Chapter Forty-One
She awoke in alarm, frozen in fear, sensing the Inspector in the dark. But she knew he couldn’t be there and lay still so as not to wake Isabelle who was sleeping peacefully with the cat.
She wondered finally whether she’d been to blame for his death.
She didn’t know why it had taken her so long to ask herself the question.
She’d stabbed him, would that have killed him?
Was he already dying as he fell? She ran through those last minutes again in her mind and remembered him screaming as he stumbled and fell on her.
If he’d fallen when she’d stabbed him at the top of the tower, too wounded to move, would she have tried to help? She knew she was a thief, a forger, a sinner, but was she a killer too?
A thin layer of ice settled itself around her heart as she took on the word. After all she’d endured she felt she could live with being a killer.
Almost all the threats were gone. The Inspector was dead and buried, Oswyn too.
Guy had left, Jack and the masons had moved on.
The Prior knew of her past life and still had her as his scribe.
That left Warham’s men to hide from and they would be busy with whatever he was doing in London, and the island and the Scriptorium could be her refuge.
There was one question left – what had Oswyn known about her and her father? She’d not found anything in the household book yet, but she needed to look again.
She couldn’t sleep so she took a candle and quietly left the room. The Priory was asleep, and the village too.
She lit the candle from the dregs of the Scriptorium fire, and it sent out a small ring of flickering light onto the desk. This time she looked at every page, word by word, starting from a few days before Oswyn’s death.
It was tucked away in a line about going to fetch the masons, a few short words but the last one had been scribbled over.
He’d probably meant to transfer it to his secret cypher but had been interrupted.
It said simply John-the-Lies and the Duke of Y- and then the careful hatching of heavy ink, but another few words she could make out, Flanders.
A few lines later he’d written Linnet Bastard.
Her mind was racing. She wished she did know.
Mees had given her some information but she needed more.
She was going to have to find out what had happened to her father, and what he was doing.
It was clear now that it could put her in danger.
She didn’t know how or where she would start, but it was something to think about in the months to come.
Although she’d told the Prior that her father would be coming to Lindisfarne, she’d not said when. He didn’t seem to care. To him she was an accomplished scribe and that was what mattered, and he’d not met John, only heard his name.
She sat and thought about leaving. Would it be best? She had some coins now, taken from the Inspector’s room. The Prior would have his scriptorium, although she knew, with pride, that his books would not be as good if she left.
Tom was dead. She didn’t know if her father would come. The Prior had probably done enough to allay suspicions about the Inspector… what was keeping her on the island?
‘Why are you up now in the middle of the dark?’
Isabelle appeared, giving her one answer.
‘Nothing important – let’s go back to bed?’
The child nodded sleepily and Linnet put the book back, keeping the candle lit to bring them back to her room.
After a few days, the servant came back from Durham with a letter from the Bishop.
Linnet saw the letter handed to the Prior who beckoned her into the parlour. She was uneasy. She couldn’t quite believe the Bishop could be so easily persuaded that the Inspector had gone on a pilgrimage without first returning to Durham.
The Prior read it aloud. The Bishop urged the Prior to carry out the suggestions the Inspector had made and he expressed displeasure at the Inspector’s pilgrimage but there was a certain weary note, which made Linnet think he was expecting something of the sort.
She wondered how crazed the Inspector had been in Durham before he came to inspect the Priory.
‘We may yet need to write a few letters from the Inspector on his travels,’ the Prior said. ‘Don’t forget how to make his hand.’
She didn’t think she’d ever forget the Inspector’s hand, or the day they buried him.
‘And we can use his seal.’ He looked at her meaningfully. She’d not thanked him for saving her from Guy’s accusations, but she didn’t need to. He had also been saving himself.
‘Will you stay then, Linnet?’
‘I have to finish the Gospels, and the book of hawking.’ It was the answer he wanted.
But there was something else that she needed the Prior to understand, or accept, something that lay between them.
‘I didn’t kill him, he fell.’
The Prior gave her a long look. ‘You can’t know whether he fell because you stabbed him.’
‘I thought he’d killed Isabelle and I was to be next.’
‘Yes, I know. Linnet, we will never speak of this again.’
They turned to discussing the plans for the Gospels book. Luke wanted to come back but the Prior said he must fully recover his sight before scribing again.
She wanted to ask about her father but it wasn’t the time. If Oswyn had said nothing about him to the Prior, it was best let alone, something to worry about another time.
Isabelle came to the Scriptorium, asking again to be taught how to write and read. Linnet wrote some letters on a scrap, and told her to draw a picture of something that started with each letter. She would tell her what the sound was like to help her.
Father Thomas was delighted and kept breaking off from his own scribing to help her think of things that might match the letters. Luke wasn’t in the room or Linnet knew he’d be making a face, and probably keeping a record to show the Inspector in case he ever returned.
Linnet went back to her illumination of Jesus walking on the water at Galilee.
She was making the sea violent, a fierce blowing wind for a dangerous day.
She added a tiny raven on the shore, watching as Christ strode out, conquering the elements.
It was Pol, indifferent to the miracle he was witnessing, waiting for Christ to throw him some food.