Chapter Twenty-Eight
The man from Durham swung down in an elegant dismount and brushed away the mud from his journey. The Prior smiled at him and began to offer the usual polite greetings.
The man cut in, ‘And to you, Father, many blessings upon your house, the Bishop sends his Brother-in-Christ his love and his prayers.’ He took a breath.
‘I’ve come to find out why Father Nicholas has not yet finished his report?
The Bishop is keen for him to inspect more of his houses, and wishes him to be just, but above all swift. ’
The Prior nodded – they were not going to beat about the bush then – and called for someone to fetch the Inspector.
‘I fear Father Nicholas has been unwell,’ he said, gesturing to parts of the body he’d rather not mention. ‘He’s been unable to ride and felt he could use his time here – ah, here is the man himself, I’ll let him explain.’
The Inspector was limping slightly as he appeared, but was still a lordly figure. He greeted the messenger in a perfunctory way, half-embracing him in the formal act of friendship but no more.
‘I know the Bishop is keen for my report, but I must be just and it must be true. He understands—’ he began.
‘Yes, yes, Father,’ the man interrupted, ‘but he is sure a man of your perception will have the information by now – do you not?’
The Inspector looked both affronted and superior, Linnet thought, watching from the Scriptorium door.
‘It’s simple enough for an Inspector to come in and see a monk is poorly dressed, that he is singing the wrong prayers, but it takes time to see a monk’s soul is poorly dressed, does it not?’
The man shrugged wearily. Linnet had the impression that he and the Bishop were more concerned about the Priory’s accounts than the monks’ souls, but he couldn’t say that here, not in front of the Prior.
‘I fear the Inspector is also being too modest here,’ the Prior began, with a slightly malicious look. ‘Tell him about, you know.’ He whispered in Father Nicholas’s ear and the Inspector stepped quickly back, visibly furious.
‘Yes, yes, I am also unable to ride at the moment but that problem is being resolved. I’m sure the Lord will cure any discomfort when he feels my work here is done.’
And still smarting, the Inspector stalked back into the Chapter House, making every effort not to limp. The Prior and the man exchanged faintly amused glances.
‘Come, you must need refreshment and your horse needs rest before you return. The tide will change in two hours so if you’re quick, you can return today.’
The man nodded and led the horse off to the stables.
He’d delivered his message. It was not his fault if the Inspector refused to hear it.
He saw Cassian loitering outside and beckoned him closer.
Linnet couldn’t hear much but the novice was protesting, she could see, angry at what was being said.
Something about what he was doing for the Bishop and for the Inspector and now this man.
‘The Inspector ain’t going nowhere then.’
Isabelle was standing by the door of the Scriptorium, Pol fluttering down in front of her and hopping and strutting around.
‘No, it seems not. Isabelle, what is the secret you and the Prior have?’
The child looked at her carefully, weighing loyalties. Linnet waited.
‘I ain’t telling you now but I will soon, maybe. He don’t need my help no more, anyways. He tells me to go away now. He’s cruel.’
That judgement came with all the hurt and indignation a child feels for the inexplicable behaviour of someone much older.
Linnet sighed. Scraps of information everywhere but never the full page. That reminded her. She looked at the raven, scuttling along the floor now with little hops and croaks as the Priory cat stalked past, keeping just out of its reach.
‘Does Pol ever bring you bits of paper, Isabelle?’
She looked startled. ‘Yes, he do sometimes. I keep them safe, I keep all he brings me safe.’
‘Can you show me those?’
The child nodded. This wasn’t telling a secret so it was allowed. She led Linnet out to a corner above the kitchen, where she often slept. Under the small heap of torn blanket rags, she’d dug out a little of the earth floor and carefully lined up her treasures.
Linnet looked at her poor collection: a polished stone, a button (again one of Lady Margaret’s?), a rabbit foot, a perfect tiny bird’s skull – and some scraps of paper. Isabelle gave her the papers.
‘Do you know what they say then?’
There were three scraps. One was on very poor quality parchment, and appeared to be nothing more than marks and lines in different directions. The other two were the same as the ones Linnet had. She held up the poor quality piece.
‘What’s this, Isabelle, do you know?’
‘Oh that be what Ann marks to make sure she has the right store of flour and so on. She said she got those marks from her mother and her mother before them. Father Cyrus says they be heathen but I seen them on some of the stones on the island.’
