“We are both to blame here,” said Helto, regaining his composure.
“Nothing is served by altercation. Let us take this discussion out into the fresh air where it belongs.” He led the way to the door. “I am sorry if I spoke harshly, Brother Martin. It was unpardonable.
I am simply not used to having my opinion questioned.”
“I can see that,” murmured the old man.
Reinbald and the two officers followed them out. They found it difficult to decide whose word to trust. Helto spoke with more authority but Brother Martin’s cowl, his longer experience and his luminous honesty were powerful factors. The onlookers waited for the debate to start once more.
Helto the Doctor tried to seize the initiative at once.
“Let us begin afresh,” he suggested calmly. “We know where we differ. What are the points on which we actually agree?”
Martin shrugged. “The girl is dead. Everybody can agree on that.
Beyond that fact, we have no common ground.”
“That is not so, Brother Martin,” mollified the other. “Will you accept that she was bitten by a snake?”
“Bitten by it, yes. But not killed.”
“Will you confirm that the creature was poisonous?”
“Yes. We saw it curled up beside her.”
“And had you not seen it?” pressed Helto. “How could you tell whether or not it had been venomous?”
“From the nature of the bite. Two small puncture marks on the neck where the fangs went in. If Bertha had been bitten by a harmless grass snake, she would have had a set of tooth-marks in the shape of a crescent moon.”
“Correct.”
“I have suffered such a wound on my own hand.”
“What are the symptoms of a fatal snakebite?”
“A swelling near the fang-marks and some bruising around the affected area.”
“And the more sensitive that area-the soft and delicate white skin of a girl, for example-the worse the bruising is likely to be.
Will you concede that as well?”
“Gladly.”
“We are making progress at last.”
“Hardly,” said Brother Martin. “Instead of talking about the body, you must first look at the circumstances in which it was found. Hidden away behind a clump of holly. Bertha had no reason to be in such a place.”
“Except the obvious one, perhaps?”
“What is that, Helto?”
The doctor spoke discreetly. “Even a lovely young girl like Bertha had to satisfy the wants of nature.”
“Lying down?”
The two officers laughed coarsely but checked their mirth when Reinbald reproached them with a glance. They turned to Helto for his reply but the doctor sighed wearily and shook his head.
“We will never come to composition here,” he decided. “It is a waste of breath. If you insist on believing that she was murdered, I will try to dissuade you no longer. Let the sheriff and his men search for this phantom killer. When they find him, they can ask him a question from me.”
“What is that?” wondered Reinbald.
“Harbledown is full of places where a dead body could be concealed and never found. The earth is soft at this time of year.
It would not take long to bury her.” His voice took on a sarcastic edge. “Ask the murderer this on my behalf. When he killed Bertha-from motives I could not even guess at-why was he foolish enough to leave the body where a search was bound to discover it?”
Helto the Doctor turned on his heel and marched away. It was a dramatic exit and it had the desired effect. Both Reinbald and the two officers tilted toward an acceptance of the physician’s medical opinion. There was an unassailable confidence about him which gave his words the ring of truth.
Brother Martin was completely unabashed.
“She was strangled,” he said. “I’d stake my life on it.”
In character and appearance, Prior Gregory was very different from his counterpart at Christ Church Priory. He had none of Henry’s studied poise and cold spirituality. His face was no impassive mask. The prior of St. Augustine’s Abbey was instead a short, sturdy, bustling man with hands toughened by early years of manual labour and shoulders rounded by long hours of study over a desk. The bulbous nose and the rubicund cheeks were the salient features of a large, round, mobile countenance.
Concealment was an art which he had never cultivated.
Whatever his mind thought or his heart felt showed in his expression.
Ralph liked him on sight. He usually treated anyone from a monastic community with an amiable irreverence but Prior Gregory somehow appealed to him. There was a refreshing openness about the man and a total lack of pomposity. Here was a combative Christian who had to be admired.
When greetings were exchanged, Prior Gregory sank down onto the bench vacated by his adversary. Bearing a satchel of charters, a young monk sat beside him. The prior did not need to bolster his importance by relegating his companion to an inferior position behind him.
“We come to Canterbury at an awkward time,” said Ralph. “It seems that relations between abbey and cathedral are somewhat strained at the moment.”
“That situation is not, alas, an unusual one,” explained Prior Gregory. “We pray daily for deliverance.”
“From what?”
“The dilemma that confronts us.”
“This row over the new abbot?”
“That is certainly one part of the problem.”
“What are the others?”
“We are met here to address the main issue. The abbey holds the borough of Fordwich yet the archbishop claims that much of the property rightfully belongs to him.”
“Why does he do that, Prior Gregory?”
“Ask him.”
“I would prefer to hear your assessment.”
“May I speak freely, my lord?”
“Of course,” encouraged Ralph. “You have my personal assurance that nothing you say will be repeated outside these four walls.”
“Very well,” said the prior forcefully. “You ask me why Archbishop Lanfranc contests this land when he already holds vast amounts of property in Canterbury and elsewhere. I will tell you in one word. Pique.”
“That is a serious charge to level,” said Canon Hubert.
“It is justified.”
“Pique is alien to his character.”
“Judge for yourself.” He turned to his companion and extracted a roll of parchment from the satchel. “With your permission,” he said, standing up, “I would like to show you a map I have drawn.
It is very crude but it may explain things which are not clear from mere description.”
He unrolled the map on the table and Ralph placed a cup and a heavy hand on it to hold it flat. Prior Gregory had poor skill as an artist but they could recognise the rough outline of Canterbury and the oblong shape with a cross inside it, which represented St. Augustine’s Abbey, outside the eastern wall of the city.
“Here is Fordwich,” explained the prior, using a stubby finger to point to a blob of ink in the far corner. “It is our port. This thick line on which it stands is the River Stour. The port is never idle. Apart from coastal trade, it handles regular imports of stone from Normandy. Canterbury not only gained its archbishop from Caen but huge quantities of building materials as well.”
Gervase thought of Alwin the Sailor, steering his little vessel across the Channel and returning with a full load of Caen stone.
Cathedral, abbey and churches had benefitted from the industry of Alwin and his kind. Fordwich had thrived.
“After the Conquest,” continued their guide, jabbing his finger at another portion of the map, “Bishop Odo of Bayeux seized property in and around the city, including two sulungs above Fordwich, where he cut out a deer park.”
“Sulungs?” said Ralph. “Why do you not measure your land in hides like most other counties? Two sulungs, you say?”
“It amounts to over three hundred acres,” said Gervase.
“Odo was always fond of hunting.”
“Thanks to Abbot Scotland,” said the prior, “we reclaimed the property, and other land in the area of Fordwich, for the abbey.