House of Shadows

ACT ONE

February 1196

‘We’ll get no further, Sir John,’ called the shipmaster from his place at the steering oar. ‘There’s not a breath of wind left and the fog’s thickening.’

Straining his eyes, John de Wolfe could just make out a low shore a few hundred yards away on the larboard side of the little cog Saint Radegund, but even that view came and went as greyish-yellow fog rolled in intermittent patches up the estuary of the Thames.

‘Where in God’s name are we, William?’ he shouted back to the bandy-legged sailor who commanded the vessel from the high stern.

‘Just off Woolwich, Crowner! As far as we’ll get on this flood tide with no wind. Unless I anchor now, we’ll drift back down with the ebb.’

John’s two companions heard the news with mixed feelings. Thomas de Peyne, the small priest who was the coroner’s clerk, was murmuring thanks to the Almighty for the flat calm that came with the fog, for this was the first day he had not been trying to turn his stomach inside out on the four-day voyage from Devon.

However, the coroner’s officer, Gwyn of Polruan, was irritated by their lack of progress, especially as until now they had had an exceptionally swift passage from Dawlish, a small port not far from Exeter. A brisk westerly wind had raced the ship along the south coast in record time, and when it conveniently changed to a north-easterly after they had rounded the butt end of Kent it pushed them up the estuary as far as Greenwich. Only then had it failed them, as the wind dropped and the fog rolled in. The tide carried them a few more miles, but now even that had deserted them.

Gwyn, a giant of a man with wild red hair and long moustaches of the same hue, looked up at the single sail, hanging damp and motionless from the yardarm.

‘If we want to get to Bermondsey by river, we’ll have to swim the rest of the bloody way!’ he growled. A former fisherman from Polruan in Cornwall, he claimed to be an authority on all things maritime, and he watched critically as one of the four-man crew, a lad of about fourteen, heaved the anchor over the bow – a stone weighing a hundredweight with a hole chiselled through it to take the cable.

Annoyed, his master, John de Wolfe, slapped the wooden rail that ran around the bulwarks. ‘We made such good time, compared with flogging up from Exeter by horse,’ he complained. ‘The justiciar said that time was of the essence and here we are, stuck only a few miles from the priory.’

Thomas stared through the murk at the dimly seen shore. ‘Is there no way we can continue by land, Crowner?’ he asked hesitantly.

Gwyn turned to look at the curragh lashed upside down on top of the vessel’s single hatch. It was a fragile cockleshell of tarred hide stretched over a light wooden frame, like an elongated coracle.

‘They could put us ashore in that, I suppose,’ he said rather dubiously.

The coroner shrugged and shouted at the master, William Watts. ‘How far is it to Bermondsey from here?’

‘About six or seven miles, Sir John, as the crow flies.’

‘We’re not bloody crows!’ grumbled Gwyn. ‘But I suppose we could get horses in that miserable-looking hamlet over there.’ He pointed to where a couple of shacks were fleetingly visible between the walls of yellow fog, then watched his master lope away across the deck to arrange their disembarkation.

The coroner was a forbidding figure in the wreathing mist, dressed in his habitual black and grey. As tall as Gwyn, he was lean and spare, with a slight stoop that gave him the appearance of a large bird of prey, especially with his hooked nose and jet-black hair that was swept back to his collar, unlike the close crops of most Norman knights. Gwyn had been his squire, companion and bodyguard for twenty years, in campaigns from Ireland to the Holy Land, where the Crowner’s taste in clothing and the stubble on his lean cheeks had earned him the nickname ‘Black John’.

Half an hour later, after a short but perilous voyage in the flimsy curragh, they were landed on a muddy beach and shouted farewell to the shipman who had paddled them ashore. As soon as he had returned to the Saint Radegund, the vessel up-anchored and drifted down on the tide to begin its journey to Flanders with a cargo of wool. John had used the voyage to get to London as quickly as possible, as on horseback it would have taken the better part of a week.

As their last link with home vanished into the fog, the three men trudged up the muddy foreshore, thankfully narrow at this state of the tide. At the top, they followed a track to the straggle of huts and a few larger dwellings that was Woolwich, looking even more dismal than usual in the moist gloom of a winter’s morning. The largest building was a single-storeyed erection of wattle and daub, the thatched roof tattered and moss-infested. However, over the doorway hung a withered bush, the universal sign of an inn, and after a quart of ale each the coroner negotiated the hire of three horses. Though the tavern-keeper was reluctant to allow his nags to leave the parish, the coroner waved a parchment scroll in front of him. None of them could read it, apart from Thomas de Peyne, but the royal seal dangling from it impressed the man sufficiently to agree to let them have the beasts.

They set off on the underfed rounseys, following a lad on a pony, who would show them the way to Bermondsey and bring the horses back again.

What they could see of the countryside, which was very little in the mist, looked bleak and barren, mudflats giving way to scrub-covered heath, rather than the forested dales they were used to in the West Country. As they plodded along, at half the speed of a decent horse, de Wolfe asked his clerk what kind of a place they were bound for. Thomas, always eager to share his vast store of knowledge about things religious and historical, was pleased to oblige.

‘The priory was founded over a century ago, master. It’s a daughter house of a Cluniac abbey, St Mary’s at La Charité-sur-Loire. Four monks came over from France to take advantage of a gift of land from a rich London merchant.’

Gwyn, whose blunt views on religion were well known to his companions, said that he didn’t give a damn who founded the place, as long as they kept a good kitchen and a comfortable guesthouse. For once, Thomas agreed with him in respect of their accommodation.

‘Thank God for a bed that won’t roll around for four hellish nights!’ he said fervently, crossing himself several times, in recollection of the misery he had suffered on the Saint Radegund.

They rode in silence for a while, the coroner contemplating the circumstances which had brought him so far from his home, wife and mistress. A week ago he was minding his own business as coroner in Exeter, dividing his time as usual between his chilly chamber in the gatehouse of Rougemont Castle, his house in Martin’s Lane and the taproom of the Bush Inn, where he enjoyed the company of his pretty mistress, Nesta.

Then one freezing morning a herald with the king’s insignia on his tabard arrived, guarded by two men-at-arms. He bore a parchment with the impressive seal of Hubert Walter, virtual regent of England now that Richard de Lionheart was permanently in France. As de Wolfe could read little more than his own name, Thomas de Peyne rapidly translated the Latin text, his eyes growing wider as they scanned the lines of manuscript.

‘The chief justiciar wants you to go to London, master!’ gabbled the little priest. Hubert Walter was not only Archbishop of Canterbury but was also the head of England’s legal system and effectively of its government. Impatiently, John de Wolfe waited for his clerk to deliver the rest of the message, with Gwyn peering over Thomas’s shoulder as if he could decipher the words himself.

‘He requires you to go with all speed to the priory at Bermondsey, to investigate the death of a ward of our lord the king. He gives you this Royal Commission as a temporary Coroner of the Verge, as the former coroner is laid low with the ague and is likely to die.’

John knew that the royal household had its own coroner, the ‘Verge’ being the area of jurisdiction radiating twelve miles around wherever the perambulating court happened to be.

‘Where the hell is Bermondsey?’ demanded Gwyn.

De Wolfe shrugged. ‘Somewhere in London, as far as I know.’

His clerk looked slightly aggrieved at their ignorance. ‘Bermondsey Priory is a famous house, on the south side of the Thames, just below King William’s White Tower on the opposite bank.’

The coroner was more concerned with his mission than with the geography. ‘Does Hubert not say what he wishes me to do?’ he demanded.

Thomas rapidly read to the end of the short message. ‘It seems that the circumstances of the death of this lady are suspicious, but the justiciar says that you will have the details when you arrive. He will be absent in Normandy, but the prior will acquaint you with the situation. The last sentence emphasizes the urgency of your arrival at the priory, in order to examine the corpse.’

‘God’s bones, she’ll be pretty ripe by the time we arrive!’ grunted the Cornishman. ‘That messenger must have been on the road for almost a week and it will take us another week to get there!’

As it turned out, the delay was somewhat less, as the herald had made a forced ride with numerous changes of horse and had covered the journey from London to Exeter in four days. Together with the fortunate voyage of the Saint Radegund, it was not much more than a week before they found themselves jogging into Bermondsey.

This was even less of a community than Woolwich, as it consisted mainly of the priory, with a few cottages sheltering under its walls. The surroundings were bleak, especially on this icy winter’s day, being a waste of marshes that ran along the Thames, which was about a quarter of a mile from the priory. The fog was thinner here and the coroner’s trio could see humps of reedy mud rising above a network of reens and ditches, as the great river had poorly defined edges that changed with the tides and the rainfall.

The priory was built on the first solid ground that rose slightly above the swamp, and as they rode towards the gatehouse de Wolfe could see that the walls formed a substantial rectangle of masonry, within which buildings could be seen, one of them a church. Though Gwyn was not impressed by his first sight of their destination, Thomas’s eyes lit up as he saw a new ecclesiastical establishment. He crossed himself vigorously and muttered some Latin prayers under his breath.

As far as the coroner was concerned, this was a new challenge to his professional reputation, as he had secretly been proud to have the summons from the justiciar, ahead of all the other county coroners in England. It was true that he had a special relationship with Hubert Walter – and indeed Richard Coeur de Lion himself – as he had been part of the king’s bodyguard in the Holy Land and had accompanied him on the ill-fated voyage home when he returned from the Third Crusade.

Still, to have been appointed coroner of the verge, even if only as a locum tenens, was an honour, for this unique post was responsible for the investigation of deaths, assaults, ravishments and fires that might involve the king, his court and anyone associated with that grand if cumbersome entourage.

With these thoughts in mind, he followed the lad on the pony to the gatehouse on the western side of the walls. It had a wide gate under a stone arch to admit wagons and a side gate for pedestrians. As soon as they dismounted and untied their sparse belongings from the saddles, the boy from Woolwich rapidly roped the horses into a line and vanished into the mist without a word, leaving the three men standing outside the forbidding oaken doors like orphans left outside a poorhouse.

De Wolfe strode to the small door and saw that alongside it there was a bell hanging from a bracket, with a cord dangling from the clapper. He rang it vigorously and a moment later a large man with a face like a bulldog appeared. He wore a faded cassock, and John, correctly taking him for a lay brother, dragged Thomas forward to explain who they were. Grudgingly, the porter motioned them in, and without a word slammed the door to the secular world behind them.

They found themselves in a wide outer court, the west end of the church forming the further end, with a cemetery visible over a low wall on their left. A line of buildings formed the right-hand side, and without a word the door-ward pointed to another gate about a third of the way down this stone façade.

The coroner’s team made their way to this inner entrance and saw a small wicket-gate in the centre. Stepping through, they entered a long inner court stretching down to the high boundary wall in the distance. On their left were more buildings, with several doors and a row of shuttered windows on the upper floor.

‘God be with you, brothers,’ came a voice from nearby. Turning, they saw that a small lodge lay inside the gate, from which a tubby monk now emerged. In his element, Thomas de Peyne advanced on him, inevitably making the sign of the cross, and greeted him in fluent Latin.

‘Why can’t they damned well talk English?’ grumbled Gwyn. ‘Then we’d know what they’re gabbling about!’

Thomas ferreted in his shoulder-bag and produced the scroll that had carried Hubert Walter’s commission to Exeter. He displayed the ornate red wax seal of the Archbishop of Canterbury and allowed the guardian of the inner gate to read the text. Suitably impressed, the ruddy-faced monk bobbed his head in deference to the king’s coroner and, to be on the safe side, to Gwyn as well. Then he said something to Thomas and trotted off towards a doorway in the nearest building.

‘That was Brother Maglo and he’s taking us to the prior, but first of all will show us where we will be accommodated,’ explained their clerk, delighted to be within a house of God once again. ‘This is the cellarer’s building and above it is the guesthouse.’

Inside, the ground floor appeared to be a series of storerooms with several small offices where monks were keeping lists and tallies of all the food, drink and supplies needed for the bodily health of the inhabitants, their spiritual health being dealt with deeper inside the priory. The whole place smelled of damp, mouldy grain and a hint of incense. As they reached the far end of the central corridor, their guide spoke in English for the first time, in a voice with a strong Breton accent.

‘Sirs, these are the stairs up to some of the guest-chambers and the dormitory. You will eat here, in this small refectory, as the kitchens are through there.’

Maglo pointed first into a large room at the foot of the staircase, then to a door in the end wall from behind which came a clashing of pots and pans. They climbed the bare stone stairs to the upper floor, where a long dormitory lay above the cellarium below. The first quarter was partitioned into four small rooms, two on each side, the rest of the attic being laid out with a dozen mattresses along the floor. A large crucifix hung over a door at the end.

‘That is the way down into the cloister and to the church,’ explained Brother Maglo. ‘You, Sir John, have this cubicle here. Your assistants will sleep in the first two beds of the common dormitory.’

Having firmly established the statuses of the new arrivals, the rotund Cluniac hurried back to his post, after a final word to explain that someone would soon come to escort them to the prior and afterwards see that they were fed and watered.

De Wolfe entered his cell, which had no door, and dropped his saddlebag on to the mattress, the only furniture in the room. His luggage contained little apart from two clean tunics, a couple of pairs of hose and several clean undershirts, all packed by his cook-maid Mary, as his surly wife Matilda was utterly bereft of any domestic skills.

A hairbrush and a specially sharpened knife for his weekly shaves completed his belongings – he suspected that Gwyn and Thomas had even less, though his clerk always carried his Vulgate and prayer book, together with writing materials. As a token of respect for a religious house, he unbuckled his sword belt and pulled the supporting baldric from his shoulder, then hung them on one of the pegs fixed to the wall, with his grey wolfskin riding cloak alongside it.

Going out into the main dormitory, he found that his assistants had dumped their meagre possessions into small cupboards that stood against the wall. Gwyn had opened the shutter of the nearest unglazed window and was peering out.

‘Bloody cold, Crowner, inside and out,’ he observed glumly. ‘The fog’s clearing but it looks like snow. At least the weather will keep the corpse all the fresher.’

De Wolfe and Thomas moved to his side and looked through the narrow slot in the thick stone wall. Below them was a narrow sloping roof of grey tiles, extending around a large square, with a patch of frosty grass occupying the centre.

‘This is the cloister walk, with the garth in the middle,’ observed Thomas. ‘That must be the chapterhouse and prior’s quarters opposite, with the dorter and frater over to the right.’ These last were the dormitory and refectory for the monks, the lay brothers and domestic servants eating elsewhere. The lofty church formed the side of the cloister to their left, blocking any view of the marshes and river to the north.

