Chapter Fifteen
‘You bitch, you shamed him and now he’s dead. He spent that last day hiding and praying and it was all because of you.’ The words came out in an angry hiss and she turned to see Godfreyd glaring down at her.
She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks despite the cold of the day as she struggled to keep looking him in the eyes, and started tugging her wrist to get free.
Her pride in the prayer book had let her forget about Tom for a little, but the worry that maybe she had driven him to kill himself came flooding back now.
She was wondering what to say but Godfreyd wasn’t waiting for a reply, he had a message for her. Grabbing her other wrist so he had both of her hands in a painful grip, he bent down to her level, close to her face, and spat at her. The shock of the spittle hitting her face made her gasp.
‘You will not last here, I will make sure of that. Watch your back, I’ll—’
Linnet was scrabbling with her hand in his and managed to catch the wound where Pol had pecked him, and dug in a nail.
Swearing and shaking his hand, he let go of her and brought it up to his mouth.
He slapped her sharply before she could defend herself.
She didn’t wait for him to resume, but fled, heading for the relative safety of the Scriptorium.
Luke had gone, leaving scraps of parchment scattered over the desk. He must have got tired of practising and started to tear up what he’d been working on.
Annoyed and shaken by Godfreyd, more by his words than his actions, Linnet gathered up the scraps. They could have scraped them clean and used them again, but they were not much use in strips like this. The marks put her in mind of something, but again, it refused to come to her.
She used the back of one scrap to start noting what illustrations she would use for the Gospels. The traditional angel, lion, bull and eagle. And the lapis lazuli of course. Skies, Mary’s dress, what else could she use it for? Maybe the Sea of Galilee – with the storm gathering above it.
Wait, what had happened to the scrap of paper in Maykin’s hand? She ran quickly back to her room and felt amongst her clothes. It was there, in with her nightshift of course. She brought it back to the Scriptorium and spread it out carefully on her desk.
– Come and –
So someone had summoned him. To the kiln room perhaps? Why? Did this have something to do with his death or had the young monk been careless with the stones while he waited?
She looked at it more carefully, a coarse scrap of paper, such as was used all over the Priory, nothing from her Scriptorium, and a standard ink too, she could tell.
As for the hand, it was cramped and mean, fitting into a small space for sure, but also tight in its letters.
She resolved to remember the form of the letters in case it meant anything and what had happened to poor bright Maykin was no accident.
She shuddered. It had got dark. She needed more candles. Maybe the Prior would let her have some if this book were to help him set up the Scriptorium. And she remembered that she’d not got the coin for the prayer book.
The parlour was empty, just the mournful cuddy duck, still in its place by the cold fire. She thought it looked a little better. She was surprised the Inspector hadn’t insisted it was put out, but maybe he’d not noticed it sitting there; cuddy ducks were very still and quiet when they wanted to be.
She walked past the Chapter House, but stopped as she heard the Inspector thundering at the monks.
‘Be vigilant against the appearance of piety that does not hold piety in its heart. One thing may look like another, be wary.’
She could see Luke at the back of the room, face strained, eyes fixed on the Inspector, drinking in his words.
He looked very young suddenly, he probably was.
She thought he couldn’t have rich or powerful friends, not to start his time here at this remote place – this Priory was full of the least wanted monks from what she could see.
He was sitting a little way apart from the others.
He’d not made friends yet apart from Maykin, who had been friends with everyone and was now gone.
‘A fair face can hide the devil’s snare!’
The Inspector was still talking, his eyes fixed and staring.
The Prior stifled a yawn next to him. He was probably thinking of the comfortable evenings they normally had in here, with the fire warming them and the gentle talking, maybe with some reading of the Rule.
Many of the monks plainly felt the same.
Godfreyd was clearly not listening, his face sorrowful, his mind elsewhere.
His earlier anger had left him, she could see.
Had he loved Tom? She didn’t think men loved men, even if they sinned together, but his face said otherwise.
