House of Shadows (6 page)

A door opened across the passage and the prior's voice called out for his secretary. John did not wish to expose Ignatius to any trouble, in case his protestations of innocence were true, and went out to speak to Robert Northam.

‘When your former guests return tonight, I need to speak to all of them as a matter of some urgency. I have been provided with a room in the cellarer's building and would be grateful if you could ask them to attend upon me there.'

The prior nodded and motioned for John to enter his chamber, where the coroner had more questions. ‘I have heard rumours that not everyone was overjoyed at the prospect of this marriage. Have you any knowledge of this, prior?'

Northam sighed and tapped his fingers restlessly on his table. ‘You will no doubt find out when you talk to them, though it may take some prising from their lips,' he said. ‘Firstly, Roger Beaumont has a daughter, Eleanor, by his first wife, now dead. She had set her cap at Jordan de Neville, and the king's insistence on him marrying Christina was by no means welcome to her – nor I suspect to her father and stepmother.'

‘Because of the loss of their exploitation of the Glanville estates when Christina delivered them to her new husband?' queried John.

‘That and the fact that, instead, Eleanor might have married into the Neville family, who are rising stars in the nobility, with extensive lands in the north.'

The prior seemed to have no more gossip about his guests, and John wondered where a senior man of the cloth had unearthed this titbit about Eleanor Beaumont. He suspected that his chaplain-secretary was the channel for such hearsay.

Leaving Robert Northam's quarters, he went back to the warming room, as he wished to spend as little time as possible in the dank, inimical chamber above Christina's corpse. He sat there for some time and eventually dozed off, joining two old monks who were snoring their way through the afternoon. The return of Gwyn and Thomas woke him up, and they thankfully warmed their icy feet and hands as they told him the meagre results of their spying mission.

Thomas had been consorting with a few monks and senior clerks in the church, cloister and infirmary,
which he had visited with the excuse that he wished to compare the priory's facilities with those at similar religious houses in Devon.

‘There is a general consensus that Brother Ignatius is slightly mad, as he sees goblins and imps possessing many of the people who enter the priory. But it seems a harmless obsession and gives rise more to pitying jibes than to any real concern,' reported the clerk.

De Wolfe nodded agreement. ‘I have heard the same sort of comments about him. Doesn't necessarily mean that he
is
harmless, though. Anything else?'

The little clerk rubbed his hands together to warm them. ‘I raised the subject of the wedding and the death. There were many sidelong glances and shrugs. I got the impression that this marriage was well known to be a sombre affair rather than the usual happy event.'

‘What did they say about it, then?' demanded the coroner.

‘I gathered, more from their attitudes than outright words, that the people gathered here as guests made little secret of the fact that this was a union forced on them by King Richard. I could get no more detail than that, though a clerk in the scriptorium claimed that he had seen this Jordan fellow ogling the bridesmaid Margaret.'

Gwyn grunted confirmation of this. ‘The kitchen servants, where I went seeking some fresh bread and cheese, said much the same thing when I brought the conversation around to it. They have long noses and sharp eyes – they suggested that though Jordan fancied this Courtenay woman, it was Roger's daughter who wanted him.'

De Wolfe pondered their words for a moment. ‘This is something I must pursue with these grand folk who are coming here tonight. Though why the bride should
be killed to avoid a wedding is beyond me at the moment.'

Thomas rather hesitantly raised another matter. ‘Crowner, several of the brothers to whom I spoke muttered words about history repeating itself. I tried to worm more out of them, but they were very reluctant to answer. All I could gather was that there is some vague legend about the early years of this priory, when another king's ward vanished.

‘I asked one of the oldest monks, Brother Martin, who is in charge of the scriptorium, but he said it was idle tittle-tattle. He claimed there was nothing in the priory archives to show that anyone had disappeared and blamed Ignatius for encouraging the belief that the place was haunted by the spirits of devils and incubi!'

‘God's guts, what's that got to do with a girl getting killed last week?' objected Gwyn.

