Dissolution

EPILOGUE

As I entered the monastery courtyard I saw the great bells had been taken from the church tower and now sat waiting to be melted down. They were in pieces, huge shards of ornamented metal piled in a heap. They would have been cut from the rings holding them to the roof and left to drop to the floor of the church. That would have made a mighty noise.

A little way off, next to a large mound of charcoal, a brick furnace had been erected. It was swallowing lead; a gang of men on the church roof were throwing down chunks and strips of it. More of the auditors' men, waiting below, fetched the lead and fed it into the fire.

Cromwell had been right; the crop of surrenders he had obtained early in the winter had persuaded the other monastic houses that resistance was hopeless and every day now came news of another monastery dissolved. Soon none would be left. All over England abbots were retiring on fat pensions, while the brethren went to take up secular parishes or retire on their own, thinner, stipends. There were tales of much chaos; at the inn in Scarnsea, where I was staying, I heard that when the monks left the monastery three months before, half a dozen who were too old or sick to move any further had taken rooms there and refused to leave when their money ran out; the constable and his men had had to put them on the road. They had included the fat monk with the ulcerated leg, and poor, stupid Septimus.

When King Henry learned of the events at St Donatus he had ordered that it be razed to the ground. Portinari, Cromwell's Italian engineer, who even now was demolishing Lewes Priory, was coming on to Scarnsea afterwards to take down the buildings. I had heard he was very skilled; at Lewes he had managed to undermine the foundations so the whole church came tumbling down at one go in great clouds of dust; they said in Scarnsea it had been a wonderful and terrible sight, and looked forward to seeing the spectacle repeated.

It had been a hard winter, and Portinari had been unable to get his men and equipment down to the Channel coast before spring came. They would be at Scarnsea in a week, but first the Augmentations officers had arrived to take away everything of value, down to the lead from the roof and the brass from the bells. It was an Augmentations man who met me at the gatehouse and checked my commission; Bugge and the other servants were long gone.

I had been surprised when Cromwell sent a letter ordering me to Scarnsea to supervise the process. I had heard little from him since making a brief visit to Westminster to discuss my report in December. He told me then that he had endured an uncomfortable half-hour with the king when Henry learned that mayhem and murder at a religious house had been kept from him for weeks, and that his new commissioner's assistant had absconded with the old commissioner's killer. Perhaps the king had boxed his chief minister's ears, as I had heard he was wont to do; at all events Cromwell's manner had been brusque and he dismissed me without thanks. His favour, I had taken it, was withdrawn.

Although I still held the formal title of commissioner I was not needed, the Augmentations officers were more than capable of carrying out the work, and I wondered whether Cromwell had thought to make me revisit the scene of those terrible experiences as a punishment for that uncomfortable half-hour of his. It would have been characteristic.

Justice Copynger, now the king's tenant of the former monastery lands, stood a little way off with another man, looking over plans. I approached him, passing a couple of Augmentations officers carrying armfuls of books from the library and heaping them up in the courtyard, ready for burning.

Copynger grasped my hand. 'Commissioner, how are you? We have better weather now than when you were last here.'

'Indeed. Spring is almost come, though that is a cold wind from the sea. How do you find the abbot's house?'

'I have settled in most happily. Abbot Fabian kept it in good repair. When the monastery is down I will have a fine view over the Channel.' He waved towards the monks' cemetery, where men were busy digging up the headstones. 'See, over there I am making a paddock for my horses; I bought the monks' whole stable at a good price.'

'I hope you have not put Augmentations men to that work, Sir Gilbert,' I said with a smile. Copynger had been ennobled at Christmas, touched on the shoulder by a sword held by the king himself; Cromwell needed loyal men in the shires more than ever now.

'No, no, those are my men, paid by me.' He gave me a haughty look. 'I was sorry you did not wish to stay with me while you are here.'

'This place has unhappy memories. I am better in the town, I hope you will understand.'

