He offered this as a compliment to the prior, who accepted it graciously. Lawrence Throssell, concealing his annoyance that the buildings of his own college were now completely outshone by those of King’s, added his own compliments. Then he turned eagerly to Will.
‘You visited Queens’, of course? Did you meet anyone you knew?’
‘Yes, the professor of Greek – but his reason for remembering me,’ admitted Will ruefully, ‘was not to my credit. True, the porter claimed to know me – but I think he’d be willing to remember anyone for a groat.’
The sub-prior, Father Arnold, who came from a humble family and had been educated entirely within the church, sat silent during this conversation. Austere and aloof, his hooded eyelids lowered, he made it clear that he was present at such a gluttonous meal only as an act of obedience to the prior. He would eat nothing but a little of the fine brown bread that was served with the oysters, and drink nothing but water.
As the different wines flowed and fresh dishes were brought in for the company to taste – broiled carp with a high Dutch sauce, a salad of fennel, rosemary and borage, griddled larks nesting on a bed of watercress, a roast goose with oranges, baked artichokes, a haunch of venison with sugared mustard – the prior’s heavy jowls became moist and darkly red. And all the while the sub-prior sat with his hands folded within his sleeves, disapproval encircling his tonsured head like a halo.
Will sought to draw him into the conversation. ‘I am partly indebted to you, Father Arnold, for the good fortune of being invited to dinner by my lord prior. It was you who introduced me the other day, if you remember – on the occasion when you found me trying to speak with Jankin Kett.’
‘Jankin Kett?’ The prior paused in the act of crunching a griddled lark, and fastidiously removed some tiny bones from his mouth. ‘The name is familiar.’
The sub-prior broke his silence, though without lifting his eyes. ‘One of the lay-brothers, Father Prior. The simpleton.’
‘He was the son of our old nurse at the castle,’ said Will, ‘My father put him in the care of the priory when he was a boy.’
‘Ah yes, now I remember him. Jankin Kett – he serves as your messenger, Father Arnold, I believe?’
The sub-prior inclined his head in acknowledgement, then gave his attention to the crumbs that had fallen from his bread, using one long finger to arrange them in a meticulously straight line across his silver plate. It was clear that he would say no more of his own volition.
‘Then you have not heard, Prior Nicholas,’ said Will, ‘that Jankin Kett is dead? He was found drowned in the river on Saturday morning.’
The prior paused again, the tiny body of a second lark poised on his silver fork. He frowned. ‘Why did you not tell me of this, Father Arnold?’
Obliged to explain, the sub-prior reluctantly raised his deepset eyes. ‘It was not a matter to trouble you with, Father Prior. Jankin Kett’s death was an accident. He spent much of his time by the river, and he must have fallen in.’ He gave Will a sidelong glance. ‘Sadly, he could not swim – as Master Will Ackland can tell you.’
‘True, he could not,’ Will agreed. ‘But Jankin was tall, and the river within the priory precinct is barely waist deep, as I have cause to know. Had he fallen in by accident, he could have stood up and floundered back to the bank.
‘This was no accident, though. The laundress who laid out his body found bruising on the back of his neck. I have reason to believe that someone held Jankin’s head under water, to ensure that he drowned.’
The prior stared at Will, his dark red jowls quivering with unease. ‘You are saying he was murdered? But it was only a few days ago that our bailiff was murdered, by vagabonds at the ford.’
‘Not by vagabonds, Prior Nicholas. I fear that it was Jankin Kett who killed your bailiff, on the instructions of another. And the same person, I believe, killed Jankin because he knew too much.’
Chapter Twenty Five
‘Enough, Will!’ advised his godfather sternly. ‘You are unmannerly to trouble our host with such matters.’
Prior Nicholas sat in silent dismay, his breathing heavy, his brow furrowed as he tried to digest what he had heard. The sub-prior leaned forward across the table to offer him an explanation.
‘I have these matters in hand, Father Prior,’ he said with intensity. ‘Responsibility for discipline within the priory is mine, and I am making enquiries as to Jankin Kett’s death. When I reach a conclusion, I shall of course inform you.’
