Edward Marston - The Owls of Gloucester

When Elaf touched him on the shoulder, Kenelm let out a gasp and jerked involuntarily away.

‘It’s only me,’ Elaf reassured him. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I wanted to be alone.’

‘Why?’

‘To do some thinking.’

‘About what happened to Brother Nicholas?’

‘What else, Elaf?’

‘It preys on my mind as well.’

‘It is gnawing its way through my brain,’ confessed Kenelm, turning to face him with hollow eyes. ‘There is no respite.

Whatever I am doing, it is there, nibbling away like a rat inside my skull.’

‘Brother Owl says that we must seek help through prayer.’

‘How can I pray when my mind torments me?’

‘I have managed to do so,’ argued Elaf, ‘and I was the one who actually touched Brother Nicholas that night. The very thought makes me shiver afresh but I am learning to banish the thought.’

‘That is because you have less to banish than me.’

‘Less?’

‘Yes,’ said Kenelm, his face ashen with dismay. ‘The shock of finding the dead body is all that you have to chill your heart. I have a deeper source of guilt, Elaf, one that will not be so easily forgotten.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I did something unpardonable.’

‘When?’

‘When we were sent into church by Brother Owl to pray for the safe return of Brother Nicholas. I didn’t only wish that he would never come back. I prayed,’ he admitted, chewing his lip, ‘I actually beseeched God to kill Brother Nicholas.’

Elaf was shaken. ‘Is this true?’

‘To my eternal shame, it is.’

‘Kenelm!’

‘Now do you see why I am in such despair? I prayed for his death, Elaf. I willed his murder.’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘I did. I’m responsible for it.’

‘How can that be? You had nothing to do with it.’

‘I feel that I did.’

‘No, Kenelm.’

‘And I can see no way to atone.’

‘There’s no need for atonement.’

‘Isn’t there?’ said the other vehemently. ‘When I’m an accomplice in his murder? I wished him dead and God answered my prayer. I feel as if I slit his throat with my own hands.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’

‘Not to me.’

‘Then you have learned nothing since you became a novice here,’

chided Elaf. ‘God is bountiful. He responds to pleas for help, guidance and forgiveness. God is the supreme giver of life. He would never take it away in an act of foul murder simply because someone prayed for that to happen. God is not so cruel, Kenelm.’

‘But I am.’

‘You do yourself a wrong here.’

‘That is my punishment.’

‘An undeserved punishment.’

‘I see it differently.’ He looked furtively around him. ‘This place oppresses me more and more each day. I will never be content within its walls while the ghost of Brother Nicholas stalks the abbey.’

‘What else can you do?’

‘Leave.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘Is it? Don’t you remember what he told us, the man who came to question us with Canon Hubert?’

‘Gervase Bret?’

‘Yes,’ said Kenelm. ‘He was once a novice at Eltham Abbey but he left at the end of his novitiate. He decide that the Order was too strict a place in which to spend the rest of his life. He was very honest about it and I must be equally honest.’

‘But his case is different from yours. Worldly concerns stopped him from taking the cowl. You were placed here by your parents because it was their dearest hope that you became a monk and you have many times confided to me that it is what you really want. It is so with me,’ said Elaf wistfully. ‘It was my father’s dying wish that I be made an oblate here and I would never betray that wish.’

‘Even if it meant a life of purgatory?’

‘There is no purgatory here, Kenelm.’

‘There is for me. I must get away somehow.’

‘That is futile talk.’

‘Is it?’

‘Your parents would never allow you to leave.’

‘I will not seek their permission.’

‘How else can you go?’

‘The way that others have done so before me.’

‘No!’ exclaimed his friend.

‘Siward was one,’ recalled Kenelm. ‘Before him, it was Dena.

Both of them simply took to their heels and fled from the abbey.’

‘Where to, though?’

‘Does it matter? Escape is escape.’

‘Yet nothing was ever heard of Siward and Dena again. Doesn’t that worry you? Some terrible harm may have befallen them. And what of their grieving families? Think of the pain they inflicted on their loved ones by running away like that. Do you want to hurt your parents in that way? Do you intend to desert all the friends you have made here?’

‘Only because I am forced to, Elaf.’

‘By whom? By what?’

‘My conscience.’

‘Salve it with a penance.’

‘It is too late for that.’

‘But you mustn’t go,’ said Elaf fervently. ‘We need you, we love you.’ He saw the tears in his friend’s eyes and reached out to embrace him. ‘Stay with us, Kenelm. Stay with me, please. I, too, have my doubts but I can fend them off if you are beside me.

Let us help each other. We can do anything together. I’d never forgive myself if you ran away. Promise me that you’ll stay here.

Will you, Kenelm? Will you?’

Kenelm nodded gently but his mind was still in turmoil. Touched by his friend’s display of affection, he was willing to soothe Elaf with a token agreement but he was not sure that he could keep his promise.

‘Hamelin of Lisieux presented his case very effectively,’ said Ralph.

‘Almost too effectively,’ said Gervase. ‘I had the feeling that every word had been rehearsed beforehand with the assistance of his wife.’

‘The lady Emma had no place here,’ complained Canon Hubert.

Ralph chuckled. ‘I disagree. She lit up this cheerless place like a roaring fire. The lady Emma is welcome to decorate the shire hall whenever she wishes. She was a joy to look upon.’

‘That was the intention, my lord. She was there to divert you.’

‘What an absurd suggestion, Hubert!’

‘It is not absurd at all,’ said Gervase. ‘Hamelin brought his wife here with a purpose, though it was not merely to distract us. The lady Emma was there to lend her husband a softness and appeal which he lacked in Strang’s report of him. That’s what worries me about Hamelin’s claim. If it really is as incontrovertible as he believes, why did he need the support of his wife? The lady Emma was clearly schooled by him.’

‘Then she is an apt pupil,’ said Ralph with admiration.

‘She is an irrelevance,’ argued Hubert.

‘A terrifying one,’ said Brother Simon under his breath.

The four commissioners were taking a short break at the shire hall and enjoying some light refreshment. As they supped their wine and nibbled the pastries which had been provided, they reflected on the long and searching examination of Hamelin of Lisieux. Even when pressed, the man had remained courteous and obliging, deflecting some of the more testing questions with a combination of charm and skill. Emma, too, had shown herself a clever advocate. Individually, each could have mounted a more persuasive argument than Strang the Dane. Together, they were formidable. Gervase was troubled.

‘They were too plausible,’ he ventured. ‘Too good to be true.’

‘The lady Emma was true enough,’ said Ralph through a mouthful of pastry. ‘As large as life and twice as beautiful.’

‘I think they were hiding something.’

‘What could it be?’

‘Only time will tell.’

‘Hamelin was more affable than the Dane,’ noted Hubert, ‘but the affability was worn for our benefit. Another face greets those who dare to trespass on what he believes is his land.’