Order of Darkness Read online

  Freize nodded, his face grim. ‘Why not? We saw ourselves what they were doing. There’s no doubt they were engaged in witchcraft, a Satanic Mass, or cutting up the body. Either way it’s a crime punishable by death. But I will say that your Lady Almoner doesn’t waste much time in preparation. Here she is with two bonfires ready before the trial has even started.’

  The waiting nun tapped her foot. Luca turned back to her. ‘What are these wood piles for?’

  ‘I think we are selling the firewood,’ she said. ‘The Lady Almoner ordered the lay sisters to make two piles like this. May I show you to the chapel now? I have to get back to the hospital and wash the floor.’

  ‘Yes, I am sorry to have delayed you.’

  Luca and Freize followed her past the refectory, through the cloisters to the chapel. As soon as the nun pushed open the heavy wooden door they could hear the low musical chanting of nuns keeping vigil over the body. Blinking, as their eyes were blinded by the darkness, they went slowly up the aisle until they could see that the space before the altar was covered with a snowy white cloth, and on the cloth lay a newly made simple wooden coffin with the lid nailed firmly shut.

  Luca grimaced at the sight. ‘We have to see the body,’ he whispered. ‘It’s the only way we can know if she was poisoned.’

  ‘Rather you than me,’ Freize said bluntly. ‘I wouldn’t want to tell the Lady Almoner that I’m opening a sanctified coffin because I had a funny dream.’

  ‘We have to know.’

  ‘She won’t want anyone seeing the body,’ Freize whispered to Luca. ‘She was horribly cut up. And if those witches ate her flesh, then the poor girl will bleed when she is resurrected, God help her. The Lady Almoner won’t want the nuns to know that.’

  ‘We’ll have to get permission from the priest,’ Luca decided. ‘We’d better ask him, not the Lady Almoner – we’ll give him a request in writing. Peter can write it.’

  They stepped back and watched the priest. He was swinging a heavy silver censer leaving a misty layer of incense smoke all around the coffin. When the air was chokingly thick with the heavy perfume, he handed it to one of the nuns and then took the holy water from another and doused the coffin. Then he went to the altar and, turning his back on them all, he lifted his hands in prayer for their departed sister.

  The two men bowed to the altar, crossed themselves, and went quietly out of the church. At once they could hear a commotion from the stable yard, the sound of many horses arriving, and the great gates being thrown open.

  ‘Lord Lucretili,’ Luca guessed, and strode back to the yard.

  The lord, and patron of the abbey, was mounted on a big black warhorse, which pawed the ground, its iron horseshoes throwing sparks from the cobbles. As Luca watched the lord threw his red leather reins to his pageboy and jumped easily from the saddle. The Lady Almoner went up to him, curtseyed, and then stood quietly, her hands hidden inside her long sleeves, her head bowed, her hood modestly shielding her face.

  Following Lord Lucretili into the courtyard came half a dozen men wearing the lord’s livery of an olive bough overlaid with a sword, signifying the peaceful descendant of a crusader knight. Three or four grave-looking clerks came in on horseback, then the Lord Abbot of Lucretili with his own retinue of priests.

  As the men dismounted, Luca stepped forwards.

  ‘You must be Luca Vero. I am glad you are here,’ Lord Lucretili said pleasantly. ‘I am Giorgio, Lord Lucretili. This is the Lord Abbot. He will sit in judgement with me. I understand you are in the middle of your investigation here?’

  ‘I am,’ Luca said. ‘Forgive me, but I have to go to the visitors’ house. I am looking for my clerk.’

  The Lord Lucretili intervened. ‘Fetch the Inquirer’s clerk,’ he said to his pageboy, who set off to the visitors’ house at a run. The lord turned back to Luca. ‘They tell me that it was you who arrested the Lady Abbess, and her slave?’

  ‘His own sister,’ Freize breathed from behind. ‘Doesn’t seem very upset.’

  ‘Myself, my clerk Brother Peter, and my servant Freize, together with the Lady Almoner,’ Luca confirmed. ‘Brother Peter and my servant put the two women in the cellar below the gatehouse.’

  ‘We’ll hold our trial in the gatehouse,’ Lord Lucretili decided. ‘That way they can be brought up the ladder, and we’ll keep it all out of the way of the nunnery.’

  ‘I would prefer that,’ the Lady Almoner said. ‘The fewer people who see them, and know of this, the better.’

  The lord nodded. ‘It shames us all,’ he said. ‘God alone knows what my father would have made of it. So let’s get it over and done with.’

  Two horses with black trappings pulled a cart into the yard, and stood waiting. ‘For the coffin,’ the lord explained to Luca. To the Lady Almoner he said: ‘You’ll see it’s loaded up and my men will take it to my chapel?’

  The Lady Almoner nodded, then turned from the men and led the way to the gatehouse room, where she watched the clerks set a long table and chairs for the Lord Lucretili, the Lord Abbot, Luca and Brother Peter. The lord’s squire brought in the crusader broadsword and set it in a stone so it stood upright in the centre of the room.

  ‘What’s that?’ Luca asked.

  ‘My sister will recognise it at once,’ the lord said. ‘It’s a crusader sword. My father swapped his sword with that of his dearest friend. They engraved a sentence of great power on their blades and bolted the sword in the scabbard. My father would have the sword before him when he was going to pass a death sentence. She knows that.’

  ‘You can bring yourself to do this?’ Luca asked curiously. ‘To your sister?’

  ‘It is my duty,’ the lord replied.

  Luca nodded and drew him to one side. ‘There’s something else,’ he said. ‘I think we need to have the coffin opened before Sister Augusta is buried,’ he said quietly. ‘I am sorry to say that I suspect the sister was poisoned.’

  ‘Poisoned?’

  Luca nodded.

  The lord shook his head in shock. ‘God save her soul and forgive my sister her sins. But anyway, we can’t open the coffin here. The nuns would be far too distressed. It would cause a riot. Come to my castle this evening and we’ll do it privately at my chapel. In the meantime, we’ll question the Lady Abbess and her slave.’

  ‘They won’t answer,’ Luca said certainly. ‘The slave swore she was dumb in three languages when I questioned her before.’

  The lord laughed shortly. ‘I think they can be made to answer. You are an Inquirer for the Church, you have the right to use the rack, the press, you can bleed them. They are only young women, vain and frail as all women are. You will see that they will answer your questions rather than have their joints pulled from the sockets. They will speak rather than have boulders placed on their chests. I can promise you that my sister will say anything rather than have leeches on her face.’

  Luca went white. ‘That’s not how I make an inquiry. I have never . . .’ he started. ‘I would never . . .’

  The older man put a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘I will do it for you,’ he said. ‘You shall wrestle with them for their souls until their evil pride has been broken and they are crying to confess. I will prepare them. I have seen it done, it is easily done. You can trust me to make them ready for their confession.’

  ‘I could not allow . . .’ Luca choked.

  ‘The room is ready for your lordship.’ The Lady Almoner came out from the gatehouse and stood aside as the lord went in without another word. He seated himself behind the table where the great chair, like a throne, was placed ready for him, the Lord Abbot to his left. Luca was on his right, with a clerk at one end of the table and Brother Peter at the other. When everyone was seated, the lord ordered the door to the yard closed, and Luca saw Freize’s anxious face peering in, as Lord Lucretili said, ‘My Lord Abbot, will you bless the work that we are doing today?’

  The abbot half-closed his eyes and folded his hands over his curved stomach. ‘Heaven