‘Nothing down here,’ Freize observed.
‘Next we’ll search the Lady Abbess’s house,’ Luca ruled. ‘But first, I’ll check upstairs.’ He took the candle and started up the ladder. ‘You wait down here.’
‘Not without a light,’ pleaded Freize.
‘Just stand still.’
Freize watched the wavering flame go upwards and then stood, nervously, in pitch darkness. From above he heard a sudden strangled exclamation. ‘What is it?’ he hissed into the darkness. ‘Are you all right?’
Just then a cloth was flung over his head, blinding him, and as he ducked down he heard the whistle of a heavy blow in the air above him. He flung himself to the ground and rolled sideways, shouting a muffled warning as something thudded against the side of his head. He heard Luca coming quickly down the ladder and then a splintering sound as the ladder was heaved away from the wall. Freize struggled against the pain and the darkness, took a wickedly placed kick in the belly, heard Luca’s whooping shout as he fell, and then the terrible thud as he hit the stone floor. Freize, gasping for breath, called out for his master, but there was nothing but silence.
Both young men lay still for long frightening moments in the darkness, then Freize sat up, pulled the hood from his head, and patted himself all over. His hand came away wet from his face; he was bleeding from forehead to chin. ‘Are you there, Sparrow?’ he asked hoarsely.
He was answered by silence. ‘Dearest saints, don’t say she has killed him,’ he moaned. ‘Not the little lord, not the changeling boy!’
He got to his hands and knees and crawled his way around, feeling across the floor, bumping into the heaped piles of cloth, as he quartered the room. It took him painful stumbling minutes to be sure: Luca was not in the storeroom at all.
Luca was gone.
‘Fool that I am, why did I not lock the door behind me?’ Freize muttered remorsefully to himself. He staggered to his feet and felt his way round the wall, past the broken stair, to the opening. There was a little light in the front storeroom, for the door was wide open and the waning moon shone in. As Freize stumbled towards it, he saw the iron grille to the wine and ale cellar stood wide open. He rubbed his bleeding head, leaned for a moment on the trestle table, and went on towards the light. As he reached the doorway, the abbey bell rang for Lauds and he realised he had been unconscious for perhaps half an hour.
He was setting out for the chapel to raise the alarm for Luca when he saw a light at the hospital window. He turned towards it, just as the Lady Almoner came hastily out into the yard. ‘Freize! Is that you?’
He stumbled towards her, and saw her recoil as she saw his bloodstained face. ‘Saints save us! What has happened to you?’
‘Somebody hit me,’ Freize said shortly. ‘I have lost the little lord! Raise the alarm, he can’t be far.’
‘I have him! I have him! He is in a stupor,’ she said. ‘What happened to him?’
‘Praise God you have him. Where was he?’
‘I found him staggering in the yard just now on my way to Lauds. When I got him into the infirmary he fainted. I was coming to wake you and Brother Peter.’
‘Take me to him.’
She turned, and Freize staggered after her into the long low room. There were about ten beds arranged on both sides of the room, poor pallet beds of straw with unbleached sacking thrown over them. Only one was occupied. It was Luca – deathly pale, eyes shut, breathing lightly.
‘Dearest saints!’ Freize murmured, in an agony of anxiety. ‘Little lord, speak to me!’
Slowly Luca opened his hazel eyes. ‘Is that you?’
‘Praise God, it is. Thank Our Lady that it is, as ever it was.’
‘I heard you shout and then I fell down the stairs,’ he said, his speech muffled by the bruise on his mouth.
‘I heard you come down like a sack of potatoes,’ confirmed Freize. ‘Dearest saints, when I heard you hit the floor! And someone hit me . . .’
‘I feel like the damned in hell.’
‘Me too.’
‘Sleep then, we’ll talk in the morning.’
Luca closed his eyes. The Lady Almoner approached. ‘Let me bathe your wounds.’ She was holding a bowl with a white linen cloth, and there was a scent of lavender and crushed leaves of arnica. Freize allowed himself to be persuaded onto another bed.