Another mystery, but it didn’t help.
‘Can I take these others?’ The child nodded. And then, in a rush, ‘He has me collecting things for him – the Prior – flowers and herbs and things from the sea.’
‘Why does he want those?’
Linnet wondered if he’d contrived tasks to keep her busy or keep her from harm but Isabelle continued, ‘He has an old piece of paper, but it were damp before so he couldn’t read it all right. He said it had the things you nee’t to make blue.’
Make blue? Linnet thought for a moment and then it struck her. Of course, suddenly it was all plain. He didn’t have an account for the lapis because he’d not bought any. He was making his own. He must be keeping the money. Oswyn was right, a thieving Prior.
But it hadn’t worked yet. Where had the recipe come from? She wondered what the instructions were.
Her thoughts were racing but her attention was drawn back to Pol’s loud cawing, angry that Isabelle was giving away his treasures.
‘You got anything you can give him?’ Isabelle asked. ‘You gives him something and he gives you something, then he’ll be right.’
Linnet pulled out a hairpin and the raven fell upon it, gleefully plucking it delicately from her flinching fingers before waddling over and ceremoniously dropping it in Isabelle’s hand. She put it with the other treasures and drew her blankets over the pile.
The monks in the Scriptorium were busy, tucked in with the fire roaring and plenty of candles lit.
Linnet remembered how bare and cold it had been before the Prior wanted his monks to work there.
He’d said the fire was needed now to keep the monks’ hands warm enough to write.
She’d refrained from pointing out that she too had hands.
The monks were called to hear the Inspector talk again, even though it was the middle of the day. None of them looked eager to hear what he had to say. Linnet took the chance to get out Oswyn’s household book and the scraps that Isabelle and Pol had given her.
The first scrap she tried didn’t fit at the end, just on another page, something about one of the fishermen giving short measure on his catch. She tried the second one. It matched.
Quickly she scribbled the words into her book.
neque obliviscaris in faciem Pulsante autem, occisor dic Priorus – sed mortuus est
She could understand some of the words – faciem must be face, and Priorus, that was Prior again, obliviscaris something to do with forgetting? This must be the last secret Oswyn had written, and it could have led to his death. Mortuus must be to do with death.
Had he discovered something even more grave about the Prior? All the signs suggested it. He already knew he was thieving, but maybe he’d decided to confront him? Was there another secret he’d forgotten until now – was that obliviscaris?
The monks came back, Father Thomas poked at the fire and they settled to their work, gossiping happily.
She quickly hid the book and the scraps and continued with pricking out her drawings. She felt everything was pointing to the Prior – but what could she ask him and what would she do if he was a killer?
The monks were chatting as they worked about the Inspector’s sermon which, it seemed, had become a daily punishment. She half-listened as she carefully decorated the border.
‘He does believe in fate, doesn’t he?’ Father Thomas said thoughtfully. ‘You too, Brother Samuel?’
The other monk agreed.
‘To a point, Father,’ he replied, ‘but how much do we decide our fate and how much do we merely follow the path the Lord has decreed for us?’
‘Well now, that’s the question. Too much for a simple monk like me to understand.
But if we are already set on our path, why do anything but be carried along, like twigs in a stream, eh?
’ Father Thomas was enjoying the talk. Linnet thought he had probably chatted with the plants when he’d been tending them.
At least here she and Brother Samuel would occasionally reply.
Cassian didn’t talk, head down, still fighting with his lessons.
‘Perhaps we only think we stride out, choosing our own path, but it’s the Lord who decides and he’s making us think it’s our choice.’
‘Ah, now you’re too learned for me.’ Father Thomas chuckled and went back to his scribing.
Linnet did not believe in fate. She was in charge of every foot she put in front of the other, of all her choices, stupid as some of them had been.
She was sure of it. But was she to blame for the things that had happened to her?
Was Luke to blame for being beaten – or kicked by a horse as most people thought?
She looked at her Latin handbook again.
‘Father Thomas, what’s occisor?’
‘Oh now, that’s killer, or murderer, I think. Where do you get these words from?’
She froze. Did the paper say the Prior was a killer? No one had died when Oswyn wrote this but maybe he knew what was to come. She muttered something about Cain and Abel while inwardly she turned over what this could mean.