spirits sank even further as they walked up to the tunnel that carried the spoil away and the whiff of that waste met him. He had no idea what to say or do. All he could think of was his missing papers.

  ‘You need to take a look, I think, brother.’ Daniel’s bearded face was an impassive mask.

  Osmund knew full well he needed to do so. He knew with even greater certainty that it would be of no use whatsoever. And he knew Daniel knew it as well. He took a last gulp of fresh air and squatted down before the large pipe, aware that his shoulder was about the height of Daniel’s knee.

  ‘Can you see anything, brother?’ rumbled the deep voice from above him.

  Osmund didn’t expect to. But he could, Jesu Christus, he could. The world seemed to lose air and he was losing sight, losing reason.

  For bobbing in the pool of spoil were not twigs. Nor grass. Nor branches.

  But the unmistakable form of a human corpse.

  And it was one he recognised. Immediately.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Stanton shut the door on Barling and the drunken Lambert and turned to Agatha.

  All things considered, he’d definitely been given the more appealing task.

  Her thick chestnut hair fell around her shoulders and though she’d laced her shift, her deft fingers tweaked at it to loosen it as she stood before him.

  By all that was holy, it was good to see a woman’s flesh again. He’d had his fill of living among monks and brothers.

  ‘Well, Stanton. Or, if you’d prefer, I can call you Hugo.’ Her dark grey eyes met his as her mouth curved in a knowing smile. ‘Who would have thought that you and I would end up alone so soon?’

  Much as he’d have liked to, he wouldn’t let her divert him from his task. Barling would have his head if he did. ‘Agatha, we’re alone for me to question you. No other reason.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’ She took a step towards him and placed one of her hands on his chest. ‘Hugo.’

  He caught the scent of her: warm and sweet and inviting. ‘It is,’ he replied, willing himself to ignore the surge of his own blood. He slid a hand over hers, as much to feel her smooth skin as to break her touch. ‘But we can’t do anything.’ He made his tone as firm as he could. ‘Not now.’

  ‘Why?’ She looked confused and hurt, still hadn’t stepped back, grasped his hand tightly so he couldn’t break away. ‘Don’t you like me?’ Her lips parted. ‘I like you.’

  Saints alive, he wasn’t made of stone. A kiss, that was all, it wouldn’t hurt. He went to lower his mouth to hers. And then he heard it.

  A tiny clink.

  His free hand shot to hers, closed around her small fist that held his purse. ‘Give it back, girl.’

  ‘Take it, then.’ She shoved it at him with a filthy oath and stepped back from him, pulling her clothing closed. Her small, round face, which had been filled with lust only a moment ago, could now be that of an angry cat.

  It made her even more desirable, though he knew she’d scratch his eyes out if he went near her. To his regret, his purse had been her prize, not him. And he’d not only nearly fallen for her tricks, he’d wasted valuable time. ‘So if you’ve finished trying to steal from me, I need to ask you some questions. Aelred Barling, the man in the next room, and I are—’

  ‘The King’s men. I know. I know all about why you’re here.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Gossip at the gate. I hear everything there.’

  ‘Then as you know it,’ said Stanton, ‘you’ll know the seriousness of our business. But why are you here?’

  ‘I come for the charity.’

  ‘Agatha, I’m not a fool.’

  She arched her brows at him as if she disagreed.

  Stanton put his hand to his purse to make sure he still had it.

  ‘I’ve been here since yesterday,’ said Agatha. ‘And it’s true about the charity. Well, nearly true. Brother Lambert can be very generous. He even lets me sleep here in the warm with plenty of bread when the weather gets bad, so I don’t have to make the journey home. I can be generous too.’ She raised her chin to meet his gaze. ‘If I am allowed.’

  Stanton ignored the call of his own flesh, trying to remember what the priest Theobald had said about snow and the valley. ‘The weather was very bad around Christmas time, wasn’t it? Very deep snow, I’ve heard. Did you stay here then?’

  ‘You mean on the night that Brother Cuthbert was murdered?’

  Her brazenness was remarkable. ‘The very one.’

  ‘Yes, I was. It was a special favour by Lambert as it was Christmas time.’

  ‘Then you didn’t go back to the village of Gottburn?’ Theobald had said that all his parishioners were accounted for.

  ‘Why would I go there?’

  ‘Don’t you live there?’

  ‘Me? No. My older brother and I have a small cottage a few miles outside it. There’s only him and me. Our parents are dead, our other brothers and sisters too.’ A brief sadness clouded her face. ‘We never go in the village, we’re not welcome there. My brother drinks more than Lambert. Then he gets into fights and brawls. The folk of Gottburn don’t let him come anywhere near, haven’t done for a few months. They don’t like me, neither. Especially the women. Jealous mares, the lot of them.’

  Stanton could well understand why Agatha might raise hackles, but it still seemed harsh for a young girl to be completely shunned like that. But importantly for his investigation, it would appear that Theobald hadn’t allowed for two of his parishioners in his account because he never saw them in his church. ‘Yours must be a hard life,’ he said gently.

