Brother's Blood

by C. B. Hanley

  The abbot approached Edwin and Martin. ‘What do you know of Brother Eugenius?’

  Edwin shook his head. ‘Only what Brother Sinnulph has already confessed, my lord. I taxed them both with questions yesterday and they told me of what had passed. It’s true that Brother Eugenius was very upset at the thought of confessing, but I was sure that he was determined to do it.’ He gestured at the empty room. ‘I’m surprised he isn’t here – and a little worried.’

  A shadow crossed the abbot’s face. ‘Let us hope, for all our sakes, that he has simply tripped and fallen somewhere, and will be found with a swollen ankle.’

  Martin’s voice came from behind Edwin. ‘Pardon me, my lord, but perhaps Edwin and I could help with the search? Not in the abbey itself, maybe, but out in the precinct or the other buildings. It would give us something to do, and the more searchers, the better?’

  Edwin didn’t think he’d ever heard Martin sounding so deferential to anyone except the lord earl, and he wondered if there was a particular reason. But the abbot was nodding, saying that they could go, and that he would remain in the chapterhouse praying and waiting for news.

  Their way out of the abbey building led them across the cloister and then in the door to the lay brothers’ grange and through the passage there. There were worried-looking monks both inside and outside, and Edwin wondered where on earth they should start.

  He was glad when Martin took charge. ‘He is obviously not in any of the places he is supposed to be, so let’s start by checking the places he isn’t supposed to be. The guesthouse, the stables, the outbuildings. They’re all along this side of the precinct so we can move through them methodically.’

  Edwin agreed, but they had barely reached the guesthouse when alarmed shouts came from the direction of the abbey building. They turned to see all the monks rushing in one direction, so they followed.

  The crowd led to a flight of stairs and up to a part of the abbey Edwin hadn’t visited so far: the monks’ dormitory. A row of thin pallets was laid out on each side down the length of the room, all currently empty except for a neatly folded blanket. There was a crush of men towards the far end, talking, exclaiming, praying, and Edwin tried to get closer.

  ‘Stand aside!’ The raised voice was the abbot’s, and the room fell silent immediately as the monks stood back with bowed heads to allow him a path. Edwin slipped behind him.

  A monk was lying on the last bed at the end of the row. It was Brother Eugenius. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling and away from the huge red stain seeping across the front of his white robe. A knife was protruding from his chest, and he was quite clearly dead.

  Brother Richard woke up.

  He opened his eyes but did not move. The blur in front of him eventually became a ceiling, but not the familiar rafters of the dormitory which had been his home for so many years. Where was he?

  He attempted to move and was overcome by a wave of pain which left him gasping. The infirmary, he was in the infirmary. That was it. He had suffered from toothache, had some teeth pulled, and then after that it had all been a bad dream. He had a vague recollection of figures around his bed, of prayers, of bitter-tasting things being dripped into his mouth, of the sharp pain in his arm from the bleeding. And the agony, the ever-present agony in his face, his skin stretched and full to bursting.

  Cautiously, he tried to move his right hand. It responded to him. He lifted it – heavy as lead! – to his face. His face was still there. It felt like a normal face. There was pain in his mouth but he could bear it.

  He put his hand back by his side and listened. It was quiet. With a great effort he turned his head a little and saw that he was behind a screen, on his own. He laid his head back again. He would wait, and eventually someone – Brother Durand – would come.

  Yes, Brother Durand had been there, hadn’t he? All through the dream, the nightmare, through the darkness and the light. Brother Durand had hurt him, trying to smear something on his face and get liquid into his mouth. But Brother Durand had done this to save his life. He was alive.

  Other figures in white robes had been there. He had heard them praying. He had survived because of their prayers.

  Something troubled him, but he didn’t know what it was. Some fleeting recollection that he could not pin down. He would lie still until it came back to him. He should pray and give thanks. Pater noster, qui es in …

  He had it. One of the figures who had been around his bed had not been in a white robe. Someone who was not a monk had come to see him. He moved his fingers as he remembered the pressure on his hand. A man he didn’t know had come to speak to him. He couldn’t remember what it was about.

