Clementius considered. ‘Didn’t I hear Eusebius use those words on the stairs just now?’
Of course he had. I’d been too shocked by what had happened to notice, but now I remembered he did say those words: “I am the White Angel.” And then I saw again the image of Eusebius with his arms outstretched before the statue of the Virgin in the cloister. The shape of the cross on his robe – the white cross. That was what people kept seeing, not a knight’s sword but Eusebius’s robe – the White Angel. At last the truth was becoming clear: It was Eusebius who had killed Mother Han; Eusebius who struck off poor Hervey’s hand; and Eusebius who had murdered Effie.
‘But why Effie?’ I asked.
‘Because she was Eusebius’s sister,’ said Rosabel from the side of the room.
I turned to her in astonishment.
‘Thomas and Raoul told me, Master, that first night in the abbey.’ She gave a sick laugh. ‘I saw straight off that Adelle was not who they said she was. A man might be fooled, but not another woman. As soon as I knew I wanted to leave, but the baby…’ She shook her head. ‘Raoul and Thomas couldn’t look after her, that was plain. I had to stay - for little Alix’s sake.’
‘Alix!’ I said looking around alarmed.
‘Oh, she’s fine,’ said my mother. ‘There’s no need for you to fuss. She has a proper wet-nurse looking after her now.’
‘But then Brother Hugh returned,’ Rosabel went on, ‘and we all realised the palace lodging was no longer safe. We needed somewhere else to hide and the only person I could think of was Mother Han.’ She took Onethumb’s good hand in hers. ‘She had been kind to us in the past and she was so again. She was a good woman. I’m sorry she’s dead. But we were not as clever as we thought. We were seen leaving and the next day Lord de Saye’s men arrived and took us away.’
‘And then he killed Mother Han to keep the secret and destroyed herhome,’ I prompted her.
She shook her head. ‘No. We left her well and came straight here to Ixworth Hall.’
‘Just in the nick of time, too,’ said my mother. ‘Another day and that mad monk would have found them, too.’
‘But he did find them,’ I pointed out.
‘Yes,’ agreed my mother. ‘And it’s thanks to you that he did.’
‘Thanks to me?’
‘Yes you,’ she said tapping her stick again. ‘Didn’t you notice? He’s been following you for days.’
Following me? Yes of course he had. Even outside the abbey church after the baron’s meeting. That’s how he found Hervey, and Mother Han. I must have led him here, too.
‘But why?’ I repeated. ‘I don’t understand.’
My mother sighed wearily. ‘You tell him,’ she said to Clementius. ‘The whole tale, from the beginning. You might as well.’
It began twenty years ago, said Clementius. Two babies born to a Norfolk woman. Brother and sister - twins.
‘An unusual event in itself I think you’ll agree,’ put in my mother wryly.
Clementius smiled before continuing: ‘In thanks for this special blessing their mother gave them both to the Gilbertines where in due course the boy became a canon and the girl a lay sister. We named them Eusebius and Euphemia after the fashion of our house. You understand we are a dual house, Brother Walter.’
‘Yes yes, I understand the arrangement,’ I said impatiently. ‘But you said Euphemia - Effie - was a lay-sister?’
He nodded. ‘For the mother it seemed the ideal solution. It meant her two children could remain together in the same house while still being dedicated to God. It was her wish that they not be separated.’ He shrugged. ‘We could see no harm in it. Twins form a special bond, more so than ordinary siblings. It seemed natural to allow them to remain together. Unfortunately we didn’t know just how attached Effie and Eusebius were to each other – unnaturally so.’
So that was what young Timothy meant when he spoke of Eusebius’s “unnatural thoughts”. Not his lust for Timothy as I had thought, but for his own sister. If only I had quizzed Timothy more deeply I might have learned the truth sooner.
I shook myself. ‘How does Raoul fit into this?’
Clementius frowned in thought. ‘As you know, our house at Shouldham lies within the diocese of Norwich. As the bishop’s nephew Raoul de Gray took a keen interest in the priory and was a frequent visitor. Naturally we were delighted. The Grays are a wealthy family and we are a poor order. Endowments followed, gifts, benefactions. Raoul was very generous towards us and took a keen personal interest in the priory visiting us frequently.’
