The Medieval Murderers - House of Shadows

‘She has indeed, brother. And her neck is broken.’

‘But this is surely what would be expected in a fall down those treacherous stairs?’ persisted the monk.

‘We shall see,’ replied de Wolfe enigmatically. ‘Meanwhile, we must place her back in the ice. I will suggest to your prior that arrangements for burial be begun without delay. In spite of the cold, my nose tells me that we cannot arrest the normal course of events much longer.’

Gwyn lifted the body as if it were a feather and placed it back in the icy slush, which was dripping ever faster through the poor seams of the box. He gently covered her with the linen sheet and stepped back, as Thomas murmured a funereal litany in Latin.

‘Where will she be buried?’ asked Gwyn. ‘Will they put her here in that graveyard we saw when we arrived or take her home to this Derby place?’

There was a low mumble from the chaplain, which John could not catch, but Thomas’s sharp ears picked it up, much to his surprise.

‘What did you say?’ asked John sharply.

Ignatius shook his head. ‘I do not know where, Crowner. I expect the prior will have to consult her guardian before a decision can be made.’

‘Well, you had better hurry up about it,’ advised de Wolfe. ‘And keep using that ice for as long as she’s here.’

They left the crypt-like basement with a feeling of relief, Thomas looking almost fearfully over his shoulder as they made their way back through the barrels and boxes stacked in the rest of the cellar. It seemed warmer – or, rather, less cold – in that area than in the further chamber, where the oppressive atmosphere seemed to bite at the skin and lungs.

On the way out, John stopped to look again at the area around the foot of the stairs. He tapped the earth with his foot, then scraped at the moist soil with the toe of his riding boot. Looking up, the steep staircase was dimly lit by the tallow dip at the top, revealing the narrow passage between the walls of grey stone and the regular blocks of the same granite that formed the treads.

He made no comment and led the way up to the door that opened into the courtyard. The snow was now coming down more thickly, though none had yet settled on the ground, and again Thomas shivered, this time from the undoubted cold that permeated his thin body to his very bones.

As the chaplain closed the door, he noticed the clerk shudder and took pity on him. ‘There is a warming room at the side of the dorter, where a fire is kept going between November and Good Friday. You are welcome to sit there at any time in this inclement weather.’

Thankfully, they took up the invitation and found the room sandwiched between the frater and the dorter, which joined at right-angles. Other than the prior’s quarters and the kitchens, it was the only place in the priory that was ever heated. There was a chimneyed hearth with a large log fire and a charcoal brazier sitting on a stone slab at the other side of the chamber. There were a number of benches around the walls and several hooded settles, whose wooden sides kept off some of the draught. Two older monks were fast asleep in a couple of these and several more were reading or dozing on the benches.

‘If you wait here for a while until the chill leaves you, I will send down when the prior is able to receive you again, Sir John,’ promised Ignatius before he glided silently away.

‘I can’t take to that fellow, somehow,’ rumbled Gwyn, as they found themselves a bench to one side of the hearth, out of earshot of the nearest Cluniacs. ‘Not that I’m all that partial to anyone in holy orders!’ he added with a meaningful dig in Thomas’s ribs.

For once, the clerk failed to rise to the bait, as he leaned nearer to de Wolfe to whisper in a conspiratorial undertone. ‘Crowner, did you catch what he said in the crypt, when you asked where the girl was to be buried?’

‘I know he muttered something, but I couldn’t make it out,’ said John.

‘He said, “It should be at a crossroads, with a stake through her heart”!’

‘I said he was a nasty bastard!’ growled Gwyn, as de Wolfe digested this peculiar piece of information.

‘I saw his face at that moment too,’ he said slowly. ‘There is something very wrong in this place, so keep your eyes and ears open and your mouths shut!’

‘I trust you are refreshed after your long journey, Sir John,’ said Robert Northam courteously, rising from behind his table to greet the coroner. ‘I also understand that you have visited the scene of this tragedy and…’ He hesitated, at a loss how to phrase his question.

De Wolfe helped him out without any finesse. ‘Yes, prior, I have also examined the corpse.’

The priest sank on to his chair. ‘I see you have not brought your two assistants with you?’

‘No, I must speak to you alone.’ He looked meaningfully at Ignatius, who was standing in his usual protective position alongside Northam.

‘You may speak freely in front of my secretary, Crowner. He is also my chaplain and my confessor.’

John shook his head firmly. ‘Some things must be held in total confidence,’ he said. ‘I have strict instructions from the chief justiciar to that effect.’

This was untrue, but he was quite prepared to lie when he considered it justified. The prior looked surprised but waved at Ignatius, who reluctantly left the chamber and closed the door. John wondered if he was outside, pressing his ear to the panels.

‘You have something to tell me?’ asked Northam anxiously as de Wolfe sat in the chair he had occupied previously.

‘Christina de Glanville was murdered,’ he said bluntly. ‘Your own instincts were correct. She did not fall down those stairs, alive or dead!’

Robert’s fingers played agitatedly with the bronze crucifix hanging from a chain around his neck. ‘I suspected as much. But how can you be so certain?’

‘As you told me, the fact that her head was near the bottom step and that she was face down makes it a near impossibility for a fall downstairs. If she had pitched forwards, the likelihood would be for her feet to be nearest the step. It would be just possible for her to land on her head and somersault over, but then she would almost certainly land face up.’

The prior frowned. ‘Is “almost certainly” enough?’ he asked.

‘There is more,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘She had a severe injury to the top of the back of her head, which had fractured her skull. Again, it is just possible, though unlikely, that she could land on the back of her head from a fall, but she would have had to twist in mid-air to achieve that. The stairway was so narrow that was almost impossible, and she would have struck the floor with her face first.’

The prior was following this with quick nods of his head.

‘Furthermore, her neck was broken,’ went on de Wolfe. ‘But it was snapped in a backward direction, which is impossible from a heavy fall on the back of the head, which would have forced the chin downwards. The break occurred in the opposite direction, by the head being pulled backwards.’

There was a pregnant silence. ‘You are absolutely sure of this?’ asked Northam, almost in a whisper.

‘She had not a single bruise nor scrape on her legs and arms,’ persisted John. ‘For someone to fall down twenty unyielding granite steps with sufficient force to crack the skull and break the neck, without striking their limbs on the edges, is beyond belief!’

The prior gave a deep sigh of resignation. ‘So what do you surmise happened, Crowner?’

‘Someone struck her a heavy blow on the back of the head with some object. It must have been flat not to rip the skin, but heavy enough to shatter the bone. She would have lost her wits instantly, then the assailant gave her the coup de grâce by breaking her neck.’