  He might have dozed again, or he might just have stared at the ceiling. Brother Alexander. He must speak with Brother Alexander. He opened his mouth, unsure if he would be able to make a noise.

  And then it came crashing in on him and he thought he would be sick. Thank the Lord he wasn’t, for that would have caused much pain in his mouth and to his face. He could feel his heart pounding faster. Brother Alexander was dead. He was dead and he, Brother Richard, needed to talk to the man who had visited him. He didn’t know why, he couldn’t remember, but it was important. He wanted to cry but his eyes were too dry and he felt them stinging.

  He tried to move his legs. They shifted a little, but strangely, as though they weren’t part of him. He rolled and leaned over. He fell out of bed and let out an involuntary cry of pain. He lay on the floor, waiting for the stars to stop moving around his head.

  Hands were helping him up. A white robe. Was it the infirmarer? No. A voice was speaking.

  ‘Brother Richard! Surely you should not be out of bed! Please, let me help you. Then you must lie still while I go to fetch Brother Durand.’

  Brother Richard took some time to focus his eyes and realised he was looking at the novice, Benedict. What was he doing here? Never mind that now. Benedict was not strong enough to lift him and put him back into bed, and neither could Brother Richard manage it himself. They ended up in a heap on the floor, but eventually the room stopped spinning enough for him to realise that he was sitting more or less upright with his back against the bed.

  He waved for Benedict to calm down. He opened his mouth and made an incoherent sound. Please, Lord, give me strength. He tried again. ‘Up.’ The novice did not seem to understand. ‘Help?’

  Benedict’s face cleared. ‘Yes, Brother, I will help you up into your bed. Just let me draw breath for a moment.’ Brother Richard looked at him again and belatedly realised he was seeing a skeleton covered in skin. He tried to wonder what had happened to the boy but he could not get the thought to sit still.

  He made a gesture with his arm and managed to get out a word which he hoped sounded a bit like ‘Durand’.

  Benedict seemed to understand. ‘He is not here, Brother. He has gone to look for Brother Eugenius, who is missing.’

  Brother Richard felt his mind coming back to him a little as he sat still. He made a circular motion with his hand to encourage Benedict to keep talking.

  The novice now sounded unsure. ‘I know the Rule is relaxed a little in the infirmary, but I’m not sure I should gossip …’

  Brother Richard intensified the circular motion and also grasped hold of Benedict’s sleeve. How white his hand looked. He hardly recognised it as his own.

  Benedict spoke slowly. ‘You have been … away from us for quite some time, Brother. There has been upheaval. Brother Alexander is dead, murdered. Some men are here to find out who did it. And I don’t know what has happened to Brother Eugenius: Brother Durand went to Chapter but then came back to ask if he had come here, as he could not be found anywhere else. I hope nothing has happened to him.’ He crossed himself.

  Brother Richard sat in silence for a while, but then became aware that somewhere on the other side of the screen there was a whispering. He gave Benedict a questioning look.

  ‘That will be the other brothers who are in here. I will see what
they are about.’ He stood and disappeared, before returning a few moments later looking, if anything, even paler and more frail than he had before. ‘Requiescat in pace. They say that Brother Eugenius is dead.’ He held on to the screen for support.

  Something needed to be done. He, Brother Richard, needed to talk to the man who had visited him. He would remember what it was about when he got there. But he had to go. Brother Alexander was dead.

  He stretched his mouth a few times and managed to sound more coherent. ‘Help. Up.’ He held both his arms up in an unmistakeable gesture. Benedict started to shake his head. ‘Now.’ There was no way he was going to be able to say the word ‘obedience’, but he hoped the novice understood.

  Benedict evidently did, for he nodded and, with some effort, hauled Brother Richard to his feet. He held on tightly to the novice for a few moments until he was sure he wasn’t going to fall over again, and then carefully straightened. He could stand. Could he walk? He put one arm around the bony shoulders and pointed towards the infirmary door. ‘Go.’