‘Were you attacked in your beds?’ she asked him. ‘How did this happen?’
‘I don’t know,’ Freize said, too stunned by the blow to make anything up. Besides, she could see the open door to the storeroom as well as he, and she had found Luca in the yard. ‘I can’t remember anything,’ he said lamely and, as she dabbed and exclaimed at the bruises and scratches on his face, he stretched out under the luxury of a woman’s care, and fell fast asleep.
Freize woke to a very grey cold dawn. Luca was snoring slightly on the opposite bed, a little snuffle followed by a long relaxed whistle. Freize lay listening to the penetrating noise for some time before he opened his eyes, and then he blinked and raised himself up onto his arm. He could not believe what he saw. The bed next to him was now occupied by a nun, laid on her back, her face as white as her hood, which was pushed back exposing her clammy shaven head. Her fingers, enfolded in a position of prayer on her completely still breast, were blue, the fingernails rimmed as if with ink. But worst of all were her eyes, which were horribly open, the pupils dilated black in black. She was completely still. She was clearly – even to Freize’s inexperienced frightened stare – dead.
A praying nun knelt at her feet, endlessly murmuring the rosary. Another knelt by her head, muttering the same prayers. The narrow bed was ringed with candles, which illuminated the scene like a tableau of martyrdom. Freize sat up, certain that he was dreaming, hoping that he was dreaming, pinched himself in the hope of waking, and put his feet on the floor, silently cursing the thudding in his head, not daring to stand yet. ‘Sister, God bless you. What happened to the poor girl?’
The nun at the head of the bed did not speak until she finished the prayer but looked at him with eyes that were dark with unshed tears. ‘She died in her sleep,’ she said eventually. ‘We don’t know why.’
‘Who is she?’ Freize crossed himself with a sudden superstitious fear that it was one of the nuns who had come to give evidence to their inquiry. ‘Bless her soul and keep her.’
‘Sister Augusta,’ she said, a name he did not know.
He stole a quick glance at the white cold face and recoiled from the blackness of her dead gaze.
‘Saint’s sake! Why have you not closed her eyes and weighted them?’
‘They won’t close,’ the nun at the foot of the bed said, trembling. ‘We have tried and tried. They won’t close.’
‘They must do! Why would they not?’
She spoke in a low monotone: ‘Her eyes are black because she was dreaming of Death again. She was always dreaming of Death. And now He has come for her. Her dark eyes are filled with that last vision, of Him coming for her. That’s why they won’t close, that’s why they are as black as jet. If you look deeply into her terrible black eyes you will see Death himself reflected in them like a mirror. You will see the face of Death looking out at you.’
The first nun let out a little wail, a cold keening noise. ‘He will come for us all,’ she whispered.
They both crossed themselves and returned to their muttered prayers as Freize shuddered and bowed his head in a prayer for the dead. Gingerly, he got up and, gritting his teeth against his swimming head, walked cautiously around the nuns to the bed where Luca still snored. He shook his shoulder: ‘Little lord, wake up.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that,’ said Luca groggily.
‘Wake up, wake up. One of the nuns is dead.’
Luca sat up abruptly then held his head and swayed. ‘Was she attacked?’
Freize nodded at the praying nuns. ‘They say she died in her sleep.’
‘Can you see?’ Luca whispered.
Freize shook
his head. ‘She has no head wound, I can’t see anything else.’
‘What do they say?’ Luca’s nod indicated the praying nuns who had returned to their devotions. To his surprise, he saw Freize shiver as if a cold wind had touched him.
‘They don’t make any sense,’ Freize said, denying the thought that Death was coming for them all.
Just then, the door opened and the Lady Almoner came in, leading four lay sisters. The nuns at the head and foot of the corpse rose up and stood aside as the women in brown robes carefully lifted the lifeless body onto a rough stretcher, and took it through an arched stone doorway into the neighbouring room.
‘They will dress her and prepare her for burial tomorrow,’ the Lady Almoner said in reply to Luca’s questioning glance. She was white with strain and fatigue. The nuns took their candles and went to keep their vigil in the cold outer room. Luca saw their shadows jump huge on the stone walls, black as big monsters, as they set down their lights and knelt to pray, then someone closed the door on them.
