Edward Marston - The Owls of Gloucester

‘Did you not draw inspiration from the monks around you?’

‘Yes,’ said Kenelm.

‘Which ones?’

‘Brother Frewine.’

‘He is our best friend,’ said Elaf proudly.

‘Who else?’ Between them, the boys listed ten other names.

‘You see?’ said Gervase. ‘You know the holy brothers far better than you imagined. There was no mention of Brother Nicholas, of course. I take it that neither of you drew inspiration from him?’ They shook their heads. ‘You were too busy laughing at his funny voice.’

Elaf licked his lips. ‘We never dared to laugh at him.’

‘Why not?’

‘No reason, Master Bret.’

‘I’m sure you can recall one, if you try.’

‘We hardly ever saw him.’

‘But when you did, you were afraid to mock him.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why? Did he threaten you?’

‘Not really.’

‘So what was the reason?’

There was a long pause. Hubert grew frustrated at being unable to understand what was going on. He leaned forward to speak but Gervase waved him back into silence, certain that he was on the verge of learning a significant piece of information. The two boys were trading glances.

‘Brother Nicholas was cruelly murdered,’ Gervase reminded them. ‘You had the misfortune to find him and I know how gruesome a discovery that must have been. But you’re also in a position to help us catch his killer. Any fact about Brother Nicholas is vital, including his relationship with the novices. So tell me, please, because it may be of crucial importance, why you never laughed at Brother Nicholas.’

‘Go on,’ said Frewine gently. ‘Speak honestly.’

Kenelm tried to speak then bit his lip in embarrassment.

‘Elaf?’ invited Gervase.

‘We didn’t like him,’ confessed the other. ‘None of us did.’

‘Why not?’

Elaf licked his lips again and took a deep breath before speaking.

‘It was the way that Brother Nicholas looked at us.’

The bulbous eyes of Brother Nicholas were no longer able to cause any disquiet. They were covered forever by lids which had been drawn down by a compassionate finger and thumb when his corpse was brought to the mortuary. Nicholas lay beneath a shroud on the cold stone slab, his wound bandaged and his body washed.

Herbs sweetened his noisome stink. Candles burned at his head and feet, throwing a flickering light over the last remains of the abbey’s ill-fated rent collector.

When the door opened, Abbot Serlo led his visitor in, pausing to offer up a silent prayer before he reached down to pull back the shroud. Ralph Delchard looked down at the naked body with mingled sadness and interest. Brother Nicholas was a plump man in his forties with a pasty complexion which owed nothing to the pallor of death and a body of unusual whiteness, allowing blue veins to show through on his chest. The body was almost entirely devoid of hair. What Ralph noticed was the absence of any real muscle in the arms and legs. Here was one monk who had not toiled in the fields or taken on one of the more physically demanding tasks at the abbey. Soft white hands confirmed that Brother Nicholas was a stranger to strenuous exercise.

The thickness of the bandaging showed how comprehensively the throat had been cut but there were no other marks of violence upon him. Ralph studied the face: big, round, podgy but surprisingly untouched by the march of time. Even in repose, there was a religiosity about the man. It was a quality which Ralph had never been able to understand or to appreciate but Brother Nicholas seemed to possess it. He reached out to feel the spindly legs and the weak forearms then he pulled the shroud back over the body and turned to his companion.

‘Not a strong man,’ he commented. ‘Brother Nicholas would not have been able to put up much resistance.’

‘We are monks, my lord, not soldiers.’

‘Even a monk should fight to save his life.’

‘He entrusts its safety to God.’

‘Then the Almighty was lax in his vigilance here.’

‘Do not presume to question divine dispensation.’

‘I dare not. Canon Hubert is an example of it.’

‘Let us step outside again.’

Abbot Serlo guided him out of the mortuary and back into the fresh air. Both inhaled deeply. Their long conversation had persuaded the abbot that Ralph’s help in solving the crime might be extremely useful but he wished that his visitor could take a more reverential approach. He was not quite as brusque and headstrong as the sheriff but his attitude towards the Benedictine Order had worrying similarities.

‘I must leave you, my lord,’ said the abbot. ‘Other duties await me.’

‘It was kind of you to spare me so much time.’

‘Repay me by finding the murderer.’

‘I will, my lord abbot. The more information I have, the easier the task will be. Do not forget your promise to give me a list of all of the tenants from whom Brother Nicholas collected rents.’

‘Canon Hubert will bring it to you in due course.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What will you do now?’

‘Go back to the church.’

‘Why?’

‘To pray for the salvation of Brother Nicholas’s soul,’ said Ralph.

‘A worthy motive.’

‘It was something I omitted to do on my first visit there. Having seen the body, I am anxious to repair that omission.’

‘Then I will not detain you, my lord.’

Ralph waved a farewell and headed back to the abbey church, untroubled by guilt at having to conceal the real purpose of his return visit. Pleased to find the church empty, he approached the altar rail and knelt before it, offering up the prayer for the murdered man and feeling a genuine surge of grief on his behalf.

It soon passed. Ralph made sure that nobody was watching him before moving up to the altar to borrow one of the large candles which burned there. He bore it off to the bell tower and carried it carefully up the ladder.

Having viewed the body, he, too, was having second thoughts about his earlier theory. It was not that Brother Nicholas was too heavy for him to bear. He simply doubted that the rungs of the ladder would cope with the additional weight. Ralph got up to the wooden platform and used the flame to illumine every section of it. The blood was more vivid by candlelight and its extent far greater. It was when he went to the other side of the bell that he made an interesting new discovery. Holding the candle beneath the beam, he ducked his head so that he could actually see the two hooks which he had earlier felt with his fingers. Something else caught his eye. Lying directly below the beam was a small, thin strip of leather. Ralph picked it up and laid it on his palm to inspect it.

After a thorough search, he slowly descended the ladder, glad that he had taken the trouble to pay a second visit to the murder scene. He pondered on the significance of the strip of leather and was far too preoccupied to realise that he was being watched from the shadows. Wide-eyed and tremulous, Owen, the novice, stayed hidden until Ralph had walked back to the altar. The boy took a last fearful look up at the bell tower then slipped quietly out. Tears coursed freely down his hot rosy cheeks.

‘When do you expect your sister to arrive?’ asked the lady Maud.

‘Almost any day now,’ said Golde.

‘Is that why you were so keen to accompany your husband?’

‘It was one of the reasons, though I would willingly go wherever Ralph asked me to go. I love to be near him.’

‘I enjoy Durand’s company but I have to put up with less of it.

When he goes away from Gloucester, I am never invited to go with him.’ Maud shook her head sadly. ‘I have endured some lonely weeks at the castle. The worst of it is that my husband is so secretive about his work. Most of the time, he will not even tell me where he is going, simply that he has to leave on urgent business.’