Dissolution (Matthew Shardlake Mysteries) Page 21

  ‘Licensed beggars,’ the Justice observed. ‘The men’s warden at the poorhouse is good at putting them to honest labour.’

  We entered the building, which was unheated and so damp the plaster had fallen in places from the walls. A group of women sat around the hall sewing or working at spinning wheels, while in one corner a plump, middle-aged matron was sorting through a large pile of odoriferous rags, helped by a group of scrawny children. Copynger went over and spoke to her and she led us to a neat little cubbyhole, where she introduced herself as Joan Stumpe, the children’s overseer.

  ‘How may I help you, sirs?’ The wrinkled face was kindly, but the brown eyes keen.

  ‘Master Shardlake is currently investigating some matters at the monastery,’ Copynger told her. ‘He is interested in the fate of young Orphan Stonegarden.’

  She sighed. ‘Poor Orphan.’

  ‘You knew her?’ I asked.

  ‘I brought her up. She was a waif left in the yard of this building nineteen years ago. A newborn baby. Poor Orphan,’ she said again.

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Orphan was her name, sir. It’s a common name for foundlings. We never found out who her parents were, so she was given Stonegarden as a surname by the men’s warden, as she was found in the yard.’

  ‘I see. And she grew up under your care?’

  ‘I have charge of all the children. A lot die young, but Orphan was strong and she thrived. She helped me round the place, she was always cheerful and willing—’ She suddenly looked away.

  ‘Go on, Goodwife,’ Copynger said impatiently. ‘I have told you before, you are too soft with these children.’

  ‘They often have a brief stay on earth,’ she replied spiritedly. ‘Why should they not have some enjoyment of it?’

  ‘Better go broken to heaven than in one piece to hell,’ Copynger said brutally. ‘Most that live end as thieves and beggars. Go on.’

  ‘When Orphan reached sixteen the overseers said she must go out to work. It was a shame, she had a swain in the miller’s son and if that had been allowed to develop she’d have been married off.’

  ‘She was pretty, then?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Small with fair hair and a sweet, gentle face. One of the prettiest faces I have ever seen. But the men’s overseer has a brother working for the monks; he said the infirmarian needed a helper, so she was sent there.’

  ‘And this was when, Mistress Stumpe?’

  ‘Two years ago. She would come back and visit me on her free days, every Friday without fail. She was as fond of me as I was of her. She didn’t like it at the monastery, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She wouldn’t say. I teach the children never to criticize their betters, or they’ll be done for. But I could see she was frightened.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘I don’t know. I tried to find out but she wouldn’t say. She worked for old Brother Alexander first, and then he died and Brother Guy came. She was afraid of him, with his strange appearance. The thing was she’d stopped seeing Adam, the miller’s son. He’d come to see her, but she’d tell me to send him away.’ She gave me a sharp look. ‘And when that happens it often means a woman’s been ill used.’

  ‘Did you ever see any marks, bruises?’

  ‘No, but she seemed lower in spirits each time I saw her. Then one day, six months or so after she started at the monastery, she just didn’t turn up one Friday, nor the next.’

  ‘You must have been worried.’

  ‘I was. I decided to go there and find out what I could.’ I nodded. I could imagine her marching stoutly along and banging on Master Bugge’s gate.

  ‘They wouldn’t let me in at first, but I stood making noise and trouble till they fetched that Prior Mortimus. Scottish barbarian. He stood and told me Orphan had stolen two gold chalices from the church one night and disappeared.’

  Copynger inclined his head. ‘Perhaps she did, it happens often enough with these children.’

  ‘Not Orphan, sir, she was a good Christian.’ Mistress Stumpe turned to me. ‘I asked the prior why I hadn’t been told, and he said he knew nothing of the girl’s contacts in town. He threatened to swear out a warrant against her for theft if I didn’t go away. I reported it to Master Copynger, but he said without evidence of ill-doing there was nothing he could do.’

  The magistrate shrugged. ‘There wasn’t. And if the monks had sworn out a warrant against her, that would have been one up for them against the town.’

  ‘What do you think happened to the girl, Mistress Stumpe?’

  She looked me in the eye. ‘I don’t know, sir, but I dread to think.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘But Justice Copynger is quite right, he could do nothing without evidence.’

  ‘I know that, but I knew Orphan well. It wasn’t in her to steal and run away.’

  ‘But if she was desperate . . .’

  ‘Then she’d have come to me rather than risk the rope for stealing. But nothing’s been seen or heard of her these eighteen months. Nothing.’

  ‘Very well. Thank you, Goodwife, for your time.’ I sighed. Everywhere I turned suspicions remained suspicions; there was nothing I could grasp hold of and tie to Singleton’s murder.

  She led us back to the hall, where the children picking rags looked up with pale, wizened faces from their tasks. The sickly stench of the old clothes carried clear across the room.

  ‘What are your charges doing?’ I asked her.

