Prioress Joan sat tall at her table, and three men clustered by the window. The one who stood out most immediately was a tall, stooped man wearing long, full black robes, not unlike a physician’s. There was a string around his neck, attached to a mask that hung just beneath his chin. I guessed him the coroner. A second man spoke to him in a low voice; he was gray-haired and heavyset. The third man looked out the window, his hands clasped behind his back.
Prioress Joan pointed at the
chair across from her, and I sat down, consumed with dread.
The gray-haired man looked me over. He had an open, kind face, like a grandfather. “This is the novice, Joanna Stafford?”
“Sister Joanna,” corrected the prioress.
The man at the window turned around. He was in his twenties, with light-brown hair. The afternoon sun was bright in his face; it revealed a faint red mark on his forehead, a months’ old wound that was hardening to scar.
It was Geoffrey Scovill.
29
L
eaning
on his cane, the gray-haired man said, “Sister Joanna, I am Justice Edmund Campion. I am the justice of the peace of the city of Rochester. Coroner Hancock requested my involvement, due to the sensitivity of this inquiry. We have certain questions for you to answer today. After I am finished with my questions, you will write out a statement. I’ve been told you are able to read and write. Is that true?”
“Yes, Master Campion,” I said.
I looked at Geoffrey, waited for him to give some sign he recognized me. He did not. He showed a polite, expectant face.
Campion followed my gaze to Geoffrey. “This is Master Scovill, a constable in Rochester. He has a fine mind and a strong pair of legs”—he rattled his cane—“and so I’ve borrowed him from the chief constable for the length of the investigation.”
“Yes, I see,” I said.
Geoffrey bowed, his expression blank.
Campion continued, “Now, Sister Joanna, I will ask you about what you saw, this morning, in the guest lodging room. Lord Chester’s body was, unfortunately, moved, as was the murder weapon—”
The coroner groaned and held his temple in his bony right hand.
“This makes our proceedings a bit difficult, you see,” continued Campion. “We are forced to re-create the circumstances of the death through careful questioning.”
He broke off and turned to the prioress. “It is quite cold in this room, Prioress. You have no means of making a fire?”
Prioress Joan raised her eyebrows. “This is a religious house, not a palace. Our winter warming house, our
calefactorium,
is south of the chapter house. If you wish it, we can have a fire lit now and you can be escorted there.”
I noticed the prioress
did not mention that the infirmary, too, had a fire lit for warmth.
Justice Campion tightened his grip on his cane. “Never mind.” He turned back to me. “Let’s continue. I’d be most gratified if you would answer our questions in every detail.”
I told the men what I could remember: Lord Chester’s position in bed was of great interest to them, as was the exact placement of the reliquary pieces. The coroner sat in a chair and questioned me about the color and texture of the blood, and, though it made me squeamish, I did my best to describe it. He wrote my answers on a sheet of parchment paper. Campion smiled at me, pleased every time I came up with a new detail. “Ah, very good,” he’d exclaim. Geoffrey did nothing but listen.
“What was the humor of his intact eye?” demanded the coroner.
I shook my head, unsure what he meant.
“Was it melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine, or choleric?” he asked.
I thought back to the expression in that eye. I had formed an impression when I saw it, but now it was hard to articulate. “It was closest to melancholic,” I said finally.
“Not choleric—he was not angry or fearful?” the coroner asked, his thick graying eyebrows twitching in concentration.
“No,” I said. “He was . . . surprised. But not shocked.”
For the first time, Geoffrey spoke.
“As would be the case if Lord Chester died while looking at someone he knew?”
Yes, it was the same voice. He was the same man: Geoffrey Scovill.
I shook my head. “I do not wish to speculate, sir,” I said in the same polite tone.
Justice Campion smiled. “Ah, but we
require
you to speculate, Sister Joanna. You have an acute eye. You have given us the most detailed descriptions of his lordship so far.” He turned to the prioress. “I commend you for having such an observant and intelligent young woman in your priory.”
Prioress Joan said nothing.
“I was taken aback to see such large quarters for guests in the priory, since you are so adamant
about keeping out the world,” mused Justice Campion.
