A Mortal Bane (17 page)

“I have been sent by the Bishop of Winchester to ask some questions about the death of the papal messenger, Baldassare de Firenze,” he said. “It is necessary that I speak to you face-to-face, Brother Sacristan.”

“Since I know nothing whatever about the death of Messer Baldassare, and I prefer not to come into contact with men of such worldly—

“Worldly? But you thought nothing of visiting a whorehouse on Thursday morning,” Bell snapped.

“Whorehouse!” Paulinus gasped, jumping up. “Never! I have never in my life visited a whorehouse.”

“I did not say you sought carnal satisfaction there, but I offer less threat of corruption by speaking to you in your own monastery than you suffered from your visit to a whorehouse on the morning after Baldassare was killed. You seemed then to be very certain how he came to die, so you must have some knowledge of his death. Now will you tell me where to meet you so I can see to whom I am speaking—or do I need to tell the bishop that you refused to answer questions about the death of the pope’s messenger?”

There was a long moment of utter silence. Then Paulinus said, “You are godless and damned and without proper respect for your betters, but you are the bishop’s messenger. Whom God loveth, He chastiseth. Very well, I will accede to your demand. Go around the end of the lay brothers’ building. Between that and the kitchen, you will find an entrance to the cloister. I will speak with you there.”

Bell was not overjoyed at the choice because the cloister, at the very center of the monastic buildings, was well traveled, which might lead to interruptions; however, he thought he knew how to obtain greater privacy if he needed it, so he simply did as he was told. He was the first to arrive, but before he began to grow impatient, he saw the tall, cadaverous form of the sacristan coming toward him.

“I have only the knowledge of Messer Baldassare’s death granted by God to a pure heart,” Brother Paulinus said before Bell could open his mouth. “It came to me as soon as I heard of the murder that we in this monastery are pure and holy; we do not kill. In the pesthole beyond our wall are foul, corrupt creatures who engage in every vile practice. Clearly then, they must be guilty of murder. That is what I know.”

“In other words, you had no reason—beyond your dislike of them and what they do—to accuse the women of the Old Priory Guesthouse?”

“The man did not come through the front gate. Brother Porter will swear to that. Thus, he came from the whores. No one else could have known he was coming to the church. They must have killed him.”

Bell was tempted to ask “Why?” but he already knew the answer he would get. He was sure the sacristan would have told him had he had any better evidence against Magdalene or her women, and he decided not to waste time going through arguments that proved nothing.

“I do not think so,” he said instead. “Had they wished to kill Baldassare, he would have died by poison or strangulation and his body would have been disposed of in the nearby river. No one would have known of his death. Such women might be willing to kill, but not in any way as to endanger themselves.”

“You are as corrupt as they. How can you be a servant of a bishop and defend them? Clearly, they spilled blood to desecrate the church, to bring shame on this holy place. You are only trying to protect your paramours.”

Bell laughed. “I cannot afford such women. I assure you, I have never lain with any of them. And if the intention was to desecrate the church, why kill the man on the porch outside?”

“Because they knew no better, of course. They are blinded, deafened, and made mute by sin. God protected His church. It is through His will I learned of their guilt.”

“And also by His will that you did not inform the bishop that the pope’s messenger had been slain?”

The sacristan blinked as if Bell had slapped him. “Did not inform the bishop? Why should I inform the bishop? I told Knud, the lay brother who assists me, to send a messenger to the abbot of our order.”

“You sent a messenger to the abbot of your order twenty miles away but not to the bishop’s house across the road? But Lord Winchester is the administrator of the diocese of London as well as bishop of the see of Winchester. How could you withhold the news of Baldassare’s death from him?”

Paulinus drew himself up, but a faint color stained his grayish cheeks. “Our order is autonomous,” he said stubbornly. “We need no direction from a worldly bishop. Our holy abbot will tell us what to do.”

“But the man was a papal messenger,” Bell protested.

“Perhaps carrying a bull to make Winchester legate,” Paulinus said, his eyes fixed on a decorative crucifix carved into a pillar. “Too worldly. Too worldly. God works in His own mysterious ways to keep the Church pure.”

