The Dalwich Desecration (20 page)

“There are people who believe music is the language of angels.”

He looked at me with a faint smile. “Well said. Perhaps our abbot was such a man.” He folded the scrap of paper and slid it back into the Bible. “Have you found anything of interest in the rest of that mess?”

“Nothing I can ascribe any real value to. It all seems decidedly commonplace. If Brother Silsbury is holding this for his personal review, I'm afraid he'll be wasting his time.”

Colin cast a perfunctory glance around the whole of the clutter of papers. “Just leave it then. There's little else here for us this afternoon.” I began to neaten the pile of pages into something more tenable when Colin reached out and caught my arm. “Don't.”

“Whyever not?” I protested. “It hardly seems appropriate to leave it in such disarray.”

“It is actually quite appropriate.” He gave me a mischievous smile. “I should very much like to continue perusing the abbot's Bible for a while and clearly this cagey monk will not allow me to take it to my room.” He gestured to the clutter of papers and the small journal lying atop the bed and gave a crooked smile. “I'm hoping this will keep him from noticing its absence for a while.”

I shook my head. “I'm not at all convinced about that. . . .”

He shrugged his left shoulder. “I'm afraid it's the best I've got at the moment.” Then he stuffed the compact book under his vest against his left side, resting on the waist of his pants. “Discreet?”

“If you keep your jacket open I suppose it will do.”

“Thank you, Brother Silsbury!” Colin hastily called out as he headed for the door. “We appreciate your assistance as always. We shall let ourselves out. No need to trouble yourself any further with us.”

“As you wish,” Brother Silsbury called back with marked disinterest.

And then, chortling like two impish schoolboys, we burst out the door and hurried back to the monastery.

CHAPTER 19

M
irth is a funny thing and I intend no pun in so stating. When one is the perpetrator of the amusement, then it is indeed a time of great hilarity and joy. But should the situation turn, as such a circumstance often does when someone is the brunt of the entertainment, then it can quickly become wholly regrettable. And so it was for Colin and me when Brother Silsbury came barreling down the monastery's main corridor not three minutes after we had reached it, his annoyance evident in the swiftly cracking sound of his approaching footsteps.

He bellowed at us to stop, which, of course, we did, and then he chastised us, for I can think of no better way to describe his tone and manner, for having pilfered the abbot's Bible. Yet what I found most peculiar was when Colin went to return the small book, he pulled it not from beneath the left side of his vest where I had seen him secrete it, but from the right side. As though it had somehow traversed around his waist while we had attempted to make our getaway.

Brother Silsbury scowled at us as he snatched the Bible back, leveling the sort of self-righteous sneer at Colin and me that I had not seen since suffering under the tutelage of some of the sterner schoolmasters at Easling and Temple. Colin looked uncharacteristically contrite and I could feel the heat of embarrassment coloring my cheeks. It all seemed to placate Brother Silsbury, who shook his head once, and muttered, “I am terribly disappointed,” before crisply turning and returning back the way he had come, the small Bible clutched at his side as though it were a holy relic.

“Well, that was unexpectedly vigilant of him,” Colin said as he turned and started toward the abbot's office, his attitude curiously upbeat.

“How mortifying,” I tsked warily as I was increasingly becoming certain that he was up to something. “Caught like common thieves.”

“There was nothing common about our thievery,” he smirked as he plucked an identical Bible from beneath the left side of his vest. “For we still have what we need.”

“What?” I stared down at the black leather-bound book no larger than the length of Colin's hand and marveled that it looked so similar to the one he'd just handed over to Brother Silsbury. “But the abbot's underlining of passages, the scrap of paper he had stuffed inside . . . Brother Silsbury will know what you've done.”

“He said himself that neither he nor any of the other members of this pious community had yet had an opportunity to review the abbot's personal papers, including his Bible. If he is lying and recognizes that I have given him an imitation, then he will have to accuse us of doing so and thereby implicate his own lie. And if he
is
lying, I shall hound him until I find out why.” He flipped the abbot's Bible over in his hand several times, the gold-colored edging on the pages creating a striking contrast of severity and substance against the slick black cover. “Outwardly it looks just the same as the one I gave him. They're all the same. It is the standard issue given to each man upon his arrival at Whitmore Abbey. I presumed the abbot's would be no different and, I was pleased to notice when he first showed us his items, I was correct.”

“When did you pick up that other one?”

