Dissolution

CHAPTER 15

Outside, the morning was bitterly cold again under a clear blue sky. During the night the wind had blown big drifts against the walls, leaving parts of the courtyard almost bare of snow. It made a strange sight. We passed once again through the gate. Turning, I saw Bugge the gatekeeper peering out, withdrawing his head when he caught my glance. I blew out my cheeks.

'God's wounds, it's a relief to be away from all those eyes.' I looked up the road, which like the courtyard was a sea of drifts. The whole landscape, even the marsh, was white, broken only by skeletal black trees, clumps of reeds in the marsh and, in the distance, the grey sea. I had obtained another staff from Brother Guy, and took a firm grip on it.

'Thank Heaven for these overshoes,' Mark ventured.

'Yes. The whole country will be a sea of mud when this snow melts.'

'If it ever does.'

We had a long trudge through the drear landscape, and it was an hour before we reached the first streets of Scarnsea. We said little, for we were both still in sombre mood. There was hardly anyone about that day and in the bright sunlight I noticed anew how dilapidated most of the buildings were.

'We need Westgate Street,' I said as we arrived again in the square. At the wharf a small boat was pulled up, an official in a black coat inspecting bales of cloth while a couple of townsmen stood by, stamping their feet against the cold. Out at sea, at the mouth of the channel through the marsh, stood a large ship.

'The customs man,' Mark observed.

'They must be taking cloth over to France.'

We turned into a street of new, well-built houses. On the door of the largest the town's arms were engraved. I knocked, and the well-dressed servant who answered confirmed it was Justice Copynger's house. We were led to wait in a fine drawing room with cushioned wooden chairs and a buffet displaying a great richness of gold plate.

'He does himself well,' Mark observed.

'Indeed.' I crossed to where the portrait of a stern-looking man with fair hair and a spade-shaped beard hung on the wall. 'That's very good. And painted in this room, by the background.'

'He's rich then –' Mark broke off as the door opened to admit the original of the painting, a tall, strongly built man in his forties. He was swathed in a brown robe trimmed with sable fur and had a severe, serious air. He shook my hand firmly.

'Master Shardlake, this is an honour. I am Gilbert Copynger, Justice of the town and Lord Cromwell's most loyal servant. I knew poor Master Singleton; I thank Christ you have been sent. That monastery is a cesspit of corruption and heresy.'

'Nothing is straightforward there, certainly.' I indicated Mark. 'My assistant.'

He nodded briefly. 'Come through to my study. You will take some refreshment? I think the Devil himself has sent this weather. Are you kept warm at the monastery?'

'The monks have fires in every chamber.'

'Oh, I don't doubt that, sir. I don't doubt it at all.'

He led us down the hall to a cosy room with a view of the street, and cleared papers from stools before the fire. 'Let me pour you both some wine. Forgive the disorder, but the paperwork I have from London… the minimum wage, the poor laws…' he sighed. 'And I am required to provide reports of any treasonable mutterings. Fortunately there are few of those in Scarnsea, but sometimes my informers make them up and I have to investigate words that were never said. At least it means people realize they have to be careful.'

'I know Lord Cromwell sleeps easier knowing there are true men such as yourself in the shires.' Copynger nodded gravely at the compliment. I sipped the wine. 'This is excellent, sir, thank you. Now, time presses. There are matters on which I would welcome information.'

'Anything I can do. Master Singleton's murder was an insult to the king. It cries out for vengeance.'

It should have been a relief to have the company of a fellow reformer, but I confess I did not take to Copynger. Although the Justices were indeed burdened with an ever-greater workload from London on top of their judicial duties, they did well from it. It has ever been the custom for Justices to profit from their functions, and more duties meant more profit even in a poor town, as Copynger's wealth bore witness. To me his ostentation sat ill with his humourless, pious air. But that was the new type of man we were breeding in England then.

'Tell me,' I asked, 'how are the monks regarded in the town?'

'They are loathed for the leeches they are. They do nothing for Scarnsea, they don't come into the town unless they have to and then they are haughty as the Devil. The charity they give is tiny and the poor have to walk to the monastery on dole days to get even that. It leaves the main burden of maintaining the indigent on the ratepayers.'

'They have a beer monopoly, I believe.'

'And charge an extortionate price. Their beer is filthy stuff, hens roost in their brewhouse and drop dung in the brew.'

'Yes, I saw that. It must be vile indeed.'

