The Abbot's Agreement Read Online Free PDF Page A

the two novices.
    I expected Henry, being the older of the two, to speak, but ’twas Osbert who replied. He spoke in fractured tones, not yet a man, but no longer a child.
    “Thursday,” the lad said. “He was seated with us in the retrochoir for compline, and returned to our chamber with us. When we rose for lauds his bed was cold.”
    “What of vigils?” I asked.
    “Novices of this house are not required to rise in the night for that office,” Brother Gerleys said.
    To Osbert I said, “I have heard that John was not well suited for the vows he was soon to take. Did he speak to you of this?”
    “Aye. I was not surprised to find him away.”
    “Had he ever departed your chamber in the night before?”
    Neither novice replied, until Brother Gerleys nodded, then Osbert spoke. “Twice, that I know of.”
    “That you know of? You believe he was often away in the night?”
    “Once I heard him rise to visit the reredorter and I saw him return. ’Twas near dawn. Another time I lay awake but Henry slept. John thought we both did, and crept from his bed.”
    “When did he return?”
    “Don’t know. Finally I fell to sleep. He was in his bed when the sacrist rang the bell for lauds.”
    “Did you tell Brother Gerleys of this?”
    “He did,” the novice-master replied. “I questioned John sharply about these nocturnal prowls.”
    “What did he say?”
    “Claimed that when he could not sleep he would walk the cloister and meditate.”
    “You believe this?”
    Brother Gerleys was silent for some time. The two novices stared at him, open-mouthed, awaiting his answer.
    “I wanted to. But now that he has been found slain outside the abbey precincts, I believe it must not be so. No man would stab him in the cloister, I think, then drag him half a mile to the place you found him. And if murder was done in the cloister, how did the felon get himself and a corpse from the abbey in the night?”
    “Two men might,” I said.
    “Oh… aye, perhaps.”
    “What of the explorators?” I asked. “Have you spoken to them? Did they never see John out of his bed?”
    “They have never said so. It is their duty to see to the locks and that all of the brothers are abed in the dormitory after compline. Then they seek their own rest. ’Tis not required of them then to prowl the abbey throughout the night.”
    “Come,” I said. “We will seek permission from Abbot Thurstan for me and Arthur to enter the cloister. If he grants it, we will walk the cloister and seek any sign that murder may have been done there.”
    Abbot Thurstan’s lodging, as with most Benedictine houses, is in the west range of the abbey. We found the abbot there in conversation with the prior and another monk I had not before seen. I was introduced. Brother Gerald was the guest-master, and would be responsible for my comfort in the guest parlor while Arthur and I remained at the abbey.
    Abbot Thurstan readily granted permission for Arthur and me to visit the cloister any time I thought necessary. I invited Brother Gerleys and his novices to assist us.
    “What do we seek?” the novice-master asked.
    “John was stabbed three times. He surely bled freely. Look for bloodstains.”
    “Would not the villains have scrubbed away such defilement?”
    “Probably. But they might have overlooked a drop. A similar thing happened six months past and led me to a felon.”
    The late-afternoon sun left much of the cloister in shadows. If there were bloodstains upon the flags they would have been difficult to see. Osbert and Henry entered into the search with the enthusiasm of youth, but after circling the enclosure twice the five of us accepted defeat. Either there was no murder done in the cloister, or all trace of the felony had been wiped away, or the approaching night obscured evidence of death.
    “I am pleased we found nothing,” Brother Gerleys said. “Had we done so, ’twould mean that a brother of this house was guilty. I would not want to think it could