The prior’s face cleared. ‘Ah,’ he agreed with relief. ‘Then we need trouble my guests with our concerns no longer. Now, friend Lawrence, you must taste this roasted goose – the orange sauce gives it a delectable flavour.’
Will’s hopes of uncovering the truth, so strong a few minutes ago, were suddenly slipping away. Worse, Father Arnold now put aside his napkin and half-rose from his chair.
‘My duties are pressing, Father Prior. Will you permit me to thank you for your hospitality and take my leave?’
Will held his breath. The prior wavered. But then his eye fell on the sub-prior’s plate, containing nothing but the meticulously straight line of breadcrumbs. Piqued that his subordinate should set this example of frugality, Prior Nicholas refused his request.
‘No, you may not leave us, Father Arnold. To do so would be an insult to my guests. You shall remain while we continue our meal – and if the sight and smell of our food offends you, you must think of it as a penance.’
His good humour regained, and his plate newly filled with roast goose, Prior Nicholas turned to his younger guest.
‘Now, Master Will Ackland – I long to hear of your travels. What news from Rome?’
Will could guess what the prior hoped to hear. Having entertained Queen Katherine at the priory on several occasions, he was no doubt seeking assurance that the Pope would refuse to allow the King to divorce her. But Will’s concern was to find the truth about Jankin Kett’s death, and he decided to approach the subject by speaking plainly, first about the church.
‘The authority of His Holiness the Pope is by no means secure,’ he warned, disregarding his food so as to give all his attention to what he was saying. ‘There are many in northern Germany and the Netherlands who speak and write against the power of the church, and deny the supremacy of the Pope.’
‘Heretics!’ asserted the prior with lofty scorn. ‘Led by that pestiferous priest Martin Luther. Ha! There have been heretics before, but they have been rooted out and put to the flames like noxious weeds. It will be so again.’
‘No doubt,’ said Will, reminded of the danger Julian Corbyn’s friend was in, and thankful for more than one reason that she would be spending the winter in London rather than Norwich.
‘But as you know, Prior Nicholas,’ he continued, ‘it is not only the power of the church that is attacked by Luther. He condemns the practices that have brought it so much wealth over the centuries. He has denounced indulgences, and pilgrimages, and the veneration of relics – and supposed miracles, such as those of the renewal of blood on St Matthew’s bones on which the fame of your priory rests.’
Will paused. Prior Nicholas, unaccustomed to such plain speaking, was clearly astonished by his temerity. The prior’s jaws were stilled, but his mouth was so full of goose that a dribble of its juices ran unheeded down the side of his chin.
‘For myself,’ Will offered quickly, by way of apology to his host, ‘I often witnessed this miracle in my youth, and learned from my father to venerate it. I have seen how pilgrims flock to the shrine and make offerings, in the hope that through the intercession of the saint their petitions will be granted, or their ills cured. I know they believe that what they witness is a springing out of St Matthew’s own blood from St Matthew’s own bones.’
Prior Nicholas wiped his chin, and a servant immediately removed his soiled napkin and replaced it.
‘The bones are indeed those of St Matthew,’ said the prior firmly, but he took the precaution of dismissing all
the servants with a gesture.
‘I shall not dispute it, my lord prior. But you will agree that there is no miracle about the blood that appears on the bones. Where else should it come from, every year without fail, but the priory slaughter-house? Jankin Kett went there as usual on St Matthew’s Eve and brought away a jug of pig’s blood – no doubt on the instructions of the sub-prior, to whom he gave his obedience.’
‘William! Such mysteries should not be spoken of!’ hissed Lawrence Throssell in dismay.
Father Arnold raised his head. He spoke coldly, but an angry red blotched his gaunt cheekbones. ‘The practice is time-honoured. The simplest of the lay brethren has always, by tradition, been sent to fetch blood on St Matthew’s Eve.’
Lawrence Throssell began to make apologies to the prior for his godson’s outspokenness, but Nicholas de la Pole was too wise to take offence.