Their inspection was interrupted by a creak as the far door opened and another monk appeared in a long habit of Benedictine black which swept the ground. He was tall and thin, with a ring of sparse grey hair below his shaven pate. A mournful face reinforced John’s impression that Bermondsey Priory was not a very joyful establishment. He seemed to glide up the dormitory as if he was on wheels rather than on a pair of feet, and when he reached them he inclined his head in a faint greeting.

‘I am Brother Ignatius, the prior’s chaplain and secretary. I bid you welcome, though regrettably the reason for your visit is not felicitous.’

He addressed his opening speech to Thomas, whom he saw as a fellow priest, but it was the coroner who answered and gruffly introduced the trio.

Ignatius swivelled around on unseen feet and indicated the door through which he had entered. ‘I will conduct you to the prior, who is anxious to speak to you. Then no doubt you will be glad of some refreshment after your long journey.’

The others could almost hear Gwyn’s stomach rumbling at the prospect, for the outsize Cornishman needed to be refuelled every few hours and the last scratch meal on the Saint Radegund was poor fare by his standards. They followed the secretary through the door and down a narrow flight of steps to a dark vestibule with several doors.

‘That one leads into the nave of the church, should you wish to leave your beds to pray,’ said Ignatius. He pointed to one on his left but unlatched another door, which opened into the ambulatory walk around the cloister.

They walked along the flagstoned arcade, which opened between pillars to overlook the sparse lawn of the garth. At the other end of this side of the square, yet another door admitted them into a short corridor. It was noticeably warmer in here than the cellarer’s building or the dormitory, and the cynical Gwyn suspected that the head of the house made himself far more comfortable than his minions. Their guide waved a hand at several rooms on the left.

‘Those are various offices, including mine, but the prior’s parlour is up here.’ He turned into an alcove on the right, where a flight of wooden stairs led to the upper floor. The atmosphere got milder still as they ascended, and when they reached a square hall above it was positively warm, helped by the fact that a window in one wall actually had glass instead of a shutter, a rare luxury indeed. An open door in the opposite wall revealed a small chapel, which Thomas decided must be for the prior’s private use.

The thin monk tapped on another door and entered, reappearing a moment later to beckon them inside. The coroner strode in, determined to assert his royal authority from the start, as he had long experience of some churchmen, with their superior and often supercilious attitudes, coupled with a reluctance to cooperate with his investigations. However, it transpired that in Bermondsey Priory he need have no fears on that score, for Prior Robert Northam was only too anxious for any help he could get. He rose from behind his table and bowed his head courteously to the coroner.

‘I am glad to see that you have arrived safely, Sir John. Your reputation goes before you and I only hope that you can settle this distressing matter expeditiously.’

He had a mellow voice, but there was a strong undercurrent of anxiety in his tone. De Wolfe explained that his clerk and officer were indispensable to his work as coroner, and Robert Northam acknowledged them warmly. He was a stocky man of about fifty, with a bush of dark brown hair, which contrasted all the more with the baldness of his tonsure. His face was square and his features strong, deep lines being etched at each side of his mouth and across his forehead. Though the priory was a French foundation and many of its monks were from Normandy or further south, Northam was English. He had spent some years at the mother house on the Loire before being sent as prior to Bermondsey in 1189.

At a gesture from his superior, Brother Ignatius fetched a chair and placed it for the coroner on the opposite side of the table to the prior, who motioned for Gwyn and Thomas to sit on a bench near the fireplace, where a sea-coal fire threw out a comfortable glow across the chamber.

With his secretary standing dutifully beside him, Robert Northam sat down again and began explaining the situation to de Wolfe. ‘I do not know how much you know of this tragedy, Sir John. I doubt that Hubert Walter was very informative, knowing his nature.’

John nodded his agreement. ‘He told me virtually nothing, prior, other than that a ward of the king had been found dead and as the regular coroner of the verge was gravely ill I was to get here with all speed.’

Northam sighed and steepled his hands beneath his chin as he prepared to tell the story yet again.

‘This house is blessed – or possibly cursed – with a reputation for being a refuge or perhaps a lodging for ladies of high rank. Sometimes I think we should have been a hostel rather than a priory!’ He sounded more resigned than sarcastic, but John sensed a certain bitterness in his tone.

‘We are too conveniently placed for London, virtually within sight of the great city across the river. When the king, God bless him, or one of his high officers of state has a lady in need of protection or safe accommodation, they tend to get landed on us here. We seem to specialize in royal wards, of which there seems an endless supply!’ He folded his arms and leaned on his table, bending forward so that his dark eyes were fixed on de Wolfe.

‘A month ago we had a message from the Archbishop that yet another ward of King Richard was to be housed here, though thankfully Hubert Walter said it was only to be for a short period – in fact, until she was married in the great church of St Paul on the other bank.’

John felt it was time he broke into the monologue. ‘Was that an unusual request, prior?’

Northam turned up his hands. ‘It has happened before – we are within easy riding distance of both the abbey of Westminster and the city’s cathedral. This particular lady was from the midland shires and thus a more local domicile was needed for her to be prepared for the nuptials.’

John waited with more than his usual patience for the prior to continue.

‘The lady – or really girl, for she was not yet sixteen – arrived in mid-January, with her tirewomen and some of her guardians. She was Christina de Glanville, distantly related to Ranulf de Glanville, the renowned former justiciar of England, who died six years ago at the siege of Acre in the Holy Land.’

De Wolfe grunted. ‘I was there myself, as was my officer Gwyn. We well remember de Glanville and his tragic death.’

The prior rapped his table with his fingertips. ‘Then tragic death seems to run in the Glanville family, for two days before the wedding his great-niece was found dead in one of our cellars!’

‘Why was she a royal ward, prior?’ asked de Wolfe.

‘When she was a child, her mother died giving birth to a son, who would have been the heir except that the infant died as well. Christina was the only child of Sir William de Glanville – and to complete the tragic circle, he also died alongside his uncle while fighting the Mohammedans at Acre.’

‘Is the Glanville family not from Suffolk, sir?’ ventured Thomas from across the room.

Robert Northam nodded. ‘They are indeed – and the girl’s father left a very substantial estate there, as well as other property elsewhere. As there was no heir of the age of majority, it all escheated to the Crown on his death and his only surviving child was made a ward of King Richard.’

‘But presumably she was placed in the care of a guardian, unless she was sequestrated in some other religious house?’ suggested the coroner.

‘Indeed she was, Sir John. At first she was placed in the Gilbertine convent of Sempringham in Lincolnshire, being only ten years of age at the time of her father’s death. Then her uncle, her late mother’s brother, arranged for her to live with his family as a more congenial home for a young girl.’

‘Wasn’t that a long way from her own estates in Suffolk?’ asked John.

‘Her father had had several manors and mines in the shire of Derby as well,’ replied the prior.

Brother Ignatius diffidently murmured further details from alongside his superior’s chair. ‘The lands of Sir Roger Beaumont lay adjacent to the Glanville manors in Derbyshire, so it was convenient for him also to be appointed administrator of the escheated estate. The king agreed and Chancery drew up the deeds.’

De Wolfe, cynical fellow that he was, felt the first twitchings of suspicion when he heard this. ‘No doubt there was some financial advantage for him in this arrangement?’

The prior took up the tale again. ‘Roger Beaumont took half the income from the Glanville properties, the remainder going to the Exchequer on behalf of the king. It was reasoned that this was his due for sheltering Christina and the labour of running the very extensive estates, which were scattered over three counties.’

John suspected that the labour involved would have been deputed to a bevy of bailiffs and reeves and that Roger would need to do little other than to sit back and rake in the profits from the farming of sheep and cattle. If Derbyshire was included, quite probably there would be lead-mining and quarrying as well.

Thomas was wriggling a little on his bench, as his quick mind was looking further ahead. ‘Prior, what would have occurred when this young lady reached maturity?’

Northam looked across at the little priest with interest. He had already formed the opinion that here was a sharp fellow and this last question confirmed his view.

‘This is where motive rears its ugly head, I suppose. Whether Christina married or not, she would have recovered the ownership of her estates on reaching sixteen.’

Robert poured some wine for them before continuing.

‘Her father’s last will and testament plainly stated that when she came of age, she was to inherit the whole estate. The Curia Regis would no doubt have found a reliable steward to run the lands for her, though legally she would have been entitled to do what she wished with them. Of course, the king could have disregarded this and kept them for himself, but as both Glanville and his illustrious uncle had died fighting alongside the Lionheart at Acre, it would have been an unpopular act.’

De Wolfe thought that the prior was going to say ‘churlish act’, but he avoided this potentially seditious remark in time. Instead, John’s bushy black eyebrows rose a little as he questioned the priest again.

‘Sixteen? But she was about to be wed, so when would she have reached that age?’

Robert Northam sighed again, his worried features telling of the stressful time he had recently endured. ‘She was to be married at St Paul’s on her sixteenth birthday, coroner. And that would have been the day after she was found dead!’

There was a silence as the three visitors digested the significance of this news ‘Might we ask to whom she was betrothed?’ asked Thomas tentatively.

‘A young man called Jordan de Neville, again from a well-known family. He was about five years older than the girl, the third son of the Nevilles, a rising family from the north country – Durham, I believe. The match was sponsored by several members of the Curia Regis and Hubert Walter was himself keen on the union, at the direct behest of the king, so I understand. King Richard, in a rare burst of interest in English affairs, decided that Jordan de Neville would make Christina an ideal husband and incidentally bring his manors as a useful addition to the Glanville lands. There must have been some covert petitioning going on in Rouen that I was not aware of.’

‘And who inherits, now that she is dead?’ asked John bluntly.

The prior shrugged, holding his hands palm upwards, after the fashion he acquired in France. ‘It is not settled – but unless the king steps in to take the lot, Roger Beaumont has the best claim. He was Christina’s guardian and nearest relative, and has been administering the estate successfully for six years.’

Again the coroner’s index of cynicism rose another notch. A political marriage, drafted by the machinations of the court. He wondered what the prospective bride and groom thought of being pushed together by external pressures – the fact that it had happened to him sixteen years ago made his doubts all the stronger. Still, that aspect was none of his business and he returned to the duty that had brought him to Bermondsey.

‘I need to know something of the background of the people who were with the girl before she died. What possible motives can there be for her murder, for she was not yet sixteen?’

‘Many a child younger than she has been killed for less than is at stake in her case,’ answered Robert sadly. John downed the last of his wine and looked quizzically across at the prior.

‘So who could gain what from killing the poor girl?’ he demanded.

Robert Northam shrugged. ‘The obvious choice is Roger Beaumont. He had been sitting on a very handsome income for six years and had dug himself well into the administration of the Glanville lands. Now it would all be whipped away from him on the day of her marriage.’

‘Would her death make that much difference?’ asked de Wolfe. ‘The estates were not his, whatever happened.’

The prior gave a cynical chuckle. ‘Possession is a very potent persuader in the eyes of the law – and of King Richard. Much as we both admire and loyally serve him, we must admit that he has a great attraction for money. He said not long ago that he would sell London itself if he could find a rich enough buyer! With no heir apparent after the girl died, Roger Beaumont no doubt could expect to be offered her escheated estates at a bargain price, after looking after them for half a dozen years.’

De Wolfe nodded his understanding and got down to more immediate issues.

‘So how did the poor girl die, prior? What is it that requires the attentions of a coroner?’

Robert Northam took a deep breath and used his arms to brace himself against his table. John had the feeling that his preamble so far had been partly to delay having to recount the more distressing events.

‘On Tuesday morning of last week, one of the obidentiaries who assists the cellarer had occasion to visit the vault beneath the cellarer’s building in order to make an inventory of some goods or other. This was a frequent task, often undertaken daily. When this brother descended the stairs, he was shocked to find the body of a woman lying at their foot. He raised the alarm by seeking out the cellarer, Brother Daniel, who with several other monks and lay brothers rushed down to the crypt. The infirmarian was called, as he was most skilled in physic, but he found that she had been dead for some time.’

‘But why should there be any suspicion?’ persisted de Wolfe.

Robert shook his head sadly. ‘There were several factors, Sir John. Firstly, she was an honoured guest, a lady of high rank, and was to be wedded the next day, so what on earth was she doing in the cellarer’s storeroom?’

He wiped a kerchief over his worried face, as if he was sweating.

‘Furthermore, none of us could understand why she was lying face down, with her head almost touching the bottom step. If she had fallen down the stairs, how could she have ended up in that posture?’

He stopped and looked at John almost appealingly.

‘And it has to be said, coroner, that there had been some discord among the party that accompanied Christina. That cannot be overlooked!’

De Wolfe sensed that the prior was in the grip of some strong emotion, and a sixth sense told him that it was time to create some diversion.

‘Perhaps it would be best if we were to view the scene of this unfortunate happening,’ he said gruffly. In addition to the prior’s acute discomfiture, John could hear Gwyn’s stomach rumbling and felt it would be a good time to break off for some sustenance. Robert Northam took the hint and sent them away with his chaplain to meet the monk who was in charge of the guest accommodation. He was waiting outside the prior’s parlour, a younger man with a smooth olive face and jet-black hair which suggested his origins in the south of France or even further afield.

‘I am Brother Ferdinand and I will attend to your wants while you are staying with us,’ he announced in a low sibilant voice. ‘No doubt you wish to eat without further delay.’

He glided off in front of them and they retraced their steps through the cloister walk to the cellarer’s building and the refectory where guests and visitors were fed. It was a large, square room with a long table flanked by benches, capable of seating at least a dozen people. It was empty, and to Gwyn’s relief the lectern from which the Gospels were read aloud during regular mealtimes was unoccupied. Ferdinand invited them to be seated and went off to the nearby kitchen to organize their victuals.

‘Odd sort of place, this priory!’ rumbled Gwyn. ‘What the devil do they do here all day? It must take a mint of money to keep going.’

Thomas glared at him. ‘What do they do? They praise God, what d’ you think they do? And between times they meditate on life and heaven and earth.’

‘Bloody waste of time, I reckon,’ growled Gwyn. ‘At least in places like Buckfast Abbey back home, they breed thousands of sheep and cattle and till the soil and keep bees for honey and mead.’

