Alys Clare - Fortune Like the Moon

‘It was. But already I had had to remind Gunnora several times that she must not seek out the girl so blatantly. And, the very morning of the day she died, I overheard Gunnora and Elvera laughing.’

‘Laughing.’

Something about the way he said it suggested he had misunderstood. ‘We don’t forbid laughter,’ she said gently. ‘Only, as in every other walk of life, there is a time and a place. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘And by the hospital, outside the room where a grieving husband sits beside his dying wife, is not the place for girlish giggling.’

‘No. Of course it isn’t.’ He sounded appalled. ‘Gunnora, at least, should have had more self control, she’d been with you long enough, surely, for that?’

‘She had.’ The incident, small but distressing, was, Helewise thought, a perfect illustration of what she had been trying to put across. Gunnora abided by her own rules. Lived inside her head, and did not appear even to notice the needs of others.

Josse was muttering something. Noticing her eyes on him, he said, ‘You reproved her, for the laughter?’

‘Not I. But Sister Beata rushed out to hush the pair of them, shoo them away, and Sister Euphemia heard the disturbance. She, I understand, administered something of a tongue-lashing. She cares deeply, sir, for her patients. And for the good reputation of her hospital.’

‘I don’t doubt it. And what of the rest of that day?’

‘Gunnora’s face took on its stoniest expression, and there was a dramatic air of suffering about the way she deliberately distanced herself from Elvera, from all of us, in fact. It was extraordinary’ — Helewise was quite surprised to find herself making the admission — ‘but she had the gift of actually making her accuser feel guilty, even when, as in this case, she was totally in the wrong, and whoever had remonstrated with her did so with every justification.’

‘So, she spoke to no one during the evening?’

‘I think not. I cannot speak for the entire evening, for I did not observe her continually. But I sat near to her at supper and opposite her at recreation, and she utterly rejected any attempt to draw her into conversation. She seemed relieved, in fact, when the bell summoned us to Compline and, immediately afterwards, to bed.’

‘And no one ever talks after going to bed?’

‘No. Never. Contact between one nun and another is not permitted in the dormitory.’ No need, she was sure, to explain why.

‘And no one ever gets up, wanders about, leaves the dormitory?’

‘No. The answering of calls of nature is accomplished within each sister’s curtained recess.’

‘Ah.’ He reddened slightly. ‘Abbess, I apologise for these questions which touch on delicate matters so private to your community. But-’

‘I understand the need. Go on.’

‘Would anyone have heard a sister get out of bed? Leave the dormitory?’

She considered. ‘I would have said yes, but I may be wrong. Our days are long, sir, and most of us fall asleep quickly and stay that way until we are called, first at midnight for Matins, and then at daybreak for Prime.’

‘Gunnora was present at midnight?’

‘She was. And absent for Prime, when the alarm was raised and the search parties sent out.’

‘She left, then, in the small hours.’ He closed his eyes, apparently as an aid to visualising the scene. ‘Let us say that, intending this nocturnal expedition, she returned to her recess after the midnight office and made sure she stayed awake. Perhaps lay down fully dressed, so as not to risk making a noise when she rose again. Would anyone have noticed if she did that?’

‘No. We do not peer into each other’s sleeping areas. And, besides, the candles are blown out as soon as we are back in the dormitory.’

‘So. Gunnora waited until everyone was asleep, then moved silently along the dormitory, past all the sleeping sisters, and-’

‘Not all of them. Gunnora’s cubicle was three from the door.’

‘I see. She opened the door, and-’

‘No, it was propped open. It was a very hot night, and we had elected to leave the door open so as to get a little more air into the dormitory.’

‘Ah. Hm.’ Again, the closed eyes. ‘Abbess, might I be permitted to look inside the dormitory?’

She had known he would ask. She replied simply, ‘Yes.’

* * *

She guessed what he was going to do. He asked her to arrange the long room — now quite empty — as it had been that night. She did so, propping the door with the same stone and arranging the flimsy hangings around the first few cubicles. The tidiness and immaculate order pleased her; she was glad this wasn’t a day when some sister, in a hurry, had left her bedding even slightly disarrayed. Then she showed him where Gunnora had slept. He stepped inside the adjacent cubicle, and let the thin curtain fall again.

‘Now, if you would be so kind?’ he asked.

She went into Gunnora’s cubicle. It was disturbing, to be where the girl had spent her last, lonely hours. She removed her shoes, then waited, making herself count to fifty. Then, as silently as she could, she tweaked up the hanging, slid under it and tiptoed along the dormitory and out of the door. She knew, as did all the nuns, that the third of the wooden stairs tended to creak, so she stepped straight from the second to the fourth. Then, still with exaggerated caution, she went on down to ground level.

She had just put her shoes back on when, some minutes later, Josse appeared at the top of the short flight of steps.

‘I didn’t hear you,’ he said. ‘I had my eyes shut, and I called out to you, and you didn’t answer, so I knew you’d gone. I didn’t hear a thing,’ he repeated, ‘and I was wide awake! I was listening out for you!’

‘I know.’ She felt strangely excited, affected by this small discovery that it was perfectly possible for someone to leave the dormitory unheard. She said, genuinely wanting to know, ‘What now?’

The light in his face drained away, and he said sombrely, ‘Now, please, you show me where she was found.’

Helewise led him out of the rear gate of the convent. It gave on to the track that wound down into the vale; after only a few yards, the rooftops of the shrine and the monks’ house came into view. Soon after that, she branched off on to a lesser-used track, which became steeper as it neared the valley floor.

She had not been down here since they’d found Gunnora.

‘She lay there.’ Helewise pointed. ‘Just off the path. Right in the open, which was odd.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘You’d have thought whoever killed her might have tried to hide the body. A belated discovery of the murder surely would have helped him, if only to give him longer to get away.’

‘It was more than not hiding her,’ Helewise said slowly. ‘It looked for all the world as if he’d been quite determined we would find her. She’d been — arranged. ’ It was the best word she could think of.

‘Arranged,’ he repeated.

‘Her arms and legs made a sort of star pattern’ — oh, it was hard, remembering! — ‘and it seemed that some trouble had been taken to make the shape as perfect as possible.’

‘Dreadful,’ he muttered. ‘Callous, and quite horrible.’

She didn’t want to, but she knew she must tell him the rest. ‘Her skirts were folded back so neatly. I noticed that.’ Realising her omission, she said, ‘I did not find her — two of the lay brothers did, only a matter of minutes after the search began. I was just coming down from the Abbey, and I heard them shout. I was the third one to look on her.’

‘I see.’ His voice held compassion. ‘Go on. You were telling me about her skirt.’