A Mortal Bane(66)

Once again with bent head, Knud said, “I was with the other lay brothers. We all stood together.”

When Bell asked him to name them, he did, again growing calmer until Bell added, “And when the service was over, did you leave the church with the other lay brothers?”

“No, of course not,” Knud said, trying to sound indifferent but with his voice gone thin and breathless again. “I went to the altar to replace the vessels used during the service in the safe box. Brother Sacristan unlocked the box and handed me each piece. When they were all replaced, he relocked the box and left. I stayed a moment longer because someone had spilled water on the floor. I wiped it up before it could run along the safe box and wet the wood.”

“Were you alone in the church then?”

“No. Some of the older folk who had been in the nave walk slowly. I think I went out by the monks’ door before all of them left the church.”

“The sacristan had left before you? Do you know where he went? And where did you go?”

Knud shook his head, then said slowly, “He often went to walk in the cloister after services. Perhaps he went there. I went up to bed.” His voice was easy, although he did not look up to meet Bell’s eyes. “The other lay brothers will tell you. We do not have separate cells but sleep like the novices” —his voice checked suddenly and Bell saw him bite his lower lip— “in a dormitory.”

“Was anyone missing from the dormitory?”

“No.” The man’s eyes flicked up and away again. “My lord, is it true that the murdered man was a papal messenger carrying a bull that would have made the Bishop of Winchester a papal legate?”

“The man was a papal messenger,” Bell replied. “We do not know what he was carrying. His pouch was missing, as was his purse. Why do you ask?”

“His pouch was missing?” Knud’s voice drifted into silence and his eyes flicked up and away once more.

‘That has significance to you,” Bell said harshly. “Have you seen a pouch somewhere?”

“No. No.”

Knud backed away a step. Bell caught his arm. “Then why did you ask about the pouch? Are you implying that this killing was a Church affair?”

Knud flinched. “The man was a papal messenger, so I thought….”

For the second time, his voice faded away as if he had spoken before he realized what the end of the sentence must be. “So you thought that a churchman—but none were here except the members of this priory—had committed the crime?”

“No. No. Of course not. Brother Paulinus said it was the whores who killed the man, that Satan had possessed them to make them desecrate the church.”

“Satan may possess them, but I doubt for that purpose.” Bell could not help grinning. “If the devil is trolling for souls, he will catch more by leaving the whores to their usual work. Now, why was the first thought that came to your mind that one of the brethren was guilty when you heard Baldassare was a papal messenger?”

[page]“No, I did not. I….” Knud looked fearfully over his shoulder and then whispered, “A papal legate has authority over the monastic orders as well as over the secular clergy.”

The swift glance touched Bell again, this time with a spark of satisfaction in it. Despite the fearful looks and the whisper, this was what Knud had wanted him to know, what he had been leading up to when he first spoke of Brother Paulinus’s distrust of the bishop. Likely Knud had known all along that Baldassare was a papal messenger—not surprising that what one knew, all knew in a small, tight community like the priory. But the idea that a man would kill to keep papal authority out of the hands of another was fantastic. Only, Brother Paulinus was a fanatic, and men did strange things when driven by what they believed was religious righteousness.