The prioress answered, “The point of the
domus hospitum
—”
“The what?” The older man squinted at her.
“A house of hospitality,” spoke up Geoffrey.
So Geoffrey Scovill knew Latin. I had not realized.
The prioress explained that special permission was given for certain guests. Widows longing for spiritual comfort had boarded here. Also, in times of war, a local noble might make request that his wife and daughter stay in the guests’ rooms of the priory. When Henry the Fifth led his army to France, the rooms had been full.
Nodding, Justice Campion thought for a moment, then his attention turned back to me. “So please, Sister, your thoughts. You must have formed an idea.”
I swallowed. “Sir?”
He walked across the room, poking the floor with his cane. “Lord Chester comes to the requiem feast. He eats and drinks a great deal, so much so that he loses consciousness and is taken to the front of the priory. I remain surprised that he would be served so much wine that he would lose himself completely.”
Eager to defend Dartford, I said, “He came to the priory drunk.”
“Did he? How do you know that? No one else made note of that.”
“I smelled it on his breath.”
Justice Campion’s eyebrows shot up. “I see.” He glanced over at Geoffrey. “Tell us about Sister Winifred. He attacked her?”
I winced. “Yes.”
“And so Brother Edmund, who is in fact her own older brother, defended her by striking Lord Chester so hard he fell to the floor?”
I nodded.
“And Brother Richard?”
I exchanged a look of confusion with the prioress.
“What do you want to know about him?” asked the prioress.
“Brother Richard himself said that he did not desire Lord Chester’s presence, that he resisted the idea for the feast. That he did not consider it seemly.”
Shifting in her chair, the prioress admitted, “That’s true.”
“So both of these friars, here at Dartford Priory for a month, felt some form of hostility toward Lord Chester.”
Prioress Joan said,
“Your inquiry is misguided. These are friars. They would not commit such an act.”
“But Brother Edmund did commit an act of violence against Lord Chester, just hours before he was killed,” Justice Campion said, his voice hardening. “And last night he was in the infirmary, not in the friars’ lodgings, which is a separate building.”
In a panic, I jumped to my feet. “He wouldn’t do such a terrible thing as murder,” I cried. “It’s impossible. Brother Edmund is a good, kind person, a true man of God. He helps people.”
A thick silence filled the room. The coroner stopped writing, and the three men looked at one another. Justice Campion nodded at Geoffrey Scovill, and the younger man hurried out of the prioress’s chamber.
“Someone killed Lord Chester, and it was a most terrible act, I agree,” said Justice Campion. He had resumed his grandfatherly manner, but I no longer felt at ease with him. “I think we can all agree that the murderer was someone who harbored great hatred for him.”
“That is without a doubt,” muttered Coroner Hancock.
“Certainly this was
not
a thief wandering the countryside,” Justice Campion said. “A thief would have taken the rings off his fingers—they are worth a fortune—and there would have been more noise. Lady Chester slept in the room next to his, and she heard nothing. The doors were closed between them and the walls are thick, but still, she would have heard her husband had there been a prolonged struggle.”
The prioress said, “But Lord Chester was killed in his sleep.”
“I don’t think so, Prioress. Sister Joanna’s description is of a man sitting up in the bed at the moment of the attack. He did not get up or try to evade his attacker. I think someone entered the room and communicated with Lord Chester in such a way that his lordship was not in fear of his life initially. And then he was struck hard by a man of some strength.”
“He had enemies at court,” insisted the prioress.
Justice Campion nodded. “Yes, I am sure he did. A violent death, committed within these walls, would also taint the priory, the whole monastic way of life. On my way to Dartford from Rochester I suspected a crazed reformer, eager to cast such a taint on the old ways.” He paused and shook
his head. “To kill him here, though, first the murderer would have to know that Lord Chester stayed in the guest lodging rooms. That was a spontaneous decision, made after the feast. How would an outsider know of it, and then . . . know where to find the rooms? There is the problem of how he entered a locked and guarded priory. No one should have been able to gain entry to the guest bedchamber, from the cloister or the outside. And, finally, we have the reliquary.”