  Edwin looked down at the corpse. The guilt was overwhelming. If only he had said or done something last night, instead of stupidly taking all that extra time to think. Why hadn’t he acted on his convictions? His inability to do so had led to the death of an innocent man.

  Most of the monks had been sent away to their reading – the abbey schedule was not to be affected, even by such an event – and the dormitory now contained only the abbot, the prior, the infirmarer, Edwin and Martin. And the body of poor Brother Eugenius, now with his eyes decently closed.

  The abbot finished intoning a prayer for the dead, and everyone said ‘Amen’. Then he turned to Prior Henry and Brother Durand. ‘We will have to see what we can do with the body. Clearly it cannot lie in our graveyard.’ They nodded.

  Edwin cleared his throat.

  ‘Yes, my son?’

  ‘Why can Brother Eugenius not be buried with the other monks?’

  The abbot explained as though to a child. ‘Because he has committed the mortal sin of suicide. He is therefore not in a state of grace and cannot lie in consecrated ground.’

  Edwin was confused. ‘Suicide?’

  ‘Yes, for what other explanation is there? He was too afraid to confess his sin, so instead of joining his brethren at Chapter he came up here to kill himself.’

  Edwin shook his head. ‘Please excuse me for contradicting you, Father, but I don’t think that’s the case.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Look here,’ Edwin leaned over and pointed. ‘He has been stabbed in the heart. If he had done that himself then his hands would be covered in blood, surely?’ He mimed a demonstration but stopped when he saw the revulsion on the faces of the three monks. ‘Sorry. But there is no blood at all on his hands, and his arms are by his side. And there is blood on the floor over here, away from where he lies.’

  The prior broke in. ‘You think – pardon me, Father Abbot – you think someone else might have done this?’

  ‘Yes. And I’m not sure, as I don’t have a great deal of experience at this, but is that bruising around his mouth?’ He hovered his left hand above Brother Eugenius’s mouth, as though he would press down on it, and the pattern of the marks became clear. ‘I think someone came upon him, face-to-face, stabbed him with that knife – that is another one from the scriptorium, isn’t it? – and then when he was weakened by the wound, pushed him down and put his hand over his face to stop him making a noise, and kept it there until he was dead.’ He stood back.

  The abbot looked at the infirmarer, who nodded thoughtfully. ‘I think he may be right, Father. But if so, then whoever killed him would have tell-tale marks of blood upon him? And there were none such at Chapter.’

  Martin had walked off while Edwin was talking, and now he spoke from halfway up the room. ‘Like this?’ He held up a white robe, indicating the red splatters all over the sleeves.

  ‘Where did you find that?’ The abbot’s voice was sharp.

  ‘Here, under this mattress. I noticed it wasn’t quite as straight as the others. Whoever killed Brother Eugenius looked at himself, realised he was covered in blood, and changed his robe. Do you keep spare ones up here?’

  ‘Yes, each brother has two so he can change if the other gets too soiled at his labours, for it is not fitting to praise the Lord during the services while filthy. Whose bed is that?’ This last remark was addressed to the prior.

  Brother Durand broke in. ‘It’s mine, Father Abbot, although I can assure you that I am not the culprit.’

  Edwin looked at the tall form of the infirmarer. ‘I can hardly believe you would hide it under your own bed. And besides … Martin, can you bring that here and hold it up next to Brother Durand, please?’

  Martin did so, and they could all see immediately that the robe was too short to belong to the tall infirmarer.

  The abbot sighed. ‘So. This is better for the soul of Brother Eugenius – we will make it clear that he did not kill himself, so that no taint can attach to him or to his memory. But it means we have a second killer here among us? I cannot credit this.’

  ‘No.’ Edwin had known since the moment he saw the body that his theory had been confirmed rather than disproved, although he would bear the guilt until his own dying day that he had waited long enough for a second murder to be committed. He knew why he had done it – it was because he did not want to act hastily and risk making a fool of himself in public, but what was that compared to an innocent man’s life? He glanced around at all the faces looking at him. ‘It means we have one killer who has struck twice.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘If I tell you now, I have no way of proving it and it will just be my word against his. But I think I know a way to catch him.’

