Plague Land (42 page)

I took the small parchment from him, feeling a little embarrassed. I then unrolled it and read the simple message written upon its powdery surface.

And then I knew.

Chapter Twenty-Three

I found Brother Peter in the kitchen of Somershill, stewing onions and willow bark in the large copper-bottomed pan, his eyes watering as he stirred the foaming concoction. The air was heavy with the vapour of the brew, and the window dripped with steam.

Piers worked alongside him. Squatting on a three-legged stool, the boy scoured the fat from two meat skewers in a bowl of greasy water. As he ran a rag up and down the twist of metal, he sang about the Great Mortality – his song as melancholy as the call of the storm cock. When I requested the boy polish the silver spoons and not return to the kitchen for at least an hour, his young cheeks coloured. Dropping the skewers into the water as if they were made of hot iron, he ran out with a whistle – for he had cleaned these same silver spoons only the day before.

‘Why such secrecy, Oswald?’ Peter threw a handful of sage leaves into the pan, transforming the soupy mixture from grey and sharp-smelling to green and wood-scented.

‘I need to speak with you privately, Brother.’

He smiled. ‘What about?’

‘Where’s Gilbert?’

Peter prodded the sage leaves with the wooden spoon, making sure they remained beneath the surface of the water. ‘I think he’s milking the cows.’

‘And Mother and Clemence?’

‘In the solar, I expect.’ Peter wiped his hands upon a linen rag and looked at me suspiciously. ‘Is there something the matter, Oswald? Your cheeks are pink.’

‘It’s the murders.’

‘Have you received a date for Cornwall’s trial?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I visited the man in gaol yesterday. He pretends to have lost his mind and will only speak in Cornish. The fool is trying to feign insanity.’ He smiled. ‘As if that will spare him.’

‘Cornwall isn’t guilty.’

Peter cocked his head and frowned. ‘Oh yes?’

‘Just listen to me, Brother.’ I opened my hand and held out a single coral bead to him. ‘I found this under Matilda Starvecrow’s bed. Do you remember?’

‘Of course I do.’

Water from the pan began to bubble into the fire. Peter turned his attention from me and stirred the soup to release the heat. ‘These onions are far too pungent.’ He wiped tears from his eyes. ‘They should only be used for pickling.’

‘The bead, Brother?’

‘And I think the tonic needs liquorice.’ He gestured for me to smell the pan and give my opinion. ‘It’s for your mother’s jaundice. She’s been passing dark water.’

Ignoring this invitation, I held my hand out again – the bead sitting in the middle of my palm like a drop of new blood. ‘Do you remember I once gave you more of these beads? To show to Brother Thomas?’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, now irritated. He picked up the bead in his thumb and forefinger and studied it closely.

‘I gave you ten beads, Brother.’

‘Did you?’

‘But when you returned them to me, you passed over thirteen.’

He frowned. ‘Did I? They are such small things. You might easily have counted incorrectly.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Then they must have become mixed up with some others in my pouch. I do sometimes collect such items.’ He passed the bead back to me. ‘I expect I returned them to you along with the originals.’

‘No, Brother. All the beads were identical and came from the same necklace. A rosary of red coral.’

Peter returned to stirring the pot. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m suggesting it was your Pater Noster.’

He laughed. ‘I’ve never owned such a rosary.’

‘You didn’t. But the abbot did.’

He now stopped stirring. ‘I see, Oswald. So it’s my turn to be under suspicion, is it?’ Then he smiled. ‘But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve pointed the finger at nearly everybody else.’

It was a clever argument and I felt my feet beginning to tremble and lose their grip on the floor. ‘You stole the rosary from the abbot on his deathbed.’

‘Whatever are you talking about?’

‘But you did. Along with the many other items that found their way into our cart when we left the abbey.’

‘That was just wine and some unused vellum. Hardly a crime.’ Now he crossed his arms. ‘I’m becoming insulted.’

Once again he was undermining my arguments. But I would not be discouraged. This was no hallucination, nor false accusation. This time I was certain of my facts. ‘I’ve seen this rosary twice before,’ I told him. ‘Firstly, when I peeped into the abbot’s bedroom to spy upon his buboes. And then, when I was delirious and dying of the Plague myself. You held it over my face and prayed for me. You hoped its rarity and value would save me.’

‘What nonsense.’

‘I’ve dreamt about it. Repeatedly. Though I couldn’t see the meaning of the image, until now.’

‘So I’m accused on the strength of your dreams?’

‘Matilda pulled the Pater Noster from your neck as you attacked her, didn’t she?’ He laughed again. ‘You thought you’d collected all the beads from under her bed.’

If I had assumed he was going to confess, I was disappointed, since he pulled the wooden spoon from the soup and pointed it at me. His expression had turned from amusement to pique. ‘Be careful what you say, Oswald. These are serious accusations.’

‘But it’s what happened, isn’t it?’

‘No. It is not!’ he bellowed.

Peter then resumed his stirring and we avoided looking at one another until the kitchen cat bounded onto the table and broke the silence. As we shooed her away I surprised Peter by beginning my second line of attack.

‘I believe you saw Alison Starvecrow. The day she came to Somershill.’ I tried to keep my voice level and calm.

