Chapter Six
Linnet worked hard and finished her cat illustration. She was pleased with the way the shape fitted the letter, the arch of the cat’s thin back being the curve of the C. In the late afternoon, she walked up to the Heugh, the little cliff behind the Priory, just to stand there and look out.
With her back to the land, she could see the ruins of St Cuthbert-By-The-Sea, a forlorn heap of stones sitting on Cuddy’s Isle.
The first place the saint had withdrawn to – to have his peace away from the monks.
She remembered scrambling over to it at low tide as a child, left to her own devices while her father drank and chatted.
It had been falling down then but she thought the roof had been intact.
Looking around and further out to sea, she saw the lights at Bamburgh Castle, down the coast, but couldn’t see Inner Farne in the gathering gloom. Those islands sat too low to be easily seen, except when the two monks who lived there lit a beacon to signal to the Priory.
The dark was coming in, spreading out cold fingers across the sky. She shivered as the cold swept in with it. She really needed her cloak back.
The Priory sparkled beneath her, the candlelight glowing through the fine glass windows of its church. In the outer courtyard, the usual busy evening was beginning. She could see the monks, released from their day’s study or work, flowing out to walk around the yard, and talk and gossip.
Voices rose in the still air up to where she was sitting on the stones.
She could see the story of Oswyn’s drowning being handed from group to group.
The Brothers crossed themselves, looked sombre, then rushed off to tell someone new, always looking over one shoulder for the Inspector and Cassian, and reminding each other that those two weren’t to know about the drowning.
Brother Maykin, always in the centre of each group, gesturing and nodding with a put-upon gravitas.
The Heugh was a favourite place for Linnet. She could watch the busyness beneath her but sit in solitude. The Priory, so towering and imposing from everywhere else on the island, sat neatly below her now, tucked away from the crag and the cliff edge.
There was a small stone ruin on the top, protecting her from the wind off the sea, giving her just enough shelter to bear the cold a little longer. The island was covered in these ruins, some from earlier monks she supposed, some abandoned farmhouses.
As she watched, she saw a small figure rush across the outer courtyard – Isabelle. But where was she going? Her raven wasn’t with her and she didn’t stop at the kitchens, but ran into the inner courtyard and then straight into the Priory Church through the south transept.
She wasn’t allowed into the Priory Church any more than Linnet, any more than any woman of the village, but the monks were out now so she was unlikely to get caught.
Most priories kept women out of their churches and chapels, the local men being allowed in but only up to the rood screen.
Durham Cathedral allowed women in – or they would have lost too much from pilgrims she thought – but only up to the black stone line in the floor.
Linnet had heard the story of the young pregnant daughter of a Scottish king, lying and blaming St Cuthbert for the baby, and being struck down into hell at her words.
Her father had repented his anger, and she had been found, some miles away from the castle, bleeding and without the bairn.
The saint had shown his mercy, Linnet had been told, but women were barred from his tomb and his churches.
She wondered sometimes what had led the girl to lie, what had led her to fear telling the truth more than blaming a saint, what her father was repenting for – but none of that remained in the story that was told now.
Why was Isabelle going in there now, though? Linnet had barely even seen her at the village church, she was not a pious child despite her insistence on rebuking Linnet for cursing.
Linnet shrugged. She was not in charge of her and she wouldn’t bother herself with it. The Inspector would be gone soon, they could bury Oswyn, and the Priory would settle back into its pattern.
She started back down the field, the way almost too dark now to see, so she stumbled slightly, a white flash from a disturbed rabbit running away.
The field had strange stones that were hard to see under the grasses.
Some said the old priory had been here, not where it was now.
Some talked about the bodies that were buried there from St Cuthbert’s time, the reason an old whitened bone or two might come to light when the field was dug up.
She decided she’d find Tom and ask about her cloak and see if he would talk about how a man drowned.
She tried the tavern near the market square. The room was smoky and full of people drinking and shouting and she had to push against what felt like a wall of noise and sweat to reach him. He was in the back, ale in front of him and dice on the table, but he was alone.
‘No one playing tonight, Tom?’
‘No, I’ve not been in long.’ He took a pull on his ale and looked around, speculatively, judging his chances of a game tonight. He turned back to her, so they couldn’t have been good.
‘Why are you in here?’ His question wasn’t an accusation.
‘I was looking for you, Tom. I’m getting cold without my cloak.’
‘Ah, it’ll be done soon, pet. How is the maid – after, you know, this morning?’
They both glanced around but no one was listening to them.
‘I’ve not seen her since, although I think she was sneaking into the Priory Church.’
‘She needs talking to, I’ve never seen her looking so shaken.’
Linnet sighed. By that he meant Linnet needed to talk to her.
Tom would have tried, she knew. He had been so kind to her when she was a child visiting the island with her father, taking time to play with her and show her how his boat worked and the knots he made in his nets.
His mother had been alive then, a tiny woman, who had seemed so old to her when she was a child, probably the age Tom was now.