'Very well, sir, very well.' He nodded condescendingly. 'But you will dine with me later, I hope. I would like to show you the plans my surveyor here has drawn up; we are going to turn some of the monastery outhouses into sheep pens once the main buildings are down. That will be a spectacle, eh? Only a few days now.'

'It will indeed. If you will excuse me for now.' I bowed and left him, wrapping my coat around me against the wind.

I went through the door to the claustral buildings. Inside, the cloister walk was dirty and muddy from the passage of many booted feet. The auditor from Augmentations had set himself up in state in the refectory, where his men brought him a constant stream of plate and gilded statues, gold crosses and tapestries, copes and albs and even the monks' bedding – everything that might have value in the auction to be held in two days' time.

Master William Glench sat in a refectory stripped of its furnishings but filled with boxes and chests, his back to a roaring fire, discussing an entry in his great ledger with a scrivener. He was a tall, thin man with spectacles and a fussy manner; a whole raft of such people had been taken on at Augmentations over the winter. I introduced myself and Glench rose and bowed, after carefully marking the place in his book.

'You seem to have everything well organized,' I said.

He nodded portentously. 'Everything, sir, down to the very pots and pans in the kitchens.' His manner reminded me momentarily of Edwig; I suppressed a shudder.

'I see they are preparing to burn the books. Is that necessary? Might they not have some value?'

He shook his head firmly. 'No, sir. All the books are to be destroyed; they are instruments of papist worship. There's not one in honest English.'

I turned and opened a chest at random. It was full of ornamentation from the church. I lifted out a finely carved gold chalice. It was one of those Edwig had thrown into the fish pond after Orphan's body, to make people think her a runaway thief. I turned it over in my hands.

'Those are not to be sold,' Glench said. 'All the gold and silver is to go to the Tower mint for melting down. Sir Gilbert tried to buy some pieces. He says the ornamentation is fine and so it may be, but they're all baubles of papist ceremony. He should know better.'

'Yes,' I said, 'he should.' I put the chalice back.

Two men carried in a big wicker basket and the scrivener began unloading habits onto the table. 'These should have been cleaned,' the scrivener said crossly. 'They'd fetch more.'

I could sense Glench's impatience to be back at work. 'I will leave you,' I said. 'Make sure not to forget anything,' I added, taking a moment's pleasure in his affronted stare.

I crossed the cloister to the church, keeping a careful eye on the men scrambling over the roof; already fallen tiles lay dotted round the cloister square. Inside the church, light still streamed through the ornate stained-glass windows, still created a kaleidoscope of warm colours on the floor of the nave. But the walls and side chapels were bare now. The sound of hammering and voices echoed down from the roof. At the head of the nave the floor was broken, a mass of shattered tiles. It was the spot where Edwig had fallen and also where the bells would have landed when they had been cut from the roof. I looked up into the yawning empty space of the bell tower, remembering.

Going round the rood screen, I saw the lecterns and even the great organ had been removed. I shook my head and turned to leave.

Then I saw a cowled figure sitting in a corner of the choir stall, facing away from me. For a moment I felt a thrill of superstitious dread as I imagined Gabriel returned to mourn the ruin of his life's work. The figure turned and I almost cried out, for at first I could see no face under the hood, but then I made out the gaunt brown features of Brother Guy. He rose and bowed.

'Brother infirmarian,' I said, 'for a moment I thought you were a ghost.'

He smiled sadly. 'In a way I am.'

I approached and sat down, motioning him to join me. 'I am glad to see you,' he said. 'I wanted to thank you for my pension, Master Shardlake. I imagine it was you who saw I was given an increased allowance.'

'You were elected abbot, after all, when Abbot Fabian was declared incapable. You are entitled to a larger allowance, even if you only held the post a few weeks.'

'Prior Mortimus was not pleased when the brethren elected me over him. He has gone back to schoolmastering, you know, in Devon.'

'May God have mercy on his charges.'