‘And why should we not be allowed to enhance the pilgrims’ faith, Master Will Ackland?’ he enquired, his voice reproachful. ‘They come in hope – and have you not seen the joy on their faces as they leave the priory church after the Festal High Mass? Would they still flock here, after all these centuries, if what we offer does not supply their spiritual needs?’
‘True, true,’ said Lawrence Throssell with uncomfortable haste. ‘Enough, Will.’
‘Prior Nicholas asked me for news from Europe, godfather. I have one more thing to tell, and I believe he will want to hear it, for it has a bearing on the fortunes of Castleacre priory.’
The prior hesitated, then graciously nodded his assent. The sub-prior remained aloof, head bent. Will drew breath.
‘What I have learned is that things are not as they were in northern Europe. Books are being read, ideas are being exchanged. The old certainties, given to us by the church, are being questioned. There is change in the wind.
‘Here in England, we are just beginning to feel the breath of it from across the north sea. It may take some time to reach us in strength. But when it does, my lord prior, I fear it will blow cold through your cloisters.’
There was an uneasy silence in the room. But when the prior spoke, it was with complete confidence.
‘These changes will never take place in England. Our people are too devout, and King Henry will never deny the supremacy of the Pope. Why, the King was so incensed by Luther’s arguments that he wrote a counterblast demolishing them! It was in return that His Holiness granted him the title of Defender of the Faith.’
‘But that,’ Will reminded the prior, ‘was nearly ten years ago. Since then, King Henry himself has changed. He is a man so in love with a bewitching mistress that he can refuse her nothing.’
Will paused. Thinking of his sweet Anne, dead these four years, he shook his head.
‘No: “in love” is too tender an expression to describe the hold that Anne Boleyn has over our king. He is in thrall to her – bogged inextricably, as though in a mire. A man in that state of helplessness will do whatever his mistress urges, whether or not it accords with his own conscience.’
Will turned to the sub-prior.
‘Would you not say so, Father Arnold? For I believe you yourself are in thrall, to Mistress Sibbel Bostock.’
The sub-prior rose slowly to his feet, pushing back his heavy chair. His white face had taken on a greenish tinge and his thin lips began to move soundlessly. When his voice emerged, it was cracked as though with exhaustion.
‘Father Prior, this is a foul lie! I have never broken my vow of chastity.’
Will rose too. ‘Not in your deeds, perhaps, Father Arnold. But I believe you have broken it in your thoughts and in your heart.’
Master Justice Throssell had also risen, distressed by Will’s behaviour as a guest at the prior’s dinner table, but at the same time anxious to discover the truth. The prior himself could only sit back in his great carved chair and stare in dismay at his subordinate.
‘I regret the necessity of telling you this, my lord prior,’ said Will. ‘I learned of it yesterday from Mistress Bostock, when I accused her of having procured the murder of her husband the bailiff. She denied it. She told me that Father Arnold was enamoured of her, and that he was jealous of her husband.’
‘Untrue, Father Prior, untrue!’ The sub-prior turned to Will with a look of deep-burned hatred. ‘How should I be acquainted with the bailiff’s wife – or with any other woman?’
‘Mistress Bostock tells me that you sought her out and spoke to her whenever she went to pray at the priory church. She tells me that it was you who wanted the bailiff dead, and you who planned his murder in the madness of your lust for her.’
‘Then she lies! She lies!’ The sub-prior’s face was suffused with anger. ‘It was Sibbel Bostock herself who—’
Too late, he snapped his thin mouth shut. A tense silence pervaded the room, heightened by the buzzing of a bee trapped against a window pane.
‘Sibbel Bostock does indeed lie,’ agreed Will. ‘I believe it was she who urged you to procure the death of her husband. You could not refuse because you were in thrall to her. But if it’s of any comfort to you, Father Arnold, you are not the only man to fall under her spell. I know two of the priory’s tenants who have had the misfortune to do so, Thomas Gosnold and my brother Gilbert Ackland.’
The sub-prior raised his head for a resentful moment, then looked down again.
