A Mortal Bane(126)

“Who has the key?” Bell asked, still gripping the sacristan but holding him away so he could look into his face. “It was locked this morning. I forgot and tried to use the back way, which is shortest, to go to the bishop’s house. Then I remembered I would have to ride to St. Paul’s and went for my horse—but I had tried the gate, and it was locked.”

Magdalene shivered. “So sometime after Prime—you left between Prime and Tierce—someone unlocked the gate. But why?”

Bell looked across the sacristan at Magdalene. “So someone could enter or leave the priory without passing the porter at the priory gate.” He transferred his gaze to the sacristan. “Did you find the porter’s keys?” he asked.

“I did not look,” Brother Paulinus cried. “Brother Godwine was dead. Who should I ask for keys?”

Bell opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head impatiently. “Never mind that. Brother Godwine’s death must be reported to the prior and to the bishop. If I let you go. Brother Paulinus, will you go to the prior with this terrible news instead of trying to attack Magdalene, who is innocent of this?”

The sacristan, who had been intermittently straining against Bell’s hold, again stood still. “Oh, no! I came here to bring the guilty to justice. You must come with me to stand before the prior and the bishop. You will repent your sin when you face your master, Sir Bellamy. You will tell the truth and let justice prevail over this harlot.”

“I am very willing to come with you, and I will certainly tell the truth both to my master and the prior,” he agreed and released his grip on one of the sacristan’s arms. “Now” —he showed the sacristan the key he had thrust into his belt when he grabbed for his hands— “this is the key to the doors of this house. The front is already locked. You may go try it if you like. I will lock the back when we go out and keep the key. Thus the women will be confined within—

“No!” Brother Paulinus cried. “She goes, too.” He pointed at Magdalene. “Let her face the dead. God will raise Brother Godwine to point his finger at her. His wounds will bleed anew. God will prove her guilty.”

Bell drew breath to argue, but Magdalene put a hand on his arm. “If it will content him, I will come.”

She went to get her cloak and veil, accepting with a somewhat tremulous smile the hugs and kisses of her women when she passed. As they went through the gate, not only unlocked but flung open so hard that the front post had caught on the rise in earth at the verge of the path and stuck wide open, they could see that either someone else had independently discovered the corpse or the sacristan had not, after all, been alone when he discovered it. Lights were blazing through the windows of the apse, and the chanting of prayers mingled with sobs floated out to them.

The sacristan rushed through the north door, gripping Bell firmly with one hand and Magdalene with the other and crying out, “I have them! I have the guilty ones!”

[page]The singing stopped. All the monks turned to gape as Brother Paulinus dragged Bell and Magdalene forward, pushing them up onto the low dais on which the altar stood and then prodding them around behind it. Magdalene drew a sobbing breath and huddled in on herself, pulling her veil higher over her face and turning her head away. Bell also drew breath, but he stepped forward and bent a little to look more closely.

The altar cloth was raised on one side to show an open strongbox under the stone altar table. Lying athwart the box—as if he had deliberately fallen there so the box could not be closed—was the body of Brother Godwine. His head was a bloody ruin, flattened and misshapen, and blood, no longer bright red but not brown yet, had formed a jellied pool in a slight declivity. Some blood had run down onto the floor of the dais; the streaks still had a slight liquid sheen, but the spatters that splotched the altar cloth and the exposed part of the stone altar table were brown and almost dry. The droplets, Bell thought, had come from the foot of the candlestick—the murder weapon—which had been dropped atop the corpse. It was thickly covered with blood and other matter. He stared at the candlestick.