'I wondered whether it was right to take the larger sum, when the brethren have to live on five pounds a year. But they would have been given no more had I refused. And with my face I will not have an easy time of it in the world. I think I will keep my monastic name of Guy of Malton rather than revert to my worldly surname of Elakbar – I am allowed to do that, even if "Brother" is forbidden?'

'Of course.'

'Do not look shamefaced, my friend – you are my friend, I think?'

I nodded. 'Yes, I am. Believe me, being sent back here now is no pleasure to me, I have no more wish to be a commissioner.' I shivered. 'It is cold.'

Guy nodded. 'Yes. I have sat here too long. I have been thinking of the monks who sat in these stalls every day for four hundred years, chanting and praying. The venal, the lazy, the devoted, those who were all those things. But –' he pointed up at the clanging, clattering roof '– it is hard to concentrate.'

As we looked upwards there came a loud hammer blow and a shower of dust. Lumps of plaster fell to the floor with a crash and suddenly daylight streamed in from a hole, a shaft of sunlight spearing to the floor. 'We're through, bullies,' a voice echoed from above. 'Careful there!'

Guy made a strange sound, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. I touched his arm. 'We should go. More plaster will be coming down.'

Outside in the courtyard his face was bleak but composed. Copynger nodded coldly to him as we began walking away towards the abbot's house.

'When the monks left at the end of November Sir Gilbert asked me to stay on,' Guy told me. 'He'd been put in charge of minding the place till Portinari could get here and he asked me to help. The fish pond flooded badly in January, you know; I was able to help him drain it.'

'It must have been hard, living alone here with everyone gone.'

'Not really, not until the Augmentations men came this week and started clearing the place. Somehow it felt, over the winter, as though the house was only waiting for the monks to come back.' He winced as a great chunk of lead crashed to the ground behind us.

'You hoped for a reprieve?'

He shrugged. 'One always hopes. Besides, I had nowhere to go. I have been waiting all this time to hear if I am to be allowed a permit to leave for France.'

'I might be able to help with that, if there is delay.'

He shook his head. 'No. I heard a week ago. I have been refused. There is talk of a new alliance between France and Spain against England, I believe. I had better see if I can exchange this habit for a doublet and hose. It will be strange after all these years. And grow my hair!' He lowered his hood and ran his hand over his bald crown. I saw the fringe of black hair was tinged with white now.

'What will you do?'

'I want to leave in the next few days. I could not bear to be here when they demolish the buildings. The whole town is coming; they are making a fair of it. How they must have hated us.' He sighed. 'I may go to London, where exotic faces are not so rare.'

'You could perhaps become a physician there? You have a degree from Louvain, after all.'

'But would the College of Physicians let me in? Or even the Guild of Apothecaries? A mud-coloured ex-monk?' He raised an eyebrow and smiled sadly.

'I have a client who is a physician. I could plead your cause.'

He hesitated, then smiled. 'Thank you. I would be grateful.'

'And I could help you find accommodation. I will give you my address before you leave. Call on me. Will you?'

'Might not associating with me be risky?'

'I will not work for Cromwell again. I will go back to private practice, live quietly, perhaps paint.'

'Be careful, Matthew.' He glanced over his shoulder. 'I am not sure it is wise even for you to be seen having an amicable talk with me, under Sir Gilbert's eyes.'

'Rot Copynger. I know enough never to do anything that breaks the law. And though I may not be the reformer I was, I am not turned papist either.'

'That does not protect people in these days.'

'Perhaps not. But if no one is safe, which indeed they are not, at least I can be unsafe minding my own business at home.'

We reached the abbot's house, now Copynger's. A gardener was carefully tending the roses, spreading horse dung round the bushes.

'Has Copynger rented much land?' I asked.

'A lot, yes, and at a low rent.'

'He has been lucky.'

'And you have no reward?'

'No. I got Cromwell his murderer, and his stolen gold, and this place surrendered; but not quickly enough.' I paused, remembering those who had died. 'No indeed, not quickly enough.'