Thomas looked crestfallen, but John patted his shoulder. ‘Every bit of information may help, even if it only shows the mood of this place. I admit, it's a cheerless house, even for a monastery!'

 

Just before nightfall, a small cavalcade arrived at the priory. There were two curtained litters slung between pairs of horses, accompanied by several well-dressed men on caparisoned steeds and half a dozen mounted servants, leading several packhorses. In addition, there were three women sitting side-saddle on palfreys. With much jingling of harness, they trooped through the outer gates and dismounted near the entrance to the inner courtyard. One older lady was helped down from the first litter and two younger ones climbed from the other.

The prior, his chaplain, Brother Ferdinand and several of the obidentiaries were there to receive them
outside the door that led into the superior guest-rooms adjacent to the inner gatehouse, joining that to the cellarer's building.

For the better part of an hour, there was much coming and going as the guests were installed in their various chambers, together with their personal body-servants and luggage. Eventually the main players assembled in the refectory for wine and refreshments, where Prior Robert told them of the coroner's presence and his requirement that they attend upon him in turn in his makeshift office along the corridor in the cellarium. There was some indignant grumbling about being ordered around by some knight from some outlandish place called Devon, but Robert Northam firmly impressed on them that it was on the direct order of the Chief Justiciar, and hence the king himself.

After a flurry of messages conveyed by a couple of kitchen boys, some form of timetable was agreed and as darkness fell in the late-February afternoon John sat in his small room awaiting his first witness. He kept Thomas with him at a small table in the corner, supplied with pen, ink and parchment, ready to record anything of importance. Two three-branched candlesticks gave a fair light as Brother Ignatius shepherded in a large florid man in middle age.

‘Sir Roger Beaumont,' announced the monk. ‘A noble baron of Wirksworth Castle in Derbyshire.' He declaimed this as if he was herald at a coronation, as de Wolfe rose and courteously motioned the new arrival to the chair opposite his table. Roger grunted a reluctant greeting and sat down, revealing himself as a square-faced man with a high colour, his bushy grey eyebrows matching his bristly grey hair, which was shaved up to a line level with his ears in the old Norman fashion. He was dressed in fine though sober
hued clothes, a long brown tunic under a green surcoat, all covered with a fur-lined pelisse of heavy black wool.

‘This is a bad business, coroner,' he boomed, his voice suiting his burly appearance, heavy-boned and short-necked. John guessed his age as middle forties, a few years older than himself.

After a few formal exchanges, de Wolfe went straight into the meat of the matter and went through the history of Roger's guardianship of Christina, confirming what he knew from others.

‘You were on good terms with the lady?' he asked ‘She was like another daughter to us, for we have Eleanor, who is a few years older.' Roger had a forthright, almost aggressive manner, sticking out his jaw pugnaciously even when the subject matter was not controversial.

John avoided mentioning the prior's suggestion that this girl was a competitor for Jordan's hand in marriage and went on to ask about the night she died.

‘I saw nothing of her after supper,' said Roger abruptly. ‘My wife and I were accommodated where we are now. The two girls, Christina and Margaret Courtenay, were lodged upstairs. The first I knew of the tragedy was in the morning, when all hell was let loose on finding the poor maid's body.'

‘Was she looking forward to her nuptials – excited and happy?'

Beaumont rubbed his square jaw. ‘Not all that keenly, to be honest, but the king's command and perhaps her feelings of duty to her late father to preserve his estates overcame her personal desires.'

‘And the bridegroom? What of him?' asked de Wolfe.

Roger scowled at the question. ‘You had better ask him that, but I suspect he would rather have plighted his troth elsewhere.' He refused to be drawn as to where
‘elsewhere' might have been, saying bluntly that it was Jordan's business, not his.

‘With Christina dead, what will happen to her fortune?'

The baron shifted uneasily and his face became even more ruddy. ‘Effectively, the king has acquired her estates. I am merely the caretaker. But perhaps in view of my faithful stewardship, he might allow me to purchase the manors myself, as I know their management so well.'