  She shrugged. ‘Like I say, I get looked after here.’

  ‘Did you know Brother Cuthbert?’

  ‘I might have seen his face, when he’d come in to look after the gatehouse for a little while. A few of the monks do, so that Lambert can go to their meetings and such like. But I don’t know who they are.’

  ‘What about Silvanus?’

  ‘That vicious guestmaster?’
She shuddered. ‘No. He was horrible to me, to all the beggars, even when people came on feast days. I think he thought we made the entrance look untidy.’ She smirked. ‘Well, he can’t complain any more, can he?’

  ‘That’s certainly true.’ Stanton looked at her hands, trying to guess if they’d have the strength to wield a pitchfork. She’d certainly be able to plunge a skewer into a man’s throat. Or pour wood tar in his mouth once he was dead. ‘Did Lambert say anything about—’

  A tremendous banging on the door interrupted him. A male voice came from outside, raised in panic.

  ‘Lambert, are you in there? Open up, in the name of God. Lambert? Anyone? Answer!’

  Stanton opened the door of the inner room just as Barling answered the outer door.

  Osmund the cellarer stood there, his eyes wild with terror.

  ‘What is it, brother?’ demanded Barling.

  ‘It’s the lady Juliana, sir,’ said Osmund. ‘Come quickly, I beg you.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The lady Juliana was dead. Drowned, in fact. A bad enough death to perish in water, thought Stanton, but this was different, and far worse.

  ‘Can you see her, Stanton?’ Barling was peering into the dark tunnel that carried the waste from the latrine block in the guesthouse.

  ‘Yes.’ Stanton crouched down to get a better view. There wasn’t much daylight this morning, with the snow coming down more heavily and even less light in the shadow of the pipe. His stomach turned over. Not only at the foul stench. But at the curve of a back, a hip in a robe of red and blue. ‘Brother Osmund is right. It’s her.’ He straightened up again.

  A disgusted gasp came from Agatha, who’d followed them as they’d hurried over here.

  ‘How . . . How can this be?’ puffed Lambert, who’d done the same, breathless from his haste.

  ‘Oh, dear God, sir.’ Osmund was deathly pale. ‘Daniel and I thought so too. But I prayed it wasn’t so. Oh, dear God. How could such a terrible accident have happened?’

  Accident? Stanton blinked hard. The monk really didn’t have the sharpest mind. At all.

  ‘It is no accident, brother,’ came Barling’s clipped response.

  ‘But . . . But,’ said Osmund, ‘could my lady not have fallen in?’

  ‘It is not possible to fall into a cramped tunnel,’ said Barling. ‘Had my lady fallen in the water outside of the tunnel, she would not have been washed into it.’

  Osmund still looked unsure.

  ‘Water doesn’t flow upstream, brother,’ added Stanton.

  Osmund’s hand went to his mouth. ‘Oh, dear God.’

  The clerk’s shrewd glance went from Osmund to the bearded lay brother. ‘It was you who found the body?’

  Barling had left out the word ‘again’. But it hung in the air like the smell from the latrine.

  The glower on Daniel’s face told Stanton the lay brother had picked up on Barling’s barb only too well. ‘Brother Osmund and I found her together, sir.’

  ‘Is this true, Osmund?’ asked Barling.

  ‘Yes, it is. Daniel came to me and told me that there was a problem with the water flow from the guesthouse. He’d noticed it was slowed right down.’

  ‘When I was cleaning up, sir.’

  ‘And it’s not a good sign if the water slows, is it, Daniel?’ said Osmund.

  It didn’t surprise Stanton that Osmund had to ask Daniel about this. It seemed the monk had very little sense of any kind between his ears.

  ‘Lots of pipes here, sir,’ said Daniel to Barling. ‘They run through the whole monastery. Our river never lets us down. It brings us our fresh water and carries the spoil away. If the flow slows or stops, it means we have a broken pipe or a blockage. We have to find it. Quickly. So we can fix it, like.’

  ‘And we found the cause of the problem.’ Osmund glanced over at the pipe and away again at once.

  ‘I see.’ Barling looked at Stanton. ‘We will need to get my lady’s body out.’

  Stanton nodded. They did, though it would be a horrific undertaking. ‘Have you got any sticks or poles, Daniel?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Daniel hurried off.

  ‘Brother Osmund,’ said Barling, ‘while we are occupied, can you please fetch the abbot?’

  ‘He will be in chapter, sir. With all the other monks.’

  ‘Then get him out of chapter, brother.’ The clerk’s voice rose enough to send Osmund running off.

  Daniel returned, carrying a couple of stout sticks and a long-handled baling hook.

  ‘Better you let me and Daniel do this, Barling,’ said Stanton. The slightly built, clumsy clerk would be no help.

  Barling nodded and stepped out of the way as Lambert immediately began to gabble at him a jumble of questions and confused remarks. Barling silenced him with a hand.

