Belladonna at Belstone aktm-8 Page 11

  But if the treasurer was right and there had been a deliberate killing, Baldwin wasn’t sure the hot-headed bishop would want to solve the crime. He felt no personal animosity towards Bertrand, other than the automatic dislike for a Frenchman of the cloth based upon his Order’s destruction, but he had a wish to get back to Furnshill as quickly as possible in case war should break out. In any event, no matter what Peter Clifford had told the bishop, enquiring into a murder in a convent was work for a priest, not a Keeper.

  Denise brought them to the eastern wall of the cloister, and now she hesitated at the door to a small room. Baldwin thanked her before he stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, and then he saw the body lying wrapped up on a trestle at the far side beneath a window.

  “Could you fetch us light?” he asked, and Denise gave him a doubtful look before she nodded and went back to the church.

  “Come, Simon.”

  The reluctant bailiff followed him to the body and the two men began unwrapping the linen shroud. Simon disliked this task; he always found it unpleasant but this case was particularly difficult, for the girl was only a little older than his daughter Edith, and she had a similar build. As he helped pull her yielding body over to tug the shroud from her, he found himself contemplating his feelings, were he to see a man do this to his own little Edith. His imagination took hold of him, and for a moment he almost believed that when the covering was lifted he would see Edith’s sightless face looking up at him. The superstitious vision conjured in his mind almost made him stop and step away.

  Moll was naked. Her tunic had been saved for another novice. It was a relief to see that the woman they were exposing was a brunette and not a blonde like Edith.

  “Here’s the surgeon’s mark,” Baldwin said. There was a small cut in the arm, just as any blood-letter would make. “It is hard to believe that so small a scar could cause death.”

  “It’s like I said, Sir Baldwin. The phlebotomist is known to me. He wouldn’t make an elementary mistake like that.”

  “So you say,” Baldwin agreed absently. He was pulling the linen away from the corpse’s face. As the last of the covering came away, he stood a moment studying her carefully.

  It was clear that she had been a pretty little thing. Here in the dimly lit chamber, she appeared to have almost a pale glow about her, and in the cool atmosphere there was none of the unpleasant stench that was the usual concomitant to death. Even Simon was little affected, Baldwin saw. Baldwin was used to Simon retreating as a corpse was revealed, his stomach rebelling. With her eyes shut, this dead novice had the appearance of a girl asleep, and as Baldwin surveyed her, he was almost persuaded that there was a smile upon her face.

  “Surely this child wasn’t murdered. She seems so relaxed,” he said.

  Bertrand gave him a sharp glance. “You sure?”

  “No, I am only going on my first impression, but her face shows no signs of fear or pain.”

  Denise returned carrying a large stand with three fat candles, only one of which was alight. “They all blew out,” she said anxiously. “I had to return to light one.“

  Baldwin smiled his thanks, and used the one still burning to relight the others. Then he set the stand by Moll’s head. “Her features are definitely relaxed, but we have to see that there is no other wound on her body, if you want to be certain.” He looked enquiringly at the bishop, who waved his withered hand in assent.

  Holding the candle high over her body, Baldwin surveyed the whole of her torso, her limbs and face. There was no obvious wound. With Denise’s and Simon’s help he rolled the corpse over, but her back displayed only the darkening to be expected on a dead body left to lie. Blood, as Baldwin knew, tended to drain downwards in a corpse. Then he went to her head and squatted down, carefully feeling the whole of her skull, parting the locks in his search for any sign of blood, broken bones or bruising. He had once missed a crushed skull, proof of murder, on a child, and was keen not to repeat that error.

  At last he stood and peered down at her face, candle held nearby.

  “Nothing, is there?” Simon said softly.

  “No,” said Baldwin, but as he spoke his eye caught sight of what looked like a swelling on her lip. He leaned closer, then crouched, staring at her profile. There was no discolouration so it didn’t look as if she had been punched or beaten, but her upper lip protruded too much on one side.

  Baldwin held the candle to her face and lifted her lip gently. He stood peering at her teeth and the inner surface of her lip. The teeth had been mashed into the lip, puncturing it in places, and weakening the teeth themselves, as if someone had held something over her face.

  “Well?” Bertrand demanded. “Can you see something there?”

  Baldwin set the candle back in its holder and stood lost in thought. Then he raised her eyelids and peered at her eyes. The irises were very small, something he had seen before in men who were drugged. Baldwin went over each of her limbs once more, but this time more slowly and methodically. When he reached her upper arms he slowed, going from one to the other, peering closely.

  At the front of each of her biceps was a yellow-brown bruise. Baldwin wondered whether a cord had bound them, but rejected the idea. There would have been a circular mark all around the arm if she had been tightly bound. He stood back: bruising; swollen lips; her teeth beneath slightly loose, as if she had been stifled; the cut in her arm from the blood-letter…

  Baldwin took the candle up again and looked carefully at the slash, pulling the edges apart gently, probing into it. A phlebotomist always made one cut, a quick slash over the vein. This girl had suffered two cuts: one over the veins, the second at a slight angle to the first, and deeper.

  There could be no doubt.

  “She was murdered,” he breathed.

