Brother's Blood (19 page)

The abbot looked around the room. ‘Does anyone wish to speak on this matter?'

At a nod from his superior the prior stepped forward. His usual jollity was absent but he looked with compassion on the elderly man on the floor. ‘Father Abbot, if I may, I would like to state that I do not believe there was any deliberate neglect on the part of Brother Jordan. Rather, I believe that his duties are becoming too onerous for a man of his age and it was this which led to the lack of oversight of Benedict.'

He stepped back and the abbot nodded thoughtfully. ‘Does any other here wish to speak in support of, or against, Prior Henry?'

Brother Helias raised his hand and was invited to stand. ‘I would add my voice to that of the prior, Father, to say that Brother Jordan would not purposefully neglect his charges. Many of us here were novices under him in our time, and we know his devotion to his labours.' He became a little less formal. ‘And we are all aware that the three younger boys are a bit of a handful, Father.'

He sat and the abbot's eyes swept the room again. When he was met with only silence and a few nods, he addressed the prostrate man. ‘Brother Jordan, how long have you been the novicemaster here?'

The monk raised his head far enough from the ground to reply. ‘Thirty-four years, Father.' His forehead returned to the floor.

‘You have served the abbey well during that time, and it is my will that you now be relieved from the post so that you may spend more time in prayer and that you may be provided with labour more suited to your age.'

This time the reply was aimed at the flagstones. ‘Yes, Father Abbot.'

‘You will remain as novicemaster for a further week while Brother Prior and I pray and consider who will be best suited to fill the office. While Benedict lies in the hospital you will visit him at any time when you are not otherwise engaged in services or labour, and you will read to him from the Rule, ensuring that he is aware that his behaviour was wrong. When he is sufficiently recovered he too will make confession here, to acknowledge that he has become wild.'

‘Yes, Father Abbot.'

‘Rise, now, and take your place beside your brethren.'

As Brother Jordan struggled to rise the abbot himself stepped forward and lifted him to his feet, making sure he was steady before directing him back to his seat. Edwin caught a glance between abbot and prior which set him thinking.

The abbot addressed the room. ‘Does any other wish to confess a fault?'

Edwin watched as several other brothers came forward to admit to what seemed to him to be very minor transgressions, and each was dealt with. Nobody confessed to anything which could have the remotest bearing on Brother Alexander's death, nobody mentioned wool, and none of the penitents appeared to be the man Edwin had seen in the chapel. He sighed and Martin elbowed him to remind him to be silent; he hoped nobody had noticed. Martin himself was standing so still that he had virtually become invisible, and Edwin remembered that he'd had plenty of practice due to the hours and hours he spent in attendance on the earl.

As the Chapter moved into daily notices Edwin considered the abbot's words. Benedict had been allowed to behave in a way which was not conversant with the Rule. He had become ‘wild'. And from what Martin had said, he nursed a hatred for Brother Alexander, or at least a hatred for the way he had travelled and learned. Just how wild had Benedict become?

Edwin settled himself into a corner of the cloister as he watched the monks prepare for their morning reading. Each one queued at the armarium and was issued his book, and then found himself a spot on one of the benches around the edge of the cloister or those placed on the open grassed area in the middle. That would be a fine place to read today, thought Edwin, but surely they can't sit there if it looks like rain or the books would be ruined. I wonder what the weather was like on the day Brother Alexander died – I don't think it was wet but I must remember to check. One of them will know.

The monks were by now all seated individually, each with his book and each with his cowl up, covering his head. To give them more privacy and help them to concentrate, Edwin thought, though it made them even more indistinguishable from each other than they were normally. Each of them was reading aloud to himself, but quietly so as not to disturb the others, so the whole cloister was filled with the sound of murmuring as the monks ran their fingers along the text of the page in front of them. Every so often one of them would stop reading and fold his hands – contemplating something he had learned, no doubt.

After what Edwin judged was about half of the allotted time for
lectio divina
he leaned over towards Martin, who had been sitting next to him unmoving all the while and clearly bored out of his mind. He whispered as quietly as he could. ‘Notice anything?'

Martin shrugged and replied in an equally low voice. ‘Nothing except that they're all reading and I can't tell who is who.'

‘Agreed.' But Edwin had also noticed something else, and now he cupped his hand to Martin's ear. ‘See that door over there? The one that leads through the lay brothers' building and out into the precinct?'

Martin nodded.

‘Can you walk over there, go through the door so I can't see you, and then walk back here as quietly and calmly as you can? I want to try something.'

Martin nodded again and rose. He sauntered around the walkway at the edge of the cloister until he reached the door, and then disappeared through it. Then he reappeared and strolled back, walking this time across the grassed area. As Edwin expected, none of the monks really paused in their reading and studying, but a number of them looked up at Martin curiously before lowering their gaze to their books once more.

Martin took his seat again. ‘And?'

Edwin leaned in. ‘I'll tell you later, but I think it's important.'

Once the
lectio divina
was over, each of the brothers closed his book with care and then queued in silence to hand it back to Brother Octavian before heading towards the refectory. The librarian took each volume one at a time, placing it precisely back in the armarium before coming back for the next, so the whole exercise was going to take some time. Occasionally he spoke in a low voice. ‘Brother Walter. How are you getting on with the
Lives of the Fathers
? Brother Eugenius – I'm glad to see you making sense of …'

Edwin's attention was caught by the arrival in the cloister of one of the lay brothers. Bearded and wearing a brown tunic like all the others, he made his way over to the prior and bowed before handing him a slip of parchment in silence. That seemed odd – perhaps they weren't allowed to speak in here at all? But Edwin could still hear Brother Octavian in the background, ‘Ah, the works of St Jerome – thank you, Brother Waldef,' and the prior was also clearly audible as he thanked the lay brother, who seemed to be called Brother Guy. How strange. The lay brother departed without breaking his silence.