The perennial argument between them over religion was cut short by the arrival of two lay brothers with aprons over their habits, one of them bearing pitchers of ale and cider. The second servant, an arthritic skeleton, stumbled in with a large tray, which he set on the table. Thick trenchers of stale bread carried slabs of fatty bacon surrounded by fried onions. A wooden platter of roasted chicken legs was accompanied by a dish of boiled beans, dried from last autumn’s crop. Another bowl contained hot frumenty, wheat boiled in milk and flavoured with cinnamon and sugar. The potman came back with a large wheaten loaf, a pat of butter and a slab of hard cheese on a wooden board. Pottery mugs appeared for the drink, then the two minions vanished back into the kitchen.

Conscious of their surroundings, Thomas stood and chanted a short Latin grace before sitting down to eat for the first time since he set foot on the ship in Dawlish.

‘When you have eaten, Brother Ignatius will return for you, Sir John,’ hissed Ferdinand before leaving them in peace to eat their fill.

‘Maybe this is not such a bad place after all!’ conceded Gwyn, eyeing the pile of food with relish.

His friend the clerk was not so enthusiastic. ‘Much as I enjoy being in another of God’s houses, there is something about this place that troubles me,’ he said, his peaky face looking about him uneasily.

‘You mean this eating chamber?’ said Gwyn through a mouthful of bacon.

‘No, the whole establishment. There is a feeling of anguish about it, somehow, which I can’t explain. It is not a happy place.’

‘The prior looked more than a little drawn,’ agreed de Wolfe. ‘But I suppose it is wearying to have the Chief Justiciar breathing down your neck after some favourite of the king is found dead!’

He tucked into his food enthusiastically as, like Gwyn, he had the old soldiers’ philosophy of always eating, sleeping and making love whenever the opportunity presented, in case it might be their last chance. By the time they had finished, it was mid-afternoon, calculated by the paling of the light seen through the solitary window opening, with its half-open shutter. The patch of sky was grey, and a cold breeze came into the unheated chamber.

‘Must be freezing outside,’ observed the coroner’s officer, wiping the last of the ale from his moustaches. ‘I wonder where they’ve left this cadaver for the past week or so?’

He was soon to find out, as the prior’s secretary returned at that moment and ushered them out into the corridor of the cellarium.

‘I would like to see the place where this unfortunate lady was discovered,’ said John, deciding that it was time for him to show his authority a little more strongly.

‘Then you have not far to go, Crowner,’ replied Ignatius smoothly.

He led them outside into the inner court, which they had entered an hour or two earlier, and walked along the wall of the building for a few yards. As Gwyn had prophesied, it was bitterly cold now, with a north wind whipping down towards them, a few flakes of snow twisting in its grip. Shivering, Thomas limped along in the rear, wishing he had not left his cloak in the dormitory. However, they were soon inside again, as Brother Ignatius opened another door and led them into a dark alcove. A tallow dip burned on a ledge and, feeling alongside it, the monk produced two candles, which he lit from the weak flame of the floating wick. Handing one to the coroner, he kept the other at shoulder height and cautiously advanced into the dark to pull the bolt back on another heavy door.

‘Be careful here, Sir John, or you’ll suffer the same fate as that young girl.’

When his eyes had grown accustomed to the poor light, de Wolfe saw a flight of stone steps going down into the Stygian blackness below. The chaplain preceded them and cautiously they trooped down the precipitous stairway, the stone walls of which were barely wide enough for Gwyn’s massive shoulders. Thomas, as inquisitive as ever, counted twenty treads from top to bottom, each two hands’ length deep, the angle being very steep. On the packed earth floor below, Ignatius had stopped and turned to face the bottom of the stairway, his candle held high.

‘This is where she was found, Crowner. Spread-eagled on the floor, face down and arms outstretched. Her head was about there!’ He placed the toe of his sandalled foot a few inches from the bottom step.

‘You saw her yourself?’ asked John. When the monk agreed that he had been one of the first to respond to the lay brother’s agitated call for help, the coroner dropped to a crouch at the spot. At first, Thomas thought a sudden urge to pray for Christina’s soul had overcome his master, but then he saw that de Wolfe was holding his candle close to the ground and was searching the damp floor where the body had lain. After a few moments he clambered to his feet.

‘Nothing to be seen there. I gather you saw no blood at the time?’ Ignatius shook his tonsured head. ‘None at all, sir. She looked as if she were asleep, what could be seen of her face. Her clothing and nether garments were not disarranged.’

He said this with a prim indifference that made John wonder if he had a deeper interest in a woman’s apparel than he wished to admit.

‘So where is the unfortunate lady now?’ he asked. ‘In the church, perhaps?’

The chaplain looked slightly offended this time. ‘Indeed not, Crowner! She has been dead these past twelve days. We could not have the corrupt remains where we must hold our many offices each day. She is here!’

He waved a hand into the deeper darkness behind him. Bemused, the trio followed cautiously into the gloom, the two wavering candles showing piles of kegs, crates and bales stacked on either side. Above them a vaulted stone roof was festooned with cobwebs, and an ominous rustling of rats could be heard from the corners. They passed through a wide arch into a similar store filled with old furniture, mattresses and discarded material, then another, similar arch led them into another large bay. This was an empty space with a blank wall opposite. Even de Wolfe, as insensitive a soul as could be found anywhere in England, felt a chill as he entered, a frisson that was not related to the temperature, which was the same in here as in the rest of the subterranean vault.

There was something about this third chamber that he did not care for – but a moment later he decided that he had found the reason. Around the corner of the arch, the flickering lights fell on a makeshift coffin, resting on a pair of trestles. It was a crude box made from rough planks, larger than the usual coffin. In the sudden silence that the sight engendered, there was an eerie sound, a steady drip, drip as water fell from the seams into a widening pool beneath the trestles. Thomas jerkily made the sign of the cross and then repeated it several times for good measure. There was something about this empty vault that deeply disturbed him, apart from the ominous sight of a coffin as its only furnishings.

The prior’s secretary seemed oblivious to any oppressive miasma and walked to the wooden box and peered in.

‘Not yet completely melted,’ he observed. ‘She is due for replenishment before evening.’

De Wolfe and Gwyn walked across to stand beside the monk and stared down into the coffin. A linen sheet covering a still figure was soaked with water oozing from shards of melting ice spread over the corpse beneath.

‘Twice a day, two of the servants fetch a barrowful from the frozen pools on the nearby marshes,’ explained Ignatius. ‘It is fortunate that this tragedy occurred in the depths of winter, or your task would have been much more unpleasant.’ He seemed to revel in the prospect and John began to dislike him.

‘We need more light than this,’ he said gruffly.

‘There are candles on a shelf near the foot of the stairs,’ said the chaplain. Immediately, Thomas volunteered to fetch them. He felt an overwhelming desire to get out of this chamber – and though he was still not fully hardened to the sight of violent death that was the coroner’s business, his present unease seemed unrelated to the presence of a cadaver. He borrowed his master’s candle and went off, taking his time in finding the spares, before reluctantly coming back with three more lit in his hands.

In the improved illumination, John de Wolfe and Gwyn went to work. Though they had developed a routine for examining the dead, this was the first time they had had to operate under these strange circumstances, in the semi-darkness and with numb fingers. Gwyn peeled off the sheet that shrouded the body, to an accompaniment of splashes of icy water and the tinkling of innumerable fragments of thin ice. A young woman was revealed, dressed in a plain nightgown of cream linen, all soaked with freezing water. Her long hair was black, but stuck in wet strands to her face and neck.

‘We’ll have to get her out, Crowner. We can’t look at her properly like this,’ grunted the Cornishman. ‘Shall I lift her on to the floor?’

They spread the linen sheet on the ground and Gwyn lifted the girl with surprising gentleness and laid her on it, her arms by her sides.

The four men stood and looked down on the mortal remains of the young woman. In the dim light she looked as if she was asleep. The effect of the ice had been to blanch her features, so that her cheeks, forehead and chin looked parchment-white, especially by contrast with her dark hair. The eyes were closed, and for some reason she did not look pathetic in spite of the tragedy of a young life snuffed out a day before her wedding. There was even the hint of a smile on her pallid lips, as if she was amused at the havoc she was causing to the monastic community at Bermondsey.

Brother Ignatius was holding his candle in front of his chest, and when John happened to glance at him the light threw his face into sharp relief. The coroner was momentarily startled to see what looked almost like the mask of a devil, with an expression of loathing amounting to hatred as the monk stared down at the girl on the floor. De Wolfe blinked in surprise and a moment later the image had passed, leaving him to wonder if he had imagined it.

‘Are we going to take a look at her, Crowner?’

Gwyn’s down-to-earth voice brought John back to reality as he heard the doubt in his officer’s tone. This was a high-born young lady, and it was unseemly to make any extensive examination, especially with no woman available to act as a chaperone. At home in Exeter, if any intimate examination was required, especially in suspected rape or miscarriage, he usually called on the services of Dame Madge, a formidable nun from Polsloe Priory, who specialized in the ailments of women.

‘We’ll confine it to her head and hands for now. If necessary, we can find a woman to help us later.’ De Wolfe squatted on one side of the corpse, with Gwyn on the other, a routine they had carried out innumerable times in the past eighteen months since he had been appointed coroner. He gently lifted her eyelids and looked at the whites of the flaccid globes, now collapsed so long after death. ‘No blood spots there, no marks on her neck, so she’s not been throttled. The windows of her eyes are clouded over after ten days, ice or no ice.’

His long, bony fingers then explored her hair, feeling the scalp underneath.

‘Lift her a little, Gwyn,’ he commanded, and his hands slid under the back of her head. ‘Ha, what have we here?’ he exclaimed. ‘Pull the lady right up, will you?’

His officer lifted Christina by the shoulders until she was in a sitting position, her head lolling loosely to one side. The coroner steadied it and let her chin sink to her chest as he felt around the top of her head and then down to the nape of her neck, all covered in the wet, dark hair.

‘A boggy swelling, almost on top of her skull,’ he announced in a low voice. ‘I can feel the bone cracked beneath it.’

Gwyn repeated the palpation, to confirm what his master had said. ‘And her neck must have gone, too, Crowner. Her head wobbles like a bladder on a stick!’ He was likening it to the child’s toy, an inflated pig’s bladder tied to the end of a twig.

John felt it for himself, flopping the head back and forth in his hands, then motioned to Gwyn to set the cadaver back on the ground. He looked at her hands and arms, visible up to the elbows when he pushed up the wide sleeves of her gown. There was nothing to be seen, and he risked a look at her legs, lifting the skirts as far as her knees, again confirming that there were no visible injuries.

As Gwyn carefully rearranged her clothing, de Wolfe stood up and contemplated the dead girl lying on the floor in the flickering candlelight. It was Brother Ignatius who first broke the strained silence.

‘From what you said, sir, I understand that she has suffered an injury to her head. This is what our infirmarian suspected.’ His tone suggested that he thought it a long and unnecessary journey from distant Devon to confirm what they already knew.

‘She has indeed, brother. And her neck is broken.’

‘But this is surely what would be expected in a fall down those treacherous stairs?’ persisted the monk.

‘We shall see,’ replied de Wolfe enigmatically. ‘Meanwhile, we must place her back in the ice. I will suggest to your prior that arrangements for burial be begun without delay. In spite of the cold, my nose tells me that we cannot arrest the normal course of events much longer.’

Gwyn lifted the body as if it were a feather and placed it back in the icy slush, which was dripping ever faster through the poor seams of the box. He gently covered her with the linen sheet and stepped back, as Thomas murmured a funereal litany in Latin.

‘Where will she be buried?’ asked Gwyn. ‘Will they put her here in that graveyard we saw when we arrived or take her home to this Derby place?’

There was a low mumble from the chaplain, which John could not catch, but Thomas’s sharp ears picked it up, much to his surprise.

‘What did you say?’ asked John sharply.

Ignatius shook his head. ‘I do not know where, Crowner. I expect the prior will have to consult her guardian before a decision can be made.’

‘Well, you had better hurry up about it,’ advised de Wolfe. ‘And keep using that ice for as long as she’s here.’

They left the crypt-like basement with a feeling of relief, Thomas looking almost fearfully over his shoulder as they made their way back through the barrels and boxes stacked in the rest of the cellar. It seemed warmer – or, rather, less cold – in that area than in the further chamber, where the oppressive atmosphere seemed to bite at the skin and lungs.

On the way out, John stopped to look again at the area around the foot of the stairs. He tapped the earth with his foot, then scraped at the moist soil with the toe of his riding boot. Looking up, the steep staircase was dimly lit by the tallow dip at the top, revealing the narrow passage between the walls of grey stone and the regular blocks of the same granite that formed the treads.

He made no comment and led the way up to the door that opened into the courtyard. The snow was now coming down more thickly, though none had yet settled on the ground, and again Thomas shivered, this time from the undoubted cold that permeated his thin body to his very bones.

As the chaplain closed the door, he noticed the clerk shudder and took pity on him. ‘There is a warming room at the side of the dorter, where a fire is kept going between November and Good Friday. You are welcome to sit there at any time in this inclement weather.’

Thankfully, they took up the invitation and found the room sandwiched between the frater and the dorter, which joined at right-angles. Other than the prior’s quarters and the kitchens, it was the only place in the priory that was ever heated. There was a chimneyed hearth with a large log fire and a charcoal brazier sitting on a stone slab at the other side of the chamber. There were a number of benches around the walls and several hooded settles, whose wooden sides kept off some of the draught. Two older monks were fast asleep in a couple of these and several more were reading or dozing on the benches.

‘If you wait here for a while until the chill leaves you, I will send down when the prior is able to receive you again, Sir John,’ promised Ignatius before he glided silently away.

‘I can’t take to that fellow, somehow,’ rumbled Gwyn, as they found themselves a bench to one side of the hearth, out of earshot of the nearest Cluniacs. ‘Not that I’m all that partial to anyone in holy orders!’ he added with a meaningful dig in Thomas’s ribs.

For once, the clerk failed to rise to the bait, as he leaned nearer to de Wolfe to whisper in a conspiratorial undertone. ‘Crowner, did you catch what he said in the crypt, when you asked where the girl was to be buried?’

‘I know he muttered something, but I couldn’t make it out,’ said John.

‘He said, “It should be at a crossroads, with a stake through her heart”!’

‘I said he was a nasty bastard!’ growled Gwyn, as de Wolfe digested this peculiar piece of information.

‘I saw his face at that moment too,’ he said slowly. ‘There is something very wrong in this place, so keep your eyes and ears open and your mouths shut!’

‘I trust you are refreshed after your long journey, Sir John,’ said Robert Northam courteously, rising from behind his table to greet the coroner. ‘I also understand that you have visited the scene of this tragedy and…’ He hesitated, at a loss how to phrase his question.

De Wolfe helped him out without any finesse. ‘Yes, prior, I have also examined the corpse.’