“A murder cannot be pleasing to God, no matter what the cause,” Bell said, wondering if the sacristan was mad.

“That is true,” Brother Paulinus said. “Yes, quite true.” He shuddered suddenly and his eyes came away from the crucifix and fixed on the ground. “It was horrible. Horrible to find a dead man covered with blood on the church porch. I had sent Knud to discover why the crows were making so much noise. He found the body and cried for the infirmarian, who looked at it and told us the man was dead. The infirmarian called his assistants to take the body away.”

“Did you know who the man was?” Bell asked, frowning.

“No, I did not. I had never seen him before in my life. But I knew at once who had stabbed him, and I knew even the bishop could not shield those whores from punishment for such a crime. Maybe a papal legate…. No, not even a legate. So I went to demand a confession from the whores.” His eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “Foul beasts, they are further lost in sin than even I believed, and they resisted me. They would not acknowledge my God-granted knowledge of their evil and abase themselves; they even threatened me when I tried to chastise the idiot for mocking me.”

Bell’s teeth set hard at the thought of Paulinus hurting Ella for mocking him—as if Ella would know how—but that was not important. Could Paulinus have killed Baldassare to steal the pouch and destroy the bull that would make a man he considered unworthy a legate?

It was too soon, Bell thought, to come to such a conclusion. Sabina had heard the sacristan’s voice just before she found the body, so he was in the church when Baldassare was killed. But it seemed impossible that Baldassare had come to meet Brother Paulinus or that Paulinus could have known he was a papal messenger.

“Those whores—” Brother Paulinus began angrily.

Bell watched the sacristan’s face. The insistence on Magdalene’s guilt might be a result of Paulinus’s prejudice against carnal sin, but it could also be an effort to protect himself. If the whores were adjudged guilty, no one would look further for a murderer.

“It would be best,” Bell said, “to leave the whores to me. Since they are already excommunicate, there is little with which
you
can threaten them.” The implication that he could and would use other threats would save a lot of argument. Bell thought. “Now,” he continued, “I need to speak to Knud to learn exactly what he saw when he found the body.”

“Is that really necessary?” Paulinus asked. ‘The man was greatly disturbed. He did not touch Messer Baldassare—”

“Did you see that?”

The sacristan frowned. “No, but why should he—”

“I wish to speak to him. I need to know if the blood was red or brown, dry all through or jellylike, how the knife stood, whether erect or fallen out. Such things Knud would not speak of in the first excitement, but he is likely to remember under careful questioning.”

“You will give him nightmares.”

“I am sorry for it if I do, but it is more important that the killer be caught than that one man sleep easily. He can pray for peaceful slumbers.”

“I do not see how the horrible details you will bring back to his mind can help find a murderer,” Brother Paulinus protested.

Bell did not think they would help much, either, because he was convinced that Baldassare had been killed only moments before Sabina found him, just after Compline. However, he could scarcely admit to Paulinus that he wished to ask Knud whether he was with the sacristan when Sabina had heard his voice calling, “Who is there?”

“Your labor is interceding with God,” Bell replied. “Mine, by the bishop’s order, is dealing with the evil men do. I will leave you to your labor. Do leave me to mine. Fetch Knud to me now.”

“I do not run the errands of lackeys, even the bishop’s lackeys,” Brother Paulinus said, drawing himself up and stalking off across the cloister to enter the monks’ chapter house.

Since that was exactly the reaction for which Bell had been hoping, he made no protest but hurried back to the gate. He was about to ring the bell lustily when Brother Godwine stepped out of the small shelter the gatekeepers used at such times as they expected to need to open the gate frequently.

“I have spoken with Brother Paulinus,” Bell said. “Now I must question Knud, who found the body, and when I am done with him, the infirmarian.”

“Come with me,” the porter said, leading him along the west wall of the building and into the lay brothers’ hall.

He bade Bell wait near the entrance, looked around, nodded with satisfaction, and went toward a group of men who were working at some task Bell could not distinguish. One looked up when the porter spoke to him, seemed to make some protest, and then began to fold something into a cloth. The porter returned, told Bell his man was coming, and went out. Bell waited without impatience, well satisfied that Paulinus had no chance to talk to his servant.