Godfreyd looked around at his fellow monks before his eyes fell on Luke, who was sitting slightly forward, mouth open, eyes shining.
Like a hawk spying a mouse, Godfreyd was suddenly still, and totally fixed on him.
And behind Godfreyd, Benedict. Watching Godfreyd but with open-faced adoration and longing.
Cassian was next to Benedict, and Linnet saw him whisper something to him. Benedict’s face showed a flash of irritation, then a crafty look. He pointed to Luke, discreetly, and Cassian nodded slowly.
What had Benedict indicated to him, Linnet wondered.
She shuddered and walked on. She could go and sit in the kitchen, warm herself up, have a bite to eat, all in peace.
But she was stopped by Jack, arm across the kitchen doorway, blocking her entrance.
He leaned over her and grinned a little, moving one way and the other to stop her coming in.
She wriggled quickly under his arm, remembering with pleasure when she had bit him, and imagining new ways to cause him pain.
She looked around at the other masons, but didn’t have the strength to try and find anything out tonight.
Ann was banging pots, provoked by the Priory rabble, those masons, who had to be fed but in her eyes clearly didn’t deserve it.
Linnet could see Isabelle in a corner, with her usual plants and shells all around her, muttering to herself, until the Cook swept down on her telling her to get that rubbish out of her kitchen.
Isabelle stuck her tongue out, but only after she had safely gathered her bits and was on her way out. She saw Linnet but didn’t acknowledge her. Suddenly tired to her bones and missing Tom, she went to bed.
Linnet was aware of the monks during their night prayers and psalms, she could hear them going back to the dormitory, she could hear some of the masons having a loud argument about who could piss furthest, a hotchpotch of different languages, like all masons, somehow understanding each other though.
Finally, nothing could hold her back from falling into a deep sleep.
It was the quiet that woke her. She could see a few candles lit in the village houses as some were awake before their second sleep.
The two sleeps that most practised here were seen as old-fashioned in the towns and cities, but she liked the peaceful middle of the night moments when one could hear quiet sounds and talking, without all the bustle of the day.
And the thought that had been fluttering nervously out of her reach had finally come to her.
Of course Pol the Raven wasn’t responsible for the deaths, but then maybe someone else was?
She was thinking back to the way they died, the scratches on Oswyn’s hand, the rope around Tom’s neck.
The scratches hadn’t looked right to her at the time – they didn’t seem natural.
And what of Maykin? Why was he in the old kiln room in the middle of the night for no reason?
What did that scrap of paper mean? Why would Oswyn drown where he usually started his swim – not when he was tired through at the end of it?
And Tom hadn’t killed himself because of his debts.
He’d had money, he’d been spending it freely at the tavern the night before, but there was something else.
She let herself remember the swaying body in the tithe barn, the blackened face, the plain clothes, the staring eyes, the rope frayed and cutting into his neck – the rope. What was wrong with the rope?
She got up quickly and went through the inner courtyard, out of the small gate and down the road to the tithe barn.
With the wind up and the darkness all around, it felt a much longer walk than in the daylight.
She nearly fell once or twice but managed to right herself.
Inside the barn, she felt around carefully, a splinter catching her as she found the stool still lying knocked over where they thought Tom must have kicked it.
A large spider made her cry out as it crept away.
And there, in the corner, the rope they’d cut when bringing his body down.
She brought it out of the barn to look at it in the pale moonlight.
It had been cut above the knot, no one wanting to stand near the body untying it as it swayed there, and the noose pulled over his head.
She traced the knot with her fingers, a simple, rough knot, strong enough to hold him for sure, but not the kind of fisherman’s knots Tom tied.
She walked back into the village to his cottage, to go through the nets there.
A few lights showed in the other nearby houses so she crept along quietly, not wanting to draw attention to herself.
She knew Tom had different knots for different uses.
He’d talked enough about them to her but she’d not really listened, just let him talk fondly about the many ways he could twist a rope.
The nets were gone. Of course, the other fishermen would have taken them for their use.
Foolish to think they would still be there.