Dissolution

CHAPTER 24

'Help!' There was an edge of panic in Mark's muffled voice, which to my confused mind seemed to issue from empty space. Then I saw the cupboard had been pulled out a little. Peering behind, I saw a door in the panelled wall. With difficulty, I dragged the cupboard out.

'Mark! Are you in there?'

'I'm shut in! Open it, sir! Quick, he may come back!'

I twisted the handle, which was old and rusty. There was a click and the door opened, letting out a draught of dank air. Mark shot from the darkness, dusty and dishevelled. I stared into the blackness a moment, then back at him.

'God's flesh, what has happened? Who may come back?'

He took deep whooping breaths. 'I closed the door behind me when I went in, then found it couldn't be opened from inside. I was trapped. There's a spyhole there; someone was spying on us earlier. I saw you come through it and called out.'

'Tell me what happened, from the beginning.' At least, I thought, he had been shocked out of his sulk. He sat down on the bed.

'After you left, I spoke to Prior Mortimus about clearing the pond. They are draining it now.'

'Yes, I saw that.'

'I came back here to fetch my overshoes. While I was putting them on I heard sounds again.' He looked at me boldly. 'I knew I was right.'

'Your ears are sharper than your wits to shut yourself up like that. Go on.'

'It always seemed to come from the cupboard. I thought to pull it out to see what lay behind and found that door. I went inside with a candle. There is a passageway and I was going to find where it led. I closed the door lest someone come in, but as I pulled it shut the draught blew out the candle and left me in darkness. I put my shoulder to the door, but it wouldn't budge.' He reddened. 'It unmanned me. I hadn't my sword. But without the candle I could see a pinpoint of light – there's a spyhole there, cut in the panelling.' He pointed to a tiny hole in the wall. I stood up and inspected it: from the inner side it looked like a nail hole.

'How long were you shut up?'

'Not long. By God's mercy you were only a few minutes. Did you go on the marsh?'

'Yes. There have been smugglers out there – we found a fire. I had a talk with Alice, we will speak of it later.' I lit two candles from the fire and passed him one. 'Well, shall we try this passage again?'

He took a deep breath. 'Yes, sir.'

I locked the door of our room against intruders, then we squeezed behind the cupboard and opened the door. Within lay a dark, narrow corridor.

'Brother Guy said there was a connecting passage from the infirmary to the kitchen,' I said, remembering. 'Closed off at the time of the Great Pestilence.'

'This has been used much more recently.'

'Yes.' Within I could see a pinpoint of light where the spyhole had been cut through the wooden panelling. 'This gives a clear view of the room. It looks recently cut.'

'Brother Guy chose our room for us.'

'Yes. Where anyone could spy on us, overhear us.' I turned to the door. It had the type of latch that can be opened from the outside only. 'Let us make safe this time.' I pushed it almost shut, but inserted my handkerchief into the gap to prevent it closing on us.

We made our way up the passage. It was narrow, running parallel with the wall of the infirmary building. One side was formed by the wood panelling of the infirmary rooms, the other by the stone of the claustral buildings. The remnants of rusty torch brackets lined the damp walls. It was evidently long disused – it stank of damp and strange bulbous mushrooms grew in corners. After a short distance the passage took a right angle, then opened into a chamber. We stepped in and cast our light around.

We were in a prison cell, square and windowless. Ancient leg-irons were fastened to the wall, and a heap of mouldy cloth and wood in one corner indicated the remains of a bed. I cast my light over the walls. Words were scratched all over the stone. I read one deeply indented row of letters. Frater Petrus tristissimus. Anno 1339. 'Brother Peter the most sad. I wonder what he did.'

'There's a way out,' Mark said, crossing to a heavy wooden door. I bent to the keyhole. There was no light from the other side. I put my ear to the door, but could hear nothing.

Slowly I turned the handle. The door opened quietly inwards and I saw the hinges had been greased. We came out behind another cupboard, which had been pushed just far enough from the wall to let a man squeeze through. We went out and found ourselves in a stone-flagged corridor. A little way off was a door, half-open. I heard a murmur of voices, plates clinking.

'It's the kitchen passage,' I breathed. 'Back inside, quick, before someone sees us.'

I squeezed in again after Mark, and bent to close the door, coughing a little in the damp air. Suddenly a hand was clamped over my mouth, and I froze as another pressed on my hump. The candles were extinguished. Then Mark whispered in my ear.

'Quiet, sir. Someone's coming!'

I nodded, and he lowered his hands. I could hear nothing; he had indeed the ears of a bat. A moment later the glow of a candle appeared round the corner and a figure followed; robed and cowled, staring into the prison room from a gaunt, dark face. Brother Guy's candle picked out our figures in the corner and he started.

'Jesu save us, what are you doing here?'

I stepped forward. 'We might ask you the same question, Brother. How did you get in here? We locked our door.'

'And I unlocked it. I had a message the pond was emptied and came to call you, but there was no reply. For all I knew you'd both dropped dead, so I let myself in with my key and saw that open door.'

'Master Poer has heard someone behind the wall several times, and this morning he found the door. We have been spied on, Brother Guy. You gave us a room with a hidden passage behind. Why? And why did you not tell me there was an open way from the infirmary to the kitchens?' My voice was harsh. I had begun to see Brother Guy as something like a friend in that place. I cursed myself for allowing myself to become close to a man who, when all was said and done, was still a suspect.

His face set. The candlelight flickered strangely over his long nose and narrow dark features. 'I had forgotten that door was in your room. Sir, this passage hasn't been in use for nearly two hundred years.'

'It was used this morning! And you gave us the one room where a spyhole could be cut in the wall!'