The priest sank on to his chair. ‘I see you have not brought your two assistants with you?’

‘No, I must speak to you alone.’ He looked meaningfully at Ignatius, who was standing in his usual protective position alongside Northam.

‘You may speak freely in front of my secretary, Crowner. He is also my chaplain and my confessor.’

John shook his head firmly. ‘Some things must be held in total confidence,’ he said. ‘I have strict instructions from the chief justiciar to that effect.’

This was untrue, but he was quite prepared to lie when he considered it justified. The prior looked surprised but waved at Ignatius, who reluctantly left the chamber and closed the door. John wondered if he was outside, pressing his ear to the panels.

‘You have something to tell me?’ asked Northam anxiously as de Wolfe sat in the chair he had occupied previously.

‘Christina de Glanville was murdered,’ he said bluntly. ‘Your own instincts were correct. She did not fall down those stairs, alive or dead!’

Robert’s fingers played agitatedly with the bronze crucifix hanging from a chain around his neck. ‘I suspected as much. But how can you be so certain?’

‘As you told me, the fact that her head was near the bottom step and that she was face down makes it a near impossibility for a fall downstairs. If she had pitched forwards, the likelihood would be for her feet to be nearest the step. It would be just possible for her to land on her head and somersault over, but then she would almost certainly land face up.’

The prior frowned. ‘Is “almost certainly” enough?’ he asked.

‘There is more,’ growled de Wolfe. ‘She had a severe injury to the top of the back of her head, which had fractured her skull. Again, it is just possible, though unlikely, that she could land on the back of her head from a fall, but she would have had to twist in mid-air to achieve that. The stairway was so narrow that was almost impossible, and she would have struck the floor with her face first.’

The prior was following this with quick nods of his head.

‘Furthermore, her neck was broken,’ went on de Wolfe. ‘But it was snapped in a backward direction, which is impossible from a heavy fall on the back of the head, which would have forced the chin downwards. The break occurred in the opposite direction, by the head being pulled backwards.’

There was a pregnant silence. ‘You are absolutely sure of this?’ asked Northam, almost in a whisper.

‘She had not a single bruise nor scrape on her legs and arms,’ persisted John. ‘For someone to fall down twenty unyielding granite steps with sufficient force to crack the skull and break the neck, without striking their limbs on the edges, is beyond belief!’

The prior gave a deep sigh of resignation. ‘So what do you surmise happened, Crowner?’

‘Someone struck her a heavy blow on the back of the head with some object. It must have been flat not to rip the skin, but heavy enough to shatter the bone. She would have lost her wits instantly, then the assailant gave her the coup de grâce by breaking her neck.’

‘How is that possible?’ wailed Robert Northam.

John shrugged. ‘Quite easily. I have seen it done in the mêlée of combat. One hand cupped under the chin, the other on the nape of the neck – then a quick jerk backwards.’

The prior shuddered. ‘We must be looking for a brute with great strength, surely?’

The coroner shook his head, his jet-black hair bouncing over the collar of his grey tunic. ‘Not at all. Any determined man could do it – or woman, for that matter!’

The prior crossed himself in horror, reminding John of his clerk’s habit. ‘God preserve us from that! There were several ladies about the poor girl, but none of them could possibly be involved.’

‘Who exactly were those ladies?’ demanded the coroner.

‘There was Margaret de Courtenay, who was to be the maid of honour at the wedding. She was a friend of Lady Christina, from the time they were in Sempringham together, so I understand.’

John could feel that Robert Northam was trying to distance himself as much as possible from any close acquaintance with the dramatis personae in this tragic drama.

‘Then there was Lady Avisa, who was virtually the mother of Christina, being the wife of her guardian, Roger Beaumont, together with their daughter, Eleanor. And, of course, there were various handmaidens and tirewomen who attended the three ladies,’ he added dismissively.

‘Were they all staying here at the priory?’

‘They were indeed, as we have ample accommodation since we became so popular with the king and his ministers as a place to safely house their guests in London.’ The prior sounded a little cynical at this demotion of his monastic retreat to an aristocratic lodging-house.

‘Where would they stay exactly?’ asked de Wolfe.

‘Sir Roger Beaumont and his wife had a parlour and bedroom next to the inner gate, while Christina de Glanville and her bridesmaid Margaret de Courtenay were lodged in a pair of guest-rooms near where you are placed, Crowner. It is at the top of the stairs, but opposite the dormitory, through a locked door.’

‘What about their personal servants?’

‘They slept on pallets either in a corner of the same room or in an antechamber, in the case of the Beaumonts.’

John turned this over in his mind for a moment. ‘The bridegroom-to-be, this Jordan de Neville – was he here at any stage?’

‘Certainly. He visited almost every day for the week that the party was here. He spent several nights in the guest dormitory, where you yourself are lodged, but did not stay for the few nights before the wedding, as I gather it is unseemly for a groom to be with his bride immediately before the ceremony.’

He hesitated, as if doubtful whether to continue, then plunged on. ‘However, he was here the night that Christina was last seen. Then he rode back with his squire to Southwark late at night, where he was lodged at an inn.’

John rose to his feet and thanked the prior for his time and patience. ‘I will have to see everyone concerned before I can hold an inquest. In the circumstances of the long delay that was inevitable for me to get here from Devon, I will not demand the usual requirement that the corpse be viewed during the inquest. In fact, I do not know if the Coroner of the Verge is obliged to adhere to all the usual rules of procedure for common cases.’

Robert Northam stood to see de Wolfe to the door, and as John reached it he turned before Northam could lift the latch. ‘One matter occurs to me, prior. Is there anything I should know about your chaplain?’

The priest stared at him, not understanding his meaning. ‘Brother Ignatius? In what regard?’

‘Does he have any strong opinions about certain matters? Any obsessions, for instance?’ John felt awkward about asking such questions, but he felt it had to be done.

Robert Northam cleared his throat self-consciously. ‘He tends to take a very literal view of the Scriptures. One might say that he holds a rather extreme view of certain religious precepts.’ The prior’s tone indicated that he was not going to be more forthcoming than this about his secretary.

‘Do you know what his relations with the dead girl might have been?’

The prior looked somewhat offended. ‘Relations? There were no relations. She was a guest in the priory, as there have been very many others.’

De Wolfe recognized that Northam was being deliberately evasive, but he felt that this was not the time to pursue the issue. After speaking to other witnesses he might return to it, but for now he was content to take his leave. Outside, Ignatius was ostentatiously standing in the entrance to the small chapel, well away from the door. As he escorted the coroner back to the warming room, John took the opportunity to probe his attitude to the dead girl.

‘What did you think of Christina de Glanville?’ he asked.

‘I had very little to do with her, sir. The guests are housed in the outer part of the priory and my duties are with the prior and in the church.’

‘But you must have met the young lady a number of times! She presumably attended services at least once a day?’

The chaplain shook his head. ‘No females attend the Holy Offices in our church. It would be against all the tenets of our order.’

‘But surely she must have gone to Mass with her friends and guardians?

Brother Ignatius grudgingly admitted that the prior had offered his private chapel for that purpose. ‘I administered the Sacrament to her several times, as part of my duties to the group that she was with. But I knew nothing about her personally and have no opinion about her character.’

John’s long experience of interrogating witnesses told him that the secretary was holding something back, but the stubborn set of his mouth told him that, like the prior, he would get no further today.

That evening they ate well in the guest refectory, being joined by half a score of pilgrims from the Welsh marches. A large proportion of Bermondsey’s casual lodgers were pilgrims, either going to or returning from the new shrine to St Thomas at Canterbury, though some were going further afield, a few even to Rome or Santiago de Compostella. They were a cheerful lot and in spite of the cold turned an otherwise sombre meal into a pleasant evening, as they had some wineskins of their own to supplement the ale and cider supplied by the priory.

When the drinks had been consumed, everyone clambered up to the dormitory and wrapped themselves in every garment they possessed, as well as in the one blanket provided to each of them by Brother Ferdinand, then curled up on their palliasses and tried to ignore the east wind that moaned through the shutters, carrying in an occasional flake of snow.

The next day de Wolfe found the confinement of the priory oppressive. Though Thomas insisted on attending most of the frequent offices in the church, John borrowed a pair of horses from the stables and took Gwyn for a ride into the surrounding countryside, such as it was, being so close to London. They rode towards the city and reached Southwark to look again at London Bridge, which they had crossed less than a couple of months ago, when they came from Exeter to visit Hubert Walter. This time they stayed on the south bank and visited a nearby tavern for some food and ale, before turning back into the flat heathland, dotted with a few manors with their strip-fields, barren at this time of year.

Today there was a dank mist rather than a dense fog, and when they reached Bermondsey the priory loomed eerily though the haze, like a grey fortress perched on the edge of the bog that stretched down to the river. As the porter let them in, even the unimaginative de Wolfe gave a shiver that was not altogether due to the biting cold. At noon they ate again in the guests’ refectory, now empty of the boisterous pilgrims who had gone on their way to Canterbury. In the warming room afterwards, Thomas timidly asked his master how they were going to proceed with the investigation.

‘The prior says that today all these people who were with Christina will be here to attend the funeral tomorrow,’ replied John.

That morning he had asked Robert Northam about the disposal of the body and had been told that the Beaumonts had already requested that Christina be interred in the priory cemetery, as ten days after death it was already impracticable to take the remains back to Derbyshire.

‘I will question them all in turn and try to get some sense of their feelings for the victim and where they were the night on which she was killed,’ he grimly told his clerk. ‘And today I’m going to twist a few arms in this place, see if I can squeeze some information from the Cluniacs.’

Knowing of Gwyn’s fondness for kitchens, he told the big Cornishman to haunt the servants’ domain and see if any useful gossip could be gleaned. The more menial tasks in a religious house like Bermondsey were carried out both by lay brothers, who, though they had taken no vows, wore the habit and the tonsure, as well as by ordinary servants, who either lived in the priory or came in daily from nearby cottages. Gwyn, an amiable but cunning fellow, was adept at befriending these lower ranks of society and could be trusted to ferret out any local scandals.

Thomas de Peyne had a similar gift, but one that worked best on clerks and priests like himself. Though now restored to grace as a priest, he had spent three years in the purgatory of being unfrocked, after a false accusation of indecent behaviour with a girl pupil in the cathedral school at Winchester. Before being reinstated, he had on a number of occasions helped the coroner by masquerading as a priest to worm his way into the confidence of various ecclesiastics. John now sent him on a similar expedition around the priory, a task in which Thomas revelled, as it allowed him to steep himself in the atmosphere and rituals of a religious house. He made first for the church, to attend vespers, then paraded around the cloister, talking to some of the monks as they perambulated around the garth.

Meanwhile, de Wolfe went to the dormitory and sought out Brother Ferdinand and made several requests, the first of which was a room in which to interview witnesses, and the second a view of the chambers in which Christina de Glanville had been lodged. The olive-complexioned monk took him along from the cubicle where John slept, to the head of the stairs and, with a key selected from a large ring hanging on his girdle, opened a door on the other side of the upper landing.

‘This is where she resided, together with her friend Margaret and their two maids,’ he said in Norman-French that carried a tinge of an accent that John guessed was the Langue d’Oc of southern France. He stood aside to let the coroner into a short corridor with two doors. Each opened into a vestibule that had a mattress, which opened into a larger room with better furnishings, the palliasses being raised on low plinths, with several tables and some leather-backed folding chairs, as well as tall cupboards for clothing.

‘This first one was where Lady Christina stayed and in the next was her friend, Mistress Courtenay. Their tirewomen slept in the outer part,’ added Ferdinand somewhat needlessly. ‘All the more important guests ate in a separate dining room near the inner gate, where further accommodation is situated.’

De Wolfe looked around the rooms and saw no signs of occupation. ‘What happened to her possessions, her clothing and personal effects?’

‘Her guardians, the Beaumonts, took everything last week. They are lodged near Bishopsgate, I understand, but I had a message from the prior’s secretary this morning to say that they are returning here tonight, ready for the funeral tomorrow.’

Ferdinand ushered de Wolfe out and locked up, then took him down to the ground floor of the cellarer’s building, where one of the small offices next to the guests’ refectory was given to him for an interview room. A bare cell with a shuttered window-opening, it had a table, a bench and two hard chairs.

‘I will see that a charcoal brazier is brought in when you need to use this, Sir John,’ offered the monk and made as if to leave the coroner to his own devices.

‘Wait a moment,’ commanded de Wolfe. ‘I need to speak to everyone who was in contact with the dead girl, and that includes you.’

Ferdinand stopped and slowly returned to the centre of the room. ‘There is little I can tell you, sir,’ he said quietly, the dark eyes in his almond-shaped face searching the forbidding features of the coroner.

‘Did she seem happy and excited at the prospect of her wedding? To most young women, this would be the most important day of her life.’

The monk remained impassive. ‘I really cannot say, coroner. She did not appear to be effusive over it, but I had little chance to observe her.’

‘When did you last see her?’

‘At the evening meal on that day. I usually look in on the small dining room set aside for special guests to check that all is well. The whole party was there, eating and drinking, including Lady Christina.’

‘Was Jordan de Neville there?’

‘He was. He ate his supper and later went back to Southwark with his squire.’

De Wolfe was hard put to think of any more questions for this silent man, but he tried a new tack. ‘Tell me, does Brother Ignatius have any peculiarities, so to speak? An unwelcome comment fell from his lips in the basement when we were examining the corpse.’

John expected another stonewall denial, but surprisingly Ferdinand’s impassive face creased into a smile.

‘Ah, you mean his strange obsession?’ he asked. ‘My fellow monk is something of a mystic. He regularly sees devils, angels and witches, though he is harmless enough and is an excellent support for our good prior.’

The coroner scowled at this rather dismissive opinion about a weird streak in the chaplain. ‘What does that have to do with the dead lady?’ he demanded.

Ferdinand spread out his hands, palms upwards. ‘He was convinced that she was a witch, sir! He claimed that she was left-handed, had a fondness for the storeroom cats and had long lobes to her ears or some such nonsense. He often made strange claims about visitors – and even our own inmates. He was convinced that our lay brother who used to tend the pigs was a reincarnation of Pontius Pilate!’

‘What happened to him?’ growled de Wolfe.

‘He drowned in the marshes outside last year,’ replied Ferdinand blandly.

