Paul Doherty - Murder Wears a Cowl

Corbett reluctantly agreed and they crossed the grounds towards the main abbey buildings. A bleary-eyed, shuffling lay brother took care of their horses, then led them down paved passageways to Adam of Warfield’s chamber. Corbett took an immediate dislike to the sacristan. He was tall, angular, very precise, and had a long crooked nose and a prim, pursed mouth. Corbett thought his eyes, under their shaggy brows, were shifty and uneasy. Warfield, however, made them welcome enough with dainty flutterings of his long boned fingers; he offered them ale and bread which Corbett refused, despite Ranulf’s mutterings. All three of them sat on a bench feeling rather awkward, like boys in a school room, with the sacristan perched opposite them on a high stool, hiding his hands in the voluminous sleeves of his brown robe. Too composed, Corbett thought, too placid: not the sort of man you would put in charge of a great abbey. At first their conversation was desultory; Corbett asked after the old abbot who was virtually bed-ridden and expressed his condolences at the recent death of Prior Roger. Adam of Warfield seemed unmoved.

‘We have sent word to Rome,’ he rasped. ‘But we have not yet received the authority to hold fresh elections for a new prior.’ He smiled deprecatingly. ‘But I do what I can.’

‘I’m sure you do!’ Corbett replied.

He could hardly abide the sanctimonious smile on the man’s face so he stared round the austere chamber with its few sticks of paltry furniture. He sensed Warfield was a hypocrite, noticed the crumbs of fine sugar on the monk’s dark robe and glimpsed the rim stain left by a wine goblet on the table. The clerk was sure that this monk liked his stomach as much as the priest at St Lawrence Jewry did his.

‘Father Benedict’s death?’ he asked abruptly.

Adam of Warfield stiffened. ‘I have told Master Cade already,’ the monk whined. ‘We were roused from our dormitory by Master William, the palace steward. We did what we could but the house was gutted by flames.’

‘Don’t you think it was strange,’ Corbett continued, ‘that on the day Father Benedict died, he sent a message to Cade saying something terrible, something quite blasphemous, was happening? I ask you now, Adam of Warfield, what is happening in the King’s abbey which so disturbed that old, saintly priest?’

The sacristan let out a deep breath. Corbett caught the stench of wine fumes.

‘Our Lord the King,’ Corbett continued, ‘had a deep love of Father Benedict and whatever was worrying him now intrigues me. Believe me, I will satisfy my curiosity.’

The sacristan was now agitated, his fingers fluttering above his brown robe. ‘Father Benedict was old,’ he stammered. ‘He imagined things.’

He strained his scrawny neck and Corbett suddenly noticed the faded purple mark on the right side of the sacristan’s throat. How, Corbett wondered, did an ordained priest and monk of Westminster get a love bite on his neck? He looked again and was sure the mark was not some cut or graze caused by shaving. Corbett rose and stared through the small, diamond-shaped window.

‘The Sisters of St Martha, Brother Adam, what do you know of them?’

‘They are a devoted and devout group of ladies who meet in our Chapter House every afternoon. They pray, they do good works, especially amongst the whores and prostitutes of the city.’

‘You support their work?’

‘Of course I do!’

Corbett half turned. ‘Were you shocked by Lady Somerville’s death?’

‘Naturally!’

‘I understand she did work in the laundry? What work, exactly?’ Corbett peered over his shoulder at the sacristan and noticed how pale the man’s face had become. Were there beads of sweat on his forehead? Corbett wondered.

‘Lady Somerville washed and took particular care of altar cloths, napkins, vestments and other liturgical cloths as well as the brothers’ robes.’

‘Do you know what Lady Somerville meant by the phrase “ Cacullus non facit monachum ”?’

‘The cowl does not make the monk?’ The sacristan smiled thinly. ‘It’s a phrase often used by our enemies who claim there’s more to being a monk than wearing a certain habit.’

‘Is that so?’ Ranulf spoke up. ‘And would you agree, Brother?’

Warfield threw him a look of contempt, and Corbett drummed his fingers on the window sill.

‘So you don’t know what she was referring to?’

‘No, my relationship with the Sisters of St Martha is negligible. I have enough matters in hand. Sometimes I meet them in the Chapter House but that is all.’

‘Well, well, well!’ Corbett walked back to the bench. ‘Nobody at Westminster seems to know anything. Am I right, dear Brother? Well, I wish to see three things: first, Father Benedict’s house; secondly, the door to the crypt and, finally, the Sisters of St Martha. You say they meet every afternoon?’

The sacristan nodded.

‘Then, my dear Brother, let’s go. Let’s begin.’

They walked out of the abbey buildings, Warfield leading them through overgrown gardens into a small orchard.

‘What has happened here?’ Ranulf whispered loudly. ‘This is the King’s abbey, the King’s house, yet nothing has been attended to.’

‘The fault is really the King’s,’ Corbett murmured. ‘He is too busy in Scotland to press Pope Boniface for the right to hold elections. He has withdrawn his household from Westminster; his treasury has no money to pay masons or gardeners. I do not think he knows how bad the situation is. When this matter is over, he will be enlightened.’

‘And the others don’t care,’ Cade added. ‘Our wealthy burgesses regard Westminster as a village, whilst the bishops of Canterbury and London are only too happy to see it decline.’

The orchard thinned and before them, in a small enclosure with its fence broken down, stood the blackened ruins of Father Benedict’s house. Corbett walked slowly around the building. It had not been built with wattle and daub but bricks quarried by the stone cutters, otherwise it would have been reduced to a smouldering heap. Corbett studied the wooden-framed window high in the wall, well over two yards above the vegetable garden.

‘That is the only window?’ he remarked.

‘Yes.’

‘And was the roof thatched, or tiled?’

‘Oh, tiled with red slate.’

Corbett walked up to the front door which still hung askew on its steel hinges. The door was oaken, about two inches thick and reinforced with steel strips.

‘And was there only one door?’

‘Yes! Yes!’

Corbett pushed it to one side and they entered the blackened, ruined house, wrinkling their noses at the stench of burnt wood and stale smoke. The inside of the building had been totally gutted, the white-washed walls blackened and scorched. The stone hearth at the far end had been reduced to crumbling brick.

‘A simple place,’ Corbett murmured. ‘Father Benedict’s bed must have been in the far corner? Next to the hearth? Yes?’

Warfield nodded.

‘He probably ate, slept and studied here?’

‘Yes, Master Corbett, there was only one room.’

‘And on the floor?’

‘Probably rushes.’

Corbett walked over to the near corner and sifted amongst the ashes on the floor. He pulled up a few strands and rubbed them between his fingers; yes, they were rushes and had probably been very dry and would have soon caught fire.

Corbett walked into the centre of the room and stared at the wall underneath the window, where the fire had burnt fiercely, turning the wooden window frame into black feathery ash; the flames had gouged deep black marks on the wall and reduced everything on the floor to a powdery dust. Corbett walked over to the hearth and to the remains of the wooden bed. He stood for a while, ignoring the impatient mutterings of his companions, and scraped his boot amongst the ashes.