“When I was rummaging through the back shelves in the library yesterday afternoon while you were playing lookout. There is a pile of these back there, so I availed myself of one, presuming it might come in handy.”

“And then you underlined a mass of random passages with the intent of switching it for the abbot's Bible?”

He gave an uneasy sort of shrug. “I didn't underline nearly enough. If Brother Silsbury
has
looked at the abbot's Bible in any detail, he will almost surely realize that something is amiss.” He chuckled, clearly not in the least concerned.

“When did you do all of this?”

“Last night while you were asleep. My mind wouldn't settle down, so it gave me something to do. I suppose it's part of the reason I overslept this morning.”

I felt myself cringe at the memory of this morning. “Well, why didn't you just switch the two Bibles while we were in the infirmary? Why was it necessary to have him chase us down like a couple of reprobates?”

“Because I wanted to see how honest that monk was being with us. Making such a fuss about allowing us to see the abbot's papers. Are we to believe he was penning all manner of indecent material in his cell that has to be carefully filtered before the true nature of this abbey might be known?” He laughed. “Rubbish. I don't trust that monk and I wanted to see how long it would take him to notice the book was gone, and whether he would dare accuse me of swapping it for another.”

“It certainly didn't take him long to realize you'd taken it.”

“No, it did not.” One corner of his mouth turned upward. “Duly noted. And now we shall see if he has the bollocks to accuse me of switching books on him.” His eyes went dark. “It will be extremely telling if he does.”

Colin rapped on the door to the abbot's office and we let ourselves in at the behest of Brother Morrison. The senior monk did not bother to look even passingly interested in our return from visiting Brother Silsbury, though I imagined he would be inestimably outraged if he knew that Colin had the abbot's personal Bible tucked beneath his coat. Because of Brother Morrison's indifference to us, or perhaps in spite of it, Colin made a fast end to our stop there and we were quickly back outside and on our way for a long overdue visit to Brother Clayworth and his brewery.

The building within which the ale production took place was some distance beyond the monastery on the opposite side from where the infirmary was. It stood just at the brink of where the monastery's wheat and barley fields rolled out from. The brew-house itself was actually nothing more than a large barn that, given its slightly tattered and sun-beaten appearance, looked far older than the monastery's main building. Though it appeared to be constructed of redwood, its boards were noticeably warped and discolored along the bottom quarter of the building, no doubt a product of the cyclical saturation and baking it endured as a result of fanatical weather.

The large doors that had once swung wide to receive or disembark great teams of horses pulling carriages and wagons were still extant, though one side had been boarded up along the seam of the doorjamb, which only added to the building's general sense of disrepair. The other door appeared to still be usable, though it was closed at the moment, leaving only a small, regular opening near the far left corner to allow us access inside. There were no windows other than the pass-through in the hay loft, as is usual in many barns, but the scent drifting from it was anything but customary. It reminded me of the yeasty tanginess of rising bread with neither the seductive notes of dill, rosemary, caraway, or other herbs and seeds added for flavor, nor any warm, enticing aroma being released as it slowly bakes to a golden brown. This scent was far more elemental, as though we might step inside to find a pond with a thick crust of algae or scum across its surface.

No such sight greeted us as we entered through the small door, however. Rather there was a massive copper pot at one end of the room, large enough to hold half-a-dozen grown men, with a handful of steel, cylindrical-shaped containers of equal or greater size leading from the enormous pot out across the center of the structure, and ten huge wooden casks lined up along the far wall. There was also a series of smaller wooden kegs and metal pots scattered across the open space, none taller than my own waist or rounder than a portly chap of diminutive height.

Three monks were set about various tasks that I could not immediately discern, and while I recognized fresh-faced Brother Nathan, who we'd been told normally toiled in the fields, I could not identify the other two. Not a moment later Brother Clayworth came loping toward us, his black cassock fluttering about his lean frame even as a smile broke across his heavily lined face. As was true the first time we saw him, his silvery-gray hair was poking up defiantly in a myriad of directions, making me wonder if he ever bothered to try and tame it. There was a flush to his cheeks and a slight rosiness across his nose, and though he was taller than Colin, he was still several inches shorter than me.

“Gentlemen!” He shook our hands and clapped Colin on the back as though the two of them were old chums. “I have been wondering how long it would take the two of you to get out here to the heart of our monastery.”

“The heart, is it?!” Colin responded with a devilish grin. “I'd have thought that might be your chapel.”

