“At this stage, anything would be helpful. I know nothing except he is dead and for some reason was wearing armor when he died.”
Arnulf spread his hands wide. “I’m sure Bishop Gregory gave you all the relevant information. I don’t know what more I can add.”
A simple conversation had turned remarkably difficult. Perhaps Arnulf was merely intending to be circumspect. “Bishop Gregory did tell me what he knew,” Gareth said gravely. “I was hoping to hear more from you, seeing as how it’s unlikely a bishop would interact very much with a monk who worked in the scriptorium.”
Arnulf raised one shoulder. “Many here are close in age to me. From what I saw of Harald, he kept mostly to himself.” He paused. “I hope I am not speaking out of turn to say that his family supported King Ottar, while mine has always been loyal to King Brodar—and his father before him, of course.”
Conall tipped his head. “That a man’s family supported one rival to the throne of Dublin over another caused division amongst the churchmen here? I would have thought you would be above all that.”
Arnulf gave him a deprecating smile. “Ideally, yes, but we are men, and as such, we sometimes forget ourselves and take on the rivalries and factions of the secular world.”
“Would that include you and Harald personally? Did you argue?” Gareth asked.
Arnulf saw immediately the impression he’d given, and he put up both hands, hastening to head Gareth off before he went down that path. “No! No! We never talked about such things. But I felt them between us. Regardless, he kept to himself. I had little contact with him here at Christ’s Church. You’d be better off speaking to the men in the scriptorium.”
Which was, of course, the plan. For now, Gareth was going to ignore the fact that Arnulf was almost certainly lying to him about something. If he wouldn’t answer direct questions, Gareth had other ways of finding out what he wanted to know. And with Arnulf’s elisions and avoidances, he’d only piqued Gareth’s interest.
Conall clearly felt it too, because he elbowed Gareth in the ribs and said in Welsh, in an undertone. “What does Hywel say? When a man is asked to sing and protests long and loudly that he couldn’t possibly, it’s an invitation to ask him again.”
Because Arnulf was looking at him curiously, Gareth didn’t reply to Conall with more than a movement of his hand. But he and Conall had been friends through one of the most trying experiences of their lives, after which they’d investigated another murder together. He didn’t have to worry that Conall would feel dismissed. It was the same with Godfrid. From three different peoples they might be, but that didn’t stop them from being brothers.
The first man they spoke to was Paul, the armarius. His job was to oversee the scriptorium, including providing the scribes with their materials, designating their tasks, providing books for the other members of the community to read, and assisting his abbot—or prior, or bishop in this case—in choosing readings for services. He was Danish but spoke French as well as Harald, which was in large part why they started with him, as well as out of respect for his office since he was the most senior scribe.
Gareth raised his eyebrows at Conall. “Do you mind?”
Again, Conall didn’t need Gareth to tell him what he wanted from him, and he urged Arnulf to the far end of the room to begin questioning each of the scribes in the hall. This was a small community, so there were only five.
That left Gareth alone with Paul, which was exactly what he wanted. He began with as open-ended a question as he could think to ask, hoping to elicit more from Harald’s supervisor than he’d managed to get out of Arnulf. “What can you tell me about Harald?”
At first it didn’t work. “Very little, I’m afraid. As a scribe, his work was always excellent.”
“I am glad to hear it.” Gareth paused, a finger to his lip. “I know he is dead, and you may be loath to speak ill of him in any way, but I am asking these questions because he is dead, and your bishop would like to know why.”
“What more is there to know? He killed himself.” The armarius spoke bluntly.
Gareth canted his head. “How do you know that?”
“Didn’t he?”
“There is actually some doubt on that score.”
Paul blinked. “Really? I am glad to hear it. I don’t like the idea of him being so beset that he took his own life.” His teeth clenched for a moment. “It makes me ashamed that I didn’t ask more questions of him.”
That was a startling admission, and one Gareth wanted to respect. “He seemed out of sorts to you?”
“Not out of sorts so much as distracted. Recently, he’d been later to his desk than I expected every morning, and when he did arrive, he was obviously exhausted. He also seemed to be favoring his left arm, as if he had injured it.”
Gareth knew all about that, of course, but he didn’t share his discoveries with the monk. “Did you speak to him about it?”
“I chose not to.” He paused before answering the obvious next question, “I feel now I should have. But he was the best at what he did, and it is my policy to give men leeway when they are having difficulties.”
“But you couldn’t say what those difficulties were about?”
“Like everyone else, I assumed he was grieving the loss of his brother.” Again Paul clenched his teeth. “Why didn’t I ask? If he was to speak to anyone about it, it should have been to me. Grief affects each man differently, and he wouldn’t be the first to lose sleep over a loss. But I thought only to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Gareth didn’t have to pretend sympathy. “I’m sorry. Did you discuss him with your prior?”
“Of course.” Then Paul shook his head, both dismissively and apologetically at the same time. “Do you know how scribes work?”
“Perhaps you could be good enough to explain, in case I do not.”
