The Dalwich Desecration (28 page)

I remained where I was for a minute, trying desperately to calm myself, all the while listening for any sounds of Brother Silsbury moving about. But nothing came. And when my muscles began to protest from being thusly crouched, I finally decided to get out of there. Perhaps Brother Silsbury meant to spend the whole of the night here anyway.

With painstaking care I slid back toward the exit, once more grateful for the stockings on my feet. This time I wouldn't complain when the stones on the path bit into the bottoms of my feet. I would not complain at all.

CHAPTER 26

I
dunked my head under the running water and held it there for a moment, trying to rinse the tendrils of sleep from my mind. Sleep had been elusive in the early hours of the night after I'd returned to my cell, so once it came it did not loosen its grip readily. I had wanted to sneak over and speak with Colin as soon as I'd returned from the infirmary, but I feared our being overheard or spied upon and knew I was better served to wait until morning. Still, I had been left quite unsettled for the greater part of the night as I wondered what Colin would make of the hushed conversation I had stumbled upon.

With cold water rushing over my head I could only yearn to have been able to slide into a proper bath to start my day, but there were no bathtubs here. Instead there were only the two long, metal troughs running along opposite walls with spigots interspersed down their lengths. The monks appeared to be content to disrobe to a single cloth wrapped around their waists before washing themselves with their hands and large cakes of common-use soap. Since I was given no such waist cloth to wrap around myself I settled for remaining in my underdrawers, which felt entirely unsatisfactory.

I lifted my head and swiped at my face with a small rag before hurriedly brushing my hair into place with my fingers. Even though there were only two other monks in the rather large bathing space, neither of whom I recognized, I did not like the lack of privacy as I struggled to make myself presentable. The whole of it reminded me of my time at the Easling and Temple Senior Academy. I had not liked it there, either.

One of the monks slipped his cassock on, dropping the little waist cloth to the floor after the cassock was fully fastened in place. He stooped to pick it up and left the balneary without a word as I began to soap my upper body. It was all such personal business that I nearly had to fight a blush as I attended to my cleaning, my eyes riveted on the wall in front of me as though that might make me less exposed to the other man in the room.

Even with all of my intensified concentrations I still sensed a moment later when someone else came into the balneary. This new monk's movements struck me as being hesitant, almost clandestine, and I could not help being piqued by them. If the other monk and I were trying to be discreet, this new entrant seemed to be aiming for invisibility.

In spite of my efforts to mind my own business, I quickly slid my eyes sideways even as I leaned back over the trough to wash the soap from my chest and underarms, and recognized the new entrant as young Brother Hollings. His tall, lanky form with his shoulders arched forward to effectively dispel several inches of his height could not be mistaken for anyone else. For an instant I thought perhaps I should call a greeting to him. Yet standing as I was, half naked and fully out of place, I seized my tongue and kept to my own concerns. When I spied him slinking to the end of the opposite trough in the far corner, I was glad I had held my tongue.

As I dried my upper body I allowed my eyes to dart back to where Brother Hollings was and found him with his cassock still fully on, though he had unfastened the collar several inches. I caught sight of a small patch of something black curling up from his opened neckline before realizing that it had to be an undershirt since a ginger-haired young man would most certainly not be sprouting dark hair across his chest. Undoubtedly the black shirt beneath his cassock was standard issue for these somber monks since it was still quite cold on most days. Brother Hollings rolled his sleeves up to the elbows and I noticed that his arms were as smooth and hairless as his face, leaving me to wonder how old he actually was and whether he'd truly been allowed to settle his own mind about committing himself to this life.

Whether it was the sight of Brother Hollings's extraordinary modesty or merely the fact that I had suddenly begun to feel overly exposed, I felt compelled to reach over and pull my undershirt over my head, and was instantly relieved that I had done so. The other monk in the balneary smoothly repeated the process I had glimpsed earlier of slipping his cassock on before stepping out of his waist cloth with utmost discretion. He swooped it up and was gone in a breath, leaving me and Brother Hollings alone, though we could hardly have been farther apart.