Further questions produced nothing of use and the monk departed, leaving John sitting in irritable frustration at his table. A servant brought in an iron brazier in which charcoal glowed dully, sending a moderate heat into the room, together with some acrid fumes. In spite of the warmth, John felt chilled and, though of an unimaginative nature, he realized that where he sat was just above where the corpse of Christina de Glanville lay in her box of ice. Eventually he rose and, with an illogical feeling of relief, left the room and went across the cloister to the prior’s house, where he found Ignatius in his little office, busy writing on a scroll of parchment. He stood over the secretary and spoke without any preamble.

‘I understand that you had certain convictions about Lady Christina. Is that true?’

The lean monk stared up at him, a sullen expression on his face. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Sir John,’ he answered gruffly.

‘You thought she was a witch,’ snapped the coroner. ‘Did you do her any harm?’

Ignatius jumped up, his sallow cheeks suddenly flushed. ‘She was an acolyte of He with the Cloven Hooves!’ he brayed. ‘But I did nothing to her; it was not my place. God will settle all such matters on the Day of Judgement!’

‘Are you sure that you didn’t give Him a helping hand?’ suggested John, thrusting his menacing face closer to the monk’s. ‘Where were you late on the night when she went missing?’

Ignatius looked around him wildly, as if hoping the prior would appear to save him from this avenging angel, though de Wolfe looked more like a clovenhoofed acolyte at the moment.

‘My opinions about certain persons go no further than speculation and prayer, Crowner! I had no hand in her death. Why should I?’

De Wolfe recalled a situation in Exeter some months earlier and a phrase from the Scriptures came to his mind. ‘Does not the Vulgate say “thou shall not suffer a witch to live”?’ he snarled.

Ignatius paled and stuttered a reply: ‘The Book of Exodus does, yes – but I had no authority to intervene. I have detected a number of imps and devils and witches over the years, but it is not my place to banish them.’

A door opened across the passage and the prior’s voice called out for his secretary. John did not wish to expose Ignatius to any trouble, in case his protestations of innocence were true, and went out to speak to Robert Northam.

‘When your former guests return tonight, I need to speak to all of them as a matter of some urgency. I have been provided with a room in the cellarer’s building and would be grateful if you could ask them to attend upon me there.’

The prior nodded and motioned for John to enter his chamber, where the coroner had more questions. ‘I have heard rumours that not everyone was overjoyed at the prospect of this marriage. Have you any knowledge of this, prior?’

Northam sighed and tapped his fingers restlessly on his table. ‘You will no doubt find out when you talk to them, though it may take some prising from their lips,’ he said. ‘Firstly, Roger Beaumont has a daughter, Eleanor, by his first wife, now dead. She had set her cap at Jordan de Neville, and the king’s insistence on him marrying Christina was by no means welcome to her – nor I suspect to her father and stepmother.’

‘Because of the loss of their exploitation of the Glanville estates when Christina delivered them to her new husband?’ queried John.

‘That and the fact that, instead, Eleanor might have married into the Neville family, who are rising stars in the nobility, with extensive lands in the north.’

The prior seemed to have no more gossip about his guests, and John wondered where a senior man of the cloth had unearthed this titbit about Eleanor Beaumont. He suspected that his chaplain-secretary was the channel for such hearsay.

Leaving Robert Northam’s quarters, he went back to the warming room, as he wished to spend as little time as possible in the dank, inimical chamber above Christina’s corpse. He sat there for some time and eventually dozed off, joining two old monks who were snoring their way through the afternoon. The return of Gwyn and Thomas woke him up, and they thankfully warmed their icy feet and hands as they told him the meagre results of their spying mission.

Thomas had been consorting with a few monks and senior clerks in the church, cloister and infirmary, which he had visited with the excuse that he wished to compare the priory’s facilities with those at similar religious houses in Devon.

‘There is a general consensus that Brother Ignatius is slightly mad, as he sees goblins and imps possessing many of the people who enter the priory. But it seems a harmless obsession and gives rise more to pitying jibes than to any real concern,’ reported the clerk.

De Wolfe nodded agreement. ‘I have heard the same sort of comments about him. Doesn’t necessarily mean that he is harmless, though. Anything else?’

The little clerk rubbed his hands together to warm them. ‘I raised the subject of the wedding and the death. There were many sidelong glances and shrugs. I got the impression that this marriage was well known to be a sombre affair rather than the usual happy event.’

‘What did they say about it, then?’ demanded the coroner.

‘I gathered, more from their attitudes than outright words, that the people gathered here as guests made little secret of the fact that this was a union forced on them by King Richard. I could get no more detail than that, though a clerk in the scriptorium claimed that he had seen this Jordan fellow ogling the bridesmaid Margaret.’

Gwyn grunted confirmation of this. ‘The kitchen servants, where I went seeking some fresh bread and cheese, said much the same thing when I brought the conversation around to it. They have long noses and sharp eyes – they suggested that though Jordan fancied this Courtenay woman, it was Roger’s daughter who wanted him.’

De Wolfe pondered their words for a moment. ‘This is something I must pursue with these grand folk who are coming here tonight. Though why the bride should be killed to avoid a wedding is beyond me at the moment.’

Thomas rather hesitantly raised another matter. ‘Crowner, several of the brothers to whom I spoke muttered words about history repeating itself. I tried to worm more out of them, but they were very reluctant to answer. All I could gather was that there is some vague legend about the early years of this priory, when another king’s ward vanished.

‘I asked one of the oldest monks, Brother Martin, who is in charge of the scriptorium, but he said it was idle tittle-tattle. He claimed there was nothing in the priory archives to show that anyone had disappeared and blamed Ignatius for encouraging the belief that the place was haunted by the spirits of devils and incubi!’

‘God’s guts, what’s that got to do with a girl getting killed last week?’ objected Gwyn.

Thomas looked crestfallen, but John patted his shoulder. ‘Every bit of information may help, even if it only shows the mood of this place. I admit, it’s a cheerless house, even for a monastery!’

Just before nightfall, a small cavalcade arrived at the priory. There were two curtained litters slung between pairs of horses, accompanied by several well-dressed men on caparisoned steeds and half a dozen mounted servants, leading several packhorses. In addition, there were three women sitting side-saddle on palfreys. With much jingling of harness, they trooped through the outer gates and dismounted near the entrance to the inner courtyard. One older lady was helped down from the first litter and two younger ones climbed from the other.

The prior, his chaplain, Brother Ferdinand and several of the obidentiaries were there to receive them outside the door that led into the superior guest-rooms adjacent to the inner gatehouse, joining that to the cellarer’s building.

For the better part of an hour, there was much coming and going as the guests were installed in their various chambers, together with their personal body-servants and luggage. Eventually the main players assembled in the refectory for wine and refreshments, where Prior Robert told them of the coroner’s presence and his requirement that they attend upon him in turn in his makeshift office along the corridor in the cellarium. There was some indignant grumbling about being ordered around by some knight from some outlandish place called Devon, but Robert Northam firmly impressed on them that it was on the direct order of the Chief Justiciar, and hence the king himself.

After a flurry of messages conveyed by a couple of kitchen boys, some form of timetable was agreed and as darkness fell in the late-February afternoon John sat in his small room awaiting his first witness. He kept Thomas with him at a small table in the corner, supplied with pen, ink and parchment, ready to record anything of importance. Two three-branched candlesticks gave a fair light as Brother Ignatius shepherded in a large florid man in middle age.

‘Sir Roger Beaumont,’ announced the monk. ‘A noble baron of Wirksworth Castle in Derbyshire.’ He declaimed this as if he was herald at a coronation, as de Wolfe rose and courteously motioned the new arrival to the chair opposite his table. Roger grunted a reluctant greeting and sat down, revealing himself as a square-faced man with a high colour, his bushy grey eyebrows matching his bristly grey hair, which was shaved up to a line level with his ears in the old Norman fashion. He was dressed in fine though soberhued clothes, a long brown tunic under a green surcoat, all covered with a fur-lined pelisse of heavy black wool.

‘This is a bad business, coroner,’ he boomed, his voice suiting his burly appearance, heavy-boned and short-necked. John guessed his age as middle forties, a few years older than himself.

After a few formal exchanges, de Wolfe went straight into the meat of the matter and went through the history of Roger’s guardianship of Christina, confirming what he knew from others.

‘You were on good terms with the lady?’ he asked ‘She was like another daughter to us, for we have Eleanor, who is a few years older.’ Roger had a forthright, almost aggressive manner, sticking out his jaw pugnaciously even when the subject matter was not controversial.

John avoided mentioning the prior’s suggestion that this girl was a competitor for Jordan’s hand in marriage and went on to ask about the night she died.

‘I saw nothing of her after supper,’ said Roger abruptly. ‘My wife and I were accommodated where we are now. The two girls, Christina and Margaret Courtenay, were lodged upstairs. The first I knew of the tragedy was in the morning, when all hell was let loose on finding the poor maid’s body.’

‘Was she looking forward to her nuptials – excited and happy?’

Beaumont rubbed his square jaw. ‘Not all that keenly, to be honest, but the king’s command and perhaps her feelings of duty to her late father to preserve his estates overcame her personal desires.’

‘And the bridegroom? What of him?’ asked de Wolfe.

Roger scowled at the question. ‘You had better ask him that, but I suspect he would rather have plighted his troth elsewhere.’ He refused to be drawn as to where ‘elsewhere’ might have been, saying bluntly that it was Jordan’s business, not his.

‘With Christina dead, what will happen to her fortune?’

The baron shifted uneasily and his face became even more ruddy. ‘Effectively, the king has acquired her estates. I am merely the caretaker. But perhaps in view of my faithful stewardship, he might allow me to purchase the manors myself, as I know their management so well.’

And at a knock-down price, thought John cynically. After some more questions that got him no further, he decided to take the bull by the horns, perhaps an apt expression for the bovine-looking man sitting opposite.

‘I have to say this, Sir Roger, but you had a good motive for seeing the girl dead. Had this marriage gone ahead, you would have lost your half-share of the revenue and all chance of acquiring her large estates.’

The reaction was violent.

Roger Beaumont sprang to his feet, his chair going over with a crash as he confronted the coroner. ‘Damn your impertinence, sir! Are you accusing me of killing my own ward, whom I have nurtured like another daughter for so long?’

Thomas, cowering in his corner, saw that the baron’s face had turned purple and was afraid that he was going to have a seizure.

De Wolfe held up a placatory hand. ‘I am accusing you of nothing, but it is my royal duty to explore every possibility. I must ask you, as I will ask everyone else, where were you on the night Christina went missing?’

Roger stared at him as if he had gone mad, but his rage seemed to have passed and he sat down heavily on the chair, which Thomas had hurried to put back in place. His voice was dull and thick when he answered.

‘I spent the whole night asleep in my chamber with my wife. She will vouch for that, though I doubt you would consider that of much value.’

John inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘I consider everything most carefully, I assure you. Perhaps it would be convenient if I did speak to your good wife next.’

Roger left with an air of obvious annoyance, muttering under his breath, and a few moments later a buxom maidservant ushered in his spouse.

Lady Avisa Beaumont was a tall, handsome woman at least ten years younger than her husband. Her fair hair was plaited into two coils above each ear, contained in gold-mesh crespines, over which was a samite veil trailing down her back and over her shapely bosom. The cold was kept at bay by a heavy brocade mantle lined with ermine, covering her ankle-length kirtle of blue velvet. A slim, high-cheekboned face bore a pair of large brown eyes, and John, an experienced connoisseur of elegant women, could easily see how Roger had wanted her for his second wife.

There was virtually nothing Avisa could add to what he already knew, in relation to the night of the girl’s death. She had spent it all in a bed an arm’s length from her husband’s in the guest-chambers near the inner gate and knew nothing of the tragedy until the hubbub in the morning. She produced a fine-linen kerchief, which she used to dab at her eyes when she related this part of her story, and de Wolfe had no reason to think that her grief was anything but genuine.

‘Your husband tells me that Christina was not overjoyed at the prospect of marriage?’

Again the wife confirmed what Roger had said, but with an addition. ‘Until a few months ago, we had hoped that my stepdaughter, Eleanor, would have joined the Neville family. She has long admired Jordan, whom she has known since childhood. In fact, it was on his visits to us at Wirksworth that he became acquainted with Christina.’

John scratched his stubble and out of the corner of his eye watched Thomas’s pen scribbling away on his parchment.

‘Was Christina or Eleanor the attraction that brought him to Wirksworth?’ he asked.

Avisa Beaumont dropped her long-lashed eyes. ‘Neither, really. He came to accompany his mother, who is my cousin. But we hoped that some attraction might develop between him and our daughter – as, indeed, it still might!’ she added hopefully.

‘So Christina’s death has left the field open for a match with a young man who was heir to considerable property?’ ventured John.

Just as a critical remark had fired up her husband, Avisa’s face darkened and she glared at the coroner. ‘That is not an issue, Sir John, and it is improper of you to suggest it! Anyway, she is not the only contestant on the field,’ she added obscurely, but refused to enlarge on the remark.

De Wolfe’s questions went on for a few more minutes but, as with Roger Beaumont, nothing useful was obtained. The lady seemed very reluctant to accept that the girl’s death was deliberate and firmly declared it to be a terrible accident – though she could not hazard any guess as to why Christina should be found in the crypt of the cellarium.

When she left, with a rather haughty promise to send Roger’s daughter down next, John turned to his clerk shivering on his stool, as he was furthest away from the brazier.

‘Anything strike you so far, Thomas? You have the sharpest mind among us,’ he said. The rare compliment warmed the little priest more than any fire and he hastened to offer his opinion.

‘As you said, Crowner, both those persons had a motive to see Lady Christina out of the way, though whether they would – or could – stoop to murder is another matter. Sir Roger is easily capable of striking the girl unconscious and breaking her neck…I’m not sure about the lady, but she looks tall and strong.’

They were interrupted by the arrival of a younger handmaiden who was acting as chaperone to her mistress, Eleanor Beaumont, whom she ushered into the room. She was eighteen and, though comely enough, had none of the beauty of her stepmother, following her father more in her solid physique. Thomas thought that she might have done better as a boy, as she looked capable of wielding a sword or drawing a bow.

Again, she repeated the claim that Christina had been like a younger sister to her for the past six years and, though she was not moved to tears, de Wolfe thought that unless she was a very good actress she was genuinely sorry that her friend was dead.

‘I understand that you were lodged in the guest-chamber next to your father and mother?’

Eleanor nodded and turned her head to indicate the young woman who stood behind her. ‘Sarah slept on a mattress near my door, but in the same room.’ This was a hint that she could not have left the room that night without the maid being aware of it.

‘I understand from Lady Avisa that you had hopes of marrying Jordan de Neville yourself?’ John asked as delicately as his nature would allow.

