The Lost Abbot (7 page)

Everyone looked towards the altar, where Clippesby was muttering to a spider. Worse, he was cocking his head, as if he could hear what it was saying in reply. His face was pale, and his eyes wilder than they had been earlier, indicating that bloody murder committed in a holy place had upset him. Bartholomew’s heart sank further still: Clippesby distressed was likely to be odder than usual until the shock wore off.

‘He is a saint in the making,’ whispered Michael, so the Dominican would not hear and deny it. ‘I brought him with me, so that his holiness can touch your foundation, too.’

Bartholomew felt his jaw drop, while William looked set to contradict, outraged that beatification should be bestowed on a member of an Order that was not his own.

‘Then we had better make sure he has the best available quarters,’ said Welbyrn, gazing at Clippesby with awe. ‘We do not want saints vexed with us because of their shabby treatment.’

‘As you wish,’ said Michael smoothly. ‘However, you must ensure his guardians are treated well, too. Quite aside from the fact that we are the Bishop’s Commissioners.’

When the abbey officials eventually turned their attention to Joan, the scholars were unimpressed, as none of them did or said anything useful. Michael was on the verge of suggesting that the Sheriff be summoned, on the grounds that someone was needed who would do more than tut and sigh, when Trentham arrived.

‘I was upstairs with Lady Lullington,’ the young priest explained breathlessly. ‘I did not know what had happened until the novice told me. Poor Sister Joan! I can scarcely believe it.’

‘Is Lady Lullington dead yet?’ asked Welbyrn with distasteful eagerness. ‘Do you know what she has left the abbey in her will?’

Angry tears glittered in Trentham’s eyes. ‘No, I do not, and a deathbed is hardly the place to raise such a subject.’

‘On the contrary, there is nowhere better,’ countered Welbyrn. He seemed genuinely bemused by Trentham’s emotional response, and Bartholomew recalled that he had been insensitive as a youth, too.

Trentham addressed Bartholomew, pointedly ignoring the treasurer. ‘She is sleeping very deeply, and her pain seems less. Thank you.’

Yvo smiled in a way that was probably meant to be benign but only served to make him seem vaguely sinister. ‘To take your mind off her, Trentham, you can find Joan’s killer.’

Trentham went wide-eyed with horror. ‘Me? But I would not know where to start!’

‘He does not want to accuse his beloved charges,’ surmised Welbyrn nastily. ‘But we all know who is responsible for this vicious crime: a bedesman. Or a bedeswoman.’

‘No,’ cried Trentham. ‘My old people would never harm Joan.’

‘Lord!’ exclaimed Yvo suddenly. ‘Does it mean Hagar will be in charge now? That is a daunting prospect! Perhaps I shall not run for the abbacy after all, because dealing with her will not be easy.’

There was a fervent murmur of agreement from his brethren.

‘So you have your first clue, Trentham.’ Ramseye’s smile was sardonic. ‘No monk would murder Joan, as none of us are equal to managing Hagar. Perhaps the same can be said for the bedesfolk.
Ergo
, the culprit must be a townsman.’

‘Or a stranger,’ added Welbyrn, looking pointedly at the Michaelhouse men.

‘I told you,’ muttered William in Bartholomew’s ear. ‘We are about to be accused.’

‘Not these strangers,’ countered Yvo, glancing at Clippesby, who had abandoned the spider and had cornered a cat. ‘A saint would not keep company with killers.’

‘True,’ acknowledged Ramseye. ‘However, the town is full of possibilities. Spalling—’

‘Yes!’ interrupted Yvo eagerly. ‘Spalling is certainly the kind of man who would invade our most lucrative … I mean our holiest chapel and strike an old lady with a relic.’

‘He spent the morning accusing us of robbing travellers on the King’s highways,’ said Ramseye resentfully. ‘So the murder of one of our bedesfolk would just be one more instance of the malice he bears us.’

‘Accusing the abbey’s
defensores
, you mean,’ corrected Yvo sourly. ‘The band of louts that Robert hired. I wish the Abbot had listened to my advice and refrained from doing that – it does our reputation no good at all to have rough fellows like those on our payroll.’

‘They are not louts,’ countered Welbyrn irritably. ‘They are lay brothers. And we need them, given our unpopularity in the town.’

‘I certainly feel safer with the
defensores
to hand,’ agreed Ramseye. ‘However, Spalling has no right to blame us for those robberies when they are
his
fault. His followers comprise a lot of discontented peasants, all convinced that they have a God-given right to other people’s property.’

