Chapter Eleven
She’d not been long asleep when the noise woke her, and everyone else in the Priory she was sure. It was a crashing noise, louder than the sea all around, and then a horrible high-pitched keening and screaming.
She could hear commotion around her as people ran down to the stables, where the noise was now added to by the horses who were frantic and thrashing about. The stable boy was trying to calm them but that screaming kept riling them.
Linnet was in her shift and the cold was burning through her as she moved quickly through the crowd of horrified onlookers outside the old kiln house, next to the stables. Somehow she found herself inside just as the Prior held up a candle to see what was happening.
The terrible whiteness of a face, frozen in horror, still breathing, but surrounded by the fallen stones from the old kiln, crushing the air out of his body as he tried to struggle free. All could see it was to no avail. Blood was already seeping out amongst the dust and dirt on the floor.
She could see his eyes flitting about from shadow to shadow as he tried to say something.
She thought she heard him say, ‘But I didn’t know, I didn’t know.
He didn’t share a thing with me,’ but by then the monks were all crowding in, shouting in horror and trying to pull the stones off him.
The Prior, the Inspector and Cassian were at the front, but despite everyone’s efforts, the air had been crushed from him and the light left his eyes as his head lolled down at an uncomfortable angle, a trickle of blood from his mouth joining the dust on the floor.
The Prior held up his hand in the flickering candlelight and said simply, ‘Stop,’ and the monks who had been so frantically pulling and pushing at the rubble of stones became still.
Linnet could hear their heavy breathing as they stood in the shocking silence, and the faint whimpering of someone beginning to cry, was that Luke? She looked around at the faces all touched with horror and disbelief. How had this happened?
The Inspector was first to break the silence, pushing back his cowl and turning to the Prior. ‘Why was this dangerous pile of stones left here? And what was your monk doing out of his bed at this hour?’
The Prior flinched. ‘It was a kiln, and we had plans to remake it in time, but I… I think we had forgot it.’
Linnet suddenly thought of Isabelle, her game of playing amongst these stones – and her heart skipped but then she saw her, at the Prior’s side, face agape at the body in front of her, hand creeping up to take the Prior’s who squeezed it without looking at her.
The Prior looked around. ‘Does anyone know why Brother Maykin was here? At this hour? What he might have been doing?’
A confused jumble of voices rose up but none seemed to have an answer. A jape of some sort seemed to be the only thought that they had. Maykin was widely known for his silly ideas, and perhaps he was planning something here to be played in the morning.
‘Let this be a lesson to you, Brothers,’ the Inspector said with an air of finality. ‘No need to be out of your beds or planning tricks, no need—’
‘Enough for now, man, let’s come back in the light and take poor Brother Maykin to his rest and we can save the sermons for his funeral.’ The Prior’s words contained a thin edge of fury and the monks began to file out of the small space, going back to bed, although who would sleep now.
The Inspector did not look best pleased to have been stopped in this way, but he nodded and left too.
Soon only Linnet was left, with the body of the young monk disappearing into the dark now with the candles gone.
Although fear was beginning to wake in her, she was frozen to the spot, still wondering.
Why had he been here? What did those half-heard words of his mean?
The little moonlight lingering in the doorway showed her the scuffed floor, the tumble of the stones, and the monk’s hand dropped down and still. She saw something still gripped in his hand and steeled herself to unpeel his fingers, one by one, until the scrap of paper came loose.
And then the horror rose in her again and she fled, back to the safety of her cell with the images of the death playing and replaying in her mind as she tried in vain to sleep.