'And no one else may sell beer.' He spread his arms wide. 'They milk their lands too, for all they can get. Don't let anyone say monks are easy landlords. Things are worse since Brother Edwig took over as bursar; he would skin a flea for the fat on its arse.'

'Yes, I believe he would. Speaking of the monastery's finances, you reported to Lord Cromwell there had been land sales at undervalue.'

He looked crestfallen. 'I fear I have no details. I'd heard rumours, but word got out I'd been making enquiries, and now the big landowners keep their doings from my ears.'

I nodded. 'And who are they?'

'Sir Edward Wentworth is the biggest hereabouts. He's in close with the abbot, for all he's related to the Seymours. They go hunting together. There have been rumours among the tenantry that monastery lands have been sold to him secretly and the abbot's steward now collects rents on Sir Edward's behalf, but I've no way of finding out for certain, it's beyond my authority.' He frowned crossly. 'And the monastery owns land far and wide, even out of the county. I am sorry, Commissioner. If I had more authority…'

I thought a moment. 'It may be stretching my brief, but as I have power to investigate all matters involving the monastery I think I could extend that to enquiring about land sales they have made. What if you were to renew your enquiries on that basis? Invoke Lord Cromwell's name?'

He smiled. 'A request in that name would bring them running. I will do what I can.'

'Thank you. It could be important. By the way, I believe Sir Edward is cousin to Brother Jerome, the old Carthusian at the monastery?'

'Yes, Wentworth's an old papist. I hear that the Carthusian speaks open treason. I'd have him hanged from the cloth-hall steeple.'

I thought a moment. 'Tell me, if you did hang Brother Jerome from the steeple, how would the townsfolk react?'

'They'd have a feast day. As I said, the monks are hated. This is a poor town now and the monks make it poorer. The port is so silted up you can hardly get a rowboat through.'

'So I have seen. I hear some have turned to smuggling. According to the monks, they use the marshes behind the monastery to get to the river. Abbot Fabian tells me he has complained, but the town authorities wink at it.'

At once Copynger's face was watchful. 'The abbot will say anything to make trouble. It's a matter of resources, sir. There is but one revenue man and he cannot be out watching the ways through those marshes every night.'

'According to one of the monks there has been activity out there recently. The abbot suggested it may have been smugglers who broke in and killed Singleton.'

'He's trying to divert attention, sir. There is a long history of smuggling here, finished cloth carried through the marsh and shipped to France in fishing boats. But why would one of those people want to kill the king's commissioner? He had no brief to investigate smuggling. Did he?' I noticed a sudden worried look in his eyes.

'No indeed. And neither have I, unless those activities should be relevant to Master Singleton's death. My feeling is the killer came from inside the monastery.'

He looked relieved. 'If landlords were allowed to enclose more land for sheep, that would bring more profit to the town and people would not turn to smuggling. There are too many small farmers doubling as weavers.'

'Apart from any smuggling there may be, is the town loyal? No trouble with extreme sectarians, for example, no witchcraft hereabouts? You know the monastery was desecrated?'

He shook his head. 'Nothing. I'd know, I've five paid informers. A lot of people don't like the new ways, but they keep their heads down. The biggest complaints have been about the abolition of saints' days, but that's only because they were holidays. And I've never heard of practitioners of the black arts hereabouts.'

'No hot gospellers? No one who has read the Bible and seen some mysterious prophecy only he can fulfil?'

'Like those German Anabaptists who would kill the rich and hold all goods in common? They should be burned. But there's none of that here. There was a moonstruck forgemaster's apprentice last year, preaching the Day of Judgement was come, but we set him in the stocks then cleared him out. He's in gaol now, where he belongs. Preaching in English is one thing, but allowing the Bible to blockish servants and peasants will fill England with makebates.'

I raised an eyebrow. 'You are among those who consider only heads of households should be allowed to read the Bible?'

'There is much to be said for that view, sir.'

'Well, the papists would allow it to nobody. But to return to the subject of the monastery, I read there has been a history of ill-doings there. Sinful acts between the monks.'

Copynger snorted with disgust. 'That still goes on, I'm sure. The sacrist, Brother Gabriel, he was one of them and he's still there.'

'Was anyone from the town involved?'

'No. But there are fornicators at that place as well as sodomites. Women servants from Scarnsea have suffered at their filthy hands. No woman under thirty would work there, not since one young girl went missing altogether.'

'Oh?'