Peter reached for the silver flask in his belt pouch. ‘Leave me alone, Oswald. Go to the stables and pick on Piers. Since you seem in the mood for a fight.’

‘You suggested a private meeting with Alison in the chapel, didn’t you? After she failed to secure an audience with me or Mother. You wanted to know the purpose of her visit.’

He swilled the brandy about his mouth. ‘The girl was sent home. You know that.’

‘But she didn’t go. Gilbert saw her a second time by the chapel porch. He had the impression she was waiting for somebody.’

He burped and rubbed his stomach. ‘Well it wasn’t me.’

‘Who else would she meet in such a place, but a priest?’

He took another swig from the flask and this time pointed a finger. ‘I want you to stop this now, Oswald. You’re suffering from melancholia and a broken heart after that business with Mirabel. So I’ll forgive you. But you must say no more.’

‘You discovered why Alison wanted to speak with me. Then you suggested she intercept me on my way home from Burrsfield.’

‘I told you to stop this.’

‘You followed her along the drover’s road. Gilbert saw her a third and last time. She was walking towards the forest. Not the village.’

He laughed. ‘That hardly constitutes proof, does it?’

I took the letter from de Caburn’s secretum and placed it in front of him. ‘No, but this does.’

The kitchen cat slithered past us, rubbing her neck against Peter’s leg and looping her black tail about his ankle until he kicked her away. Unrolling the parchment, he squinted in a pretence of not being able to read the writing. ‘What is this now?’

‘It’s the letter from Clemence to de Caburn. She demands he visit her at the convent.’

‘What of it?’

‘She didn’t write this letter.’

‘Clemence might say so. But you can’t trust a viper like your sister.’

‘It’s written in your hand.’

‘Another delusion.’

He went to screw up the parchment, but I snatched it back before he had the chance to throw it into the fire. ‘You’ve disguised your writing well enough, Brother. But you’ve been my tutor since I was seven. I would know your hand if I were half blind.’ I pointed to the lettering. ‘See the ascenders of the ‘‘t”s, and the tails of the ‘‘g”s. Nobody else writes in such a way.’

His face reddened and tears were forming again, although this time the pungent stink of the onions was not to blame. He turned his back to me and stared at the wall.

I took a deep breath. ‘You followed Alison into the forest and murdered her. The fatal wound was the clean slice of a knife.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Then you buried her body. Only her grave was too shallow, and Gower’s pigs were able to sniff her out.’

He began to rock from foot to foot. ‘This is absurd.’

‘What was the secret Alison wanted to share with me, Brother? So terrible you had to murder her?’

‘Stop it.’

‘Because Matilda knew the secret too, didn’t she? You realised that when I recounted my conversation with the girl.’

He turned to me again, his face tear-stained and red. ‘She was infected with demons, Oswald. You couldn’t believe a word the girl said.’

‘You gave me a sleeping draught, then went to the Starvecrows’ cottage to murder her. And it
was
the abbot’s stolen Pater Noster that she grabbed as you attacked her. I know it.’

He shook his head, though I’m not sure if it was in disagreement or despair.

‘Then you buried Matilda. Only this time you dug a much deeper hole. This time you wanted to make certain pigs wouldn’t sniff her out like a truffle.’

‘That’s enough now, Oswald!’ Peter clenched his hands into a ball, his bony knuckles white and pronounced. ‘Don’t speak that way of the dead.’

‘She’s only dead because you murdered her!’

His hands clenched further into fists and I think he might have been considering punching me, but then suddenly thought better of it. Slowing his breathing, he recovered his composure and smoothed down his habit. ‘I wonder, Oswald, how Matilda’s head came to be dropped in the well of St Blaise? If, as you contend, I buried her? Does your gift for deduction have the answer to that mystery?’

I had no further evidence to rely upon, only my suspicions. Nevertheless, I would not admit defeat. ‘I can explain that,’ I told him boldly.

A smile curled across his lips. ‘Please do. I would be interested to hear.’

‘I don’t believe you visited the bishop during the week Clemence was married.’

‘You’re ignoring my question, Oswald.’

‘You hid in the empty Starvecrow cottage.’

‘Is that so?’

‘When I found the burning embers of your fire, you locked me inside.’

He flung his hands up in the air. ‘Why would I be hiding out in a hovel, Oswald? Once again your imagination spirals off into fantasy.’

‘You were taking advantage of the good fortune you’d been handed.’

He laughed. ‘What good fortune?’

‘Cornwall’s monster. The dog-headed beast.’ He made as if to laugh again. Only this time the tone was thin and tentative. ‘At first you were as disgusted as I by such a tall tale,’ I said. ‘Maybe more so. But then you realised this ignorant invention could work to your advantage.’

The onions began to bubble over in the pot, and steam filled the kitchen. Peter went to stir the pan, but I took his arm and prevented him from moving. ‘While you claimed to be visiting the bishop, you exhumed Matilda’s body and removed her head.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘You mutilated her corpse so it would appear she had been gored to death by a monster with the teeth of a dog. That’s why there were fresh maggots in the wound. You then put her head in a holy place. The well of St Blaise. Somewhere you knew everybody would visit after Clemence’s wedding.’

He remained silent.

‘With the dog head story established, it was easy for you to murder de Caburn. You lured him into the forest with the letter. Then you ambushed and murdered him.’