The Medieval Murderers - House of Shadows

Beaumont scowled at the coroner, his face as red as a raw side of beef.

‘He has already consented, but as you are the law officer investigating the matter I thought I should have your agreement.’

John was mollified by this deference offered by the pugnacious baron and asked when they wished to visit the basement chamber.

‘Now, this very minute! The prior is to accompany us.’

Somewhat grudgingly, John followed Beaumont to the door, motioning for Gwyn and Thomas to accompany him. As they walked through the cloister, lit by hazy moonlight and a few guttering torches, he expressed surprise that the girl’s guardian had not seen the cellar at the time of her death.

‘The poor girl had been removed by the monks before we were informed,’ snapped Roger. ‘She was taken to the infirmary, where we saw her body. It was returned to the crypt when the justiciar insisted on you being called – for the sake of preservation, no doubt.’

Jordan de Neville, who had not yet said a word, added a few now. ‘We will all be leaving straight after the funeral, so this evening is the last opportunity. We do not wish to view her again,’ he added hastily. ‘Merely the fateful spot where she was found.’

In the corridor of the cellarer’s building, at the end furthest from the guests’ refectory, was a door which led into the alcove at the top of the steep stairway down into the vault below. At right-angles was the external door into the courtyard, through which John had entered the previous day. Gathered in the corridor were the prior, his chaplain and Brother Ferdinand, escorting Lady Avisa, her tirewoman, and Margaret Courtenay and her maid. Another portly monk, the cellarer Brother Daniel, was also hovering behind.

‘My daughter Eleanor is of too nervous a disposition to wish to accompany us,’ announced Avisa.

Robert Northam moved to John’s side and murmured conspiratorially in his ear. ‘I regret any inconvenience, coroner, but they were quite insistent. I thank God that this will all be over tomorrow.’

De Wolfe shrugged his indifference as they waited for Brother Daniel to open the door and waddle into the alcove, where he lit a bundle of candles from the tallow dip and handed them to each of the guests.

‘Be very careful on these stairs,’ warned the prior in a loud voice. The last thing he needed now was for one of the notables to fall down the treacherous steps.

With the cellarer in the lead, holding his candle high, the procession trooped cautiously down the steps, John and his two assistants bringing up the rear with Brother Ignatius. At the bottom they all stood in a wide arc around the lower opening of the staircase. The flickering candlelight on the faces made the scene like some demonic ritual ceremony, until Prior Robert made a wide sign of the cross in the air and uttered a solemn prayer in Latin and led the others in a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and the creed. The loudest response came from Thomas de Peyne, who was almost overcome by this religious drama. The four guests seemed less moved by the solemn moment, but all followed the monks in crossing themselves and genuflecting.

‘This was the spot where the poor lady was found,’ said Daniel the cellarer, pointing to the floor near the bottom step. One of the maids began to sob but was sharply reprimanded by Lady Avisa, who seemed immune to the baleful atmosphere of the forbidding vault. Margaret Courtenay’s face was tense and drawn, but she made no sound as her hand stole out to grasp that of Jordan de Neville, who stood close to her. He and Roger Beaumont stared stonily at the patch of bare earth but said nothing.

There was a long silence, which soon became embarrassing and then unbearable, until Robert Northam felt forced to break it.

‘Have you seen enough, friends? Dear Christina still lies a few paces away, if you wish to see her before she is coffined in the morning.’

John frowned and began to protest that she was hardly in a fit state to be viewed by sensitive ladies, but the prior forestalled him.

‘Of course, I directed that offer to the two lords here, not the ladies.’

Though Jordan had not long ago declared otherwise, he reluctantly followed Roger Beaumont when the older man began to stalk after the prior deeper into the darkness of the vault. John and his men tagged on, and the coroner was surprised to find Margaret Courtenay at his side.

‘Mistress, this is not really a venture for a lady. You will appreciate the reason.’

The young woman shook her head and spoke in a determined voice. ‘She was my friend and I owe it to her to say goodbye, Crowner.’

He gave one of his habitual shrugs and walked on in silence. Brother Ferdinand was on his other side, but he noticed that Ignatius had declined to come with them, having followed the other women back up the stairs.

In the end bay, with the uneven far wall brooding over them in the wavering light, they all lined up around the ominously dripping box. This time it was Gwyn who had the task of uncovering the corpse and lifting the top of the wet linen sheet once again to reveal the features. Both he and John were mildly surprised to see that the signs of corruption had hardly advanced since their previous visit, thanks to the frequent replenishment of the ice.

Roger and Jordan looked on her face briefly, with stony expressions set firmly in place, possibly as a manly shield against showing any emotion. Margaret Courtenay swayed slightly and gave a choked sob, then again made the sign of the cross and whispered some private farewell to her young friend, before stepping back and stumbling with her candle towards the staircase. Thomas hurried after her, solicitous as ever to anyone in need of comfort.

‘Have you seen enough?’ asked the prior rather abruptly. He led the others away, leaving John and Gwyn with the makeshift coffin.

‘I suppose they’ve got a better box than this somewhere?’ grunted the Cornishman.

‘They are taking her into the church for the Requiem Mass, then to the cemetery on the other side,’ said de Wolfe. ‘We had better give them a hand here in the morning to move the body.’

Gwyn looked with disfavour around the empty bay at the end of the long crypt. ‘Something about this place gives me the shudders,’ he said. ‘Must be my Celtic blood, though you have plenty of that too, Crowner, from your mother.’

John shivered and agreed. ‘No wonder some of these monks get these crazy notions, spending years stuck in this place on the marshes.’

He pulled his black cloak more tightly around him and made for the stairs, thankful to leave this forbidding place with its lonely corpse.

In spite of all the activity that day, it was still quite a few hours until the first of the religious offices at midnight, which inevitably Thomas de Peyne wished to attend. After another doze in the warming room, the coroner’s trio went back to the refectory, where Gwyn cadged bread, cheese and ale from the kitchen before they retired to their fleece-stuffed mattresses upstairs. De Wolfe disappeared into his cubicle, and the other two wrapped themselves in their cloaks and a blanket in the main chamber. Gwyn was snoring almost immediately, but Thomas catnapped, long used to waking himself in the middle of the night to attend Matins. When the bell of St Saviour’s tolled, he got up and padded down to the far door, where the night stairs led him down to join a stream of obidentiaries making for the church.

After the service, he returned to the dormitory to sleep until Lauds, the next office around dawn. Gwyn was humped on the next palliasse like a beached whale, making blowing and whistling noises. There were no pilgrims here tonight to close a loose shutter at the further end of the dormitory, which was tapping in the icy breeze. The clerk walked up to secure it and on returning glanced into the open cell where his master slept. His candle revealed a rumpled but empty mattress, there being no sign of the coroner.