Alys Clare - Dark Night Hidden

The Abbess was waiting.

She accompanied the three men into the infirmary. Under Sister Euphemia’s direction, they carried the corpse to a curtained-off recess and placed the hurdle on a trestle. Then, holding a light, Sister Euphemia leaned down, removed the sacking and inspected the dead face.

Straightening up, eyes wide with shock, she stared at the Abbess. Who had also seen who the dead man was.

In a voice that shook, the Abbess said, ‘Dear God, it’s Father Micah.’

‘But how did he come to be lying out there?’ the Abbess asked for the third time. ‘What was he doing ?’

Josse, bending over the corpse with Sister Euphemia beside him, felt a moment’s annoyance; it was not like the Abbess, he thought, to stand wringing her hands in distress.

‘We cannot yet know, my lady,’ he said. ‘The first thing is to determine how he died.’

‘I thought you said his neck was broken!’

‘Aye, it is.’ Josse sensed rather than heard the infirmarer’s irritation with her uncharacteristically nervous superior. Turning to the Abbess, he said, forcing what he hoped was a reassuring smile, ‘Why not leave this to Sister Euphemia and me? When we’re ready to start finding out what the Father’s movements were yesterday, I’ll come and find you to discuss how we might best go about it.’

‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘But I-’ Then abruptly she nodded, turned swiftly and strode out of the infirmary.

‘Something’s worrying her,’ Sister Euphemia muttered. ‘But we won’t dwell on what it is at the moment, eh, Sir Josse?’

‘No,’ he agreed. He gave her a grin. ‘More important things to do.’

They returned to the task of inspecting Father Micah’s dead body. As the infirmarer began carefully to unfasten and remove his garments, she said, ‘Sir Josse, this robe feels like the laundry when it’s been left out in the frost. It’s stiff as a board.’

‘Aye, Sister, you’re right. Which suggests he was lying out there for quite some time.’

They worked in silence for a while. Then Josse said, ‘Sister, would it be in order if we sent for Brother Augustus?’

She raised her head from removing the priest’s sandals. ‘You think we could do with another pair of sharp eyes?’

He chuckled. ‘Well, you and I have managed reasonably efficiently on our own before now. But I’m thinking it would be good for the lad to give him some more experience in something for which he already shows an aptitude.’

‘I agree,’ she said. ‘Aye, Sir Josse, you send for our Gus.’

Brother Augustus arrived from the Vale a little while later, panting. ‘There was no need to hurry, lad,’ Josse remarked. ‘The Father here isn’t going anywhere.’

‘It is true, then, what they told me?’ Augustus was advancing wide-eyed towards the trestle and its burden.

‘Depends what you’ve been told,’ Josse replied. ‘What’s true is that Father Micah was found on the track above Castle Hill early this morning. It seems that he was lying there all night. His neck is broken.’

‘Did he have a fall? An accident?’ Augustus asked. His eyes, Josse noticed, had gone straight to the dead man’s throat.

‘I already checked that,’ Josse murmured to him. ‘They’re not there. No bruises on this one’s neck.’

Sister Euphemia wrenched off the last of the priest’s meagre undergarments. He lay, pale, thin and still, naked before the three of them. It was Augustus who muttered a quiet prayer; Sister Euphemia met Josse’s eye and gave him a faint smile, jerking her head in Augustus’s direction as if to say, nice lad, isn’t he?

Josse wondered if the infirmarer had shared the Abbess’s antipathy towards the dead priest. On balance, it seemed likely.

Augustus finished his prayer and opened his eyes. He looked faintly accusingly at Josse and the infirmarer, both of whom muttered belated and sheepish amens.

‘Now then,’ Sister Euphemia said, ‘let’s see if there is any information to be gained from this poor wretch’s corpse.’

And then for some time there was quiet in the little recess as the three of them put their various emotions aside and got on with their task.

‘His body bears no obvious injury,’ Josse reported to the Abbess in the middle of the morning, ‘other than a bruise on the chin and, of course, his broken neck. That appears to have been done from the front. As if, for example, he had run into a beam, hitting it hard with his chin so that his head was thrown violently backwards.’

‘But there are no beams out on the track,’ the Abbess said.

Josse wondered why her customary intelligence appeared to have deserted her. ‘Quite so, my lady. I only cited the beam as an illustration. He could, perhaps, have slipped and hit his chin on the low branch of a tree.’

‘A tree. Ah, yes.’ Her grey eyes were vague and unfocused. Then, looking up and seeing him watching her, she appeared to make an effort. ‘Or I suppose he might have died elsewhere — where there were beams — and then been dumped on the track.’

‘He could, aye,’ Josse said slowly. ‘But that would make it murder, my lady, since a man whose neck is broken does not get up and walk somewhere else.’

To his consternation, she flushed deep pink and shouted, ‘Well I didn’t kill him!’

He said instantly, ‘My lady, I did not imagine for one moment that you did!’

But she could hardly have heard. She was weeping, her head lowered on to her arms folded on top of her table. He went round to stand at her side, putting out a tentative hand to touch her shoulder. ‘There, there,’ he said, thinking even as he did so what an inane, inadequate utterance it was.

After a moment, one of her hands came up and clasped his in a quick, hard squeeze. He flinched slightly; she had strong hands. Then she raised her head, wiped her eyes and said, in almost her normal voice, ‘I am sorry, Sir Josse, for that outburst. I did not sleep well, for my conscience is uneasy concerning Father Micah.’ She turned her head so that she was looking up at him. ‘I feared, in the first shock of receiving the news, that his death was my fault. I prayed to God last night at Vespers that Father Micah be helped out of his distress. I also asked that we at Hawkenlye be saved from his wrath and his bigotry.’

Josse perched on the edge of her table, a liberty he would not normally have taken. ‘And you thought that God had answered your plea by kindly breaking the Father’s neck for you?’ She nodded. ‘Oh, Helewise!’ he whispered.

For a moment her eyes on his were full of emotion. Then she lowered them and began an earnest and concentrated examination of her folded hands.

He got off her table and went round to the other side of it, taking up his usual position just inside the door. From that slight distance, it was easier to get his own feelings under control. After a moment — which he could not help but think she needed as much as he did — he cleared his throat and said, ‘I have indeed been wondering, in fact, if somebody attacked him. Not that there is any certainty of that — Sister Euphemia, Brother Augustus and I found no evidence for or against. It is equally possible that he had a fatal accident.’

‘The putative branch,’ she said. She still did not meet his eyes. ‘Quite so.’

‘We now have to look into how the Father spent his day yesterday,’ Josse went on. This was easier, he was finding, if they kept their minds on the business in hand. ‘He was here in the Abbey early in the day, I believe, my lady?’

‘He was.’ At last she raised her head and looked up at him. ‘He insisted on my escorting him all around the various departments so that he could point out where we were going wrong. He was particularly vociferous in his condemnation of our work with the fallen women. He made a vicious comment to one of our newly delivered mothers and either she or one of her friends gave him an equally savage reply.’