A Mortal Bane(130)

“You are very likely right,” Bell said. “Godwine may have walked right up to the thief before noticing him. And the thief might not have noticed Godwine coming if he were kneeling down looking into the safe box. Then Godwine exclaimed; the thief rose up with the candlestick in his hand—and struck.”

“But that would mean the thief already had the keys.”

Winchester’s eyes moved to look at the sacristan, who leapt to his feet.

“I did not. I did not,” he whispered, his eyes bulging.

The prior went and put an arm around his shoulders; Brother Paulinus was shaking so hard he would have fallen except for that support. “On my soul,” the prior said, “I will swear that Brother Paulinus would sooner…would sooner visit a whore than steal from the church.”

“If Brother Paulinus had visited the whore, he would have a much better case for accusing her of stealing,” the bishop said dryly. “She would have then had a chance to steal his keys and make a copy.”

“Make a copy,” Bell repeated. “I have a fear that not only the key was copied. Father Prior, I think you had better look most carefully at the church plate. You said that Master Jacob made your solid silver candlesticks, but you thought this one was yours until you examined it closely. So, then, this is a copy of the candlestick you gave to the church. How many other items in the safe box are copies?”

“Oh, my God,” the prior breathed.

He turned away as if to go back to the church, but the bishop said, “Never mind that now. Tomorrow will be soon enough to discover what has been stolen. More important now is to discover who had access to Brother Sacristan’s keys…or yours.”

“No one,” Brother Paulinus shouted. “I kept my keys with me at all times.”

“Now that cannot be so,” the prior said soothingly. “You had them all on one ring and I know you lent your keys to Brother Cellarer when one of his was damaged, and to Brother Porter when he needed to get more bedsteads from storage. And you must have given them to the lay brother who assists you to take the plate out for cleaning.”

“Knud,” Bell said with satisfaction. “I knew he was hiding something.” But even as he said it, his voice became uncertain. The bishop looked at him inquisitively and he shrugged. “Hiding something, yes,” he said in reply to Winchester’s expression, “but not something like stealing the church plate. Besides, it must cost something to have copies made and plated with silver. I do not think Knud—”

“If he sold a small item first,” the sacristan said, breaking his silence for the first time, “something no one missed, that would give him a sum to start with.”

“Shall I fetch Knud?” Bell asked.

The prior sighed. The bishop said, “I think you must.”

“He does not know where Knud sleeps. Let Brother Elwin go,” the prior suggested.

[page]“Very well,” the bishop agreed. He turned toward Brother Elwin. “But you are not to give him any warning or to tell him why he is summoned, nor even who summons him. I do not wish him to have time to think up lies. A shock often makes a man more likely to speak the truth.”

In this case, the shock seemed more likely to make Knud incapable of speech. When he entered the prior’s chamber, he was uneasy—as any lay brother might have been when summoned to his prior in the middle of the night—but when he saw the Bishop of Winchester in the prior’s chair, he turned white and fell on his knees.

“I have not,” he cried. “I have not. Not a word. Not a look.”