A Mortal Bane(86)

They were at least spared that possibility. The next morning, after attending Sunday Mass, celebrated by the bishop at St. Paul’s, Bell returned to the priory to question the porter again. He found him sitting in the small gatehouse reading a breviary. The porter closed his book and civilly enough offered Bell a stool to sit on. There had been no strangers at the Compline service on that Wednesday night, Brother Godwine said with brisk certainty. So swift a response of exactly what he wanted to hear made Bell suspicious of his willingness to accept the answer.

“How can you be so sure?” he asked.

“Because when a stranger comes through the gate after Vespers, we ask if he wishes to stay the night in the guesthouse, of course,” Brother Godwine said sharply. “I know I did not need to ask that question at any time last week, so I know no stranger, except those who did stay in the guesthouse, came through the gate after Vespers on Wednesday.”

“Thank God,” Bell sighed, but shook his head before the words were really out. “Wait, what about Brother Patric and Brother Elwin? Could one of them have opened the gate for a stranger that night?”

“Not between Vespers and Compline. I was on duty then.”

“What about during the Compline service? Who watches the gate then?”

“No one. During the services, the gate is locked. Any visitor must wait until our religious duties are performed. This is not an inn, Sir Bellamy. Though we maintain a guesthouse out of charity, to shelter travelers from the dangers of the night, our religious duties come first.”

“Of course,” Bell said, but he recalled the fees he had paid to various religious houses for bed and food when he did not travel in the bishop’s train, and he thought that the abbeys and priories probably made a nice profit on their charitable enterprise. “I must say, I am very glad there were no strangers. If there had been, it would have increased the difficulty of finding the killer of Messer Baldassare.”

“The whores must have killed him,” Brother Godwine said. “I do not wish to be uncharitable, but they are steeped in sin already. Besides, we were all together—we always are after Compline—”

“Not all, and not every moment,” Bell said. “Remember that Brother Sacristan had to go back into the church because he thought he saw a light.”

“Are you accusing Brother Sacristan?” the porter asked, his voice scaling upward.

“I am not accusing anyone, only pointing out that you are vouching for each other out of faith rather than fact.”

“Faith is no bad thing,” Brother Godwine snapped.

“In a general way, but not when I need facts. The facts say that after Compline service, you all went to your beds and each was alone in his own bed.”

“Of course!” Brother Godwine exclaimed.

“And you can prove that no monk left his bed at any time during the night?” Bell asked pointedly, then felt stupid.

He had been annoyed and had asked without really thinking. He knew it did not matter if a monk left his bed. Baldassare had been killed before or just after Compline; Sabina had found the body then.

To his further chagrin, Brother Godwine said, “In fact, I can. There is always a brother at the foot of the stair into the warming room to make sure the novices do not try to sneak into the kitchen or create any other mischief. Since the dormitory of the novices is beyond the monks’ cells, the brother knows by coincidence when one of the monks leaves his cell.”

“Thank God for that,” Bell said, smiling, very willing now to drop the subject.