A chill rippled through me.
“I find it interesting that Lord Chester was killed with the reliquary, the most sacred possession you have. And the one that he had groped, in order to taunt all of the sisters, at the feast? Do you not agree that the choice of weapon is significant?”
Campion paced across the room, his cane thumping on the floor.
“But how did the reliquary make its way from the church to the front of the priory? Someone removed it from the church after the last service of Matins, after midnight, and then carried it to the lodging rooms. Your porter seems a steady man, and he has sworn that the door between the front of the priory and the cloistered area was locked. Is he the only one with a key?”
“I have my own key,” the prioress said.
The coroner and justice of the peace exchanged a quick look.
“Where was it last night?” asked Justice Campion.
“In my room, I sleep separately from the sisters. It was there this morning, Justice Campion. And no one crept into my room and took it, let me assure you. I am a very light sleeper.”
“And you did not leave your bedchamber between Matins and Lauds?” he asked, his voice devoid of emotion.
“I have already told you twice that I did not.” I heard the rapid
click, click, click
of the prioress fingering her pomander ball.
Justice Campion stopped pacing and looked out the window. “Do you have any building plans, made at the time of the priory’s construction? I must learn how the murderer was able to move around the building. It is almost two centuries old. There could be doors or windows or even passageways, not readily visible, that he was able to use.”
I went rigid in my chair.
The secret room
.
Prioress Joan said, “I have never seen any such plans.”
“They must exist,
Prioress.”
I heard raised voices outside the prioress’s chamber. The door flung open, and Geoffrey Scovill strode in carrying a box, with an irate Brother Richard on his heels.
“You have no right—no right to do that!” shouted the friar.
“What’s this?” asked Justice Campion.
Geoffrey grinned. “He’s all a-fluster because I found this next to his pallet in the friars’ quarters during my search.” He pulled a slim book out of the box and held it up in the air.
I recognized it at once:
From Caractacus to Athelstan
.
Brother Richard reached for the book, and Geoffrey, taller than the friar, held it up high, over his head, with a laugh. Justice Campion smiled, and the coroner looked up from his writing with a snicker. With athletic ease, Geoffrey tossed the book to the justice of the peace.
Justice Campion leafed through the book. “It seems harmless.”
Prioress Joan sighed. “None of the books should be removed from the Dartford library. Brother Richard knows that.”
Brother Richard’s face was beet-red. He seemed to be avoiding my gaze, though I couldn’t tell if it was general embarrassment.
Geoffrey said, “Other than that, I found a quill and ink pot and parchment, but not letters. There’s quite a nice chess set. And a fine trunk filled with religious books. For the other friar, Brother Edmund, nothing at all. Not a single possession.”
Justice Campion handed the book to the prioress and then turned to Brother Richard. “Since you have joined us again, Brother, you can perhaps add to the discussion. We were trying to determine how the reliquary made its way from the church to the guest lodging rooms, even though the doors were locked.”
“I have no idea,” Brother Richard said. “This priory is quite secure. It obeys all the rules of enclosure. I know that the sisters do not leave without written permission.”
“Are you completely certain of that?” asked Geoffrey.
I did not look at Geoffrey or anyone else.
Prioress Joan said icily, “There was an incident, this past spring, concerning a member of this priory, who left without permission, through a kitchen window,
to attend to a family member. The matter is behind us—and has nothing to do with Lord Chester’s visit whatsoever.”
“Attend to a family member?” asked Justice Campion.
“Yes, and the window in question can no longer be opened,” she said. “It has been sealed.”
Justice Campion asked nothing more about it. He returned to last night’s requiem feast, probing for every detail remembered, every bit of conversation. Prioress Joan and Brother Richard answered the questions. I kept my eyes down until the quick, sharp thud of my heart had slowed.
It was only then that I looked up at Geoffrey. I caught him staring at me, and not with the face of blank courtesy he’d shown thus far. There was a baffled, hurt expression in his eyes, the same as I saw in the Tower, after I’d insulted him before the Duke of Norfolk. I ached to explain all to him, but it was impossible.