‘What happened to her?’ he asked quietly.
‘She died in her sleep,’ the Lady Almoner said. ‘God alone knows what is happening here. When they went to wake her early, for she was to serve at Prime, she was gone. She was cold and stiff and her eyes were fixed open. Who knows what she saw or dreamed, or what came to torment her?’ Quickly she crossed herself and put her hand to the small gold cross that hung from a gold chain on her belt.
She came closer to Luca and looked into his eyes. ‘And you? Are you dizzy? Or faint?’
‘I’ll live,’ he said wryly.
‘I’m faint,’ Freize volunteered hopefully.
‘I’ll get you some small ale,’ she said, and poured some from a pitcher. She handed them both a cup. ‘Did you see your assassin?’
‘Assassin.’ Freize repeated the word, strange to him, which usually meant a hired Arab killer.
‘Whoever it was who tried to kill you,’ she amended. ‘And anyway, what were you doing in the storeroom?’
‘I was searching for something,’ Luca said evasively. ‘Will you take me there now?’
‘We should wait for sunrise,’ she replied.
‘You have the keys?’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘Then Freize will let us in with his key.’
The look she gave Freize was very cold. ‘You have a key to my storeroom?’
Freize nodded, his face a picture of guilt. ‘Just for essential supplies. So as not to be a nuisance.’
‘I don’t think you are well enough to walk over there,’ she said to Luca.
‘Yes I am,’ he said. ‘We have to go.’
‘The stair is broken.’
‘Then we’ll get a ladder.’
She realised that he would insist. ‘I’m afraid. To be honest, I am afraid to go.’
‘I understand,’ Luca said with a quick smile. ‘Of course you are. Terrible things happened last night. But you have to be brave. You will be with us and we won’t be caught like fools again. Take courage, come on.’
‘Can we not go after sunrise, when it is fully light?’
‘No,’ he said gently. ‘It has to be now.’
She bit her lip. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Very well.’
She lifted a torch from the sconce in the wall and led the way across the courtyard to the storerooms. Someone had closed the door and she opened it, and stood back to let them go in. The wooden ladder was still on the floor, where it had been thrown down. Freize lifted it back into place, and shook it to make sure that it was firm. ‘This time, I’ll lock the door behind us,’ he remarked, and turned the key and locked them in.
‘Oh, she can get through a locked door,’ the Lady Almoner said with a frightened little laugh. ‘I think she can go through walls. I think she can go anywhere she wishes.’
‘Who can?’ Luca demanded.
She shrugged. ‘Go on up, I will tell you everything. I will keep no more secrets. A nun has died under this roof, in our care. The time has come for you to know everything that has been done here. And you must stop it. You must stop her. I have been driven far beyond defending this nunnery, far beyond defending this Lady Abbess. I will tell you everything now. But first you shall see what she has done.’
Luca went carefully up the steps, the Lady Almoner following, holding her robe out of the way as she climbed. Freize stood at the bottom with the torch, lighting their way.
It was dark in the loft, but the Lady Almoner crossed to the far wall and threw open the half-door, for the dawn light. The beams from the rising sun poured into the loft through the opening and shone on glistening fleeces of gold, hanging up to dry, as the gold dust sifted through the wool to fall onto the linen sheets spread on the floor below. The room was like a treasure chamber, with gold dust underfoot and golden fleeces hanging like priceless washing on the bowed lines.
‘Good God,’ Luca whispered. ‘It is so. The gold . . .’ He looked around as if he could not believe what he was seeing. ‘So much! So bright!’
She sighed. ‘It is. Have you seen enough?’
He bent and took a pinch of the dust. Here and there were little nuggets of gold, like grit. ‘How much? How much is this worth?’
