Ariana Franklin - Mistress of the Art of Death

“My lord.” Simon’s hand touched his forehead in gratitude. And to himself: I thought you might.

“Nor would it be wise for any of you to declare your faith-or lack of it,” the prior continued. “ Cambridge is a tightly wound crossbow, any abnormality may loose it again.” Especially, he thought, as these three particular abnormalities were determined on probing Cambridge ’s wounds.

He paused. The tax collector had come up and reined his horse to the mule’s amble, waving an obeisance to the prior, sending a nod to Simon and Mansur, and addressing Adelia: “Madam, we have been in convoy together, and yet we have not been introduced. Sir Rowley Picot at your service. May I congratulate you on effecting the good prior’s recovery?”

Quickly, Simon leaned forward. “The congratulations belong to this gentleman, sir.” He indicated Mansur, who was driving. “He is our doctor.”

The tax collector was interested. “Indeed? One was informed that a female voice was heard directing the operation.”

Was one, indeed? And by whom? Simon wondered. He nudged Mansur. “Say something,” he told him in Arabic.

Mansur ignored him.

Surreptitiously, Simon kicked him on the ankle “ Speak to him, you lump.”

“What does the fat shit want me to say?”

“The doctor is pleased that he has been of service to my lord prior,” Simon told the tax inspector. “He says he hopes he may administer as well to anyone in Cambridge who wishes to consult him.”

“Does he?” Sir Rowley Picot said, neglecting to mention his own knowledge of Arabic. “He says it amazing high.”

“ Exactly, Sir Rowley,” Simon said. “His voice can be mistaken for a woman’s.” He became confidential. “I should explain that the lord Mansur was taken by monks while yet a child, and his singing voice was discovered to be so beautiful that they…er…ensured it would remain so.”

“A castrato, by God,” Sir Rowley said, staring.

“He devotes himself to medicine now, of course,” Simon said, “but when he sings in praise of the Lord, the angels weep with envy.”

Mansur had heard the word “castrato” and lapsed into cursing, causing more angels’ tears by his strictures on Christians in general, and the unhealthy affection existing between camels and the mothers of the Byzantine monks who’d gelded him in particular-the sound issuing in an Arabic treble that rivaled birdsong and melted on the air like sweet icicles.

“You see, Sir Rowley?” Simon asked over it. “That was doubtless the voice heard.”

Sir Rowley said, “It must have been.” And again, smiling with apology, “It must have been.”

He continued to try and engage Adelia in conversation, but her replies were short and sullen; she’d had her fill of importuning Englishmen. Her attention was on the countryside. Having lived among hills, she had expected to be repelled by flat land; she had not reckoned on such enormous skies, nor the significance they gave to a lonely tree, the crook of a rare chimney, a single church tower, outlined against them. The multiplicity of greenness suggested unknown herbs to be discovered, the strip fields made chessboards of emerald and black.

And willows. The landscape was full of them, lining streams, dikes, and lanes. Crack willow for stabilizing the banks, golden willow, white willow, gray willow, goat willow, willows for making bats, for growing osiers, bay willow, almond willow, beautiful with the sun dappling through their branches, and more beautiful still because, with a concoction of willow bark, you could relieve pain…

She was jerked forward as Mansur pulled in the mules. The procession had come to an abrupt halt, for Prior Geoffrey had held up his hand and begun to pray. The men swept off their caps and held them to their breasts.

Entering the gate was a dray splashed with mud. A dirty piece of canvas laid on it showed the shape of three small bundles beneath. The drayman led his horses with his head bowed. A woman followed him, shrieking and tearing at her clothing.

The missing children had been found.

THE CHURCH of Saint Andrew the Less in the grounds of Saint Augustine’s, Barnwell, was two hundred feet long, a carved and painted glory to God. But today the grisailled spring sunlight from the high windows ignored the glorious hammer roof, the faces of recumbent stone priors round the walls, the statue of Saint Augustine, the ornate pulpit, the glitter of altar and triptych.

Instead it fell in shafts on three small catafalques in the nave, each covered with a violet cloth, and on the heads of the kneeling men and women in working clothes gathered round them.

The remains of the children, all three, had been found on a sheep path near Fleam Dyke that morning. A shepherd had stumbled over them at dawn and was still shuddering. “Weren’t there last night, I’ll take my oath, Prior. Couldn’t have been, could they? The foxes ain’t been at them. Lying neat side by side they was, bless them. Or neat as they could be, considering…” He’d stopped to retch.

An object had been laid on each body, resembling those that had been left at the site of each child’s disappearance. Made from rushes, they resembled the Star of David.

Prior Geoffrey had ordered the three bundles taken to the church, resisting one mother’s desperate attempts to unwrap them. He had sent to the castle, warning the sheriff that it might be attacked again and requesting the sheriff’s reeve in his capacity as coroner to view the remains immediately and order a public inquest. He’d imposed calm-though it rumbled with underlying heat.

Now, resonating with certainty, his voice stilled the mother’s shrieks into a quiet sobbing as he read the assurance that death would be swallowed up in victory. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.”

Almost, the scent issuing in from the bluebells outside the open doors and the lavished incense from within them covered the stench of decay.

Almost, the clear chant of the canons drowned out the buzz of trapped flies coming from under the violet mantles.

Saint Paul ’s words assuaged a little of the prior’s grief as he envisaged the souls of the children romping in God’s meadows, yet not his anger that they had been catapulted into them before their time. Two of the children he did not know, but one of the boys was Harold, the eel seller’s son, who had been a pupil at Saint Augustine ’s own school. Six years old and a bright child, learning his letters once a week. Identified by his red hair. A right little Saxon, too-he’d scrumped apples from the priory orchard last autumn.

And I tanned his backside for him, the prior thought.

From the shadow of a rear pillar, Adelia watched some comfort seep into the faces round the catafalques. The closeness between priory and town was strange to her; in Salerno, monks, even monks who went out into the world to perform their duties, kept a distance between themselves and the laity.

“But we are not monks,” Prior Geoffrey had told her, “we are canons.” It seemed a slight dissimilarity: Both lived in community, both vowed celibacy, both served the Christian God, yet here in Cambridge the distinction made a difference. When the church bell had tolled the news that the children were found, people from the town had come running-to hug and to be hugged in commiseration.

“Our rule is less rigid than Benedictine or Cistercian,” the prior had explained, “less time given to prayer and choral duty and more to education, relief of the poor and sick, hearing confession, and general parish work.” He’d tried to smile. “You will approve, my dear Doctor. Moderation in all things.”