Knud was a middle-aged man, thin and wiry, with sparse brown hair, who approached with his head down, his hands concealed inside his sleeves. Midway he stopped uncertainly, and Bell gestured for him to come nearer. He resumed his approach, but with apparent reluctance.

“Yes, my lord?” he whispered when he was near enough.

“I have been sent by the bishop to—” Bell stopped abruptly and reached out to steady the man, who had uttered a gasp and listed to the side. “What is wrong?” he asked, feeling Knud shudder. “We do not blame you for Messer Baldassare’s death. I only want to know what you saw when you found the body, and where you and others were on the night of the murder.”

Bright brown eyes flashed up at Bell and away, and Bell thought of a small trapped animal. Almost fearing Knud would bolt, he kept his grip on the man’s arm and drew him to a spot farther away from the group among whom he had been working.

“The crows were cawing,” he said to start Knud off, “and Brother Paulinus sent you to see why.”

“Brother Sacristan is responsible for the building and the grounds. He thought someone might have left offal on the porch. Sometimes sinners seek shelter there to make merry…or worse.”

“I know that. So you went to look, and you found?”

Knud shuddered and his eyes flickered up toward Bell again. “You know what I found. A dead man. I had nothing to do with that. I did not know him. I had never seen him before.”

Despite the defensive words, Bell had the feeling that the lay brother was now more at ease. “Never?” he asked, seeking for what could have frightened the man so much when he first mentioned the bishop. “Not in the church attending the Compline service?”

For a moment the man did not answer, frowning slightly and obviously thinking back. Then he shook his head slowly. “I do not think so,” he said, even more at ease and seemingly trying to answer truthfully. “But he might have been there. It was quite dark in the nave. There were some others besides the lay brothers there, visitors to the priory and a few folk from the neighborhood. He might have been among them, but I cannot remember seeing him.”

“Very well. It is true he might never have entered the church. Now, tell me what you saw when you opened the door to the porch, exactly what you saw.”

“Blood,” Knud said. “At first all I saw was blood—blood all over, all over the man, all over the porch. I cried out and jumped back. I do not remember what I said, but it must have been that someone was hurt, or dead, because the infirmarian came running.”

“Was the blood red?”

“No. It was black.” He glanced up again, not so fleetingly this time. “I suppose it could have been red, but it is the north porch. The sun does not touch there, and it was dark.”

“But you were sure it was blood?”

“The knife was there, in his neck.”

“Who took it out?”

“I do not know. The infirmarian, I suppose, or the lay brothers who are healers. I did not touch it. I did not even look at the body again.”

“Very well. Now, after the body was carried away by the infirmarian, Brother Paulinus told you to send a messenger to the abbot. After that what did you do?”

He expected the man to say he went back to his work or his prayers; instead, the quick glance flicked at him again before the eyes were humbly lowered.

“I…I did not know what to do, and in the end, I did nothing because I am bound to obey the sacristan.” Knud’s voice was scarcely above a whisper and he leaned a little closer to Bell, his body tense. ‘I thought the bishop should be told, but Brother Sacristan does not trust the bishop.”

Bound to obey the sacristan but eager to tell tales about him, Bell thought. Was that because Knud disliked his master, or because he feared the bishop and wished to curry favor by placing the blame on the sacristan—Bell had not forgotten Knud’s initial reaction when he said he was the bishop’s man—or simply because he was a sneaking little rat who liked to make trouble? However, Bell only asked mildly, “Why does Brother Paulinus not trust the bishop?”

“He says Lord Winchester is worldly and that he prefers the secular clergy.”

‘That cannot be surprising, since your order is autonomous,” Bell said. “Lord Winchester must necessarily give most of his attention to the churches and parishes under his management.”

“Brother Paulinus says that we live by harsher rules and are more pure and closer to God. Thus, the needs of our orders should come first. He told me once that the Bishop of London used to contribute a substantial sum to our priory for the maintenance of our buildings, but when London died and Winchester was appointed as administrator, he refused to continue the donation. Brother Paulinus was furious.”