The ditch was deeper than I had expected and the muddy bed slippery. I was in above my knees before I could change my course and splash toward the bank inside the abbey wall.
I clambered up the bank and shook out the habit. An orchard occupies the north-east corner of the abbey grounds. I made for the nearest apple tree. There I sat, shivering from the effect of the cold water, and drew on my shoes. I waited there in the darkened orchard and watched as the waning moon began to appear through bare tree limbs to the east. After a time, when no man cried out a challenge, I felt ready to put my plan into effect.
My first step from the sheltering tree fell upon something soft, and when my foot slipped from the object I nearly turned an ankle. I thought at first I had trod upon some large, fallen, rotting apple. But not so. Apples do not have fur; dead cats do. Perhaps this feline had been pursuing rats when death overtook it. The discovery startled me, but my mind often works in curious ways, and I thought of a use for the animal. I picked it up by the tail and crept from one tree to another toward the infirmary.
From the infirmary I walked past the reredorter, feeling safe there. If any man saw me he would think a brother about some nocturnal relief. I had drawn the cowl over my head, the shadow would obscure my face, and the cat was grey and not likely to be seen dangling close by my leg.
After I passed between the reredorter and the dormitory, however, I needed to be more careful, for I was entering a space where no monk should be after compline, with or without a dead cat.
My goal was the guest house, and the hosteler’s chamber there. To reach the guest house my path lay past the abbot’s kitchen. There was a narrow entry between the kitchen and the guest hall which led toward the cloister. I ducked into the shadows of this entry and found the door to the kitchen. It was not locked. I entered, and when my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, found a large iron pot which hung over a cold hearth. I dropped the cat into m’lord abbot’s cook pot. With luck the cook would not soon discover it.
The door to the guest hall was just across the entryway from the abbot’s kitchen. I prayed that the hinges would not squeal and gently opened the door. The hinges were silent.
Brother Theodore’s small cell lay just inside the entrance. I rapped knuckles upon his door firmly enough, I hoped, to awaken him, but not so loudly that other sleepers nearby would be roused from their slumber.
The hosteler was not easily aroused, but eventually I heard the latch of his door lifted. His chamber had a narrow window of glass, so I saw his shape in the open door, and the dim moonlight allowed him to see a man standing before him. But there was not so much light that he knew me.
“’Tis Master Hugh,” I whispered.
“You? Hugh? But… m’lord abbot has banished you.”
“Aye. Which is why you must bid me enter your chamber and close the door, that we may speak privily.”
“Oh, uh, aye. Enter.”
The hosteler closed the door behind me and I saw him approach a small table where there appeared to be an open book and a cresset.
“No light,” I said.
“Why have you come? The fistula is well. You need not have troubled yourself. I have little pain from the surgery. How did you enter? Whose robe is that?”
I had questions for the hosteler, but thought I would be more likely to learn from him what I sought if I answered his questions first. I told him all, except how I came by the habit — and the matter of the dead cat — for I did not wish to bring trouble to the threadmaker’s wife should her part in this become known.
“I have told you how I came here,” I said, “and now I will tell why. The woman I brought to the hospital nearly a fortnight past, Amice Thatcher, was sent from the hospital. She was told that her children disturbed those who were ill. That same night two men took her and her children, as I feared might happen.”
“Why did they do so?”
“A chapman of the town and she were to wed, but he was found near Bampton, beaten so badly that he soon died. I investigated his death and learned that the man had found treasure — ancient coins of silver, and jewels and golden objects.”
“I remember — you told me of this. He was murdered for this wealth?”
“For the location of the find, I think. He would not tell, even when they beat him insensible.”
“Where is this hoard?”
“No man knows, nor woman, either. But the men who murdered the chapman thought he might have told Amice where it was hid.”
“Ah, I see. Because they were to wed.”
“Aye. And somehow they knew of it.”
“So now they have her, until she tells what she does not know?”
“Nay, she is freed, and now safe in Bampton.”
“Saints be praised.”
“She was held in an abandoned plague house in East Hanney.”
“Are her captors brought to justice?”
“Not yet?”
“Who are they?”
“I believe they are squires to Sir John Trillowe.”
“Him who was Sheriff of Oxford two years past?”
“Aye. Your abbot is Peter of Hanney.”
“He is, from West Hanney.”
“But the villages are small, and close together. Men in one place would know those who lived in the other.”
“Surely.”
“Does the abbot receive guests from the villages, old friends who call when they visit Abingdon?”
“Aye. Many brothers are from towns nearby, and m’lord abbot is lenient in allowing visits from family and friends. I am from Lyford, not far from West Hanney.”
“Did you know Abbot Peter before you came here?”
“Knew his father and older brothers. I’m nearly twenty years older than m’lord abbot.”
“If you were reared near West Hanney, and knew folk from the village, do you know some of the abbot’s visitors?”
“Aye, some.”
“The day Amice Thatcher was sent away, or the day before, did the abbot entertain guests?”
“Aye, he did, one.”
“Did you know the man?”
“Oh, aye, Sir Simon’s easy to remember, with his ear standing away from his head as it does.”
“Did Sir Simon stay long at the abbey?”
“Don’t know. He doesn’t stay in the guest range. Stays in the abbot’s private rooms.”
“Did Abbot Peter have other visitors with Sir Simon that day?”
“Not that I saw… You said the men who slew the chapman are squires to Sir John Trillowe?”
“Aye.”
“And when Sir John’s son visited the abbey, next day the abbot sends Amice Thatcher away.”
The hosteler saw the direction of my thoughts. “Aye,” I replied. “Sent out to fend for herself, where men might seize her to seek treasure.”
Brother Theodore was silent.
“Sir Simon is Sir John’s youngest son,” I said. “He’ll inherit little.”
“So if there was treasure to be had, he’d be as eager as two penniless squires to grab a share,” Brother Theodore said.
“Those are my thoughts.”
“If Sir Simon is in league with those who murdered the chapman, how will you prove it?”
“I do not know. What I have so far learned might hang a man if he was but a tenant or yeoman, but no King’s Eyre would send a gentleman to the gallows on what evidence I have.”
“Perhaps it might.”
“How so?” I asked.
“M’lord abbot is not popular in Abingdon. Indeed, we brothers take care not to walk alone upon the town streets if we must leave abbey precincts. A jury of Abingdon men might be eager to convict a friend of Abbot Peter.”
“But the Eyre meets in Oxford.”
“Oh, aye, where Sir John and Sir Simon will have friends, and there will be men who have no interest in anything but a bribe.”
“Just so.”
“Well, I have told all I know. You must make of it what you can. I wish you well.”