The girl bristled visibly. ‘She should not have said that! True, I had great affection for Jordan, but I doubt he noticed me in that respect.’

‘But she is gone, so who will he marry now?’ persisted John.

Eleanor flushed, looking more like her father than ever. ‘You had better ask him yourself, sir!’

The coroner did just that a short time later, when the man who had been deprived of his nuptials arrived. Jordan de Neville was twenty-three and had spent some time at the Lionheart’s court in Rouen, thanks to the noble connections of the various ramifications of the Neville family, who were a rising faction in the corridors of power.

He was a tall, thin man with a shock of black hair that sat like a thick cap on top of his head. He was dressed in the most modern style, the toes of his shoes being elongated into long points stuffed with wool and curled back almost to his ankles. A rather supercilious manner did nothing to improve his looks, which were average, to put it kindly. John felt that here was a fellow unlikely to set a girl’s pulse racing, unless she had an eye on his undoubted family wealth and influence.

After he had seated himself before the coroner, John made sympathetic noises about the tragic loss of his bride-to-be. Jordan looked appropriately mournful and expressed his devastation at such a tragic loss. The words were perfectly phrased, but de Wolfe felt that their delivery lacked conviction. He came straight to the point with almost brutal directness.

‘I am aware that this marriage was not your own choice, but arranged by your family at the behest of our sovereign lord, King Richard?’

The tactic was successful, for the young man broke into a flood of words, as if he had been yearning for someone on whom to unload his feelings. John saw that he was a weak character, easily persuaded by those in authority. He confessed that though he liked Christina, he had not wanted to marry her, being greatly attracted to her friend Margaret Courtenay, whom he now hoped to wed. He dismissed John’s suggestion that Eleanor Beaumont might make an alternative bride, though he was aware that she had done all she could to ensnare him.

‘My parents and uncle were the architects of this pact with the king to fuse the Neville and Glanville lands – it was a political arrangement. I had no say in the matter,’ he concluded sadly.

De Wolfe moved on to more immediate issues. ‘You were here at Bermondsey the night that Christina vanished?’ he asked abruptly. Jordan looked affronted at the implications.

‘I was indeed! Until about an hour before midnight, when all the monks trooped off to their church for Matins. Then I left with my squire and rode in the moonlight back to our lodgings.’

‘Where did you spend the evening?’

‘The whole party was in the guests’ refectory. We ate supper and sat talking until about the ninth hour, when Christina went to her chamber with her lady-in-waiting, as did Sir Roger and Lady Avisa. I stayed talking to Margaret and the prior for another hour or so. Eleanor insisted on sitting with us, rather to my annoyance, but eventually she left for her bed as well.’

‘So you were with your favourite lady until quite late?’

Again Jordan looked offended, a frequent mood of his, thought John.

‘Not alone – it would not be seemly. Her handmaiden was there as a chaperone, as well as Prior Robert – and the two monks, Ferdinand and Ignatius, came and went on various errands.’

As with the others, more questioning failed to extract anything useful from the dandified young fellow, and the coroner waited impatiently for the last of the guests to present herself.

Margaret Courtenay dispensed with a chaperone, telling her maid to wait outside and firmly shutting the door on her as de Wolfe rose to greet her. A very self-possessed young woman, she was quite different from Eleanor Beaumont. A few years older, probably of twenty-one summers, she was a pretty blonde who fell just short of being beautiful. Strong character showed in her face, and her garments, just visible under a heavy cloak, were plain but elegant. She had a veil of heavy white silk over her head, but her fair curls peeped out of the front.

Once again, John went through the familiar routine of questioning. She was the third daughter of a baron from the West Country and had been sent to Sempringham as a novice some years earlier to test her suitability for becoming a nun. This was where she met Christina, but when the latter left for Wirksworth Margaret abandoned any intention of taking the veil and returned home to her parents. She stayed at Wirksworth on a number of occasions, and it was here that she met Jordan de Neville. She made no secret of her aspirations to become his wife, but their plans had been ruined by the forced marriage insisted on by the higher powers.

De Wolfe had left questioning her until the end, as she might well have been the last to see Christina alive. ‘You returned to your chamber later than her, I understand?’ he asked.

‘I took the chance to be with Jordan a little longer,’ she said rather wistfully. ‘I thought it might well be the last time we could meet as single people. Christina was in bed when I entered the chamber next door to say goodnight. At least, her maid, who was sleeping in the outer part, whispered that she thought her mistress was already asleep.’

‘And you went to your couch yourself then? Did anything wake you that night?’

Margaret shook her head. ‘Nothing, and neither did my maid hear anything from her outer room – though she sleeps like a log, so nothing would disturb her,’ she added disdainfully.

De Wolfe grunted, to cover his frustration at being unable to get anything useful from all these folk. ‘You knew Christina for some years. Have you any reason to think that someone would wish her dead?’

She dropped the lids over her blue eyes. ‘Only the obvious ones, Sir John,’ she said very quietly.

‘I crave your pardon, Mistress Courtenay, but it is not that obvious to me,’ he rumbled.

Margaret looked up again, almost defiantly. ‘Sir Roger and his wife have always been very good to me, having me to stay at Wirksworth. I would not wish to defame them, but surely everyone knows that he would lose a great deal – including his further expectations – concerning the lands that would have come to Christina on her sixteenth birthday, if this marriage had gone ahead.’

De Wolfe thanked her for her frankness and suggested that she remain while he asked her maid a few questions. However, there was nothing that this young woman could add, as she merely repeated Margaret Courtenay’s account of that last evening. Outside in the corridor, the lady who had attended upon Christina de Glanville was waiting, and John took advantage of the presence of the other two women to bring her in for questioning. She started off the proceedings by bursting into tears, distressed by the reminder of the death of her mistress, whom she had served for over two years. When she had composed herself, all she could offer was a similar lack of help to his investigation.

‘My lady left the refectory some time after supper ended and we both went up to our chamber. I helped her to dress for bed and then settled her for the night. She asked me to blow out the candle, so I knew she wished to sleep at once.’

Her snivels began again. ‘That was the last time I ever saw her alive!’

De Wolfe made his throat-clearing noises – he never could abide weeping women; they made him feel helpless.

‘There was no disturbance in the night?’ he asked, for something to say. ‘She never called for you or left her room?’

‘No, not that I knew of. I slept soundly until dawn. She had said she wished to go to the prior’s chapel to take the Sacrament, so I went to awaken her, but she was not there!’

Her sobbing began anew and John looked helplessly at the other two women.

‘If you have finished, sir, we will take her back to Sir Roger and his wife,’ offered Margaret Courtenay. ‘We should all seek our beds, for tomorrow will be a sad and stressful day.’

‘We are little the wiser for all that talking,’ growled de Wolfe later. He, Gwyn and Thomas were sitting in the warming room, the only habitable place unless one wore three layers of extra clothing. There were half a dozen monks in the chamber, some dozing, others in murmured conversations, giving the coroner’s party covert and often suspicious glances. However, the place was large enough for them to talk in low voices without the others hearing. John had given Gwyn the gist of the interviews, and his officer agreed that it took them no further forward in discovering the culprit.

‘This Roger Beaumont is the obvious suspect,’ he grunted. ‘But he’s hardly likely to admit it, even if he’s the guilty one.’

‘I wonder if he already has something to hide?’ mused de Wolfe. ‘What if he was embezzling some of the portion of the estate profits that were supposed to be going to the Exchequer? If he suddenly lost control after Christina’s marriage, might not Jordan’s new stewards and bailiffs discover the fraud and report it to the king? Beaumont could literally lose his head over that!’

Gwyn looked dubious, not because he could not believe that a lord was capable of such greed, but because they had no means of proving it.

Thomas ticked off the candidates on his spindly fingers.

‘His wife has no obvious motive, other than what she gains by her husband becoming richer. The daughter Eleanor no doubt felt that she might have a chance with Jordan de Neville if Christina was out of the way, but would she kill for it?’

Gwyn reached across and grabbed Thomas’s third finger. ‘This one’s for Jordan, for he wanted to marry the Courtenay woman, not Christina.’

‘So that leaves only Margaret Courtenay, who also wanted an unmarried Jordan for herself,’ finished John. ‘But the dead girl was a good friend, for God’s sake!’

They sat around the fire in silence, digesting the unpromising situation.

‘Does it have to be one of the family guests?’ ruminated the coroner. ‘What about the people in this place? They’re a queer bunch, right enough.’

‘There’s that chaplain, Ignatius, who thought Christina was a witch,’ agreed Thomas.

‘I suppose the prior himself had no motive,’ said Gwyn in a hoarse whisper. ‘Maybe he was tired of the court using his priory as a lodging-house!’

Thomas sneered at his big colleague, his reverence for priests making the very idea sacrilegious, but the idea set John’s mind working. It seemed unlikely that Robert Northam could be implicated, but he was an important man and knew many of the barons and bishops who wielded power in England. God knows what plots and schemes were going on in the higher echelons of government – could he be involved in any of them?

However, there seemed no way forward to accuse anyone of the killing, let alone the prior himself, and their discussion faded into silence until an old monk approached them and sat down uninvited. He was a wizened man, with no hair left to demarcate his tonsure, his head being covered in wrinkled pink skin. His lined face was relieved by a pair of sharp brown eyes that suggested an active mind inside that shrivelled exterior.

Thomas smiled a welcome at him and shifted along his bench to let the old man get nearest to the fire. ‘This is Brother Martin, whom I spoke to earlier,’ he explained. ‘He supervises the scriptorium next to the chapter house and keeps the archives of the priory.’

In a quavering voice that spoke of his advanced years, the monk enquired after their health and their lodgings and bemoaned the cold weather, which ‘plagued his old bones’, as he put it. The conversation, prompted by the eager Thomas, got around to the history of the priory, by which time Gwyn was nodding off with boredom.

‘It was much smaller than this in the early days, some ninety years ago,’ explained the archivist. ‘But it grew fast with patronage. I hardly recognize it from what it was when I was a novice here, about fifty years ago. Old buildings knocked down and new ones springing up.’

‘The priory received many gifts, then?’ asked John politely, though he was not much interested.

‘A lot of money and land from wealthy donors, sir. At one time it became fashionable to give to Bermondsey…lands, rents, advowsons, even whole manors sometimes. Rich folk would pay a lot for Masses to be said for their souls to spend as little time as possible in purgatory!’

His face took on a faraway look as he peered back in time. ‘Only a few months ago I was required to check on an old covenant dating back to the early years of the century, as there was some dispute about our right to the manor of Kingweston in Somerset. It was strange, for there had been parts of the entry scratched out, which made my task difficult.’

‘This is the matter you told me of when we spoke in the cloister?’ said Thomas. ‘There was some reference to another chronicle, you said?’

‘Long ago, I found another old parchment from those days, which listed the witnesses to Count Eustace’s grant of the manor and advowson of Kingweston, one of which was a Brother Francis of this priory. His name had been erased from the deed itself and there is no other record of him ever existing. I told the prior of the irregularity and tampering, but he became quite annoyed and told me to forget all about it, as it was of no consequence. He took the old document from me and I’ve not seen it since.’

John wondered what this had to do with anything and soon the old monk had warmed himself sufficiently and wandered off.

‘What was all that about?’ he demanded of his clerk, prodding Gwyn to silence his loud snores.

Thomas smiled slyly; he was always keen to probe into old stories and gossip. ‘From talking to several older monks, it seems that there was some scandal here many years ago. It was hushed up but refuses to be extinguished. The odd thing is that it also involved a royal ward – of the first Henry. She vanished along with a monk, and it is thought they eloped, though some claim she was murdered and is the cause of all these rumours of ghosts and evil spirits. Much of Brother Ignatius’s obsession with devils and imps seems to be fostered by this legend.’

De Wolfe grunted. ‘Then maybe poor Christina’s ghost will join the spirit band that haunts this place. But it doesn’t help us discover who killed her.’

An hour later Roger Beaumont and Jordan de Neville came to the warming room and sought out the coroner for a private word. The lord of Wirksworth was still offended by de Wolfe’s insinuations about his having most to gain by Christina’s death, but he concealed it under a stiff manner as he made his request.

‘I realize it is late, Sir John, but some of the family – as we consider ourselves to be – wish to see the spot where our poor Christina came to her death.’

De Wolfe looked surprised at this unexpected supplication. ‘Why ask me? The prior is the ultimate authority in this house.’

Beaumont scowled at the coroner, his face as red as a raw side of beef.

‘He has already consented, but as you are the law officer investigating the matter I thought I should have your agreement.’

John was mollified by this deference offered by the pugnacious baron and asked when they wished to visit the basement chamber.

‘Now, this very minute! The prior is to accompany us.’

Somewhat grudgingly, John followed Beaumont to the door, motioning for Gwyn and Thomas to accompany him. As they walked through the cloister, lit by hazy moonlight and a few guttering torches, he expressed surprise that the girl’s guardian had not seen the cellar at the time of her death.

‘The poor girl had been removed by the monks before we were informed,’ snapped Roger. ‘She was taken to the infirmary, where we saw her body. It was returned to the crypt when the justiciar insisted on you being called – for the sake of preservation, no doubt.’

Jordan de Neville, who had not yet said a word, added a few now. ‘We will all be leaving straight after the funeral, so this evening is the last opportunity. We do not wish to view her again,’ he added hastily. ‘Merely the fateful spot where she was found.’

In the corridor of the cellarer’s building, at the end furthest from the guests’ refectory, was a door which led into the alcove at the top of the steep stairway down into the vault below. At right-angles was the external door into the courtyard, through which John had entered the previous day. Gathered in the corridor were the prior, his chaplain and Brother Ferdinand, escorting Lady Avisa, her tirewoman, and Margaret Courtenay and her maid. Another portly monk, the cellarer Brother Daniel, was also hovering behind.

‘My daughter Eleanor is of too nervous a disposition to wish to accompany us,’ announced Avisa.

Robert Northam moved to John’s side and murmured conspiratorially in his ear. ‘I regret any inconvenience, coroner, but they were quite insistent. I thank God that this will all be over tomorrow.’

De Wolfe shrugged his indifference as they waited for Brother Daniel to open the door and waddle into the alcove, where he lit a bundle of candles from the tallow dip and handed them to each of the guests.

‘Be very careful on these stairs,’ warned the prior in a loud voice. The last thing he needed now was for one of the notables to fall down the treacherous steps.