‘We must not forget that Aurifabro’s soldiers are hardened mercenaries,’ said Welbyrn. ‘Personally, I suspect that
he
is responsible for these nasty incidents on the south road.’

‘Mercenaries?’ echoed Bartholomew, bemused to learn that Peterborough seemed to be home to three separate private armies.

‘Foreigners mostly,’ explained Yvo. ‘He refused to recruit locals, on the grounds that he is at war with us and Spalling’s followers, and he was afraid he might hire spies who are actually in the pay of one of his enemies.’

‘The south road,’ mused William. ‘Do you mean the track that runs towards Cambridge? We were ambushed five times on that – it is why we have taken so long to get here. And our attackers spoke French. I heard them.’

‘It is disgraceful that honest men cannot travel in safety any longer,’ said Yvo, shaking his head sympathetically. ‘But I prefer Spalling as a suspect to Aurifabro – for Joan’s murder, as well as the robberies. That man has been a thorn in our side for far too long. We should arrest him, and bring an end to his villainy.’

‘Unfortunately, if we do, he will tell the Bishop that we are persecuting him on account of our past differences,’ said Ramseye, raising a cautionary hand. ‘And Gynewell will probably believe him. We need evidence before we clap him in irons.’

Yvo turned to Trentham. ‘Then you had better find us some by looking into how he dispatched poor Joan.’

‘No,’ said Trentham, taking his career in his hands by refusing the order of a senior cleric. ‘I do not have the ability to investigate murder. Or the time. With two hospitals and a parish to run, I am far too busy.’

‘Two hospitals
and
a parish?’ asked Michael. ‘That is a heavy burden.’

‘Too heavy,’ agreed Yvo, although he was scowling at the young priest. ‘I have been trying to appoint a second vicar, but Welbyrn says we cannot afford it.’

As the abbey was obviously wealthy, Bartholomew thought Welbyrn was lying, and that the hapless Trentham was paying the price for the treasurer’s parsimony.

‘Brother Michael can do it, then,’ said Ramseye slyly. ‘He will be looking into our dead Abbot, and two enquiries are as easy as one.’

‘No, they are not,’ countered Michael indignantly. ‘And I did not come here to solve local crimes. They should be explored by someone familiar with you and your idiosyncrasies.’

‘What idiosyncrasies?’ demanded Welbyrn.

‘I agree with Ramseye,’ said Yvo. ‘Michael will be impartial, because he has no axe to grind. So you are relieved of the responsibility, Trentham. Go and pray for Joan instead.’

‘I cannot oblige you,’ said Michael irritably, as the young priest scurried away before the Prior could change his mind. ‘I will not be here long enough to—’

‘You aim to prove Robert dead before our election next week?’ pounced Yvo eagerly. ‘Good. We can proceed as we intended, then.’

‘No, Father Prior,’ snapped Welbyrn immediately. ‘He is alive, and you cannot say otherwise just because you itch to step into his shoes. Indeed, Bishop Gynewell had no right to invite monks from Cambridge to pry into our business in the first place.’

‘Yet we shall cooperate, because we should like to know what happened to him,’ added Ramseye with a gracious smile. ‘But this is no place to discuss it. We shall do it in the abbey, while the saint takes his ease.’

The sun was beginning to set as the monks filtered out of the chapel. Bartholomew hung back – neither Welbyrn nor Ramseye seemed to have improved with age, and he had no desire to renew the acquaintance. William hovered at his side, because some of the brethren were making a fuss of Clippesby and he could not bear to watch a Dominican so fawningly feted.

‘The witches are putting on an act for Trentham’s benefit,’ whispered Botilbrig, making them jump by speaking behind them. He nodded to where the young priest was kneeling by the body with the bedeswomen clustered around him. ‘Some are pretending to cry, but the truth is that none of them liked her.’

‘Why not?’ asked William. ‘I thought she was very nice.’

‘She was a tyrant,’ explained Botilbrig. He seemed more spry than he had been, and Bartholomew regarded him suspiciously. Was he buoyed up by the success of his crime? Reinvigorated by the death of an enemy? Or simply revitalised now the heat of the day had passed? ‘Mind you, Hagar will be worse. She looks kinder, on account of being more petite, but she will be a despot, too. And then it will be
her
brained with a relic.’

‘Are you saying that one of the bedeswomen murdered Joan?’ asked William.