'An orphan from the poorhouse who went to work for the infirmarian. Two years ago. She used to come back and visit the town, then suddenly she stopped coming. When enquiries were made Prior Mortimus said she'd stolen some gold cups and run away. Joan Stumpe, the poorhouse keeper, was convinced something had happened to her. But she's an old busybody, and there was no proof.'

'She worked for the infirmarian?' Mark spoke up, a note of anxiety in his voice.

'Yes. The black goblin we call him. You'd think all Englishmen had work, giving a post to a man like that.'

I reflected a moment. 'Might I talk to this Mistress Stumpe?'

'You have to take what she says with a peck of salt. But she should be at the poorhouse now. There's a dole day at the monastery tomorrow, she'll be getting ready for it.'

'Then let us seize the hour,' I said, rising. Copynger called for a servant to fetch our coats.

'Sir,' Mark said to the magistrate as we were waiting. 'There is a young girl working for the infirmarian now, one Alice Fewterer.'

'Oh yes, I remember.'

'I understand she had to get work because the family's land was enclosed for sheep. I know the Justices have oversight of the enclosure laws; I wondered if it was all done legally? Whether something might be done for her?'

Copynger raised his eyebrows. 'I know it was done legally, young man, because the land is mine and it was I that enclosed it. The family had an old copyhold that expired on her mother's death. I needed to take down that cottage and put the land to sheep if I was to make any profit at all.'

I gave Mark a warning look. 'I'm sure you did everything properly, sir,' I said soothingly.

'The thing that would profit the people of this town,' Copynger said, a cold eye on Mark, 'would be to close the monastery, throw out the lot of them and pull down those idol-filled buildings. And if the town has an extra burden of poor relief in the shape of a load of unemployed abbey-lubbers, I'm sure Master Cromwell would agree it was right for some monastery lands to be granted to prominent citizens.'

'Speaking of Lord Cromwell, he has stressed the importance of keeping what has happened quiet for now.'

'I've told no one, sir, and none of the monks has been to town.'

'Good. The abbot has been told not to talk of it too. But some of the monastery servants will have contacts in Scarnsea.'

He shook his head. 'Very few. They keep apart, the townspeople like the abbey-lubbers no more than the monks.'

'It will get out eventually though. It's in the nature of things.'

'I am sure you will resolve this soon,' he said. He smiled, his cheeks reddening. 'May I say what an honour it is to meet one who has spoken personally with Lord Cromwell. Tell me, sir, what is he like, in person? They say he is a man of strong manner, for all his humble origins.'

'He is indeed, Justice, a man of strong words and deeds. Ah, here is your servant with our coats.' I cut him off; I was tired of his unctuous fawning.

The poorhouse lay on the fringe of the town, a long low building in much need of repair. On the way we passed a little group of men sweeping snow from the streets under the eye of an overseer. They wore grey smocks with the town's arms sewn on, far too thin for such weather. They bowed to Copynger as we passed.

'Licensed beggars,' the Justice observed. 'The men's warden at the poorhouse is good at putting them to honest labour.'

We entered the building, which was unheated and so damp the plaster had fallen in places from the walls. A group of women sat around the hall sewing or working at spinning wheels, while in one corner a plump, middle-aged matron was sorting through a large pile of odoriferous rags, helped by a group of scrawny children. Copynger went over and spoke to her and she led us to a neat little cubbyhole, where she introduced herself as Joan Stumpe, the children's overseer.

'How may I help you, sirs?' The wrinkled face was kindly, but the brown eyes keen.

'Master Shardlake is currently investigating some matters at the monastery,' Copynger told her. 'He is interested in the fate of young Orphan Stonegarden.'

She sighed. 'Poor Orphan.'

'You knew her?' I asked.

'I brought her up. She was a waif left in the yard of this building nineteen years ago. A newborn baby. Poor Orphan,' she said again.

'What was her name?'

'Orphan was her name, sir. It's a common name for foundlings. We never found out who her parents were, so she was given Stonegarden as a surname by the men's warden, as she was found in the yard.'

'I see. And she grew up under your care?'

'I have charge of all the children. A lot die young, but Orphan was strong and she thrived. She helped me round the place, she was always cheerful and willing –' She suddenly looked away.

'Go on, Goodwife,' Copynger said impatiently. 'I have told you before, you are too soft with these children.'

'They often have a brief stay on earth,' she replied spiritedly. 'Why should they not have some enjoyment of it?'