  ‘Looking through the rags people give for something to wear tomorrow. It’s dole day at the monastery. It’ll be a hard walk in this weather.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, it will. Thank you, Mistress Stumpe.’ I turned in the doorway as we left; she was already back with the children, helping them pick through the festering piles.

  JUSTICE COPYNGER offered us dinner at his house, but I said we must return to the monastery. We set off, our boots crunching through the snow.

  ‘We will have missed dinner,’ Mark said after a while.

  ‘Yes. Let’s find an inn.’

  We found a respectable enough coaching house behind the square. The landlord ushered us to a table looking out on the wharf and I watched the boat we had seen earlier, laden with bales, being oared carefully through the channel towards the waiting ship.

  ‘God’s wounds,’ Mark said, ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Yes, so am I. But we’ll keep clear of the beer. Did you know, under the original rule of St Benedict the monks only had one meal a day in the winter - dinner? He made the rule for the Italian climate, but they kept it in England as well to begin with. Imagine standing in prayer for hours a day, in winter, on one meal a day! But of course, as the years passed and the monasteries got wealthier, it became two meals a day, then three, with meat, with wine . . .’

  ‘At least they still pray, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes. And believe their prayers intercede with God for the dead.’ I thought of Brother Gabriel and his anguished intensity. ‘But they are wrong.’

  ‘I confess it sends my head to spinning, sir, all this theology.’

  ‘It shouldn’t, Mark. God gave you a brain. Use it.’

  ‘How is your back today?’ he asked, changing the subject. I reflected it was becoming a talent of his.

  ‘Bearable. Better than it was first thing.’

  The innkeeper brought us dishes of rabbit pie, and we ate silently for a while.

  ‘What do you think became of that girl?’ Mark asked at length.

  I shook my head. ‘Jesu knows. There are so many threads of enquiry, they merely multiply. I had hoped for more from Copynger. Well, now we know women have been molested at the monastery. By whom? Prior Mortimus, who troubled Alice? Others? As for the girl Orphan, Copynger’s right. There’s no evidence she didn’t just run away, and the old woman’s fondness for her could be colouring her judgement. There’s nothing to lay hold of.’ I clenched a fist on the empty air.

  ‘What did you think of Justice Copynger?’

>   ‘He’s a reformer. He will help us where he can.’

  ‘He talks of true religion and how the monks oppress the poor, yet he lives richly while turning people off their land.’

  ‘I don’t like him either. But you should not have asked him about Alice’s mother. It’s not your place. He’s our only reliable source of information and I don’t want him crossed. We’ve little enough help. I’d hoped for more information on the land sales, to connect with the bursar’s books.’

  ‘It seemed to me the Justice knew more about the smugglers than he said.’

  ‘Of course he did. He’s taking bribes. But that’s not why we’re here. I’m with him on one thing: the murderer comes from within the monastery, not from Scarnsea. The five senior obedentiaries.’ I ticked them off on my fingers. ‘Abbot Fabian, Prior Mortimus, Edwig, Gabriel and Guy. Any of them is tall and strong enough to have despatched Singleton - except Brother Edwig, who was away. And any of them could have killed the novice. That is, of course, if what Brother Guy told us about deadly nightshade is true.’

  ‘Why would he lie?’

  Again I saw in my mind’s eye the dead face of Simon Whelplay as we lifted him from the bath. The thought of him being poisoned because I might talk to him kept recurring, turning in my guts like a torsion.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied, ‘but I’m taking nothing on trust. They’ll all lose heavily if the monastery closes. Where will Brother Guy find employment in the world as a healer, with his strange face? As for the abbot, he’s wedded to his status. And I think the other three may all have things to hide. Financial chicanery by Brother Edwig? He could be hiding money away against the risk of the place going, though he’d need the abbot’s seal on any land sales.’

  ‘And Prior Mortimus?’

  ‘There’s little I’d put past him. As for Brother Gabriel, the old serpent of temptation still visits, I’m sure of that. He’s not taken his eyes off you since you came. I can imagine he has his attachments among the monks, even if not to poor Whelplay, but then you come along showing a fine calf, in your good doublet and hose, and he starts dreaming of you out of them.’

  Mark pushed his plate away, frowning. ‘Must you adumbrate the details, sir?’

  ‘Lawyers must spend their time adumbrating details, however sordid. Gabriel may appear gentle, but he is a tormented man, and tormented men do wild, irrational things. If recent acts of sodomy could be proved against him, he could face the rope. Rough questioning from Singleton could have made him desperate, especially if there are others to protect. And then there is Jerome. I want to see what he has to say. I’m intrigued by his calling Singleton a liar and perjurer.’

  Mark did not reply. He was still frowning. ‘Oh, wake up,’ I said in a burst of irritation. ‘Does it matter if the sacrist covets your arse? He’s hardly likely to get it.’

  There was a flash of anger in his eyes. ‘I was not thinking of myself, sir, but Alice. The girl who disappeared was also Brother Guy’s assistant.’