‘She harvests a couple of fleeces a month,’ the Lady Almoner said. ‘If she is allowed to continue it will add up to a fortune.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
She closed the half-door to shut out the sunlight, and barred it. ‘Ever since the Lady Abbess came. She knows the land, being brought up here; she knows it better than her brother, for he was sent away for his education while she stayed at home with their father. The stream belongs to our abbey, it is in our woods. Her slave, being a Moor, knew how her people pan for gold and she taught the sisters to peg out the fleeces in the stream, telling them it would clean the wool. They have no idea what they are doing, she plays them for fools – she told them that the stream has special purifying qualities for the wool, and they know no better. They peg out the fleeces in the stream and bring them back here to dry; they never see them drying out and the gold pattering down on the linen sheets. The slave comes in secretly to sweep up the gold dust, takes it to sell, and the sisters come in when the gold is gone and the loft is empty, and take the fleeces away to card and spin.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Sometimes they remark how soft the wool is. They are fools for her. She has made fools of us all.’
‘The slave brings the money to you? For the abbey?’
The Lady Almoner turned to go down the ladder. ‘What do you think? Does this look like an abbey that is rich in its own gold? Have you seen my infirmary? Have you seen any costly medicines? You have seen my storeroom, I know. Do we seem wealthy to you?’
‘Where does she sell it? How does she sell the gold?’
The Lady Almoner shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Rome, I suppose. I know nothing about it. She sends the slave in secret.’
Luca hesitated, briefly, as if there were something more he would ask, but then he turned and went down after her, ignoring the bruise on his shoulder and the pain in his neck. ‘You are saying that the Lady Abbess uses the nuns to pan for gold and keeps the money for herself?’
She nodded. ‘You have seen it for yourself now. And I think she hopes to close the nunnery altogether. I believe that she plans to open a gold mine here, on our fields. I think she is deliberately leading the nunnery into disgrace so that you recommend it should be closed down. When it is abolished as a nunnery she will say she is free from her father’s will. She will renounce her vows, she will claim it as her inheritance from her father, she will continue to live here, and she and the slave will be left here alone.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ Luca demanded. ‘When I opened the inquiry? Why keep this back?’
‘Because this place is my life,’ she said fiercely. ‘It has been a beacon on the hill, a refuge for women and a place to serve God. I hoped that the Lady Abbess would learn to live here in peace. I
thought God would call her, that her vocation would grow. Then I hoped that she would be satisfied with making a fortune here. I thought she might be an evil woman, but that we might contain her. But since a nun has died – in our care—’ She choked on a sob. ‘Sister Augusta, one of the most innocent and simple women who has been here for years—’ She broke off.
‘Well, now it is all over,’ she said with dignity. ‘I can’t hide what she is doing. She is using this place of God to hide her fortune-hunting, and I believe that her slave is practising witchcraft on the nuns. They dream, they sleepwalk, they show strange signs, and now one has died in her sleep. Before God, I believe that the Lady Abbess and her slave are driving us all mad so that they can get at the gold.’
Her hand sought the cross at her waist and Luca saw her hold it tightly, as if it were a talisman.
‘I understand,’ he said, as calmly as he could, though his own throat was dry with superstitious fear. ‘I have been sent here to end these heresies, these sins. I am authorised by the Pope himself to inquire and judge. There is nothing that I will not see with my own eyes. There is nothing I will not question. Later this morning I will speak to the Lady Abbess again and, if she cannot explain herself, I will see that she is dismissed from her post.’
‘Sent away from here?’
He nodded.
‘And the gold? You will let the abbey keep the gold so that we can feed the poor and establish a library? Be a beacon on the hill for the benighted?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The abbey should have its fortune.’
He saw her face light up with joy. ‘Nothing matters more than the abbey,’ she assured him. ‘You will let my sisters stay here and live their former lives, their holy lives? You will put them under the discipline of a good woman, a new Lady Abbess who can command them and guide them?’
‘I will put it under the charge of the Dominican brothers,’ Luca decided. ‘And they will harvest the gold from the stream and endow the abbey. This is no longer a house in the service of God, as it has been suborned. I will put it under the control of men, there will be no Lady Abbess. The gold shall be restored to God, the abbey to the brothers.’