Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
The Prior came out of his parlour and Brother Godfreyd down from the Infirmary, pushing through a growing throng of curious spectators.
The Inspector addressed himself to the Prior. ‘This child was going through the monks’ quarters, a child who has no place being there, and worse – a girl child.’
The Prior’s expression of surprise quickly gave way to frustration.
‘Isabelle, you have no business going into the monks’ rooms, you know that—’
‘But I dinna and I wasn’t!’ She was on the verge of furious tears, Linnet could see. ‘He just took hold a me when I weren’t doing nothing.’
‘And now she’s lying. You can never trust a female to tell the truth, especially when she’s caught in the very act.’
The Prior came forward, still looking unwilling to become involved. ‘I’ll take care of her for you, Inspector. I promise she won’t be in the monks’ rooms again.’
‘I should hope not. If I do find her wandering around there once more, it will have to appear in my report.’
The Prior nodded and Isabelle was handed over from one to the other, like a furious spitting package.
‘You’re just lucky Pol ain’t here. He’d have your eyes out for grabbing me like that,’ she hissed at the Inspector who was brushing his hands together as if to clean off the stain of her. He went back into the Chapter House, leaving the small crowd to disperse.
The Prior let go of Isabelle who stumbled and sat down heavily in the dirt.
‘Don’t be coming to his notice, Isabelle,’ he warned. ‘I can’t be keeping an eye out for you. Perhaps I should send you to Ann in the kitchen. She could do with a pair of willing hands.’
The expression on Isabelle’s face made it evident that her hands would not be willing. The Prior gave her a final exasperated look and went back into his parlour.
‘What were you doing digging about the monks’ rooms then?’
‘I weren’t!’ It was a furious shout but as quiet as a whisper. ‘I said I weren’t. Why ain’t anyone believing me?’
Linnet took her into the Scriptorium.
‘What were you doing then?’
The child looked a bit guilty. ‘Well I weren’t looking in the monks’ rooms, was I? I were going to the Chapter House, that ain’t their rooms – it’s one room. I dinna know he was in there – the Inspector.’
‘You mustn’t go in there! You know that, Isabelle, what were you looking for?’
‘Anything. I dunno. I were trying to help you find Tom’s killer.’ She flounced out of the Scriptorium, indignant that her help wasn’t appreciated.
Linnet sighed. She had all these scraps of information but nothing that pointed to anyone in particular or to any reason why Tom was killed. She wished Tom was here so she could get his help, but how stupid. If he were here, she wouldn’t be looking for his killer.
What had she been thinking about before the commotion?
The knocker. She needed to talk to someone who knew about the Sanctuary Knocker.
Oswyn had written ‘never forget face knocking however, killer tell Prior, death’, or something like that, then Durham Door.
The door had to be the north door, the knocking had to have something to do with the Sanctuary Knocker.
The face that knocked? A killer’s face? Oswyn remembered the face.
He wrote this in his book the day the Inspector and Cassian came, which was also the day he’d collected the masons from the mainland.
Maybe one of the masons was a killer, or was it something the Inspector had said that reminded him that the Prior had a history – where had he been before the island? Or could it be Cassian?
Linnet tried to arrange her thoughts again.
There was the note in the household book that Oswyn had torn out.
He seemed to have a habit of tearing out the secrets he noted down, something only he would know was written there.
There had been three deaths, Oswyn, Maykin and Tom, and one near-death, Luke.
She was sure the Prior had been falsifying the books and was obsessed by the Scriptorium and building his own library.
Tom said he’d seen two monks arguing the night before Oswyn’s death, but said that neither of them had been Godfreyd.
What if it had been Godfreyd? Tom might have lied about that, to protect him.
He was a cruel man, someone who could be violent, someone who sinned.
Maybe Oswyn had threatened to say something to the Prior.
But would Godfreyd have killed Tom? She thought not.
She’d seen real affection between the two men, and how shaken Godfreyd had been when he found out about Tom.
And Tom? He’d had so much money just before he died that he’d bought drinks for everyone. Where had he got that from? He’d not won it gaming. The masons were threatening him just before for not paying his debts, then there he was, paying them off, buying drinks, only a short time later.
Maykin and the note also had her wondering. Who wanted to meet him in the middle of the night? That would point back to Godfreyd again, surely.
What she needed now was someone she trusted to ask about the knocker, but who was there?
The two monks came back to the Scriptorium, maybe them then.
‘Where were you before here?’ Linnet asked them, as if passing the time. Father Thomas’s lined face lit up like a worn but glowing apple, keen to talk for as long as she would listen.
It was a long list of abbeys, priories, monasteries.
Some mild complaints about the abbots or priors but largely a happy recital.
He’d never been at the Durham Priory though he said he had visited a few times.
Brother Samuel, a good ten years younger but still fifty or so, said he’d been a novice at Durham.
‘Who else was a novice with you?’ Linnet was taking full advantage of the monks’ willingness to talk. The Benedictines weren’t a silent order, but general gossiping was not encouraged, at least not while the Inspector was still here.
Brother Samuel rattled off a long list of other novices. He was forgetful though – it was a list of ‘the fat one’, ‘the one who lisped’, ‘the one who snored through Matins every day’. She knew no more at the end of it.
They talked in general terms about the pilgrims, Brother Samuel saying he welcomed the peace of Lindisfarne after all that racket.
Linnet had liked watching the pilgrims, and stealing from them, which was easy.
But sometimes they seemed to draw all the heat and light out of a room, particularly those who wept, wept all the way round the cathedral and wept on after.
As a child she had waited behind the pews, to see if touching the saint’s tomb had cured them of the weeping, but mostly they had wailed on.
She would sometimes find them, sitting crumpled against the outside of the thick cathedral walls.
A few did look calmer but most were confused, as if the answer they’d been promised had gone just when they thought it was within reach.
‘Oh!’ she said, pretending to suddenly remember. ‘Remember the knocker? I used to be so scared of that as a child.’
‘The Prior was scared of it too, at least when I was there. If anyone did claim sanctuary he had to take them in, and he never liked admitting law-breakers.’
‘Do they stay then? Once they’ve used the knocker?’
‘Depends what they did,’ Brother Samuel said. ‘If it wasn’t too serious, they could do penance, staying on to do the gardens or other work. But not if it was a sin that “cried to heaven for vengeance”.’
Father Thomas chuckled. ‘You were listening to the novice master when he read them all then. I remember being so afeard of being a sinner and not knowing it.’
He looked serious again. ‘But of course we all sin without knowing it and we need to guard agin that, as the Inspector has been good enough to remind us.’
The other monk crossed himself piously and the conversation stopped, the sin of talking instead of working clearly on their minds.
‘What are the sins that cry out for vengeance then?’ Linnet asked.