Chapter Thirty-Nine
She swayed and felt hunger washing over her.
She’d not eaten much in the last few days.
She was feverishly thinking it all through.
No, Warham’s men hadn’t seen them since Bishop’s Lynn.
They’d not found them in York. Warham was Master of the Rolls now, safely down in London, and his men with him.
This must be an idle threat from Guy, surely.
Ann looked at her and must have seen her exhaustion, sitting her down and coddling her some eggs. She’d just finished them when Isabelle burst into the kitchen, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her out of the room urgently.
‘It’s that man, the one with the clothes, he’s shouting about you and—’
Bewildered, Linnet was trying to make sense of what the child was saying as they came into the courtyard, straight into a mass of monks, and Guy at the centre.
‘There she is. Thief!’
Guy pointed at her and the men turned to look at her, suddenly the centre of everyone’s gaze.
She looked around trying to glean a sense of what was happening and why.
The monks were looking at her curiously, but only Guy had that air of malice about him.
Father Thomas looked distressed, twisting his habit in his hands and making little moves to speak but stopping when he realised he had nothing to say.
‘What—’ she cleared her throat, her voice hoarse, and tried again – ‘what do you mean?’
The Prior was standing next to Guy, she saw now, but he looked troubled.
‘I’ll say it again now that the thief is here, shall I?
’ Guy was enjoying this moment, she knew.
‘I have with me a brooch the Lady entrusted me to take to Lord Edmund. It was in the guest room, with my things. And now, I find it in the Scriptorium, hidden in a piece of paper, on the desk of this, this woman.’
He held up a brooch, and the paper. This was something the Prior couldn’t ignore, or make go away, not in front of all the monks, and others who had gathered.
‘Who knows what else she has taken? We should search her,’ Godfreyd shouted, a sly look of malice at Guy, who looked startled but then nodded.
It was involuntary, but her hand found the signet ring in her pocket, the last thing she’d taken, her fingers tracing the little fox on it as she stared wildly from face to face in the crowd.
Godfreyd took a step towards her and she shrank back, but the Prior stepped forward then.
‘Stop. I won’t have any of my Brothers tasked with putting their hands on a woman. No matter if it’s to uncover a sin, we shan’t risk another.’
Brother Samuel spoke up then. ‘Should she have the benefit of clergy, Prior? Seeing as she can read?’
‘Search her first! See what else she is hiding!’
Guy could tell, he knew by her face, he knew she had something in her skirts.
The Prior looked around reluctantly, then saw Ann who had come out of the kitchen, drawn by the commotion and Linnet’s leaving so suddenly with Isabelle.
‘Ann, you can look at her skirts, can you?’
Linnet felt as if everything she was looking at had moved away, a long way away, all the monks, the child, Ann, and Guy, tiny figures in a tiny courtyard, squawking like hens or gulls, their words meaning nothing.
She must have fallen because then she was lying on the stones. She felt her head carefully but someone had caught her and lain her down. The faces were surrounding her, above her now, and Guy was shouting.
She caught the Prior’s eye and glanced down quickly at her hand, and hoping no one else would see it, made the sign for a visiting priest, followed by a ring, thanking St Gertrude she’d learnt the monks’ secret signs, and thanking her too that Guy never had.
His face changed and she knew he’d understood her. While he couldn’t ignore Guy’s accusations, if she were found to be carrying the Inspector’s seal on her, that would raise a lot of questions that he wouldn’t want to answer.
‘Step back. Give the woman air or she’ll likely faint again.’
Reluctantly, the monks shuffled back a little, allowing Ann forward to help Linnet up. She stood, feeling cornered and wretched, desperately glancing about her in hopes of some way out. A small hand in hers suddenly, Isabelle.
She looked at the Prior again and he nodded very slightly.
He must have said something to the child for she was pressing up against her and without anyone seeing, rooting in her skirts.
Linnet managed to pass her the seal while the arguments raged around her.
Who should search the woman? How should the Prior proceed? Would benefit of clergy be appropriate?
Clearing her throat again, Linnet said clearly, ‘Miserere mei, Deus, secundum misericordiam tuam.’ The neck verse, the one a learned cleric might recite to save them from the worst that justice could inflict on them. It may help. She could only try.
‘You don’t deserve mercy. Prior, get the kitchen woman to search her, enough talking now. I must be away when the tide turns soon and I will not leave without seeing justice done!’ Guy wanted to see her shamed, she knew.
Ann shrugged and began patting through her clothes. She found Linnet’s knife which she pulled out and showed to the Prior. Linnet stared at it, but she had wiped it clean, of course she had, no trace of blood now.
‘Well we can see she has nothing on her but what she needs.’ The Prior was reining in the crowd once more, standing with his impassive face, but she could see his mind rushing, like a stream forcing a new way through what seemed like solid rock.
‘What made you look in the Scriptorium for Lady Margaret’s brooch?’
Guy blustered slightly. ‘Well I was going in to see the Brothers there, I saw the paper on the desk and thought I would straighten it.’ Gaining confidence, he once again acted for the audience around him. ‘Imagine my surprise when the brooch fell out!’
‘And Father Thomas and Brother Samuel were in the Scriptorium, but not Linnet?’
‘Yes, ask them, they saw me find the brooch.’
Linnet looked at them, they looked uncertain and unhappy but nodded slowly.
The Prior reached forward to take the brooch from Guy, and the paper it was wrapped in, turning both over in his hands and frowning. The monks were silent now, waiting to hear what would happen.
Godfreyd was smiling at her, and also at Guy. She wondered if they had become allies, that would make sense. Both scheming together, prising her out of her place here at the Priory.
‘This isn’t paper from the Priory.’ The Prior was holding up the scrap, a blank piece but with the maker’s mark, and Linnet could see, not the ones she’d found in the Scriptorium since she had been here, this was a cross of keys, not the leaping fish.
Briefly she wondered at herself, able to notice this detail in the middle of this danger, but still hoping, hoping that the Prior had a plan.
Guy looked back at the Prior, not offering any explanation but just letting the silence deepen as the monks stole glances at Linnet, some concerned, but most curious and excited.
‘It was me did it.’
‘No – Isabelle—’ She tried to stop the child, fearful of what would happen to her, more fearful than for herself.
The Prior held up a hand. ‘Let the child speak.’
Isabelle made sure all the monks were paying her attention.
‘I dinna thieve it, I’m a good girl.’ Her face pulled into what she must have thought was a pious expression.
‘I found it, out by the stables, and coz it was summit wrapped in paper, I though it mun come from the Scriptorium, so I took it there.’
Again, Linnet saw the Prior nod very slightly.
‘Did ya drop it? Ann says we’re to take good care of things what are precious. Do you need a pocket?’ Isabelle was directly addressing Guy now, eyes wide and innocent, but with that touch of sparkle that Linnet had come to know so well.
‘Well I think that sounds most likely, don’t you, Guy?’ the Prior said blandly. ‘Let this be an end to the matter.’ He gestured to the monks to get back to work, and they drifted away, disappointed to have such a dull result.
‘And the tide will be coming in soon, so time to be going. One of the Beale boys is on the isle and can see you safely across.’ That last the Prior said with just a touch of menace and Linnet found herself stifling a laugh into a cough.
Guy’s glance at her was pure hatred, but he left, thanking the Prior for his help with this matter, and almost sounding sincere.
Linnet fled back into the Scriptorium but found her hands shaking too much to scribe, so just sat, hardly able to believe her narrow escape.