I was actually considering the idea of speaking with the young monk again when a small scuffle in the hallway caught my attention. I turned fully away from the trough to find the cause of the ruckus only to see Colin bound into the room in just his trousers and boots, an undershirt clutched in one hand and a hearty smile alighting his face.

“There you are!” he said as though we had not seen each other in days. “I checked your cell on my way here and found it empty. I was beginning to wonder if you never made it back last night.” He chuckled as he came over to me and, before I knew what he was doing, reached out and squeezed my nearest hand.

“Hey!” I hissed, yanking away from him as I shot my eyes over to the corner where Brother Hollings was, surprised to discover that he was gone.

“What's the matter?” Colin asked, his smile fading.

“Brother Hollings . . .” I mumbled, glancing around and seeing that we were, in fact, quite alone. “He was just here. I didn't want. . .” But I knew I didn't need to finish the sentence. “Sorry.”

“I suspect that poor boy ran off the minute he heard me coming. He was here when I came in yesterday as well and did the same thing. I would swear he wears more clothing when washing than our Victoria does when she attends church.”

“Why are you so jittery this morning,” he asked as he turned toward the trough and twisted the spigot on.

“Need I remind you how we were compromised just two days ago,” I answered under my breath. “Have you forgotten that?”

“We were sleeping,” he muttered dismissively as he started washing his face. “Perfectly civil.”

I looked up at the ceiling and exhaled an exasperated breath. “It didn't feel very civil when we were being thrown onto the street with our belongings. And look at you prancing about the monastery this morning in just your trousers. Have you no prudence?”

“Prudence?” He stood up and stared at me, his face dripping water onto his chest. “This place is full of men. Nothing but men. What is imprudent about anything I am doing in that circumstance?”

“They're not men,” I shot back before I'd truly considered what I was about to say. “They are monks.”

Colin let out an abrupt laugh. “Well, I suppose you have a point, but I'll bet more than a few of them would be deeply offended by your statement.” He turned back to the trough and dunked his head fully under the spigot.

I pulled my shirt on and wondered how I had gotten so sideways in trying to explain what I meant. It had seemed to make sense as it was coming out of my mouth, but once released it sounded as foolish as the incessant humiliation that continued to nettle me since our expulsion from the Pig and Pint. Why did I even care what Raleigh Chesterton thought of Colin or me? I could not say, yet I knew that I did.

“Did you have any success last night? Did you find anything of interest?” Colin asked as he stood up and toweled his tawny hair before running his fingers through it just as I had done with my own.

“I never had a chance to get the papers,” I stated simply, knowing he would be surprised at this perceived failure on my part. I allowed a tiny grin. “Because I stumbled upon a late-night conversation in the infirmary between Brothers Silsbury, Clayworth, and Wright. All very clandestine,” I added, dropping my voice.

“And . . .” he prodded with his typical impatience.

I was on the verge of sharing what little I had managed to overhear when Brother Rodney drifted into the room, his small frame moving with the stealth of a breeze. “Good morning, Brother Rodney,” I called out to make sure Colin realized we were no longer alone.

“Gentlemen,” he answered in a near squeak, and I realized that I had never heard him speak before. Brother Green had always done the talking whenever we were with the two of them. It felt strangely relieving to know that Brother Rodney actually had a voice.

“Put your undershirt on,” I muttered to Colin as Brother Rodney turned away from us, remaining as far away as he could just as Brother Hollings had done before he'd simply decided to flee. “You're embarrassing everyone.”

Colin rolled his eyes but did as I asked before snatching up his towel. “Why don't we finish getting dressed and meet at the entry by the chapel. We need to return to Dalwich and discuss a few things with the constable. I should think a brisk walk will do well to calm you down some. And on our way you must tell me the rest of what you overheard last night.”

“Of course.” I nodded with some chagrin as I grabbed my own small towel and we headed for the door. “Good day to you, Brother Rodney,” I called back to the diminutive man, noticing that he too had only gone as far as loosening the collar of his cassock. That so many of these monks were clearly so painfully reserved once again reminded me of the boys at Easling and Temple. I wondered if it was our presence alone that put them so on edge or if it was just the way of it. “I am afraid,” I murmured to Colin as we walked back down the hallway, “that what I heard last night amounts to nothing. Those men seemed far more concerned about our being here than who has killed their abbot.”