‘And so of course did poor Jankin Kett,’ Will continued. ‘What with being under obedience to you, and in thrall to Sibbel Bostock, he had no choice but to carry out your instructions for murdering the bailiff. But you made a mistake in telling him to return the Bromholm rent rolls to the cellarer. That was the action of a responsible man, a holder of high office in the priory. When I heard of it, I knew that Sibbel Bostock had not planned the murder on her own.’
‘What of Jankin Kett’s death?’ demanded the justice of the peace, forgetting for a moment that he was not in his own court. ‘Is there any evidence against the sub-prior?’
‘None that I can provide, sir,’ admitted Will. ‘I believe the sub-prior drowned Jankin, perhaps at the prompting of Sibbel Bostock, when my questioning became too persistent. I can offer no proof. But if Father Arnold did indeed commit that murder, the guilt must weigh heavily upon him. No doubt he will want to confess to it.’
Thinking only in legal terms, Will wanted to hear the sub-prior’s reply. But his godfather seized his arm and motioned him towards the door. ‘Come, we have long outstayed our welcome. I ask your pardon most humbly, Prior Nicholas, for the hurt we have caused you …’
The prior seemed not to hear. His eyes on the sub-prior, he pushed himself up wearily from his great chair and stood with his fingertips splayed on the damask tablecloth, presiding over the array of silver dishes and the congealing remains of lark and goose. He looked old, shrunken within the space of five minutes. His white hair had become disordered and his red jowls drooped sadly, lengthening his long Plantagenet face.
‘Arnold …?’ he said, his voice low. ‘My son, do you wish to make your confession?’
Will was not clear what happened next. He was at the doorway, standing back to allow his godfather to precede him, when there came from the room behind him the crash of an overturned chair. He and Lawrence Throssell were both pushed vigorously aside. With a swirl of his habit and a wild look in his eyes, the sub-prior leaped out of the doorway and down the winding stair.
It was not the action of a sinner about to confess. Will glanced from the prior to his godfather, saw their expressions of alarm and plunged after the sub-prior, his boots clattering on the stone stairway.
Behind the fine rooms of the prior’s lodging was a centuries’old rabbit warren of passages and spiral stairs and doorways and dark entries, leading Will knew not where. Father Arnold sped on ahead, seemingly unhampered by the length of his tunic, out of sight except for an occasional glimpse of blackness in motion against the background of stone. Every now and then Will lost him, and had to pause and listen. And then the slap of sandal
led feet, from some unlikely direction, would draw him on.
A glimpse of the monk silhouetted against sunlight at the far end of a passage made Will quicken his pace. By now, though, the spiral stairs had taken their toll on his weaker leg, and he was forced, angrily, to limp rather than run.
When he emerged from the passage he found himself in the priory cloister, where a square of vaulted arcades surrounded a sunlit garth. Here, the assembled black-garbed monks were taking their recreation while they waited for the early afternoon service, some walking and talking, some playing chequers on the stone seats of the cloister.
All of them had stopped and stared as their sub-prior ran past. They stared even more, their faces an indistinguishable white blur against the darkness of their cowls, as Will came hurrying after him.
It was clear that Father Arnold was making for the door that led from the cloister into the south transept of the priory church. As he neared it, the bell began to ring for Nones. By the time Will had followed him through the doorway, the monks had begun to form their procession in the cloister, two by two, eyes lowered and hands folded in obedience.
The church was empty of all but the carved and painted host of saints and angels. The sub-prior had disappeared. If he were still on the move, his footsteps were covered by the sound of the bell. Will hunted for him up and down the transepts and the nave, round the great stone piers that supported the massive central tower, and in and out of the side chapels. But reverence for the image of the crucified Christ, high on the candlelit rood loft that separated the people’s nave from the monks’ Quire, made him hesitate to go beyond it.
The procession entered the church, led by the preceptor. Will paused in the shadow of a pier beside the great open space immediately under the tower, watching as the monks moved beyond the rood screen and out of sight into the Quire. The bell stopped ringing. There was the murmured Latin of a prayer, and then the unseen voices were raised in plainchant, the cadences now spiralling up, now dipping, like candle flames lighting the darkness.
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