‘Which was when Raoul noticed Effie,’ I said guessing.
Clementius nodded uncomfortably. ‘As a lay-sister she wasn’t cloistered like the nuns. She was far more…available. It soon became apparent that Raoul’s interest in the girl was more than it should be.’
‘When you did why did you not put a stop to it? Ban Raoul from the priory?’
He sighed. ‘Easier said than done. The Grays are a powerful clan. What Raoul wanted he usually got. Besides, when Raoul announced he was going abroad we thought the matter would resolve itself.’
‘Which was when?’ I asked. ‘When did Raoul decided to leave for France?’
‘I know what you are asking. You are right, it was about the time of the meeting of barons in Stamford.’
‘You knew about that?’
Clementius shook his head. ‘Not then. But Raoul knew. Already arrests were being made of anyone showing opposition. He was arrested but managed to escape. With both the king and Bishop John abroad he decided his best course was to join them. As you might appreciate, we were not unhappy to see him go. He wanted to take Euphemia with him. Naturally we resisted. But he took her anyway.’
‘And how did Eusebius react to his sister being abducted?’
Clementius merely shrugged. ‘He wasn’t happy.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘Raoul heads south for one of the channel ports disguised as Adelle and passes Thomas off as himself. And since a lady always needs her maid, Effie had her ready-made cover, too. But then Eusebius turns up at the abbey.’ I turned back to Clementius. ‘Whose idea was that?’
Clementius squirmed uncomfortably. ‘I believe it was an arrangement between our Prior…’ he paused, ‘…and Lord de Saye.’
I rounded on my mother. ‘There! I knew it! This entire business is down to that man. He arranged for Eusebius to come to Bury no doubt because he knew Eusebius could identify him, disguise or no disguise. He manoeuvred a confrontation - a fatal confrontation as it turned out - and now we see the consequences. Three people murdered.’
‘Geoffrey didn’t murder anybody,’ snapped back my mother.
‘But he must have realised the danger. He cynically used these young people for his own ends.’
‘No, not his own ends. Something far higher.’
‘Nothing justifies the death of innocents, Mother.’
She didn’t reply to that but pursed her lips tight.
‘Why did he do it?’ asked Rosabel, frowning. ‘Kill his sister, I mean. Raoul I can understand, but his own sister?’
‘Because he’s mad,’ pouted my mother.
Clementius had more generous explanation: ‘Maybe he didn’t mean to. Maybe he tried to persuade Euphemia to return with him to Shouldham and when she refused he lost control. Eusebius can be a very intense young man.’
I could attest to that. I could still feel the bite of his nails in my hand as we knelt together in prayer in the cloister.
Clementius shook his head. ‘I’ve thought long and hard about this - his obsessive devotion to the Holy Virgin; his disgust at the very mention of the sexual act. It’s as though his own guilt at his feelings for Euphemia, not as a sibling but as a lover, was too much for him to bear. I believe he lost control when Euphemia refused his entreaties and that’s why he strangled her. Then when he realised what he’d done he turned on the one person he really blamed for all this: Raoul de Gray. But there is still one thing puzzling me: How did Lo
rd de Saye know the family would be in Bury? I had to track them across two counties to find them.’
I was able to answer that one: ‘It’s not so surprising. They had to break the journey somewhere between Shouldham and the coastal ports. Where better than the abbey, a day’s ride from both? The irony is they only intended stopping the one night. Unfortunately it was the night baby Alix decided to make her entry into the world.’
‘Very neat,’ said my mother wryly. ‘But aren’t you clever men forgetting one thing? Adelle does not exist. “She” was never pregnant.’
‘Well I delivered somebody’s baby,’ I countered, and then in a flash I had it. ‘Of course! Ee-ma-mum-ma.’
My mother frowned. ‘Now what are you gabbling about?’
I turned to Onethumb. ‘Onethumb, look at me.’ I silently mouthed the phrase to him again. ‘What did I just say?’
