Edward Marston - The Owls of Gloucester

‘It is mine,’ said Nigel with a gesture of pride, ‘and I have made it indisputably one of the finest cities in the realm.’

‘How did you do that?’

The reeve needed no prompting. He described the city, its history and its relationship to the surrounding county. Though his lecture was couched in unashamed self-admiration, it was both lucid and concise. Hubert threw in a few questions of his own and they were answered frankly. By the time the reeve had finished, the visitors had a much clearer idea of the place they had come to and the personalities they would encounter.

Gervase was sincerely grateful. Feeling that he had established his primacy once more, Nigel the Reeve gave a token bow and withdrew with dignity.

‘I’ll teach the rogue to mend his manners before I’m done,’

said Ralph, glowering at the door. ‘Those airs and graces will get short shrift from me. Who does he think he is?’

‘I found his comments enlightening,’ observed Hubert.

‘So did I,’ Brother Simon piped up.

‘He needs to be handled in the right way,’ said Gervase.

Ralph gave a grim chuckle. ‘Around the throat.’

He called the others to order and they took their seats behind the table, spreading out the documents that related to the first case they were due to investigate and discussing the questions they would need to put to the disputants. Only a minor case was coming before them on their first day and they saw no reason why it could not be dispatched quickly. When they had reviewed some of the other disputes on which they would adjudicate, there was a little time left before their official duties began. Ralph turned to the subject which he had put aside until now.

‘How did you find the abbey, Canon Hubert?’

‘Sorely troubled, my lord,’ said the other. ‘It is a sad place.’

‘I did not sleep a wink there,’ confided Simon.

‘The fear is tangible. Abbot Serlo does not believe it will leave the abbey until the murderer has been caught and executed. We talked at length about the crime,’ said Hubert solemnly. ‘About its nature, its impact and its consequences in the longer term.’

‘What are the details?’ asked Ralph.

‘The story is more complicated than the sheriff made it sound when he first broached the topic to us. Brother Nicholas, it turns out, occupied a somewhat strange position at the abbey.’

Ralph and Gervase listened intently while Hubert explained what he meant. Beside the overwhelming vanity of the reeve, Hubert’s flights of pomposity seemed negligible, and his constant reference to his friendship with Abbot Serlo was forgiven because it had yielded so much of interest to his listeners. His account of the murder was indeed far more detailed than the one given by Durand and he was happy to amplify it.

‘Let us go back to the spot where the body was found,’ decided Ralph. ‘On a wooden platform in the bell tower, you say?’

‘That is correct, my lord.’

‘What reason would Brother Nicholas have to go there?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Did he have duties regarding the bell?’

‘No, my lord. They fall to the Sub-Sacristan.’

‘Is it not likely, then, that the victim was killed elsewhere and carried into the church so that his corpse could be hidden there?’

‘That occurred to me,’ said Hubert, ‘but the abbot discounted that proposition, arguing that it would be very difficult to carry a dead body up the ladder to the loft.’

‘Perhaps he was not carried,’ suggested Gervase. ‘The killer might have hauled him up with a rope.’

‘That, too, occurred to me but the abbot was sceptical. Where was the blood that must surely have dripped from his wound?

His throat was slit from ear to ear, his cowl was sodden. Had he been hauled aloft, his blood would have been all over the floor yet there was no sign of it. Nor,’ said Hubert, anticipating Gervase’s next guess, ‘was there any indication of the floor being recently washed to remove stains. The whole abbey has been searched and the only place bloodstains were found was on the timber where he lay.’

‘So that is where he was killed,’ concluded Ralph.

‘Apparently, my lord.’

‘What on earth was he doing up there?’

‘Abbot Serlo is at a loss to understand that.’

‘How long had he been missing?’

‘A couple of days.’

‘Who saw him last?’

‘One of the tenants from whom he collected rent.’

‘Close by the abbey?’

‘Some miles away, my lord,’ said Hubert, with an expansive gesture of his hands. ‘The abbey’s land is scattered far and wide.’

‘I know.’

‘It owns seventeen manors in the county,’ noted Gervase.

‘Far too many,’ decided Ralph, fingering his chin as he pondered.

‘Could that provide the motive?’ he said at length. ‘The fact that Brother Nicholas collected rents? Did he upset one of the tenants? Or was his scrip so full of money that it incited someone to theft and murder? No,’ he added, thinking it through, ‘why would any monk be foolhardy enough to climb up a ladder with a vengeful tenant? What would such a person be doing in the abbey church with Nicholas in the first place? I begin to wonder if Durand’s accusation may be just. Perhaps the victim was slain by one of his fellow monks.’

‘No!’ protested Simon.

‘It is unthinkable!’ wailed Hubert.

‘Not to the sheriff,’ said Ralph.

‘He does not know the monks, my lord. Abbot Serlo does. And there is not one among them on whom the slightest suspicion can fall. Take the abbot’s word for it. Brother Nicholas was killed by an outsider.’

‘Or by a guest at the abbey,’ said Gervase.

‘Or by an act of God,’ said Ralph with mild sarcasm. ‘On the face of it it’s a baffling crime, but that only makes me want to get to grips with it. If time serves, I would value a talk with Abbot Serlo myself. Would that be at all possible, Hubert?’

‘If the approach were first made through me, my lord.’

‘Of course.’

‘There’s a couple of individuals we’re forgetting,’ remarked Gervase. ‘The novices who stumbled on the body that night. What about them?’

Hubert gave his first smile of the day. ‘I’m glad that you mention them. They are young boys, Kenelm and Elaf by name. The abbot has given me permission to question them myself but I need an interpreter to reach them in their own tongue. Brother Frewine, the Precentor, could serve in that office but he is a stranger to me and, from what I can gather, too well disposed towards the boys to be entirely independent in his judgements. I prefer someone of proven skill in translation, someone I know well, someone I can trust.’

‘Gervase is the obvious person,’ said Ralph.

‘That is what I felt, my lord.’ Hubert looked at Gervase. ‘Will you please help me in the interrogation?’

‘Do I have any choice in the matter?’ asked Gervase.

‘No!’ said Ralph cheerfully.

‘Then it is settled. I am at your command, Canon Hubert, and glad to be of assistance. Their names are Kenelm and Elaf, you say. What sort of boys are they?’

‘Frightened ones.’

It was ironic. Kenelm was the older, bigger and more boisterous of the two novices, and yet he was the one who suffered most.

Elaf, who had unwittingly fallen against the dead body of Brother Nicholas, was still haunted by the memory but he was learning to master his emotions in a way that eluded his friend, making it necessary for Elaf to provide the reassurance which had hitherto come from Kenelm. As they sat with the other novices and took instruction from Brother Paul, it was Kenelm who kept nervously glancing across to Elaf for moral support.

‘ Cantate Domino canticum novum: quia mirabilia fecit .’