'It is not the only room,' he said calmly. His gaze was level, the candle held in a steady hand. 'Did you not see? This passage runs behind the panelling of the infirmary wall, behind all the rooms on that corridor.'

'But there is a spyhole only behind ours. Are visitors normally put in our room?'

'Those who do not stay with the abbot. Usually messengers, or officials from our estates come to discuss business.'

I waved my hand around the dank little cell. 'And what in God's name is this horrible place?'

He sighed. 'This is the old monks' prison. Most houses have them; in years gone by abbots used to imprison brethren who had sinned grievously. In canon law they still have the power, though it's never used.'

'No, not in these soft times.'

'Prior Mortimus asked a few months ago whether the old cell still existed; he was talking of bringing it back into use for punishment. I told him so far as I knew it did. I haven't been here since an old servant showed it to me when I took over as infirmarian. I thought the door was sealed off.'

'Well, it wasn't. So Prior Mortimus asked about it, did he?'

'He did.' His voice hardened. 'I would have thought you would have approved, the vicar general seems to want our life to be hard and cruel as can be.'

I let a moment's silence fall between us. 'Be careful what you say before witnesses, Brother.'

'Yes. It is a world full of new marvels, where the king of England will hang a man for speaking words.' He made an effort to collect himself. 'I am sorry. But Master Shardlake, for all that yesterday we had a scholarly discussion about the new ways, there is a weight of fear and anxiety on everyone here. I only want to live in peace, Commissioner. We all do.'

'Not all, Brother. Someone could have come through this passage to the kitchen to kill Commissioner Singleton. It means they would not have needed a key to get to the kitchen. Yes, of course – that makes the kitchen the ideal place for someone to arrange to meet him, lie in wait and murder him.'

'Alice and I were up all that night tending old Brother James. No one could have come past us without being seen.'

I took his candle and held it up to his face. 'But you could have done it, Brother.'

'I swear by Our Lord's holy blood I did not,' he said passionately. 'I am a physician, my oath is to preserve life, not take it.'

'Who else knew of the passage? You said the prior spoke of it. When?'

He put a hand to his brow. 'He raised it at an obedentiaries' meeting. I was there, the abbot, Prior Mortimus, Brother Edwig and Brother Gabriel. Brother Jude the pittancer was there too and Brother Hugh the chamberlain. Prior Mortimus was talking as usual of how discipline needed to be stronger. He said he'd heard tell of an old monk's cell somewhere behind the infirmary. He was half-joking, I think.'

'Who else in the monastery might know of it?'

'New novices are told there is an old cell hidden in the precinct, to scare them, but I don't think anyone quite knew where it was. And I had forgotten till you mentioned it the day you came. I told you, I thought it locked up for years!'

'So people knew it existed. What about your friend, Brother Jerome?'

He spread his hands. 'What do you mean? He is not my friend.'

'I saw you helping him yesterday with his book, in service.'

Brother Guy shook his head. 'He is a brother in Christ, and a poor cripple. Has it come to such a pass that to aid a cripple turn the pages of his book becomes the basis of accusations? I had not thought you such a man, Master Shardlake.'

'I seek a murderer, Brother,' I said curtly. 'All the obedentiaries are under my watch, including you. So, anyone at that meeting could have had his memory stirred and decided to go ferreting for this passage.'

'I suppose so.'

I looked round the dank cell again. 'Let us go. This place makes my bones ache.'

We returned up the passage in silence. Brother Guy went out first, and I bent to retrieve my handkerchief. As I did so I saw something glimmering faintly in the candlelight. I scraped the stone flag carefully with a fingernail.

'What's that?' Mark asked.

I held my finger close. 'God's death, so that's what he was about,' I whispered. 'Yes, of course, the library.'

'What is it?'

'Later.' I wiped my hand carefully on my robe. 'Come on, my bones will freeze before I get to sit by a fire today.'

When we regained our room I dismissed Brother Guy, then stood warming my hands at the grate.

'God's nails, that place was cold.'

'It surprised me to hear Brother Guy speak against the vicar general.'

'He spoke against the king's policy, but he would have had to speak against his headship of the Church to commit treason. In the heat of the moment he just said what they all think.' I blew out my cheeks. 'No, I found a trail in there, but it leads to someone else.'

'To whom?'

I looked at him, pleased his sulks seemed to be forgotten.

'Later. Come, we must go to the pond before they start emptying it themselves. We need to see if anything else is in there.' We left the room, my mind racing.

We retraced our way through the orchard, to where a little crowd of servants stood by the fish pond, holding long poles. Prior Mortimus was with them. He turned to us.

'The stream's been diverted, Commissioner, and the water drained out. But we'll have to let it through again soon or it'll flood the land by the sump.'

I nodded. The pond was now a deep empty bowl, shards of ice embedded in the thick greyish-brown silt at the bottom. I called over to the servants.

'A shilling for the man who finds anything in there!'

Two servants came forward and hesitantly climbed down into the silt, probing with their poles. At length one of them called out and held something up. Two gold chalices.

'Orphan was supposed to have taken those,' the prior breathed.

I had hoped we might find the relic, but another ten minutes of searching revealed nothing beyond an old sandal. The servants climbed out again, and the man who had found the chalices passed them to me. I gave him his shilling and turned to find the prior looking at them.

'They're the ones, no doubt.' He let out a long breath. 'Commissioner, remember, if you find the man who killed that poor girl, give me some time alone with him.' He turned and walked off. I raised an eyebrow at Mark.

'Does he really feel for her death?' he asked.

'There is no end to the strange depths of the human heart. Come, we must go to the church.'