With the cellarer in the lead, holding his candle high, the procession trooped cautiously down the steps, John and his two assistants bringing up the rear with Brother Ignatius. At the bottom they all stood in a wide arc around the lower opening of the staircase. The flickering candlelight on the faces made the scene like some demonic ritual ceremony, until Prior Robert made a wide sign of the cross in the air and uttered a solemn prayer in Latin and led the others in a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and the creed. The loudest response came from Thomas de Peyne, who was almost overcome by this religious drama. The four guests seemed less moved by the solemn moment, but all followed the monks in crossing themselves and genuflecting.

‘This was the spot where the poor lady was found,’ said Daniel the cellarer, pointing to the floor near the bottom step. One of the maids began to sob but was sharply reprimanded by Lady Avisa, who seemed immune to the baleful atmosphere of the forbidding vault. Margaret Courtenay’s face was tense and drawn, but she made no sound as her hand stole out to grasp that of Jordan de Neville, who stood close to her. He and Roger Beaumont stared stonily at the patch of bare earth but said nothing.

There was a long silence, which soon became embarrassing and then unbearable, until Robert Northam felt forced to break it.

‘Have you seen enough, friends? Dear Christina still lies a few paces away, if you wish to see her before she is coffined in the morning.’

John frowned and began to protest that she was hardly in a fit state to be viewed by sensitive ladies, but the prior forestalled him.

‘Of course, I directed that offer to the two lords here, not the ladies.’

Though Jordan had not long ago declared otherwise, he reluctantly followed Roger Beaumont when the older man began to stalk after the prior deeper into the darkness of the vault. John and his men tagged on, and the coroner was surprised to find Margaret Courtenay at his side.

‘Mistress, this is not really a venture for a lady. You will appreciate the reason.’

The young woman shook her head and spoke in a determined voice. ‘She was my friend and I owe it to her to say goodbye, Crowner.’

He gave one of his habitual shrugs and walked on in silence. Brother Ferdinand was on his other side, but he noticed that Ignatius had declined to come with them, having followed the other women back up the stairs.

In the end bay, with the uneven far wall brooding over them in the wavering light, they all lined up around the ominously dripping box. This time it was Gwyn who had the task of uncovering the corpse and lifting the top of the wet linen sheet once again to reveal the features. Both he and John were mildly surprised to see that the signs of corruption had hardly advanced since their previous visit, thanks to the frequent replenishment of the ice.

Roger and Jordan looked on her face briefly, with stony expressions set firmly in place, possibly as a manly shield against showing any emotion. Margaret Courtenay swayed slightly and gave a choked sob, then again made the sign of the cross and whispered some private farewell to her young friend, before stepping back and stumbling with her candle towards the staircase. Thomas hurried after her, solicitous as ever to anyone in need of comfort.

‘Have you seen enough?’ asked the prior rather abruptly. He led the others away, leaving John and Gwyn with the makeshift coffin.

‘I suppose they’ve got a better box than this somewhere?’ grunted the Cornishman.

‘They are taking her into the church for the Requiem Mass, then to the cemetery on the other side,’ said de Wolfe. ‘We had better give them a hand here in the morning to move the body.’

Gwyn looked with disfavour around the empty bay at the end of the long crypt. ‘Something about this place gives me the shudders,’ he said. ‘Must be my Celtic blood, though you have plenty of that too, Crowner, from your mother.’

John shivered and agreed. ‘No wonder some of these monks get these crazy notions, spending years stuck in this place on the marshes.’

He pulled his black cloak more tightly around him and made for the stairs, thankful to leave this forbidding place with its lonely corpse.

In spite of all the activity that day, it was still quite a few hours until the first of the religious offices at midnight, which inevitably Thomas de Peyne wished to attend. After another doze in the warming room, the coroner’s trio went back to the refectory, where Gwyn cadged bread, cheese and ale from the kitchen before they retired to their fleece-stuffed mattresses upstairs. De Wolfe disappeared into his cubicle, and the other two wrapped themselves in their cloaks and a blanket in the main chamber. Gwyn was snoring almost immediately, but Thomas catnapped, long used to waking himself in the middle of the night to attend Matins. When the bell of St Saviour’s tolled, he got up and padded down to the far door, where the night stairs led him down to join a stream of obidentiaries making for the church.

After the service, he returned to the dormitory to sleep until Lauds, the next office around dawn. Gwyn was humped on the next palliasse like a beached whale, making blowing and whistling noises. There were no pilgrims here tonight to close a loose shutter at the further end of the dormitory, which was tapping in the icy breeze. The clerk walked up to secure it and on returning glanced into the open cell where his master slept. His candle revealed a rumpled but empty mattress, there being no sign of the coroner.

Puzzled, Thomas went back to his own bed but lay awake waiting for de Wolfe to return. After a quarter of an hour, there was still silence and he reached out and prodded Gwyn on his large backside. It took several jabs to awaken him, and when he did surface he was irritated by the clerk’s concern.

‘He’s probably gone for a piss or a sit-down in the reredorter!’ growled the officer. ‘Shut up and go to sleep.’

However, after another half-hour went by, Thomas could stand it no longer and got up to shake the Cornishman again. Grumbling, Gwyn stumbled out of bed, still fully dressed, and after a sleepy discussion they decided to go back to the warming room to see if de Wolfe was there. It was deserted, and now the two men were becoming concerned.

‘Let’s try the cloister and the cellarer’s building,’ urged Thomas, leading the way in the gloom, which was relieved only by moonlight and a few guttering torches fixed in brackets. The cloister walk was empty, and only when they went the length of the corridor in the cellarium and went out into the inner courtyard did they see anyone. In the lodge at the inner gate, a night-watchman sat dozing under a tallow dip. He was a lay brother, not the usual monk who kept the gate in daytime, but he denied seeing the coroner or indeed anyone else for the past two hours.

Gwyn and the clerk stood indecisively outside the porter’s lodge, unsure of where to look next.

‘Maybe he’s with the prior?’ suggested Thomas, but Gwyn scoffed at the idea of him visiting anyone at this time of the morning. In the hope that he had returned to his bed, they began retracing their steps and went back into the cellarium corridor.

‘What the hell’s that?’ suddenly demanded Gwyn, as they were passing the inner door to the basement. Thomas cocked his head and heard a muffled thudding. With images of the icy corpse down below still fresh in his mind, he blanched and made to hurry on to the shelter of the dormitory, but Gwyn was made of sterner stuff.

‘Let’s get this damned door open,’ he growled and slid back the bolt, which squealed in rusty protest. Inside the alcove, the thudding was louder and obviously coming from behind the stout oaken door to the vault.

‘Give me a light, Thomas. This is no bloody ghost!’ snapped Gwyn.

The clerk fumbled for some half-used candles in the niche and lit them from the feeble tallow lamp. By their light, the coroner’s officer wrenched back the heavy bolt on the inner door, and as it swung open a tall figure stumbled into his arms. De Wolfe was dishevelled and blood was running from his nose and several grazes on his face. He staggered against the wall and slid to the floor, shivering and blaspheming roundly.

‘I thought I was going to be there until they came for the dead girl in the morning,’ he groaned. ‘They might have had to move two corpses by then!’

His two assistants helped him to his feet, and in the next few minutes they examined his injuries while he told his tale. Thankfully, he had no more than multiple bruises and a few cuts and grazes, though on the upper part of his forehead he had a lump under his hair the size of a pigeon’s egg.

‘Some bastard pushed me down the stairs and locked the door on me!’ he snarled when he had finished cursing. ‘I must have lost my wits, for I was lying on the floor at the bottom when I got my senses back. Jesus, these bruises are tender!’ He winced as he touched the front of his shins.

‘Who did it, Crowner?’ demanded Gwyn angrily. ‘I’ll go this minute and punch his lights out!’

John raised his hand painfully. ‘Cool down, Gwyn. I heard and saw nothing. I’ve no idea who did it; he was behind me – or possibly she! Now help me to my bed. I’ll be recovered by dawn.’

As they helped him hobble down the corridor and supported him up the stairs, Thomas ventured to ask him why he was going to the vault at that time of night, fearing that there was some supernatural reason for him to visit a decaying cadaver. John pointed to the large circular ring of silver that secured one corner of his cloak to the opposite shoulder, bearing a stout pin passing through holes in the material.

‘When I was going to my bed, I found this was missing. The only place I could have lost it was when we all went to that damned cellar.’

‘Couldn’t you have left it until morning?’ grunted Gwyn as they entered the dormitory.

‘It’s valuable – and a certain lady gave it to me many years ago,’ growled John. ‘With God knows who coming to fetch the body tomorrow, I wanted to make sure of it. With my candle out when I came to, I had to crawl and grope on my hands and knees to find it in that bloody cellar.’

Thomas shuddered to think of being in the dark with a dripping corpse-box for company and decided that John de Wolfe must have stronger nerves than anyone he knew. After their master gingerly lowered himself on to his mattress, Thomas went off to the far side of the priory and roused the old infirmarian, who hobbled across with bandages and salve to clean up the coroner’s scrapes and bruises. They told him that de Wolfe had fallen downstairs, but omitted to mention which ones.

‘Shall I rouse the prior as well?’ enquired Gwyn, who was still simmering with anger at this outrage on his master, but John wearily forbade him.

‘No point in hauling him from his bed. I just want to rest now. I’ll see him in the morning.’

‘Perhaps he was the sod who pushed you down the steps,’ muttered Gwyn under his breath.

The day of the funeral dawned with a pale clear sky and an iron-hard frost in place of the snow flurries of previous days. Every drop of water was frozen, even in the jugs in the guest dormitory. Stiff and aching, but otherwise none the worse for his fall, John de Wolfe rose shivering from his pallet and joined Gwyn and Thomas in the refectory downstairs, where hot gruel and warm bread, combined with ale mulled in the kitchen with a red-hot poker, helped them to thaw out.

‘What are we going to do about it, Crowner?’ demanded Gwyn. ‘I reckon it was that bastard Beaumont, trying to put you out of action!’

Thomas nodded excitedly. ‘Perhaps he had been fiddling his share of the estate profits and was scared you would find out. Maybe that was why he killed his ward, to keep his embezzlement secret by hanging on to the lands?’

John paused in his attack on a slab of boiled salt ham and three eggs fried in beef dripping, for his injuries had not blunted his appetite.

‘Don’t get carried away. We’ve not a shred of proof to accuse anyone. I’m off to see the prior after this, Gwyn, but you had better get down to see what’s happening to that corpse.’

Thomas was thankful that this order seemed to exclude him, and he hurried away to yet another service in the church, where he could gossip and question the monks again. When de Wolfe accosted Robert Northam as he returned from Prime, the prior was aghast at being told of the attack during the night.

‘That vault is accursed!’ he said with a vehemence that seemed too extreme for the occasion. ‘I should have it bricked up, but the cellarer is adamant that he needs the space for storage. That place has been nothing but trouble for this house since we were founded.’ He did not enlarge on this, and John was more concerned with discovering who had tried to kill him.

‘I was lucky to receive nothing more than cuts and bruises, though I was knocked senseless for a time.’ He grinned wryly. ‘It proves beyond any doubt that Christina never fell down those stairs, when her lack of injuries are compared with my poor face and legs!’

‘Who could have done such a thing?’ expostulated Robert. ‘Surely not one of my flock!’

‘Then that leaves only your guests, prior,’ observed de Wolfe.

Brother Ignatius, who lurked like a shadow behind his master, muttered something about the power of the Horned One surviving after death, but he was ignored as the prior and coroner discussed possible motives and culprits. They came to no conclusions and soon Ignatius was tugging at Robert’s cloak to remind him that they should prepare for the coffining of Christina.

De Wolfe had other business and limped rather than strode over to the favoured guest-rooms near the inner gate. Here he rapped on the door and confronted Roger Beaumont, who appeared with Jordan de Neville close behind.

‘Were you abroad in the building in the early hours of this morning?’ he rasped without any pretence at diplomacy. ‘And if you were, did you attempt to kill me by pushing me down the cellar steps?’

After the first shock, Roger became almost apoplectic with enraged indignation. He raved at the coroner and, if Jordan had not restrained him, would have thrown himself at de Wolfe in his temper.

John sometimes used this ploy of making others so incensed that they dropped incautious words that betrayed them, but this time it failed, even when he voiced his suspicions that Beaumont might have been cheating the Exchequer of some of Christina’s revenues.

Eventually the incandescent language of the baron persuaded de Wolfe that he was getting nowhere, and with ill grace and no apology to Roger he backed off and went down to seek Gwyn. In the lower corridor, he found him helping a couple of lay brothers, fussily overseen by a trio of monks, to manhandle a new coffin into the alcove and down the now notorious stairs. Made in the priory workshops, the sarcophagus was of fine elm, but the corners were already suffering because of the narrowness of the walls on each side of the granite steps.

With much grunting and not a little sacrilegious cursing, the men managed to navigate it into the vault below and then carry it into the forbidding end bay. John followed them, the place now being better lit by a dozen candles and several horn lanterns. The coffin was placed on the earthen floor, now soggy with meltwater from the cold box.

Daniel the cellarer, Brother Ferdinand and Maglo the gatekeeper were restlessly milling around the servants, all giving competing advice on how best to get the corpse from the ice into the coffin. Gwyn solved the problem by casually dipping his brawny arms into the slush and lifting Christina bodily out of the crate and laying her gently in her last resting place.

‘Is she not to be dressed in finery or at least a new shroud?’ asked Daniel.

‘The ladies’ attendants will see to her in the church,’ replied Ferdinand, crossing himself as he gazed down sadly at the girl’s remains.

At that moment a melancholy procession came into the vault. Brother Ignatius was in front, swinging a censer that wafted perfumed incense into the chamber. John was not sure whether this was for ceremonial purposes or to dispel any noxious vapours from the corpse. Whichever it was, the chaplain appeared deeply unhappy, as an angry scowl disfigured his face. Behind him, Prior Robert held up an ebony staff topped by a silver cross, a brocade stole around his neck. Martin, the old archivist, came next bearing a tray covered with a lacy white cloth, and inevitably he was followed by Thomas de Peyne carrying a silver cruet in his gloved hands. Lastly, Roger Beaumont and Jordan de Neville formed a reluctant audience as the group moved in to fill the space around the coffin and stood with bowed heads while the prior began chanting in Latin, the monks responding appropriately, especially the devout coroner’s clerk.

Robert Northam took a small wafer from a pyx on the archivist’s tray and, with slight hesitation, placed this consecrated Host on the tongue of the dead girl, her mouth now sagging open as the death stiffness had at last passed away. With more Latin prayers and crosses made in the air, he took the cruet from Thomas and dribbled a few drops of wine saved from the last Mass on to her swollen lips.