  ‘That had occurred to me as well.’

  He leaned forward. ‘Would it not be better, and safer for all, to take the obedentiaries, and Jerome, and arrest them all on suspicion? Take them to London and get what they know out of them?’

  ‘On what evidence? And how question them, the torture? I thought you disapproved of such methods.’

  ‘Of course not. But - stiff questioning?’

  ‘And what if I am wrong, and it is not one of them at all? And how would we keep such a mass arrest secret?’

  ‘But - time and danger press.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ ‘I burst out in sudden anger. ‘But bullying won’t fetch out the truth. Singleton tried that and look where it got him. You untangle a knot with slow teasing, not sharp pulling, and believe me we have here a knot such as I have never seen. But I will unpick it. I will.’

  ‘I am sorry, sir. I did not mean to question . . .’

  ‘Oh, question, Mark,’ I said irritably. ‘But question sensibly.’ My anger had animated me, and I rose and threw some coins on the table.

  ‘Come, let’s go. We’re wasting the afternoon, and I have a mad old Carthusian waiting.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  WE SAID LITTLE as we walked back to the monastery, under a sky that was rapidly clouding over again. I was angry with myself for my outburst, but my nerves were frayed and Mark’s naivety had irritated me. I had found a new mood of determined resolution, though, and set a sharp pace on the road until I stumbled in a drift and Mark had to steady me, which irritated me further. As we neared the walls of St Donatus, a bitter wind began blowing and it started to snow once more.

  I banged unceremoniously on the door of Bugge’s gatehouse; he appeared, wiping food from his mouth with a dirty sleeve.

  ‘I wish to see Brother Jerome. At once, please.’

  ‘The prior has custody of him, sir. He’s at Sext.’ He nodded in the direction of the church, from which a faint chanting was audible.

  ‘Then fetch him out of it!’ I replied sharply. The churl went off muttering, and we pulled our coats, already white with snowflakes, round us tightly as we waited. Shortly Bugge reappeared, accompanied by Prior Mortimus, a frown on his red face.

  ‘Ye wish to see Jerome, Commissioner? Has something happened that I should be fetched from church?’

  ‘Only that I have no time to waste. Where is he?’

  ‘After his insults to you, he’s kept locked in his cell in the dorter.’

  ‘Then take us to him, please. I wish to question him.’

  He led us away to the cloister. ‘I dread to think what insults ye’ll get, bearding him in his own den. If ye’re minded to have him committed for treason, ye’ll be doing us all a service.’

  ‘Will I? He’s friendless here, then?’

  ‘Pretty well.’

  ‘There’s a few friendless people here. Novice Whelplay, for example.’

  He looked at me coldly. ‘I tried to teach Simon Whelplay a contrite spirit.’

  ‘Better broken to heaven than in one piece to hell?’ Mark muttered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something a reforming magistrate said to Master Poer and me this morning. By the way, I hear you visited Simon early yesterday.’

  He reddened. ‘I went to pray over him. I did not want him dead, just cleansed of what possessed him.’

  ‘Even at the price of his life?’

  He came to a halt and faced me, a harried look on his face. The weather was getting worse; snowflakes whirled round us as our coats and the prior’s habit billowed in the wind.

  ‘I didn’t want him dead! It wasn’t my doing, he was possessed. Possessed. His death wasn’t my fault, I won’t be blamed!’

  I studied him. Had he gone to pray over the novice yesterday from some sense of guilt? No, I reflected, Prior Mortimus was not one to question the rightness of anything he did. It was strange; his air of brutal certainty reminded me of radical Lutherans I had met. And no doubt he had contrived some intellectual sophistry that allowed him to molest young women without trouble to his conscience.

  ‘It is cold,’ I said. ‘Lead on.’

  He led us without further converse into the dorter, a long, two-storey building facing the cloister. Smoke rose from many chimneys. I had never seen the inside of a monks’ dormitory before. I knew from the Comperta that the early Benedictines’ great communal dormitories had long since been partitioned off into comfortable individual rooms, and so it was here. We passed down a long corridor with many doors. Some were open, and I could see warm fires and comfortable beds. The heat was welcome. Prior Mortimus halted before a closed door.

  ‘Normally, it’s locked,’ he said, ‘to make sure he doesn’t go wandering.’ He pushed the door open. ‘Jerome, the commissioner wishes to see you.’

  Brother Jerome’s cell was as austere as those I passed had been comfortable. No fire burned in the empty grate, and apart from a crucifix above the bed the whitewashed walls were bare.
The old Carthusian sat on the bed dressed only in his nether hose; his skinny torso was twisted and bent around the shoulders, as knotted and crooked as my own but with the marks of injury not deformity. Brother Guy stood bent over him with a cloth, washing a dozen small weals that disfigured his skin. Some were red, others yellow with pus. An ewer of water gave off the sharp smell of lavender.

  ‘Brother Guy,’ I said, ‘I am sorry to disrupt your ministrations.’