He shook his head and asked me to repeat it. I did, slowly just as I remembered Effie had done to me that terrible day on the stairs to the abbot’s lodging: Ee-ma-mum-ma. Onethumb shrugged and then rocked a phantom baby in his arms just as expertly as he had mimed rocking his own son the night I met him with Prior Herbert. There was no misinterpretation this time.
I nodded. ‘That’s what Effie was trying to tell me. Ee-ma-mum-ma. It’s my baby. Little Alix is Effie’s child – isn’t that right, Thomas?’
For answer, Thomas just lowered his eyes.
‘But it begs one final question,’ I said. ‘Who is Alix’s real father - Raoul or Eusebius?’
I looked at each of their faces in turn: My mother, Clementius, Rosabel, Thomas and Onethumb. But they all just stared blankly back at me. Only Onethumb made any response, and he merely to shrug.
Epilogue
FULL SPEED TO RUNNYMEDE
Eusebius was never tried for the murders of Effie and Raoul. The newly-enthroned Abbot of Edmundsbury invoked Becket’s principle of an independent clergy and took the boy back into his own custody. That’s not to say he was allowed to go free. He was eventually handed over to the Prior of Shouldham who, realising the boy could never be allowed out again, made him into an anchorite - a condition Eusebius embraced with enthusiastic, if not to say euphoric, zeal. He was thus bricked up in a tiny cell adjoining the priory church where he would remain in solitude for the rest of his life seeing no-one and being fed through a tiny opening in the wall.
Just before his final incarceration, however, I did get leave to visit him. My reasons for doing so were largely selfish: I wanted to atone for my own complicity in the tragedy surrounding the de Gray family – and if possible to find out what really happened to Mother Han. I’d even been back to the site of her hovel in the hope of finding another clue but by then someone else had taken her plot and did not welcome prying questions. I didn’t get much more out of Eusebius - indeed, I’m not sure he even knew who I was. He spoke in apocalyptic terms quoting extensively from the many religious tomes he had devoured during his stay with us at the abbey – Anselm of Bec’s Meditations and Letters in particular I recognized - but nothing that made coherent sense. I left him feeling frustrated and none the wiser. But he at least seemed at peace at last and happy in his private world of devotion to the Holy Virgin and daily growing madder and madder.
Meanwhile, other momentous events were gathering pace elsewhere. The rebel barons had finally come into the open and presented the king with their demands for the restoration of what they called their “ancient and accustomed liberties”. Needless to say, John was not about to grant these without a struggle. Indeed, for a while he looked as though he might even win this particular battle. The barons were by no means united in their purpose. Those I had seen assembled in the abbey church on Saint Edmund’s Feast represented barely a quarter of England’s nobility, the rest preferring to wait to see how events unfolded before committing themselves one way or the other. And John was not without powerful allies of his own. Having accepted the formal surrender of John’s kingdom under bond of fealty and homage, Pope Innocent was outraged that his chief vassal should be treated with such impertinence by a ragbag of disgruntled nobility. He therefore issued letters denouncing the rebels and even threatening them with excommunication if they did not desist in their undertaking.
And then John played his masterstroke. In March he took an oath to go on crusade to the Holy Land, a project dear to Innocent’s heart. There was now no question of the pope supporting the barons over his most favoured Christian son and called upon all Christendom to rally to John’s aid. But John was still too weak to win the argument outright and in June he agreed to meet the barons’ representatives and to seek a solution to the impasse. The basis of the negotiations was to be their charter – the document I had seen lain out on my mother’s table at Ixworth Hall. And this, you see, is what I mean when I say John was a reasonable man to deal with. Nobody would have expected his brother to have been so obliging. King Richard would have gouged out the eyes of any mutinous vassals, drowned their progeny and then castrated them so they couldn’t produce any more. The one thing he would not have done was sit down in the middle of a damp field and parley with them. But that is precisely what John now proposed to do.