  An unusually quiet Agatha simply stared.

  Stanton set about his task with Daniel. The lay brother wielded the baling hook with great accuracy, despite the awkward angle, and with deft skill and strength, while Stanton used one of the poles to help guide him.

  As they hauled the filthy, soaked body of Juliana on to the muddy ground on to which snow was steadily settling, the abbot arrived with Maurice and Osmund.

  ‘By Saint Peter of Rome.’ The abbot gave an appalled look at the sight before him, Maurice uttering his own shock. Lambert launched into an account of what had happened, every one of them talking over the others.

  Barling paid them no heed, but came over to squat next to the body, motioning for Stanton to do the same. ‘You can step away now, Daniel.’ Barling lowered his voice to a murmur to speak to Stanton. ‘You can see she is dressed in her linens. No dress, though she wears her robe. No veil.’

  Barling continued to move his gaze over every inch of Juliana.

  Stanton kept his fixed on the blues and reds of her robe. He couldn’t look into her face. He knew they had to do this but he hated it to the depths of his soul.

  ‘And what have we here?’ Barling picked up a few snow-covered dead leaves. He dabbed gently at Juliana’s stained forehead, revealing a huge bruise on her right temple.

  ‘Barling,’ called Abbot Philip, ‘I need to see you in my hall. At once.’

  The clerk met Stanton’s eye. ‘I have seen enough,’ said Barling.

  They both got to their feet.

  Philip carried on issuing orders as he started to walk away. ‘Maurice, make the necessary arrangements to have the lady Juliana taken from here. Daniel can help you.’

  As Stanton set off behind the quick steps of the abbot, Barling with him, he turned to see an angry-looking Maurice speaking to Agatha and Lambert and pointing at the gatehouse.

  Osmund just stood there as the snow continued to fall. He looked more lost than ever.

  Chapter Thirty

  Barling sat in his usual place at the bare table in the abbot’s hall, Stanton opposite him. Though they were back inside, the wind outside had risen, sending the whistle and moan of draughts through the building.

  Philip did not sit. Instead, he paced. ‘The lady Juliana’s head was struck, you say?’

  ‘That is correct,’ replied Barling. ‘I would have hoped hard enough to have caused her immediate death.’

  Philip paused, aghast. ‘Why would you hope for such an appalling act to be carried out upon her?’

  ‘For it would mean that she was dead when she was submerged in the sewer. Otherwise . . .’ He did not need to finish his sentence.

  Philip’s pale face went even paler and he began to pace again. ‘Who would carry out such an assault, Barling, on a defenceless woman?’

  ‘I do not know, Philip.’

  Stanton did not look at the abbot but shook his head wordlessly too.

  Barling knew how he felt. The violence and degradation inflicted upon Lady Kersley was sickening.

  ‘But why?’ Philip paced on. ‘I cannot believe this has happened. Cannot. The lady Juliana was a cherished friend of this monastery for the last ten years. This ab
bey was her refuge, her comfort after the loss of her husband. For her to have met her end with such horror? Here?’

  ‘I agree, Philip,’ said Barling. ‘It makes no sense.’

  ‘This horror that has been visited on Lady Kersley,’ said the abbot, ‘would be shocking enough had it been a unique event. But it is not the only one. It is yet another murder. The third. Two of them a day apart! In a house of God. The house over which I preside.’ He flung himself into his chair and ground at his face with his palms. ‘Such evil. It makes no sense. None.’

  ‘It will make sense, Philip,’ said Barling. ‘We will get to the answers.’

  Stanton cast him a dubious look.

  Barling was aware of how inadequate his own response had sounded. With this latest discovery, inadequate was indeed how he felt.

  ‘As you keep telling me, Barling,’ said Philip. ‘Yet you have not got to the answers. Or any answer! And the deaths are not stopping, are they? Are they?’ An edge came to his voice, an edge that told Barling the man was close to panic.

  ‘I am fully aware of that, Philip.’

  The abbot dropped his hands. ‘I am sorry, Barling. I do not mean to rail at you. But I think the time has come for us to seek more help. When I asked for you, it was only Cuthbert’s death.’ He shook his head. ‘“Only”? What insult have I just uttered to my sacrist’s memory?’

  ‘Not an insult at all,’ replied Barling. ‘What you mean is that since we arrived to assist you, there have been two more murders. And as matters have worsened, you believe extra assistance is needed.’

  ‘It is.’ Philip cast him a grateful glance.

  ‘I have no quarrel with that view,’ said Barling. ‘And I am sure that my assistant holds it also.’

  ‘I do,’ said Stanton.

  ‘Then we are all agreed,’ said Philip. ‘We need help and we need it quickly.’ He looked at Stanton. ‘You’re a fast rider, aren’t you? A skilled messenger?’

  ‘Yes, my lord abbot.’

  ‘Barling,’ said Philip, ‘we shall prepare letters to other holy houses—’