  It was twilight when Agnes left the treasurer’s side and made her way out to the cloister nearest the church. Here she hesitated, agonising whether to enter or not, but her caution was overwhelmed by her recollection of Luke’s face and she quietly opened the door and slipped inside.

  Her heart started pounding with mixed nervousness and excitement when she saw him.

  Luke knelt alone before the altar, palms joined, the fingers of both hands meeting all along their lengths, and held up high in the pose of submission, just as a knight placed his hands together before his lord and held them aloft so that his master could place his own hands outside and accept the oaths of loyalty. Luke’s head was bowed, his whole posture that of a devout penitent, and the sight pulled at Agnes’s heart.

  Rather than interrupt, she glided softly along the wall, away from the candlelight. He looked so vulnerable, she thought; like a saint about to be martyred for his faith, offering up his last prayers before execution. It must have been like this when St Thomas a Becket was murdered: the gentle cleric at the altar, performing his duties honourably when the King’s assassins got in. The thought gave Agnes a most undevout and yet pleasurable thrill. She wanted to call out, to make Luke start and turn around with that fear in his eyes, like a frightened stag held at bay by the hounds.

  Luke finished his prayer and stood slowly, his eyes filled with what Agnes thought was almost a beggarly fixedness at the altar’s cross. He dropped his head as he turned from the symbol of his religion, and as he did so, Agnes chuckled. Instantly his face went from one point to another, seeking the source of the sound.

  She let him stew a moment or two before stepping into the light. “I thought you’d be able to tell where I was.“

  Luke gave a short grunt and rushed to her, holding her in his arms and kissing her nose, her brow, her eyes, her mouth.

  The bell rang and the community stirred, all the obedientiaries leaving their work; nuns in their offices set aside herbs, food, books, inks; lay women sighed and dropped their laundry back into the water or into their baskets, others stood slowly, arching backs that ached from scrubbing floors, or reluctantly turned from the fires that promised warmth and co
mfort and instead made their way towards the cold church. In the men’s area, canons carefully closed their books and lay brothers put their ales down or dropped their tools before heading for the church.

  Denise was suddenly aware again of the pressure in her bladder.

  She turned an agonised face to the visitor. “I have to go, my Lord Bishop – that’s the call to Vespers.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said.

  His tone of voice surprised Baldwin. There was a generous quality, like an avuncular man talking to his favourite niece, and Baldwin shot him a glance. Bertrand was standing still, apparently watching Denise as she walked away, but Baldwin was sure Bertrand’s mind was elsewhere. Once again, he wondered about the bishop’s motivation. Most priests would have been only too happy to discover that there had not been a murder, that the convent was free from that stain on its reputation – but Bertrand seemed relieved to hear the death pronounced as murder.

  Baldwin covered the corpse once more, tugging the linen sheet back over Moll, gazing down at her reflectively. When he was done, he was surprised to find Bertrand had moved to his side. The visitor stood shaking his head for a while, but then went out to the cloister.

  “Baldwin,” Simon said, jerking his head after Bertrand, “if I was a cynic, I’d think that bastard was happy the girl was murdered.”

  “He is,” said Baldwin. “But forget him for a while: this girl was suffocated, I think, and then had her artery opened to make it appear an accident. Let the good bishop seek whatever he wants. We shall find this poor child’s killer.”

  After the service Luke watched the nuns file from the church like a line of saints. He felt the mixed calm and boredom he always experienced after a service, but today there was a particle of excitement. The visitor was here to conduct an inquest, Agnes had told him breathily, as she held him close and writhed her hips against him, grinning up at him wickedly as she felt his response. He went from the altar to the door connecting the two churches, the two cloisters. Carefully pulling it shut behind him, he walked through the canonical church to the outer door and leaned against it a moment.

  So the bishop wanted to find out what had happened to Moll, did he? He’d have to dig deep – and if he wanted any help from Luke, he’d have a long wait.

  Luke was a most straightforward lover. He knew that his robes excited lust in a lot of women, and he’d always made the most of the fact. Living in a convent gave him a higher probability of success, for the women here only ever saw him, and no other men.

  Not that competition would have worried him. He was content that his sharply defined features, grey eyes, red-gold hair and easy smile would win him lovers wherever he went. His experiences generally proved him right.

  But for every ten who accepted him greedily, there was sometimes one who rejected him.

  From the look of her, Moll was as lusty as any other novice. She seemed to know how to excite a man without even touching him; she’d managed that with Luke. He could recall the first time he’d seen her, the vixen. She’d given him a cheery smile, head back coquettishly so she was looking at him low over the top of her veil, just like so many girls he’d known, sucking her veil against her face, emphasising her lips, when she knew he was watching her. She couldn’t have done all that by accident. It was obvious from the start that she wanted him. And he wanted her, too.

  In some ways Luke had a blind spot: he assumed all women desired him. The idea that one might only see his cloth and wouldn’t consider him in a sexual light never occurred to him.

  It was Moll who taught him that some novices were truly religious. Stupid bitch!