Eventually Edwin and Martin were alone, but Edwin still checked all about him to make sure before he spoke out loud.

‘Like you said, they all look the same. And they all look the same because they are choir monks, white-robed monks. The lay brothers don't come in here while the reading is going on – did you see that one waited until it was all over? – and neither do any of the guests. As soon as you started walking around, a lot of them noticed.'

Martin looked perplexed. ‘So?'

‘So, if Brother Alexander was killed during the
lectio divina
, it can only have been by one of the other choir monks.'

‘Sorry, what? Why?'

‘Because they are the only ones who wear white robes. That lay brother in brown stood out among them, and so did you in your tunic – they would notice immediately anyone who was wearing a different colour.'

Comprehension started to dawn on Martin's face. ‘You mean …'

Edwin nodded. ‘Brother Alexander was murdered by one of his brothers.'

Edwin raised his hand to knock on the door but let it fall again. He was not really looking forward to his interview with the abbot. However, it must be done, so he must go in. He squared his shoulders and smoothed down his tunic.

He still didn't knock on the door.

After a short while he realised he was going to look foolish standing outside the room if anyone came along, so he rapped his knuckles on the wood in what he hoped was a respectful manner. He was admitted to the parlour, where he knelt and kissed the ring on the abbot's hand before being invited to seat himself on a stool. The abbot placed himself in the chair on the other side of the table and folded his hands. ‘Well?'

Edwin took a deep breath. ‘I should start, my lord, by saying that I do not yet know who killed Brother Alexander, but I have made some progress and I know more about him than I did before.' He explained what he had discovered about the dead monk's past. The abbot nodded in recognition at the details of how seriously Brother Alexander took his duties in the abbey and that he drove a hard bargain with outside merchants; he looked thoughtful at the news that Brother Alexander had been in St Albans before arriving at Roche, that he had travelled abroad and that he had apparently brought something back with him.

‘But,' Edwin concluded, ‘this is all outweighed by the things I don't yet know about him. Most pressingly, why did he come all the way here instead of joining a monastery nearer to London, what did he bring back with him, and why did he keep it? Oh, and what if anything has someone called Daniel of Morley got to do with all this?'

The abbot raised one hand. ‘One thing at a time. First, I am surprised to find you are familiar with Daniel of Morley, as his writings are very challenging. How did you hear of him?'

‘When I first arrived, your prior said he didn't know much about what Brother Alexander had done before he came here, but that he had mentioned that someone by that name had been a great influence on him. That's all I know.'

‘He was a man who travelled widely, both within and outside Christendom, and his work deals with the creation of the world, matter, the elements, the nature of the stars, and so on. Some of it relies on Arabic sources which are not considered proper by the Church, and we do not have any of his texts here.'

‘Wait, you said he
was
a man who travelled widely? Is he still alive?'

The abbot shook his head. ‘No, he died – about seven or eight years ago now, perhaps? I heard the news from fellow abbots at our annual conclave.'

Edwin honestly couldn't see what any of this had to do with his present task, so perhaps it was just a dead end. The prior had said it probably wasn't important, after all.

‘Let's leave that for now, then. What about the “treasure” that Brother Alexander brought back with him?'

‘That cannot be. Every man, when he enters the Order, must give up all personal possessions. There are no exceptions. Besides, if he had something then we would have found it after his death. When his place in the dormitory was cleared we found only the permitted items which all belong to the abbey: his belt, his eating knife, his boots, his spare robe. All were returned to the abbey stores ready to give to another. Even the robe he was wearing when he died was put back in the wardrobe after the washerwomen had cleaned and mended it.'

Edwin thought that he wouldn't much like to be allocated the robe in which a man had been stabbed, but he supposed that the next wearer, whoever he was, wouldn't know about the garment's history.

‘But what if he kept it somewhere else?' Edwin didn't want to go into too many details about the cave, but he could speak generally. ‘Brother Alexander was often outside of the abbey due to his business – maybe he could have kept whatever it was in another place?'

The abbot's lips were starting to form a thin line. ‘You are verging into speculation, my son, and you are doing the memory of Brother Alexander no credit. Precepts seven and fifty-two: not to bear false witness, and to guard one's lips from uttering evil or wicked words.'

‘But —'

‘I will not have a decent man slandered after his death. I must ask you to cease on this line of questioning.' His tone was firm and Edwin recognised authority when he heard it.

‘Very well, my lord. Perhaps I can ask you something else.'

‘Go on.'

‘Yesterday, when I was in the church I caught a glimpse of one of the monks – one of the choir monks – kneeling in a side chapel, praying and weeping as if his heart would burst. Martin says he also saw someone doing something similar soon after we arrived, but we're not sure whether it was the same man. The one I saw had dark hair around his tonsure and I don't think he was one of the oldest brothers, but I couldn't identify him further than that. Do you have any idea who it might have been? If he was crying from guilt and praying for forgiveness then that might have a bearing on my quest.'