How do I know all this? Because quite unexpectedly I found myself witness to the great event - along with five of my brother monks. The reason was the still-unresolved problem of who was going to be our next abbot. And here I’m afraid John did have to concede defeat. Most favoured son he may be, but Pope Innocent had lost patience with him over this particular vexed question. He made it clear to John that if he was to continue to receive papal support over the matter of the charter then he would have to submit to other of Innocent’s wishes, and that included accepting Hugh Northwold as Abbot of Saint Edmund’s. John reluctantly agreed but, petulant as ever, he made Hugh come to him to receive the abbatial mitre and ring, and at that moment John was at Windsor awaiting the approach of the barons. So to Windsor we had to go.
Having me along was not part of the original plan at all. Ironically, it was Prior Herbert who requested my presence - not because we had resolved our differences; far from it. When he heard the full details of my exploits from chasing around Bury in pursuit of Effie’s murderer, hiding out in the forest with a gang of outlaws and the further bloodshed at Ixworth Hall, Herbert was quite prepared to have me defrocked and thrown out of the abbey. However, a quiet word from the Prior of Ixworth Abbey, who happened to be a close friend of my mother, over his secret collusion with Geoffrey de Saye mollified his tone somewhat. In the end it was thought best we call a truce, put the recent past behind us and begin our relationship anew. However, all was not quite joy and harmony between us. I fear there may be trouble again from that quarter at some time in the future.
So no, it was not love of me that persuaded Herbert to take me with him to Windsor, but his sweet tooth. Herbert had always had a penchant for sugary confections. Unfortunately that particular tooth had gone bad and was causing him considerable discomfort. The answer, of course, was to remove it but for some reason Herbert shied away from that suggestion. I don’t know why, the procedure is simple enough: The patient is strapped in a sturdy chair with one end of a length of twine attached to the offending molar and the other to the handle of an open door. At a given signal the door is slammed shut thus extracting the painful appendage in one easy, if rather violent, movement. Something about the procedure seemed to disturb Herbert and he preferred instead to be dosed with palliatives from my herb collection – I recommended chewing on a piece of Monkshood root for best relief or cloves when available. But relief is all it is, not a cure. Ultimately, extraction is the only permanent solution. Herbert said that if all else failed he would undergo the operation once he had returned from seeing the king, but in the meantime he required my constant attention. I readily agreed. An entire fortnight of watching Prior Herbert suffer unrelieved agonies - how could I refuse?
Thus it was that I joined the small band of brothers that accompanied Abbot-elect Hugh on th
e Feast of Saint Boniface to ride the ninety miles to Windsor. And frankly, I was not sorry to be going. Two days earlier there had been a great fire that destroyed a large area of the vill and the air was still thick with choking smoke and cinders. As a result there were many funerals that week and just as we were about to set off our journey there was a particularly sorry little affair trundling its way to the Great Cemetery with no mourners other than the priest and two monks. I was told it was the funeral of an old medicine woman which put me in mind once again of Mother Han. I still hadn’t managed to find out what happened to her. So with a sad nod to the coffin and a silent prayer I turned my mule’s head and set off through the west gate of the town on the first leg of our journey.
For comfort and convenience, the king had suggested his palatial castle of Windsor on the banks of the River Thames as the venue for the negotiations. But sensing a trap, the barons preferred more neutral ground. It was therefore proposed the meeting take place in open country half way between the king’s camp at Windsor and the barons’ at Staines upon the little meadow known as Runnymede. Why Runnymede? I suppose the answer is its geography. Here the river snakes along one side with marshland the other leaving a low island in between. It is a well-known assembly point particularly for warring parties since with only two ways in it offers little opportunity for ambush. I could not but reflect what a sad commentary it was on the level of mistrust between sovereign and subjects to which our country had sunk.
Naturally our little party had no knowledge of these new arrangements and so we went straight to the castle expecting to meet the king there. We arrived late in the evening only to be told the king was in conference with Archbishop Langton and we were to present ourselves to him the following day at Staines meadow. Upon reflection we decided to go that same night: After so long a wait and with our goal at last in sight we wanted to leave nothing to chance. Hugh therefore remained alone at Windsor as the guest of the king while the rest of us journeyed the last five miles without him.
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