And at a knock-down price, thought John cynically. After some more questions that got him no further, he decided to take the bull by the horns, perhaps an apt expression for the bovine-looking man sitting opposite.

‘I have to say this, Sir Roger, but you had a good motive for seeing the girl dead. Had this marriage gone ahead, you would have lost your half-share of the revenue and all chance of acquiring her large estates.'

The reaction was violent.

Roger Beaumont sprang to his feet, his chair going over with a crash as he confronted the coroner. ‘Damn your impertinence, sir! Are you accusing me of killing my own ward, whom I have nurtured like another daughter for so long?'

Thomas, cowering in his corner, saw that the baron's face had turned purple and was afraid that he was going to have a seizure.

De Wolfe held up a placatory hand. ‘I am accusing you of nothing, but it is my royal duty to explore every possibility. I must ask you, as I will ask everyone else, where were you on the night Christina went missing?'

Roger stared at him as if he had gone mad, but his rage seemed to have passed and he sat down heavily on the chair, which Thomas had hurried to put back in place. His voice was dull and thick when he answered.

‘I spent the whole night asleep in my chamber with my wife. She will vouch for that, though I doubt you would consider that of much value.'

John inclined his head in acknowledgement. ‘I consider everything most carefully, I assure you. Perhaps it would be convenient if I did speak to your good wife next.'

Roger left with an air of obvious annoyance, muttering under his breath, and a few moments later a buxom maidservant ushered in his spouse.

Lady Avisa Beaumont was a tall, handsome woman at least ten years younger than her husband. Her fair hair was plaited into two coils above each ear, contained in gold-mesh crespines, over which was a samite veil trailing down her back and over her shapely bosom. The cold was kept at bay by a heavy brocade mantle lined with ermine, covering her ankle-length kirtle of blue velvet. A slim, high-cheekboned face bore a pair of large brown eyes, and John, an experienced connoisseur of elegant women, could easily see how Roger had wanted her for his second wife.

There was virtually nothing Avisa could add to what he already knew, in relation to the night of the girl's death. She had spent it all in a bed an arm's length from her husband's in the guest-chambers near the inner gate and knew nothing of the tragedy until the hubbub in the morning. She produced a fine-linen kerchief, which she used to dab at her eyes when she related this part of her story, and de Wolfe had no reason to think that her grief was anything but genuine.

‘Your husband tells me that Christina was not overjoyed at the prospect of marriage?'

Again the wife confirmed what Roger had said, but with an addition. ‘Until a few months ago, we had hoped that my stepdaughter, Eleanor, would have
joined the Neville family. She has long admired Jordan, whom she has known since childhood. In fact, it was on his visits to us at Wirksworth that he became acquainted with Christina.'

John scratched his stubble and out of the corner of his eye watched Thomas's pen scribbling away on his parchment.

‘Was Christina or Eleanor the attraction that brought him to Wirksworth?' he asked.

Avisa Beaumont dropped her long-lashed eyes. ‘Neither, really. He came to accompany his mother, who is my cousin. But we hoped that some attraction might develop between him and our daughter – as, indeed, it still might!' she added hopefully.

‘So Christina's death has left the field open for a match with a young man who was heir to considerable property?' ventured John.

Just as a critical remark had fired up her husband, Avisa's face darkened and she glared at the coroner. ‘That is not an issue, Sir John, and it is improper of you to suggest it! Anyway, she is not the only contestant on the field,' she added obscurely, but refused to enlarge on the remark.

De Wolfe's questions went on for a few more minutes but, as with Roger Beaumont, nothing useful was obtained. The lady seemed very reluctant to accept that the girl's death was deliberate and firmly declared it to be a terrible accident – though she could not hazard any guess as to why Christina should be found in the crypt of the cellarium.

When she left, with a rather haughty promise to send Roger's daughter down next, John turned to his clerk shivering on his stool, as he was furthest away from the brazier.

‘Anything strike you so far, Thomas? You have the sharpest mind among us,' he said. The rare compli
ment warmed the little priest more than any fire and he hastened to offer his opinion.