“The scribe is responsible for all aspects of his manuscript, but each man works differently. We keep the quires at the ready—” here he showed Gareth the folded parchment, already prepared for use, “—but Harald insisted on doing everything himself, barring drying and scraping the parchment.” Now Paul held up a pencil. “This is called a plummet.”
Gareth reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his own pencil, causing Paul’s eyes to light. “Where did you get that?”
“It was a gift from Abbot Rhys of St. Kentigern’s in St. Asaph.” Now Gareth brought the scraps of paper he also kept in his pocket and showed the armarius the picture of his daughter he’d drawn yesterday on the boat and then an image of the wooden coin, watching Paul’s eyes all the while for a tell-tale response. He’d given the actual coin to Gwen for her inquiries today.
Instead of recognition, he got a, “But this is wonderful!” Paul cast around the room and then strode towards a corner, returning with a few more scraps of paper, which he thrust into Gareth’s hand. “If you need more, you know where to come.”
Gareth bent his head. “Thank you.”
“Now,” Paul was back to the task at hand, “a scribe uses the plummet to line his page before he begins to write. Every book is different, and before anything else happens, a scribe has to ask himself, “How many columns? How many lines? What size the text? He has to plan it all out in advance, you see.” As he talked, he showed Gareth page after page in various states of completion, moving among the men who were working.
And Gareth really did see. He’d come to reading and writing late in life and, for the first time, was glad of it. As a result, nobody had ever considered him for the Church. He didn’t think he would have had the patience, never mind the skill, to do what these men did.
As Gareth admired one of the books, flipping gently through the pages, Paul stepped to his side. “You can read yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps this will interest you.” He pointed to a piece of parchment tacked to the wall.
Gareth went up to it, surprised to find it wasn’t a quote from the Bible, but from Floren
tius of Valeranica, dated two hundred years earlier:
Because one who does not know how to write thinks it no labor, I will describe it for you, if you want to know how great is the burden of writing: it mists the eyes, it curves the back; it breaks the belly and the ribs; it fills the kidneys with pain, and the body with all kinds of suffering. Therefore, turn the pages slowly, reader, and keep your fingers well away from the pages, for just as a hailstorm ruins the fecundity of the soil, so the sloppy reader destroys both the book and the writing. For as the last port is sweet to the sailor, so the last line to the scribe.
Gareth put a hand to his heart. “I will never look at a book the same way again.”
The armarius spread his hands wide. “I don’t agree with Florentius, of course. Being a scribe is the best job in the world.” He dropped a hand on the closest man’s shoulder, a portly monk with a graying tonsure. “Wouldn’t you agree, Edmund?”
“Of course, armarius.” Edmund spoke in French without looking up. He was working on a lengthy document, and, like Harald in death, his fingers were ink-stained.
The armarius lowered his voice and said conspiratorially, “Edmund tends to be very focused in his work.”
“Was Harald close to any of his fellow scribes?” Gareth asked Paul.
“Not that I know. Not that I saw.” Again he looked to the nearest scribe. “Edmund?”
Edmund finally paused to look up. But even when he did so, he squinted, as if barely able to make out Gareth’s face. “He kept to himself. He made beautiful books.” Then the monk’s expression changed to one of puzzlement. “I heard he killed himself. Why are you investigating his death?”
Gareth was again displeased to hear the scribe say openly what the bishop had wanted to keep quiet. Cadoc had mentioned last night that the rumor of it was swirling around Dublin, despite their best efforts to contain it.
“From whom did you hear he killed himself?”
Edmund dropped his eyes to his work, as if no longer interested in the conversation—and perhaps he wasn’t. “Last evening. I don’t remember who mentioned it.”
Because he didn’t want to let any of these monks know he was concerned, Gareth matched Edmund’s tone. “We don’t want to condemn a man undeservedly. It is not my job to condemn anyone, in fact, but to get to the truth. All we know at present is Harald is dead, possibly of a surfeit of uisce beatha. What the Danes call whiskey.”
“But he left a note, written in his own hand.”
Again, Gareth wanted to ask how he knew that, but decided it wasn’t a worthwhile question. Gossip spread through a small community like a monastery in the amount of time it took to turn around. “That it is, in fact, his writing is something we would like you to confirm.” He pulled the scrap of paper, much like the armarius had just given him, from his scrip and showed it to the armarius and then to Edmund.
Paul nodded sadly. “Yes, that is his writing. Beautiful, as always.”
Then his eyes narrowed as he fingered the edges of the paper. “Odd, though—”
Gareth tipped his head. “What is odd?”
“He wrote this on paper, rather than parchment, which I can understand, since one is valuable and one is not. But, more to the point, he tore it from a larger piece.”
“We noticed that. You think it’s significant?”
“I would like to find the rest of it, if only for my own peace of mind.”
“What about finding the rest would put your mind at ease?” Conall stepped beside Gareth, having finished the questioning of the other scribes. Gareth hoped he’d elicited something, but from Conall’s dour expression, he rather thought not.
The armarius drew his finger along the written line of text. “See how the scored line from the plummet is mostly lost and the lettering lies close to the edge of the paper?”