'Better go broken to heaven than in one piece to hell,' Copynger said brutally. 'Most that live end as thieves and beggars. Go on.'

'When Orphan reached sixteen the overseers said she must go out to work. It was a shame, she had a swain in the miller's son and if that had been allowed to develop she'd have been married off.'

'She was pretty, then?'

'Yes, sir. Small with fair hair and a sweet, gentle face. One of the prettiest faces I have ever seen. But the men's overseer has a brother working for the monks; he said the infirmarian needed a helper, so she was sent there.'

'And this was when, Mistress Stumpe?'

'Two years ago. She would come back and visit me on her free days, every Friday without fail. She was as fond of me as I was of her. She didn't like it at the monastery, sir.'

'Why not?'

'She wouldn't say. I teach the children never to criticize their betters, or they'll be done for. But I could see she was frightened.'

'Of what?'

'I don't know. I tried to find out but she wouldn't say. She worked for old Brother Alexander first, and then he died and Brother Guy came. She was afraid of him, with his strange appearance. The thing was she'd stopped seeing Adam, the miller's son. He'd come to see her, but she'd tell me to send him away.' She gave me a sharp look. 'And when that happens it often means a woman's been ill used.'

'Did you ever see any marks, bruises?'

'No, but she seemed lower in spirits each time I saw her. Then one day, six months or so after she started at the monastery, she just didn't turn up one Friday, nor the next.'

'You must have been worried.'

'I was. I decided to go there and find out what I could.' I nodded. I could imagine her marching stoutly along and banging on Master Bugge's gate.

'They wouldn't let me in at first, but I stood making noise and trouble till they fetched that Prior Mortimus. Scottish barbarian. He stood and told me Orphan had stolen two gold chalices from the church one night and disappeared.'

Copynger inclined his head. 'Perhaps she did, it happens often enough with these children.'

'Not Orphan, sir, she was a good Christian.' Mistress Stumpe turned to me. 'I asked the prior why I hadn't been told, and he said he knew nothing of the girl's contacts in town. He threatened to swear out a warrant against her for theft if I didn't go away. I reported it to Master Copynger, but he said without evidence of ill-doing there was nothing he could do.'

The magistrate shrugged. 'There wasn't. And if the monks had sworn out a warrant against her, that would have been one up for them against the town.'

'What do you think happened to the girl, Mistress Stumpe?'

She looked me in the eye. 'I don't know, sir, but I dread to think.'

I nodded slowly. 'But Justice Copynger is quite right, he could do nothing without evidence.'

'I know that, but I knew Orphan well. It wasn't in her to steal and run away.'

'But if she was desperate…'

'Then she'd have come to me rather than risk the rope for stealing. But nothing's been seen or heard of her these eighteen months. Nothing.'

'Very well. Thank you, Goodwife, for your time.' I sighed. Everywhere I turned suspicions remained suspicions; there was nothing I could grasp hold of and tie to Singleton's murder.

She led us back to the hall, where the children picking rags looked up with pale, wizened faces from their tasks. The sickly stench of the old clothes carried clear across the room.

'What are your charges doing?' I asked her.

'Looking through the rags people give for something to wear tomorrow. It's dole day at the monastery. It'll be a hard walk in this weather.'

I nodded. 'Yes, it will. Thank you, Mistress Stumpe.' I turned in the doorway as we left; she was already back with the children, helping them pick through the festering piles.

Justice Copynger offered us dinner at his house, but I said we must return to the monastery. We set off, our boots crunching through the snow.

'We will have missed dinner,' Mark said after a while.

'Yes. Let's find an inn.'

We found a respectable enough coaching house behind the square. The landlord ushered us to a table looking out on the wharf and I watched the boat we had seen earlier, laden with bales, being oared carefully through the channel towards the waiting ship.

'God's wounds,' Mark said, 'I'm hungry.'

'Yes, so am I. But we'll keep clear of the beer. Did you know, under the original rule of St Benedict the monks only had one meal a day in the winter – dinner? He made the rule for the Italian climate, but they kept it in England as well to begin with. Imagine standing in prayer for hours a day, in winter, on one meal a day! But of course, as the years passed and the monasteries got wealthier, it became two meals a day, then three, with meat, with wine…'

'At least they still pray, I suppose.'

'Yes. And believe their prayers intercede with God for the dead.' I thought of Brother Gabriel and his anguished intensity. 'But they are wrong.'

'I confess it sends my head to spinning, sir, all this theology.'

