Chapter Fifteen #2
The knot wasn’t proof, she knew, but it didn’t feel right to her, just as Oswyn’s death didn’t, just as Maykin’s didn’t. She thought back to what she’d heard between Tom and Godfreyd, Tom saying that others had hated Oswyn. Who else had hated him and why?
She hadn’t hated Oswyn, but if he’d stumbled across her dangerous secrets she might have done.
She’d certainly not liked him. What other secrets had he known?
Godfreyd didn’t think he knew about him and Tom, but if he’d suspected Oswyn knew, he was strong.
He’d easily have been able to hold him under the water.
But Godfreyd wouldn’t have killed Tom and he blamed her of course.
Maykin was often annoying, but she couldn’t imagine anyone to have killed him purely for that.
And what about Cassian? She knew that those who had fits, they were sometimes not themselves, in a daze. Could he have harmed Tom? Was he so horrified by the sin that he had taken redemption into his own hands?
She sank down onto Tom’s bed, weary with all this thinking. Was she just scratching around, trying to acquit Tom of self-murder? And herself from blame? It was too late for his soul if he’d been killed anyway. He’d been buried without rites and without sanctified land.
She wondered tiredly if God would find him anyway, if it wasn’t his fault he wasn’t in the right place. Maybe she could write him out a pardon. She was good at pardons, one of the main pieces of work she’d done for Guy. But of course it wouldn’t help.
She roused herself, she couldn’t sleep here in Tom’s cottage.
She needed to go back to her room. She looked around the room and took the two candles she found under the bed.
She looked at the box again, empty but sturdy.
The men had left it when they took the nets – it was no use to them.
She’d take it and keep Tom’s knot in it.
Early the next morning Linnet ran down to the boats drawn up on the shore, hoping to see more knots in the lines and the nets. Some fishermen were coming down to prepare for their day and she got a few curious looks as she examined the ropes but not much attention.
Tom’s boat was by itself – pulled up onto the shore and carefully upturned. Linnet wondered if anyone would take it, or was that bad luck?
The Prior had come down too, getting into another boat for a trip over to Inner Farne.
One of the men yelled over, ‘No more cuddy ducks this time, eh, Prior?’ and they all laughed.
Linnet had a sudden memory of Tom scrubbing out his boat but she pushed it aside.
She had to force herself back to the knots and ropes.
She couldn’t be sure but she didn’t think the knot on Tom’s hang-rope matched any of the fishermen’s knots.
Even in the depths of his despair, she couldn’t fathom Tom forgetting how to make knots.
If a fisherman had strung him up, they would surely have done a proper knot too, so they couldn’t be responsible.
Trudging back up to the Priory her mind was whirling.
Who could she talk to about this? The Prior himself maybe?
But he wouldn’t want to think about the dreadful idea that Tom had been killed while the Inspector was still here.
And she had no idea if he was behind any of the deaths, why should she trust him?
At that moment the Inspector stepped out of the parlour and beckoned to Linnet.
‘I need dictee again,’ he said abruptly and turned back into the room.
Linnet had her tools on her, her little bag with inks and her pen and her knife, so she followed him in, exchanging a quick glance with the cuddy duck as it huddled down still lower to the ground.
She wouldn’t draw attention to it. She knew the value of being a quiet part of the room in dangerous places.
This time, he wasn’t writing a report, it was a register of what he felt was wrong with the monks.
Not just the monks here, but all monks. He talked so fast, Linnet struggled to keep up with him.
Gaming monks, careless monks, dirty monks, lecherous monks.
Or was he just marking what to look out for on his inspections?
Cassian was in the room, and when the Inspector stopped for a while, deep in thought, he stood up and came over.
‘Father, may I tell ’ee about the evil I have—’
But the Inspector cut him off. ‘Don’t be talking to me about evil!
I’ll not be taking lessons from a foul-tempered novice who can’t form his letters yet.
I thought the Bishop must have seen something in you, something noble, to be with me on my travels, but now I see he wanted to send me with a dolt, a fool.