Both Gareth and Conall nodded, having noticed that as well, but didn’t speak, not wanting to interrupt Paul’s thought.
“If Harald tore the paper first and then wrote the words, he would have written right down the center of the scrap. It would have been easier, if for no other reason than to prevent the pen tip from falling off the paper.”
Gareth frowned. “You are wondering if the text wasn’t written first and then the paper torn? What about that do you see as significant?”
“It is Harald’s writing. Of that I have no doubt, but what if he was writing this line as part of a longer piece? Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup of suffering from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done, is from Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. I think it is important to find what paper this piece was torn from and if more was written than we have here. If this is really a suicide note, where’s the rest of it?”
Chapter Eleven
Day Two
Holm
Holm had not believed he was too young for the job of Sheriff of Dublin when he’d accepted the position. Almost every day since then, however, it had been pointed out to him—not overtly, of course, barring the initial cursing by the older men who’d been passed over—but by the curled lips and outright sneers when he walked into a room. He’d realized only after accepting the job that the main reason King Ottar had appointed him was because he was too young. The king had wanted someone he could control.
Prince Godfrid had understood this from the start, of course, which Holm had come to realize towards the end of the investigation into Merchant Rikard’s death and the subsequent battle against the men of Meath where Ottar had died. That realization had also brought to the fore—and finally explained to him—all whispered gibes and jeers that had been directed at him by the men beneath him since he’d taken office. The comments had never risen to genuine insubordination, thankfully. That would have been something he couldn’t ignore.
At Godfrid’s suggestion, in the months since the battle, he’d looked for ways to make the men beneath him feel more comfortable and in control of themselves and their positions. And if that wasn’t possible, he’d finally worked up the courage to sack them. The men so dispensed had turned out to be just three. Once they were gone, suddenly the barracks were without their poisonous influence, and the world became a much brighter place.
That Brodar had expressed his continued confidence in Holm, at the urging of Godfrid, was humbling, and he had just enough self-awareness by this point to realize that today he was being tested, whether he liked it or not, in a not too dissimilar fashion from his time under Ottar.
Which brought Holm to his second problem: he liked his job. He’d been afraid of it for most of the first two years he’d held it, but he now knew, given time, that he might even become good at it. And he wanted that chance. After Ottar’s death, his men had assumed Brodar would appoint someone else, and when he hadn’t—when Godfrid himself had come to the barracks to express his confidence in Holm—he no longer woke in the morning with a heavy weight on his heart and a sickness in his belly, and it was easier to get out of bed.
With all that said, by sending him to speak to Harald’s mother, a widow named Agnes, not only was Godfrid entrusting him with a piece of the investigation he could easily do himself, since he spoke Danish, but he was letting him do it alone.
It had been less than a day since Agnes had been informed of her son’s death, so, as Holm walked towards her house, he rehearsed comforting words. Dublin was the largest city in Ireland, with upwards of three thousand people within its walls, but having lived here his whole life, Holm had at least a passing acquaintance with everyone. He and Harald were of an age, but hadn’t been friends. He was pretty sure his mother knew Agnes better.
When he arrived at the house, however, he was genuinely surprised not to see any activity around it. Even if Agnes had no children left alive in Dublin, neighbors should have been seeing to her. Resolved to remedy the situation, as a secondary goal to getting whatever he could out of her regarding Harald, Holm knocked on her door and clasped his hands behind his back as he waited for Agnes to answer.
&n
bsp; No reply came, so he knocked a second time, again waiting through a count of ten. Just as he was putting up his hand to knock a final time, realizing he’d been foolish to think Agnes wouldn’t have gone to stay with a family member or friend, a woman called from within the house. “Trim your sails! I’m coming.”
Agnes pulled open her door and stood before him, still in her nightgown with her long gray hair coming out of its braid. “Who wakes an old woman from her sleep?”
Holm took a step back at her hostility. And even though her station was significantly below his, he bowed. “I apologize, mother. I thought you would be awake.”
“Why would you think that? Do you see any men to feed? Babies to nurse? No! My son is dead in the church. My other son is dead too, killed in the fighting. His wife is dead. My daughter lives a hundred miles away with her useless husband and screaming brats. What possible reason could I have for waking early?”
Startled by this onslaught, Holm tried to think of what to say, but managed only, “Perhaps I should come back later.”
“No, no. You’re here now. Come in.” She gestured him inside. “I’ll get my robe.”
At least the house was clean and included a loft for sleeping and a back door, through which he could see the rest of her yard. The space was larger than she needed. But as she’d said, her sons were dead, and now she rambled around the too large home by herself. As Holm stood in the doorway, watching her stir the fire and then the pot above it, he felt her devastation like a physical blow.
He hastened forward to take a stick of wood for the fire from her hand. “Mother, let me help you with that.”
Agnes acquiesced, stepping back and saying, “You’re Marta’s boy, aren’t you?”
His back was to her as he crouched before the fire, coaxing it to a better flame. “Yes.” He turned on his heel to look up at her. “She sends her regards.”
The Irish Bride Page 9