At this, there was a sudden crash, which made even the phlegmatic John jump with surprise. His first thought was that perhaps God had intervened at this most solemn moment, but it was Ignatius who had dropped the censer, which rolled along the floor shedding dull sparks.

‘This is not right, prior!’ he hissed. ‘You should be exorcizing her, not blessing her!’

Northam glared fiercely at his secretary. ‘Behave yourself, brother! If you cannot, then leave this place at once!’ he thundered.

Cowed by years of obedience, the lean monk’s short-lived rebellion subsided into silence and he retrieved the fallen censer from the floor. The prior completed his valedictory ceremony by sprinkling a little holy water over the already soaking cadaver, while the surrounding monks intoned the final responses. Now the cellarer and Brother Maglo lifted the heavy lid from where it had been leaned against the far wall and put it in place temporarily with four nails driven in halfway. As he straightened up, the Breton monk slipped on the muddy floor and fell heavily against the back wall. There was a rumble from above and a lump of granite the size of his head fell in a shower of old mortar and crashed on to the coffin. Everyone ducked, half-expecting the arched roof to cave in as a trickle of rubble followed the stone. There was a momentary silence, while a cloud of dust slowly drifted down from the top of the wall. It was broken by a shout of agonized triumph from Ignatius.

‘A sign! A sign! Beelzebub is among us! See what the witch can still do, brothers, long after her black heart has stopped! I was right, I was right!’

At a sign from the prior, the chaplain was seized by Daniel and Maglo and hustled off to the stairway, where he vanished, still yelling about this vindication of Christina’s black arts. As the prior stood apologizing to Roger and Jordan for the behaviour of his unstable secretary, the lay brothers, who had waited unobtrusively in the main vault, came forward and began carrying the coffin down the crypt towards the exit.

Gwyn stood with de Wolfe, looking up at the roof, apprehensive that more was waiting up there to come down on their heads. Dimly visible, there was a ragged cavity where the roof joined the wall.

‘I think the roof is sound, except the courses of stones that meet the top of the wall,’ said Gwyn. ‘It’s that which is so badly built.’

John, still aching in every limb from his bruises, had little interest in the art of masonry. ‘Let’s get out of here. I can’t stand this bloody tomb! We’ve been here for two days, and I’ve learned absolutely nothing about who killed her.’

An hour later the tirewomen, together with two laundresses, the only other females allowed in the priory precincts, had completed their dressing of Christina’s body. The coffin lid was nailed down permanently before being taken into the church, where the funeral service was held at what John suspected was a much faster pace than usual. The prior had banned Brother Ignatius from attending, and Thomas wondered what massive penance he would be given for his unseemly behaviour.

When the prayers and chanting were completed in the church, the congregation, swollen now by the ladies and their maids, together with the lay brothers and monks of Bermondsey, followed the coffin out of the west door of St Saviour’s. Pacing across the outer courtyard, to the accompaniment of more doleful chanting, they turned right into the lay cemetery, the monks having their own burial ground south of the church. Carried by Roger Beaumont, Jordan de Neville and two monks, the coffin was laid in a pit dug the previous day and the final prayers were spoken over it by the prior.

Given the age of the young victim, it was a moving ceremony and even the hard-bitten coroner, so used to sudden and violent death, felt touched. He was standing next to Margaret Courtenay as they all gathered closely around the grave to watch the earth being shovelled in by the sexton and his labourer.

‘What a waste of a young life!’ John murmured to Christina’s friend. ‘Done to death, a virgin not yet sixteen years of age!’

Margaret looked up at him, tears in her eyes. ‘It is so very sad, Sir John. Though perhaps not a virgin: there was a handsome squire at Wirksworth who at least spared her that.’

The young woman said this with such affection that John smiled at her, not offended by her indiscretion, but there was a sudden howl from behind him. Turning, he found Brother Ferdinand close by, obviously eavesdropping. Before John could protest, the monk spoke, hissing almost like a snake.

‘Not a virgin? No, it cannot be! Tell me it is false, woman!’ He made to grab at Margaret, but John smacked his hands away. By now the others close by were staring at yet another confrontation with a crazed Cluniac.

‘What’s it to you, brother?’ demanded John, grabbing Ferdinand by the front of his habit. ‘Why should a celibate monk be concerned with such things? Are you perverted?’

The people around the grave now began to hurry towards them, the overwrought prior in the lead, but Ferdinand twisted from de Wolfe’s grasp and backed away.

‘It was all for nothing! Oh God, how grievously have I sinned!’ he howled like a starving dog. Staring at John with an expression of sheer terror, he dropped his voice to whisper so softly that the coroner could only just catch the words.

‘I offered up my sacrifice to you, Oh Lord! But it was all in vain, you rejected me!’

Turning, he hauled up the skirts of his robe and ran rapidly towards the gate into the outer courtyard. Everyone watched him, bemused by the behaviour of yet another apparently demented monk. John caught Gwyn’s eye, but the big Cornishman shrugged. ‘They’re all bloody mad in this place,’ he growled.

As the prior was anxiously conferring with the cellarer, who was also sub-prior, Thomas sidled up to his master. ‘Crowner, I think we ought to follow him. I have a bad feeling about Brother Ferdinand.’

John always respected his clerk’s intuition, and with a jerk of his head to Gwyn they started for the main buildings, the coroner hurrying as fast as his aching legs would allow. Thomas pattered ahead and was in time to see the fleeing monk vanish through the inner gate. As he passed through, he saw the courtyard door to the underground vault still swinging. He hastened to it but hesitated to enter the utter darkness of the stairs. Gwyn was close behind and, while they waited a moment for de Wolfe to limp up to them, Thomas lit a few candle stumps ready for the descent. As they went down, they heard the rest of the burial party approaching but pressed on in their pursuit of Ferdinand.

Gwyn took the lead, and when they reached the bottom they heard a high-pitched keening echoing eerily from the far end. The distraught Cluniac was alternately wailing and sobbing, then gabbling incoherently either to himself or to some unseen presence – possibly Almighty God.

‘The crazy fellow is in the pitch dark,’ boomed the Cornishman. ‘He must have felt his way down there without a light.’

‘As I had to last night,’ replied the coroner grimly. ‘And I suspect it was because of this same fellow trying to kill me!’

When they reached the last arch, their candles revealed Ferdinand lying face down in the slimy mud, limbs stretched out in cruciform posture, as in total supplication before an altar. He was wailing like an injured animal, and the ever-compassionate Thomas went to kneel by him to offer comfort.

When he sensed the clerk’s presence, the monk gave a piercing yell and jumped to his feet, spread-eagling himself against the back wall, his hands scrabbling at the damp stones.

‘Keep away! Keep off me, all of you!’ he screamed, his face contorted in the dim light. ‘I tried my best, but now I am doomed to an eternity in hell!’

De Wolfe grabbed a candle from Gwyn and advanced to stand menacingly in front of Ferdinand, who cowered away against the wall.

‘Was it you who tried to kill me last night?’ he roared.

The monk cringed even more. ‘You were going to ruin my exorcism! Why else would you come here at dead of night? I followed you and foiled your intent…but it was all in vain!’

The prior and the others had now arrived at the arch, delayed by the lack of candles to light their way.

‘Sir John, what in God’s name is going on?’ snapped Robert. He glared at the monk still scrabbling at the stones. ‘Ferdinand, explain yourself!’ he demanded, but the monk had eyes only for the threatening apparition looming over him in the form of the coroner. Ignoring the prior, de Wolfe grabbed the petrified monk by the front of his robe, pulled him away from the wall and shook him like a frightened rabbit.

‘What exorcism? What have you done? Did you kill that poor young woman, damn you?’ he snarled.

‘It was a holy sacrifice!’ screamed Ferdinand. ‘This place is accursed. I have felt it for years. There is evil here, and the only way to cleanse it was to liberate the soul of a pure virgin into this awful space!’ His eyes rolling wildly, he flung an arm around to encompass the gloomy vault.

‘How did you get her to come with you, you disgusting knave?’ yelled de Wolfe, giving him another shake.

‘I went to her room, to tell her she had been chosen to perform a miracle…and it was the truth! Only her pure soul could drive away the evil in this place. She believed me and crept away willingly!’

‘And for her reward, you took the poor girl’s life, you bastard!’ snarled the coroner.

‘Her spirit would have conquered the depraved miasma that pervades this place – but it was all in vain, for she was not pure after all!’

He began wailing again, and John released him in disgust.

‘You are not only mad, you are depraved and evil!’ he yelled. ‘No doubt belonging to this religious house will save you from being hanged, as you richly deserve – but I hope your own soul rots in hell!’

Prior Robert stepped forward with the cellarer to seize the demented monk, but Ferdinand, inflamed by the coroner’s contempt, backed away and seized the large stone that had fallen on Christina’s coffin. With a scream, he raised it high above his head, to launch it at the prior.

Fearing yet another death, Gwyn lurched forward and grabbed the monk around the waist and hurled him and the heavy stone backwards.

He slipped on the slimy floor and the two men crashed into the wall. A second later there was an ominous rumble from above and a shower of grit and mortar fell from the roof.

‘Gwyn, get back!’ shrieked Thomas.

As the officer leaped clear, an avalanche of stones fell from the top of the wall and the edge of the ceiling vault. There was a blood-curdling scream from Ferdinand as he was showered with half a ton of masonry dropping twelve feet on to his head and shoulders.

When the rumbling ceased and the cloud of dust had settled, the coughing, dirt-spattered onlookers saw that the monk was half-buried under a pile of rocks. Aghast, the men fell silent, then there was a final sound as a last stone rolled down the heap. From beneath it, a trickle of blood seeped out and mingled with the meltwater from the ice that had cooled his victim.

‘Well, we failed to cover ourselves with glory this time,’ grumbled John de Wolfe as he hunched over the fire pit and tried to get some warmth into his hands from the mulled ale in his pot. ‘The damned fellow condemned himself without any help from me!’

The three men had left Bermondsey that morning, the prior having given them horses from his stables for the long journey back to Devon.

The previous day, the coroner had held an inquest on Christina de Glanville but ignored the death of Ferdinand, deciding that he had no jurisdiction over a monk who died inside his own priory.

Now they were spending an uncomfortable night in a tavern a few miles from Guildford, with the prospect of sleeping on the floor of the taproom, wrapped in their cloaks.

Gwyn grunted and pulled the pointed hood of his leather jerkin over his head to keep out a draught from a broken window shutter. ‘If that woman Margaret had not said that Christina was not as virginal as everyone assumed, the bastard would have got away with it.’

Thomas was not so willing to discount divine intervention. ‘But also, Ferdinand had to be in the right place at the right time to overhear her – it must have been ordained by God that he should not escape disillusionment and retribution!’

Gwyn lowered his quart mug from his lips to guffaw rudely. ‘Don’t tell me that you believe that the Almighty caused that roof to fall on him! It was due to some lousy, incompetent mason, who years ago didn’t know how to build a decent wall.’

De Wolfe cut in to stop them bickering. ‘It doesn’t matter how he died. It’s why he killed her that bothers me. Can we really believe all this mystical stuff about exorcizing evil with virginal spirits? Or was he just trying to have his evil way with her, getting her alone in a dark cellar?’

Thomas was eager to offer his explanation. ‘I spoke to the old archivist again after Prime this morning, before we left. He said it was all bound up with this legend about the vanished monk years ago. He said Brother Ferdinand was always pestering him for more information and spent long hours in the scriptorium searching the old archives.’

‘Proves he was bloody mad!’ was Gwyn’s succinct comment, made to irritate the little clerk. ‘Just like that Ignatius fellow who thought she was a witch.’

‘Maybe, but he must truly have believed that the crypt was unhealthily possessed in some way,’ retorted Thomas.

Even the usually unimaginative John could not disagree with that. ‘There was certainly something very unpleasant about the far end of that cellar,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t believe in ghosts and goblins, but the few hours I spent crawling about in there with a sore head, in pitch darkness, was something I don’t want to repeat!’

‘But what was the demented swine trying to achieve?’ demanded Gwyn.

Again, Thomas was keen to share his erudition on matters spiritual and esoteric. ‘It is part of ancient wisdom that things virginal are pure and holy,’ he said earnestly. ‘You only have to think of our young novitiate nuns who devote their lives to God – and above all our Holy Mother, the Virgin Mary.’ He paused to cross himself vigorously.

‘Ferdinand obviously believed that releasing the fresh soul of a virgin directly into that loathsome space would banish the evil and cleanse it with her innocent spirit!’

‘But I don’t see how he got the girl to go down there with him in the middle of the night,’ mused de Wolfe.

Gwyn snorted. ‘These bloody priests have an unhealthy power of persuasion, dinned into people since they were infants – especially over impressionable young women.’

He nudged Thomas suggestively, but for once the clerk refused to rise to the bait, and Gwyn continued to pontificate.

‘However he did it, the bastard had no intention of becoming a martyr. He must have killed her in that last chamber, hitting her with something heavy from that storeroom, then breaking her neck to release her soul in the most effective place. But then he dragged her back to the foot of the stairs to make it look as if she had fallen down.’

‘At least we got that right, though the prior already suspected it,’ grunted the coroner. ‘That ruined Ferdinand’s accident plot, but if he hadn’t discovered she was no virgin he would have got away with it.’

There was a silence as they stared into the glowing fire pit, their only defence against the hard frost outside.

‘What about this falling ceiling?’ asked Thomas. ‘Can you really doubt that it was divine intervention?’

Gwyn was scornful. ‘Divine intervention be damned!’ he said. ‘Cornish intervention, more likely! When that maniac lifted that rock to hurl it at the prior, I charged at him and we went arse over head, crashing into the back wall! It was already shaky, and the shock of both of us hitting it dislodged some of the keystones at the top, where one had already fallen out of its own accord.’

John was inclined to agree with him, but a small voice in his head made him wonder why the roof fall had so efficiently killed the monk but left his officer unharmed.

‘That place is unsafe,’ declared Gwyn. ‘The prior was right for once. They should brick up that staircase and forget the vault ever existed.’

‘Perhaps they will,’ said de Wolfe. ‘Whatever happens, I’ll not be going back to that dismal place. At least we can satisfy Hubert Walter and King Richard that this was no political assassination, just the mad escapade of a crazy monk.’

‘Maybe they’ll ask you to be Coroner of the Verge again?’ suggested Thomas, proud of his master’s reputation.

‘God forbid!’ said John fervently and for once he made the sign of the cross.