“Wise words,” Brother Clayworth chuckled as he turned and led us through the large, open working space to a small office near the back that I was quite certain had once been an oversized stall. “The chapel is the
soul
of our community, but this is its beating heart.” He laughed and there was fond pride in his voice. “If it wasn't for our little operation here, I'm afraid we'd all be living a mite bit simpler than we do. As would many of the charitable organizations in and around Dalwich.” He gestured us to seats as he sat himself on a tall stool behind what looked like a drafting table. There were papers strewn across it and an ever-familiar Bible sitting at one corner.

“So, I gather you have been expecting us?” Colin said.

Brother Clayworth grinned, the lines on his face rearranging themselves with unmistakable pleasure. “Everybody is interested in what we do out here. We don't give tours, you know. Wouldn't be right. After all, this is a monastery first. We just happen to make ale.”

“And how is it that's what you've come to do rather than selling produce or baked goods or stained glass or tending to honeybees?”

“Really, sir”—the monk laughed outright—“such pedestrian ideas. There is little money to be made in those endeavors. But this”—he swept his arm toward the vast outer area—“this serves us well and even allows us to donate extra funds to the local charities in Dalwich, Arundel, and a few other nearby towns. There is also an artistry to our brewing that I am very proud of. Have you had the opportunity to taste our newest dark ale? We've only just released it to Mr. Chesterton.”

Colin shifted a look at me as one of his eyebrows rose. “We have not.”

Brother Clayworth popped off his stool with extraordinary speed and rushed out of the office. “Wait here, gentlemen,” he called back, “for you are in for a treat.”

As soon as he disappeared around the corner Colin looked at me with an expression of amusement. “I never imagined we would be sampling ales on this case.”

“Nor I. But do you really suppose any of this has anything to do with the murder of their abbot?”

“We cannot yet know that, can we?” he asked in his usual reasoned way. “We are but fact-finding, are we not?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “Of course we are.” I knew better. I could have answered my own questions myself if I'd been asked them. Had I not been at his side for the past dozen years hearing him repeat the same mantra over and over? I started to say as much when Brother Clayworth abruptly returned with three glass steins clutched in his two fists, all three nearly filled to their brims with a dark honey-colored liquid. “Here we are then,” he announced as he passed two of them between us before lifting his own in a toast. “To our blessed abbot, John Tufton.”

The monk raised his stein, as did Colin and I, and then we each took a hearty pull of the rich, dark beer. Bright carbonation tickled my throat, leaving a clean, crisp taste in my mouth that seemed to have the slightest hint of fruit to it. The ale was neither thick nor malty, but remained sprightly and almost delicate, which was entirely unexpected given its deep, cloudy appearance.

“Wheat beer, if I am not mistaken,” Colin said, “with citrus?”

“Ah,” Brother Clayworth beamed, “a refined palate. So few appreciate the true nature of what we do here.” He took another sip and looked quite pleased with himself.

“It seems like such an oddity to have monks brewing ale,” I said. While I understood the fraternities of monks who produced wines, mostly in France and Italy, given the small amounts used during the communion ceremony, I still did not grasp the purpose of brewing ale other than inebriation. One could hardly continue making the argument for either hydration or nutrient value as had been the case during the Middle Ages.

“Monks have been brewing ales for hundreds of years,” Brother Clayworth patiently explained as though he had done so many times before. “Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy abbey in Rochefort, France, has been at it since the late sixteenth century. The abbey Notre-Dame d'Orval in Belgium was in full production by 1628. So you see, there is really nothing odd about it. We seek only to provide a product of value and worth that can sustain us here and, as I said before, any profits we earn beyond our modest needs are donated. So I must refute your contention of any sort of curiosity here.”

“You must excuse Mr. Pruitt,” Colin spoke up with a cavalier grin tugging at his lips, “but he is a Protestant.”

“Ah”—Brother Clayworth nodded as he took another swallow from his glass—“that does tend to clarify.”

I rolled my eyes as Brother Clayworth snorted a laugh. Colin tipped his mug toward me and took a second taste of his ale with a satisfied grin, so I did the same, which led merry Brother Clayworth to follow suit. His mug was now better than half empty, and I noticed that the rosiness of his cheeks and nose had intensified in tandem with the receding of his beer. This was a man who not only enjoyed what he did but also very much appreciated the outcome of the labors he oversaw.

“Have you been running this brewery from the start?” Colin asked as he set his glass down on the drafting table.