House of Shadows Read online

  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.’