  Martin stepped forward. ‘Oh no. You’re not going to go using yourself as bait or anything foolish like that. The lord earl would never forgive me if I let you get killed too.’ He folded his arms and looked belligerently at the abbot, as if to face down any arguments.

  But the abbot was agreeing. ‘I cannot let you risk your life, my son. Just tell me who you believe to be the culprit and why, and we will move from there.’

  Edwin shook his head. ‘It’s all right. I am not going to risk my life. If I can get going now then I can set up what I need to do and then get well away before he comes near.’ He pleaded. ‘Please, my lord. It’s important that everyone knows the truth, without a doubt, and it will be better this way.’

  The abbot nodded. ‘Can you tell me, solemnly and in the presence of God and the body of Brother Eugenius, that your life will not be in danger?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well then.’ The abbot addressed Prior Henry and Brother Durand. ‘Cover him now, and send some of the lay brothers to carry him to the infirmary. He may lie there until his interment.’

  The prior unfolded a blanket and the two of them placed it over the body before bowing and leaving. The abbot made the sign of the cross over the body one final time and also departed.

  Edwin forestalled Martin just as he was opening his mouth. ‘You are not coming with me.’

  ‘Oh, I am.’

  Edwin walked out of the dormitory, down the stairs and then made his way out of the building, striding across the precinct.

  Martin stepped ahead of him, turned, and put out a hand flat on his chest to stop him. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Something I don’t need you for. Now leave me alone.’

  ‘You have to tell me more than that.’

  ‘No, I don’t. It is my fault that Brother Eugenius is dead – I could have stopped this happening if only I’d acted last night and not started worrying about looking like a fool. I need to put things right. And besides, I think there’s someone you need to talk to.’ He pointed.

  Martin turned to see Brother Guy coming out of the stables. As Edwin expected, he was struck dumb and immobile by the sight of him – Edwin had no idea what was between them but this was his opportunity.


  When Martin turned round to argue again, Edwin was gone.

  Martin cursed as he looked around him wildly. He ran over to Brother Guy and skidded to a halt before him, kicking up a cloud of dust. ‘Did you see where he went?’

  Brother Guy made a ‘who?’ gesture.

  ‘Edwin, my friend … he’s just … I need your help.’

  He was met with a troubled look.

  Martin was agonised. He didn’t know what to say, how to confess, but he had to say something. Brother Guy took a step back.

  ‘No, wait,’ said Martin. ‘I do need your help, but I also need your forgiveness.’ He lowered himself to his knees in front of the lay brother, despite the odd looks he knew he was attracting. He bowed his head and spoke to Brother Guy’s boots. He was aware that his hands were shaking, but he had to get this out before he could ask for help.

  ‘Since I arrived I have treated you with disdain. With contempt. I ask forgiveness for this.’ He felt a hand touching the top of his head. ‘If I had only known that you were a knight, I would have spoken with more respect, I would have …’ He tailed off, conscious that the hand was lifted again. He looked up to see Brother Guy shaking his head, a stern expression on his face. ‘I mean, I know you’re not a knight any more, but your rank, your background …’ The head-shaking intensified, and Martin was at a loss. He stared for a long moment. Then he understood.

  He bowed his head again. ‘What I mean is, I should have treated you with more respect, as I should treat any man, regardless of his rank. Even were you a lay brother who came from a local village family, I should have demonstrated my worthiness by acting courteously.’ He waited, and was rewarded by the touch on his head again. This time it was a benediction.

  Brother Guy sketched the sign of the cross in the air over Martin’s head and then helped him to rise. Martin’s heart felt lighter. ‘Thank you.’

  Brother Guy stood waiting expectantly and gestured for Martin to speak. He poured out the story of Brother Eugenius’s death, of how Edwin thought he knew what had happened and had gone off to set some kind of trap. ‘And he’s in danger, Brother, I know he is, despite what he said. It’s my duty to protect him – please, please help me.’