‘I agree,’ she said quietly. Then: ‘You were saying, Sir Josse, that the guards had little to say?’
‘Aye, aye.’ He sighed again. ‘One of them reported that the prisoners were strangers. Foreign, he said. His friend the dead man had complained that they kept shouting out and he couldn’t make out what they wanted. Not that it would have made any difference, I imagine, since I’m sure he wouldn’t have given them what they were asking for even if he had understood what it was.’
He was, Helewise observed, looking uncharacteristically dejected. ‘What is it, my friend?’ she asked gently. ‘What is bothering you?’
‘Oh — I’m being soft,’ he said, rousing himself to a brief smile. ‘It is entirely possible that those two prisoners were justly jailed, that they were guilty of some crime which deserved harsh treatment. But, my lady, you and I would not keep an animal in such conditions as I found in those cells, let alone a human being.’
‘I do not think that your compassion earns you the accusation of being soft,’ she said. ‘If, indeed, such is a matter of accusation. But, Sir Josse, could you gain no idea of what their crime was?’
‘No. The gaolers didn’t seem to know and, when Gus and I tried making a few enquiries among the villagers, they wouldn’t talk to us. They seemed afraid.’
‘Of the gaolers?’
‘Funny that you should ask, but no, I don’t think that was it. There was someone else they feared. One woman Gus spoke to kept looking over her shoulder as if she feared the Devil himself was going to leap out at her. And a small child broke out in sobs and said something about the black man.’
‘The black man? Black-skinned, do you think?’
‘Aye, maybe.’
‘Could these foreign prisoners have been dark-skinned?’ Eager now, she pursued the idea. ‘Perhaps a really tall, broad, black man came to rescue his friends, killing the gaoler with a huge hand and scaring all the villagers with his very size!’
Josse looked indulgently at her. ‘I don’t know, my lady. But it’s as good a guess as any I’ve managed to come up with.’
In the morning, Helewise went to Prime with a heavy heart. She had slept badly, overcome with anxiety concerning what she was to do about Father Micah. Kneeling, she thanked God for that gift of pity for the priest, without which she would have been well on the way to hating him. ‘He needs help, dear Lord,’ she whispered, ‘for surely something is seriously amiss with him. .’
As the office began, she gave herself to her devotions. Peace began to settle around her, as it always did, and she felt the inestimable help of a strong energy supporting her. Some time later, heartened, she went out to face the day.
The first of the dramas came in the middle of the morning, when Helewise was seated at her wide oak table studying a list of outstanding rents owed by some of the tenants who farmed the Abbey’s lands. Her concentration was broken by the faint sounds of someone outside her door. There was no knock, but she heard a quiet, suppressed cough and the sound of soft footfalls, as if someone were walking up and down the cloister.
Once she had noticed the noises, she found it impossible to ignore them. It seemed likely that, if she managed to do so and get back to work, whoever it was would instantly make up their mind that they really had to see her and tap on the door.
Helewise got up, went over to the door and opened it. Outside, her hand raised as if about to knock, was Sister Bernadine.
‘Sister Bernadine!’ Helewise said. ‘You wish to see me?’
‘Yes, my lady. That is, I am not sure — it is probably nothing, just my imagination, but although I keep telling myself so, I am still perturbed.’
It was quite a long speech for the usually reserved Sister Bernadine. ‘Come in,’ Helewise said, ‘and tell me what it is that worries you.’
Sister Bernadine looked pale, Helewise thought, even more so than usual. And the smooth-skinned hands that were normally tucked neatly away in the opposite sleeves of the nun’s habit were restless and fluttering.
Helewise guided Sister Bernadine to her own chair. ‘You do indeed appear anxious,’ she said. ‘Here, take some sips of water. .’ — she held out a cup to Sister Bernadine’s pale lips — ‘there, that’s better. Now, what has happened?’
Sister Bernadine turned wide, fatigue-shadowed eyes up to her superior. Not a woman to waste words, even when she was upset, she said, ‘I went to the script room after Tierce. When we were there yesterday with Father Micah I had noticed that there were fingerprints on the lid of the book chest. I was relieved that the Father did not see them for I should have been ashamed had I given him the opportunity for a reprimand.’
‘Quite,’ Helewise murmured. The Father, she thought, had issued quite enough reprimands as it was.
‘When I knelt down on the floor and began to polish the lid of the chest, something prompted me to look inside. I fetched the key from where it hangs in the window embrasure and opened the chest. And — oh, my lady Abbess, I cannot swear to it but I believe that somebody has been through the precious manuscripts.’
Helewise kept her voice calm. ‘Is anything missing, Sister?’
‘I don’t know. My first swift glance inferred that about the right number of scripts were there, but I did not stop for a proper look. I thought it better to come straight to you, my lady.’
‘Quite right, Sister Bernadine,’ Helewise said stoutly. ‘Now, we shall go back together and you will look more closely.’
‘But-’ Sister Bernadine, still very pale, closed her eyes.
‘But what?’
Opening her eyes, she raised them to Helewise’s. ‘Supposing the thief — if, that is, there is a thief — is still there? Hiding behind the door, waiting to jump out on us?’
‘It is not very likely, now, is it?’ Helewise said briskly. ‘Even if this hypothetical someone was there when you entered the room just now’ — Sister Bernadine gave a low moan at the very thought — ‘then they surely will not have remained there to be discovered.’
‘But-’
‘Come along.’ Helewise made her tone purposeful. ‘The sooner we have a good look, the sooner we shall know what we are faced with.’
She marched out of her room, Sister Bernadine at her side. They walked around the cloister to the small room that was Sister Bernadine’s domain and, silently, the pale nun pointed to the wooden book cupboard, a wide, shallow structure that stood roughly knee-high on six stout legs. Its front panel was decorated with a series of arches.
Helewise knelt down in front of it. She did not often look into the book chest and she had never gone right through it to inspect every script in detail, so she had little idea of what in fact she was looking for. She was about to make a remark to this effect when suddenly Sister Bernadine let out a wail.
‘Oh, I have not checked that the missal is still here!’ She hurried forward, knelt down beside Helewise and leaned into the chest. ‘Oh, I pray that it is!’
‘The missal, Sister?’
Sister Bernadine was carefully going through the scripts at one end of the chest. ‘The St Albans missal, my lady, one of our most precious documents, presented to us by His Grace the Bishop. . oh, thank God! Here it is!’ She held up some sheets of parchment bound together, a smile of relief on her pale face. Helewise caught a glimpse of a page of careful lettering illustrated with three large and vivid illuminated capital letters before, with the care of a mother tucking up her infant child, Sister Bernadine tenderly replaced the missal in the book chest.
Looking around her, Helewise said, after a moment, ‘I do not believe that I can be of help, Sister Bernadine. Because I am not familiar with the usual arrangement of the manuscripts, I cannot tell whether any have been removed. Is this chest the only repository for our manuscripts?’