“Which means we have set them on edge and I am quite content to have done so.” We stopped by the door to my cell. “We are drawing ever closer to the perpetrator, Ethan. That meeting you happened upon proves it. We have set this monastery on edge and it is only a matter of degrees now before we force the killer into the abyss.”

I nodded as I pushed into my cell and quickly finished dressing, a feat I was able to accomplish with minimal fuss, though my hair was not nearly as cooperative as my truncated wardrobe. All the while I hoped that Colin was correct even as I wondered how he could feel so certain. I threw on my vest and jacket and headed for the vestibule, having deigned myself presentable enough, given that there were no mirrors anywhere to ensure it.

I was still buttoning up my vest as I came barreling around the last corner just past the chapel doors and nearly collided with Father Demetris, who was hovering just outside of the abbot's office. “Right on time . . .” Colin beamed as I managed to pull myself up short. “It is nice to be able to rely on some things in this world,” he added.

“Indeed it is,” Father Demetris agreed as he threw the office door open. “Such is the way of the Lord.” And now it was his turn to beam as he ushered us in. “Sit down, sit down,” he bade us, seating himself behind the large desk as usual. “I wanted you to know that I have already spoken with Brother Bursnell this morning and he tells me he did a thorough check of the library and has been unable to find any of Abbot Tufton's Egyptian journals. He confessed to being at it until far past vespers last night, so you can rest assured that he has done everything he can. I'm afraid they have been mislaid, although perhaps Abbot Tufton removed them at some point himself.” Father Demetris looked to be considering that possibility for the first time as a thoughtful scowl colored his face. “They did belong to him, after all. And it's certainly not as if one of the other men would have coveted them. Everything in the library is for the use of all of the monks. There would be no call for such an action.” He leaned forward in what felt like an effort to make sure we were following his logic. “It hardly merits saying that I would never expect a man capable of stealing to have taken the vows required of living in a monastery.”

“And yet . . .” Colin spoke up and I knew precisely what he was about to say. “It does still remain most probable that the man capable of murdering your Abbot Tufton made those same vows and resides here even now.” He flashed a pained sort of smile before waving his hand through the air as though to dismiss the entire sordid conceit. “Let us assume, for a moment, that the abbot did take his journals back. Wherever do you suppose he would have put them? There was certainly nothing to be found in his cell.”

“Where . . . ?” Father Demetris tilted his head and stared at us blankly, and I could tell he remained quite disturbed by Colin's assertion of a moment ago. “Well, I'm sure I wouldn't know,” he managed after a moment.

Colin nodded perfunctorily before pressing ahead. “Then let me ask you one other thing. Do the monks here practice any sort of mortification as a show of their penance?”

Father Demetris's eyes went wide as though the very suggestion was somehow offensive or shocking. “We are
not
living in the Middle Ages, Mr. Pendragon. The church has not condoned such archaic forms of self-torture in hundreds of years.”

“My apologies,” Colin said, allowing a tight grin to fleet across his face, yet as always there appeared to be little honest regret in his tone. “I needed to avail myself of the loo last night and heard someone crying in his cell as I traversed the hallway. The sound was quite muffled and impossible to discern from which cell it came, but it did put me in mind of such past disciplines and I felt obligated to verify whether those activities were still practiced.”

“I can assure you they are not.”

“Just a moment of sorrow for one of the brothers then,” Colin answered blithely as the slightest hint of a grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Otherwise it would seem to me that such a practice would appear to suggest a guilty conscience, wouldn't you say? For one reason or another,” he added as though it was an afterthought, which I knew it almost certainly wasn't.

“All very good and well,” Father Demetris said as he settled back into his chair again, “but I am afraid you are off the mark. Far more likely that one of the brothers merely became overwhelmed with the Holy Spirit during his prayers. God's love is a powerful force.”