She never said much, her few words in a tongue Linnet didn’t know, but she smiled a lot, and always had a barn cake or something to give her.
‘Have you seen anyone else drown, you know…’
Tom looked at her steadily. ‘Why are you asking me? Of course I have, but out at sea most often. Anyway, you saw the man, he was a fool to swim around here. We’d all told him but he wasn’t a man who liked to hear anyone else’s voice apart from his own.
’ His words were calm and steady but his voice not.
She noticed his leg moving jerkily under the table and his glance now roving around the room.
She hadn’t seen him like this before, he almost always seemed untroubled by the monks and village squabbles, but tonight he was clearly disturbed for some reason.
Why was she asking about Oswyn? She didn’t know. All she could think was that the body on the beach felt wrong to her. It seemed to be one thing but she felt it was another.
‘Can ah sit mysell down here with ye, man?’ It was Cassian. Had he overheard them? She didn’t think so.
Tom moved up amicably. ‘Did you want a game?’
Cassian laughed. ‘Nay – better not. Ah dinna think the Inspector would take kindly to that.’ But his fingers played with Tom’s dice, flicking the small wooden cubes over with the air of a man who knew them well.
Linnet had got up to leave but Tom gave a tiny nod so she sat back down.
‘So what were ye before a brother?’
‘Carpenter.’
She glanced at his hands, cuts and scars covering them, some old and white now, some fresh. Why was he here now, was he spying for the Inspector to see who was there, who might be gambling or drinking, like the last scribe sent off the island?
Cassian turned his attention to Linnet.
‘And how was it ye are here then? Scribing and all.’
‘I was to meet my father here, the Prior knows of him, and they had started a prayer book for young Lady Margaret from the Percy family, you know, when the scribing monk was sent to another house.’ And her hand and drawing were better than his and she didn’t drink like he did, she thought, but didn’t add.
She’d had to cover up many of his mistakes in those first few pages, a shake here, the words with the wrong letters, and even draw over his plaintive hungover scrawl, a flourish of flowers now, not a wail about vomit and how ‘ale has killed us’.
If the Prior hadn’t needed the prayer book worked on, she would have maybe sold them inks, or worked for Ann in the kitchen, relying on scraps and charity.
‘Are you not supposed to be abed now? Ready for prayers later?’
Cassian sighed. ‘I’m not accustomed to having to get up afore the second sleep. I wake a course but I would take the time to chat to me wife, or lie and enjoy the warmth. And now I canna sleep with the other brothers so well. In Durham we’ve our own cells, not like here. I canna take the snoring.’
Linnet was used to being awake, many were, but only those who had candles to spare could do anything useful in that middle of the night time when the first weariness of the day was slaked. The second sleep was always deeper, warmer somehow.
Tom laughed. ‘I’ve heard Brother Marcus is right noisy, and Brother Maykin talks in his sleep—’ He cut himself off suddenly.
Cassian leaned in. ‘What else have ye heard?’
There was a short pause as Tom looked down, avoiding Cassian’s gaze. ‘Nothing.’
Linnet realised Cassian was here to glean secrets. He was new to trying though. She could have told him. Get Tom an ale, make him talk about gaming, slip in the questions when he was thinking of other things.
‘Do the Brothers come in for an ale, for a game?’
‘Seems to me,’ Tom said slowly, ‘you’ll not be making many friends coming in and asking after ye fellow Brothers like that.’
‘Ye calling me a talebearer?’ Cassian’s voice rose sharply and he got up, spilling some of Tom’s drink.
Tom also got up and tried to calm the man, but Cassian was red in the face and his hands were clenching. Linnet wondered if some of the cuts on his hands were from fighting, not his carpentry tools. He overcame his anger with a visible effort, swallowed hard, making to leave.
‘Na, man, sit yourself down again,’ Tom said mildly, and to Linnet’s surprise, Cassian smiled suddenly, and did sit down.
‘Ah’m sorry, man, this temper of mine hasna got any sweeter since I put a habit on. It’s nae easy to be a man of God, I tell you.’
Tom laughed. ‘It’s nothing I could do. What took you that way?’
Cassian shrugged, keeping the conversation easy and light. ‘Had enough of being a carpenter. But that were afore I tried to get my head into the books. If I’d know it were that hard…’
Linnet could see the flash of something else under his cheerful expression, there was another reason he wasn’t saying, she was sure. The two men kept talking, drinking and striking up a friendship as they did as they realised they were near enough the same age. Linnet left them to it.
Linnet went back into the Priory through the small gate into the outer courtyard past the stables and the ruined kiln shed.
The main gate to the inner courtyard was always locked at night.
There was a shape in the corner, a man, stumbling and drunk, looking for a quiet place to piss, she supposed.
Seeing her, he swung around, still pissing.
She took a quick step back to avoid the splash and was hurrying past when he grabbed her sleeve.
‘It’s Mary innit? I know you, Guy’s girl. He said you might be here.’