  Chapter Nine

  Denise was one of the first to arrive in the cloister after the service, and when she saw the three men still waiting, she felt her heart flutter within her. It was such a weird sight: males, and two of them in secular clothing. Entirely out of place. She felt the need of a pint of wine to settle her nerves.

  “Sister!”

  Seeing the bishop beckon, Denise ducked her head obediently, and made her way along the corridor towards them. “My Lord?” She tried not to sound curt, but her belly was complaining, and she desperately wanted that wine.

  Baldwin looked her over. Above her veil she had intelligent-looking eyes, although they held a certain red-rimmed dullness which persuaded Baldwin that she habitually drank too much. “Sister, this death is terribly sad. It is dreadful to see so young a novice destroyed for no reason. Do you have any idea who could have been responsible?”

  “Me, sir?” She shook her head slowly. “I can think of no one who could wish to harm her. Moll was very quiet… very devoted to the church.”

  “She had no faults?” Baldwin pressed her gently. Denise opened her mouth but there was a tenseness about her. Baldwin smiled reassuringly and nodded towards Bertrand. “The good bishop will confirm that you should tell us anything which could have led to someone wanting to harm her. We are investigating her murder, not a simple matter of taking a sister’s serving of wine without permission.”

  As she reddened, he cursed himself for choosing so unfortunate a simile.

  “Moll was a good child, I am sure.” As she spoke two other novices came past, one very fair and full-bodied, the other olive-skinned and with dark, flashing eyes. All three men noticed them, and Denise saw their attention waver. “Moll was like those two,” she said. “Young and flighty. I think she was more fervent in her prayers, but she was a novice, and girls now aren’t like they were in my day. They don’t show the right reverence to the church and nuns.”

  “Was Moll irreverent?” Simon asked.

  “She was… overconfident. She was convinced that she was superior to everyone else,” Denise said, holding Baldwin’s gaze. Suddenly she found that she couldn’t keep from blurting out, “She would have been happier if she could have died with the stigmata after a life of telling others how to live.”

  “Ah! She was a zealot?”

  “Yes – a fanatic. She’d come and chastise us for what she saw as irreligious behaviour. As if she had any idea! She was too young to know anything about life or service.”

  “Did she try to talk to your sisters?” Baldwin pressed mildly.

  Denise stiffened. His question appeared to imply that she had simply complained because of Moll’s words to her. “Sir Baldwin, Moll spoke to almost all of us – novices and sisters – even, to my knowledge, the treasurer. I don’t think she had the arrogance to try confronting the prioress, but no doubt she would have rectified that before long, had she lived.”

  “The other novices, how did they react to her?” Simon asked.

  “They’re like girls the world over – they often have to be chastised for their indiscipline. Their behaviour leaves much to be desired.”

  “They misbehave?”

  “If I could have my way I’d have them thrashed! They bring dishonour upon the whole convent.”

  “In what way? Are they impious?”

  “Some have only an outward display of piety,” she agreed primly. “Forgetting their place in the world, even forgetting their vows and…”

  Bertrand cleared his throat and Denise took his warning, snapping her mouth shut and glancing down at the ground.

  “I have heard talk of disobedience,” Baldwin murmured understandingly.

  “It’s worse than mere disobedience, Sir Knight. Some of these young ones appear to have no belief in their calling. Take that girl, Agnes, the fair one. I see no proof that she has a vocation, only a lord who wishes to be shot of her…”

  “I think we should move on,“ said Bertrand quickly. He had no wish to have Sir Rodney’s motives in placing Agnes at the nunnery questioned.

  “Very well,” said Baldwin. “Where were you on the night the girl died?”

  “I couldn’t sleep, my Lord. I went to the frater for something to drink,” she said.

  There was a brittleness to her smile that persuaded Baldwin she was often to be found down there, a pot of wine before
her, long after she should have been in her bed. “Did you see anyone?” he asked. “Was the prioress about, for example?”

  Her face reddening, Denise shook her head. “Lady Elizabeth wasn’t around, no. I heard her in her chamber.” She hesitated, then continued more slowly. “I did see something, though. An awful apparition. A shadow which crept along the wall as if hunting me.”

  Baldwin nodded seriously. “Show us where this was, Sister.”

  Nothing loath, she took them to the frater and showed where she had been seated. It was near the farther side of the room, by the screens which gave out to the buttery. “Here,” she said, indicating the door to the yard behind. “That door was open, and the shadow was flung against the wall before me.”

  Where she was sitting, someone walking in the yard behind the hall, outside the cloister itself, would have had their shadow thrown against the wall in front of her. The wall to the cloister. Baldwin sucked at his moustache. “Was the shadow that of anyone you recognised?”

  “It was a nun,” she admitted after a pause. When the silence which followed her words became too much, she burst out, “Margherita, our treasurer!”

  Bertrand glanced at Baldwin, and then demanded impatiently, “What of it? Why on earth should you have been so fearful of a nun’s shade?”

  “Because she had a dagger in her hand!”

  As she swept from the church, Margherita saw the three men standing near the frater with Denise, and she caught her breath, unsure whether to take the boar by the tusks or not. As she wavered, she saw Denise move away, and then the visitor’s eye lit upon her. Stiffening her back, Margherita strode to him.