'You did all any man could.'

'Perhaps. You know, I often think I might have seen to the depths of what Edwig was had I not disliked him so much, and therefore tried doubly hard to be fair, and certain. Even now I find it hard to realize that that man, so precise and orderly, was so wild and deranged underneath. I wonder if he used that order, that obsession with figures and money, as a way to keep himself under control. I wonder if he feared his dreams of blood.'

'I pray so.'

'But that obsession with figures only fed his madness in the end.' I sighed. 'Uncovering complicated truths is never easy.'

Guy nodded. 'It takes patience, courage, effort. If the truth is what you wish to find.'

'You know Jerome is dead?'

'No. I have had no news since he was taken away last November.'

'Cromwell had him put in Newgate gaol. Where his brethren were starved to death. He died soon after.'

'May God rest his tortured soul.' Brother Guy paused, looking at me hesitantly. 'Do you know what became of the hand of the Penitent Thief? They took it at the same time as Jerome.'

'No. I imagine the precious stones were taken out and the reliquary melted down. The hand itself will probably have been burned by now.'

'It was the Thief's hand, you know. The evidence is very strong.'

'Do you still think it could work miracles?'

He did not answer and we walked on in silence for a moment, into the monks' cemetery, where the men were lifting the stones. I saw that in the lay churchyard the family vaults had been broken up into piles of rubble.

'Tell me,' I said at length. 'What has become of Abbot Fabian? I know he was not allowed an abbot's pension as he did not sign the surrender.'

Guy shook his head sadly. 'His sister has taken him in. She is a seamstress in the town. He is no better. Some days he talks of going hunting or visiting with the local landowners and she has to prevent him setting off in the poor clothes that are all he has now, on their old nag. I have prescribed him some medicines, but they do no good. His wits are gone.'

'"How are the mighty fallen",' I quoted.

I realized that unconsciously I had been leading us towards the orchard; the rear wall of the monastery was visible ahead. I paused, a churning feeling in my stomach.

'Shall we go back?' Guy asked gently.

'No. Let us go on.'

We walked to the gate that led to the marsh. I had a set of keys and opened it. We passed through and stood looking out over the bleak landscape. The November flood had long since drained away and the marsh lay brown and silent, clumps of reeds waving quietly in the breeze, their image reflected in stagnant pools. The river was at full tide; seabirds bobbed on the waters, feathers ruffled by the wind from the sea.

I spoke quietly. 'They come to me in dreams, Mark and Alice. I see them struggling in the water, sinking down, crying for help. I wake up screaming sometimes.' My voice broke. 'In different ways I loved them both.'

Brother Guy looked at me for a long moment, then reached into his habit. He passed me a folded paper, much creased.

'I have thought hard about whether to show this to you. I wondered if it might hurt you less not to see.

'What is it?'

'It appeared on the desk in my dispensary a month ago. I came in from my duties and there it was. I think a smuggler bribed one of Copynger's men to leave it for me. It is from her, but written by him.'

I opened the letter and read, in Mark Poer's clear round hand:

I folded the letter and stood looking out over the estuary.

'They do not mention me at all.'

'It was from her to me. They were not to know I would see you again.'

'So they are alive and safe, pox on them. Perhaps now my dreams will stop. May I tell Mark's father? He was sore grieved. Just that I have secret word he is alive?'

'Of course.'

'She is right, there is nowhere safe in the world now, no thing certain. Sometimes I think of Brother Edwig and his madness, how he thought he could buy God's forgiveness for those murders with two panniers of stolen gold. Perhaps we are all a little mad. The Bible says God made man in his image but I think we make and remake him, in whatever image happens to suit our shifting needs. I wonder if he knows or cares. All is dissolving, Brother Guy, all is dissolution.'

We stood silent, watching the seabirds bobbing on the river, while behind us echoed the distant sound of crashing lead.