'It shouldn't, Mark. God gave you a brain. Use it.'

'How is your back today?' he asked, changing the subject. I reflected it was becoming a talent of his.

'Bearable. Better than it was first thing.'

The innkeeper brought us dishes of rabbit pie, and we ate silently for a while.

'What do you think became of that girl?' Mark asked at length.

I shook my head. 'Jesu knows. There are so many threads of enquiry, they merely multiply. I had hoped for more from Copynger. Well, now we know women have been molested at the monastery. By whom? Prior Mortimus, who troubled Alice? Others? As for the girl Orphan, Copynger's right. There's no evidence she didn't just run away, and the old woman's fondness for her could be colouring her judgement. There's nothing to lay hold of.' I clenched a fist on the empty air.

'What did you think of Justice Copynger?'

'He's a reformer. He will help us where he can.'

'He talks of true religion and how the monks oppress the poor, yet he lives richly while turning people off their land.'

'I don't like him either. But you should not have asked him about Alice's mother. It's not your place. He's our only reliable source of information and I don't want him crossed. We've little enough help. I'd hoped for more information on the land sales, to connect with the bursar's books.'

'It seemed to me the Justice knew more about the smugglers than he said.'

'Of course he did. He's taking bribes. But that's not why we're here. I'm with him on one thing: the murderer comes from within the monastery, not from Scarnsea. The five senior obedentiaries.' I ticked them off on my fingers. 'Abbot Fabian, Prior Mortimus, Edwig, Gabriel and Guy. Any of them is tall and strong enough to have despatched Singleton – except Brother Edwig, who was away. And any of them could have killed the novice. That is, of course, if what Brother Guy told us about deadly nightshade is true.'

'Why would he lie?'

Again I saw in my mind's eye the dead face of Simon Whelplay as we lifted him from the bath. The thought of him being poisoned because I might talk to him kept recurring, turning in my guts like a torsion.

'I don't know,' I replied, 'but I'm taking nothing on trust. They'll all lose heavily if the monastery closes. Where will Brother Guy find employment in the world as a healer, with his strange face? As for the abbot, he's wedded to his status. And I think the other three may all have things to hide. Financial chicanery by Brother Edwig? He could be hiding money away against the risk of the place going, though he'd need the abbot's seal on any land sales.'

'And Prior Mortimus?'

'There's little I'd put past him. As for Brother Gabriel, the old serpent of temptation still visits, I'm sure of that. He's not taken his eyes off you since you came. I can imagine he has his attachments among the monks, even if not to poor Whelplay, but then you come along showing a fine calf, in your good doublet and hose, and he starts dreaming of you out of them.'

Mark pushed his plate away, frowning. 'Must you adumbrate the details, sir?'

'Lawyers must spend their time adumbrating details, however sordid. Gabriel may appear gentle, but he is a tormented man, and tormented men do wild, irrational things. If recent acts of sodomy could be proved against him, he could face the rope. Rough questioning from Singleton could have made him desperate, especially if there are others to protect. And then there is Jerome. I want to see what he has to say. I'm intrigued by his calling Singleton a liar and perjurer.'

Mark did not reply. He was still frowning. 'Oh, wake up,' I said in a burst of irritation. 'Does it matter if the sacrist covets your arse? He's hardly likely to get it.'

There was a flash of anger in his eyes. 'I was not thinking of myself, sir, but Alice. The girl who disappeared was also Brother Guy's assistant.'

'That had occurred to me as well.'

He leaned forward. 'Would it not be better, and safer for all, to take the obedentiaries, and Jerome, and arrest them all on suspicion? Take them to London and get what they know out of them?'

'On what evidence? And how question them, the torture? I thought you disapproved of such methods.'

'Of course not. But – stiff questioning?'

'And what if I am wrong, and it is not one of them at all? And how would we keep such a mass arrest secret?'

'But – time and danger press.'

'Do you think I don't know that?' I burst out in sudden anger. 'But bullying won't fetch out the truth. Singleton tried that and look where it got him. You untangle a knot with slow teasing, not sharp pulling, and believe me we have here a knot such as I have never seen. But I will unpick it. I will.'

'I am sorry, sir. I did not mean to question…'

'Oh, question, Mark,' I said irritably. 'But question sensibly.' My anger had animated me, and I rose and threw some coins on the table.

'Come, let's go. We're wasting the afternoon, and I have a mad old Carthusian waiting.'