Just to keep me mindful of how far man has to travel from the dull mud to the heavens. ’
Cassian stood there, shame-faced, head down but with a determined set to his shoulders. She could see the rage he was holding in, but the Inspector continued, moving seamlessly from the string of sins about the Priory to the sins he saw in Cassian.
Eventually he petered out, and with a small nod to Linnet, unwilling witness to it all, he left to go back to his rooms.
Cassian made a noise, a strangled oath, and Linnet wondered if he would fit again, but he simply glared at her, as if she had had a hand in this scolding, and left too.
Linnet returned to the Scriptorium. No Luke this morning, so she took the chance to write down what she’d found so far.
She had her own household book she’d found in another monastery.
She’d torn out the few pages of notes the Bursar there had made, and it was hers now, where she could think on the page.
It wasn’t as good as talking it through but the only person she would have trusted enough to talk about something like this was Tom.
So she must work this out alone. If she were right and Oswyn and Maykin and Tom had been killed, or even if only one of them had, there was a murderer on this Holy Island.
All three times, the causeway had been flooded so no one could have come over and gone back again, unless they had hidden somewhere before going back to the mainland.
She felt sure the answer was closer to home though.
A fluttering at the door made her look up. Pol was walking towards her with his awkward rolling sailor’s gait. He had something in his beak, something shiny. Was he bringing her something?
The raven stopped a little way into the room, keen black eyes watching her.
She pretended to be occupied with her papers again and he came a bit closer.
The floor was rough earth, strewn with a few rushes but not very clean.
She had no urge to keep the room spotless, it was a good place to scribe in, that was all.
Warily looking at Linnet from time to time and reassured that she wasn’t paying attention, the bird dug a little into the floor and dropped the shiny thing into it.
He covered it up again quickly, using his beak and his claws to pull the rushes back over it and then walked out again, watched by an amused Linnet.
She waited a few moments before going to see what he’d hidden in case he came back.
It was clearly a hiding place he’d used before – there was a dead mouse which she moved carefully with the toe of her boot, and then the shiny thing.
It was a fragment of parchment, a gilt letter. It seemed to glow in the dark room.
Linnet knew at once this wasn’t a new piece of work, although the ink colours were bright and alive.
It was too fragile for that and the hand was not current.
Where had the bird found it? She smoothed it out carefully and put it to one side, and scraped at the floor to make good the bird’s hiding place.
She’d avoid that bit of earth now, she had no interest in rotting mice.
She went back out into the courtyard and then up the stairs to her room where she hid the fragment in Tom’s box.
Another mystery to untangle. She took out the bag of paper scraps she’d found in Oswyn’s room.
She would keep those in the box too, along with the scrap from Maykin’s hand.
Little pieces, little scraps, but maybe if she could find out how to put them together, she might have the answer.
On her way back to the Scriptorium, she saw Luke coming out of the Infirmary. He was moving stiffly and carefully, not his usual easy walk. She stopped him to ask if he was well.
‘Of course.’ He didn’t meet her eye, hurrying away to join the other monks in prayer for Sext.
As she looked after him, Godfreyd pushed past her carelessly, pausing to glare at her as he passed.
Benedict jostled Luke roughly and caused him to gasp in pain as he caught the back of his heel, but the younger monk didn’t say anything, just swallowed hard and bent his head in prayer.
That night Linnet went to the tavern. The Prior had given her the money she was owed for the prayer book when he returned from Inner Farne and she needed some warmth and comfort.
She took her tankard over to a dark corner, avoiding the villagers with their quarrels and their bawdiness, and the masons who were starting on another game of dice – this time with the parish priest.
The room was smoky from the fire, and smelled of warm bodies and their work.
The fishermen smelled clean and salty, the farmers of the animal shit they’d been shovelling, the masons of their dust. She wondered if she smelled of ink and parchment.
She’d seen them make parchment. It stank worse than anything she’d known, a far distance from a pretty Lady’s prayer book in a sweet-lavender-scented room.
One of the masons, a big man they were calling Mice, gave Linnet a broad smile, and she remembered he came from the Low Countries. A Dutch mouse. She sat down next to him, ignoring Jack’s raised eyebrow.
‘Is your name really Mice then?’ she asked, as she picked up a piece of bread.