Botilbrig considered the question carefully, then sighed his regret. ‘Actually, no, to tell you the truth. Not because they loved her, but because they would not have used a relic to do it.
I
know it is a fake, of course, but they honestly believe it is genuine.’

‘Then who is the culprit?’ pressed William.

Botilbrig lowered his voice. ‘Most of the monks are decent men, but the Unholy Trinity is another matter. I would not put murder past any of them.’

‘What is the Unholy Trinity?’ William’s expression was dangerous, anticipating heresy.

‘The popular name for three of the obedientiaries – men the Abbot appoints to be responsible for a specific aspect of the monastery’s functioning, which puts them in authority over the rest of their brethren and confers all sorts of benefits.’

‘I know what an obedientiary is,’ said William indignantly.

Botilbrig ignored him. ‘The Unholy Trinity is Ramseye, Welbyrn and Nonton the cellarer. Ramseye tells the other two what to do, and they are all vile men. He will order them to get him elected Abbot now.’

‘Welbyrn will not oblige,’ predicted Bartholomew. ‘He does not believe the previous incumbent has finished with the post.’

Botilbrig grimaced. ‘Welbyrn feels he owes Robert his loyalty, because he made him treasurer, whereas all the other abbots refused him promotion on account of his dim wits. But Ramseye will win him round – he always does. They were ordained together.’

Bartholomew did not say that he already knew. ‘Why would this Unholy Trinity want Joan dead?’

‘Who knows the workings of their nasty minds?’ replied Botilbrig airily. ‘I hope Ramseye is not elected Abbot, though. He will be better at it than Yvo, because he is shrewd. But he is not as agreeable.’

‘Yvo is agreeable?’ asked William doubtfully.

The abbey was beautiful in the red-gold light of the fading day. It was dominated by the vast mass of its church, and Bartholomew stopped for a moment to admire its mighty west front, just as he had done when he had been a child. It soared upwards in a breathtaking array of spires and arches, every niche filled with a carving of a saint, so that it seemed as if the entire population of Heaven was looking down at him. Then William grabbed his arm, and they hurried to catch up with Yvo, who had skirted around the cloisters to a small building with sturdy Norman features.

‘This is the guest house,’ the Prior was telling Michael and Clippesby. ‘I shall leave you to refresh yourselves, and then you must join me and the other obedientiaries for a discussion. Afterwards, the cook will prepare you a small collation.’

‘It had better be more than a small one,’ grumbled Michael when they were alone. ‘After all the travails we have suffered today.’

When Clippesby slumped into a chair, Bartholomew knelt in front of him and peered into his face. The Dominican was definitely less lucid than he had been earlier, and his hair stuck up in clumps where he had clawed at it. Clippesby ignored him, another sign that he was not himself, and all his attention was fixed on a hen that he had managed to snag.

‘How will you go about solving Joan’s murder, Brother?’ asked William, going to the best bed and tossing his cloak on it, to stake his claim.

‘I will not,’ replied Michael firmly. ‘I shall ask enough questions about Robert to fulfil my obligations to Gynewell, and then we are leaving.’

‘Good,’ said William. ‘I do not like it here.’

‘Neither do I,’ said Michael, slipping behind a screen to change. He was always prudish about anyone seeing him in his nether garments. ‘Yvo has offered to lend us a few
defensores
for our return journey. He says it should take no more than three days to get home, because robbers will not attack us if we are well protected, and we will make better time.’

‘You need to be back by Saturday week, which means leaving by next Wednesday at the latest,’ said William, calculating on his fingers. ‘That gives us seven days. Will it be enough?’

‘It will have to be, because I am not risking a riot at my University over this.’

‘I had misgivings about this venture the moment Langelee ordered me to pack,’ said William sourly. ‘And now I know why: Peterborough is not a happy place.’

‘No,’ agreed Michael, ‘which is a pity, because it is lovely. Wealthy, too.’

‘This bed is certainly costly,’ said William, flopping on to it and sighing his appreciation.

Michael emerged from behind the screen and inspected his reflection in the tiny mirror he used for travelling. He evidently liked what he saw, for he smiled. ‘Will you stay here and mind our budding saint while I address the obedientiaries, Father?’ he asked, carefully adjusting a stray hair.

‘What saint?’ asked Clippesby, snapping out of his reverie.

‘Of course,’ replied William, kicking off his boots and closing his eyes. ‘I do not feel like dealing with more Benedictines today anyway. But you should not go alone, Brother. Take Matthew with you.’