A Mortal Bane(125)

“My God,” Magdalene cried over the shouts and pounding. “Could Brother Paulinus have lost his mind? He was very disturbed when I last saw him in the prior’s house, but that was about the stolen pyx. Why is he crying ‘murder’ again?”

The sacristan was still pounding on the door and screaming that he must drag the murderers forth. He did sound mad, but he had shown no sign of hysteria when Bell had questioned him about Baldassare’s death. Bell’s heart sank. He could not believe that all of a sudden, a week after the event, Brother Paulinus would be precipitated into madness without cause. Something must have set him off. He propped his sword against the wall, making sure it would not fall, took the key to the door out of his purse, and turned the bolt.

As the door opened, the sacristan plunged through, fortunately right into Bell’s arms because his eyes were fixed on Magdalene, his hands in fists swinging wildly. The full impact of a double blow on Bell’s chest brought an oof from him, but did not stagger or shake him. In the next instant he had seized Brother Paulinus’s wrists and controlled the man’s madly flailing arms.

“Murdered!” the sacristan shrieked. “The church desecrated! Blood all over. All over.”

“That was last week,” Magdalene said, trying to keep her voice low and soothing. “Brother Sacristan, try to—“

“Murderess! Whore! Is nothing too foul for you? For a silver candlestick, you killed a good and holy man right at the altar.” Brother Paulinus began to sob. “The altar, the very altar was desecrated with blood.”

He began to struggle again and Bell folded him against his chest, holding him tight while his eyes met Magdalene’s. For a long moment neither spoke, then Magdalene said, “Surely he is mad?” Tears ran down her face. “It could not have happened again. It could not.”

[page]Oddly, Bell’s hard embrace seemed to have steadied the sacristan. He was weeping now, but not fighting Bell’s hold, and Bell asked softly, “Who was killed, Brother Paulinus?”

“Brother Godwine,” the sacristan replied, sobbing. “Who would kill so gentle, so kind, so holy a man?” He jerked in Bell’s arms, so violently that he almost broke loose. “Only one inspired by the devil. Only a whore.” He strained to look around Bell at Magdalene and the other women, who had come to the end of the corridor and were standing there, clinging to one another. “Murderers!”

“Not these whores,” Bell said, tightening his grip. “Magdalene and her women have been under my eye—or under some man’s body—since dinnertime. This must have happened after Compline, for the prior must have led services from the altar then. We were all sitting together from soon after Vespers, when I myself locked up the house, until we heard you at the door. None of these women can be guilty.”

‘They are! They are! You are lying to protect them because your lust has put you into the devil’s power.”

“The devil may have inspired me to lust, but not to lunacy,” Bell snapped, patience all but exhausted. “The whores were in this house behind locked doors when the brother was killed. Forget them for a moment and tell me when Brother Godwine was discovered.”

“Now, just now.”

Bell’s eyes widened. “You mean you discovered the body and ran here without telling anyone? And how did you get to this back door? How did you come through the locked gate?”

“The gate was not locked.”

“But you locked it yourself, last Thursday,” Magdalene protested.

“It is not locked now,” the sacristan shrieked.