Order of Darkness Read online

  ‘Does it say how to find them?’ Freize asked gloomily. ‘For otherwise it’s bed under the trees and nothing but cold bread for supper. Beechnuts, I suppose. All you could eat of beechnuts. You could go mad with gluttony on them. I suppose I might get lucky and find us a mushroom.’

  ‘The road is just up ahead,’ Peter interrupted. ‘The abbey is near to the castle. I should think we can claim hospitality at either monastery or nunnery.’

  ‘We’ll go to the convent,’ Luca ruled. ‘It says that they are expecting us.’

  It did not look as if the convent was expecting anyone. It was growing dark, but there were no warm welcoming lights showing and no open doors. The shutters were closed at all the windows in the outer wall, and only narrow beams of flickering candlelight shone through the slats. In the darkness they could not tell how big it was; they just had a sense of great walls marching off either side of the wide-arched entrance gateway. A dim horn lantern was hung by the small door set in the great wooden gate, throwing a thin yellow light downward, and when Freize dismounted and hammered on the wooden gate with the handle of his dagger they could hear someone inside protesting at the noise and then opening a little spy hole in the door, to peer out at them.

  ‘I am Luca Vero, with my two servants,’ Luca shouted. ‘I am expected. Let us in.’

  The spy hole slammed shut, then they could hear the slow unbolting of the gate and the lifting of wooden bars and, finally, one side of the gate creaked reluctantly open. Freize led his horse and the donkey, Luca and Peter rode into the cobbled yard as a sturdy woman-servant pushed the gate shut behind them. The men dismounted and looked around as a wizened old lady in a habit of grey wool, with a tabard of grey tied at her waist by a plain rope, held up the torch she was carrying, to inspect the three of them.

  ‘Are you the man they sent to make inquiry? For if you are not, and it is hospitality that you want, you had better go on to the monastery, our brother house,’ she said to Peter, looking at him and his fine horse. ‘This house is in troubled times, we don’t want guests.’

  ‘No, I am to write the report. I am the clerk to the inquiry. This is Luca Vero, he is here to inquire.’

  ‘A boy!’ she exclaimed scornfully. ‘A beardless boy?’

  Luca flushed in irritation, then swung his leg over the neck of his horse, and jumped down to the ground, throwing the reins to Freize. ‘It doesn’t matter how many years I have, or if I have a beard or not. I am appointed to make inquiry here, and I will do so tomorrow. In the meantime we are tired and hungry and you should show me to the refectory and to the guest rooms. Please inform the Lady Abbess that I am here and will see her after Prime tomorrow.’

  ‘Rich in nothing,’ the old woman remarked, holding up her torch to take another look at Luca’s handsome young face, flushed under his dark fringe, his hazel eyes bright with anger.

  ‘Rich in nothing, is it?’ Freize questioned the horse as he led him to the stables ahead. ‘A virgin so old that she is like a pickled walnut and she calls the little lord a beardless boy? And him a genius and perhaps a changeling?’

  ‘You, take the horses to the stables and the lay sister there will take you to the kitchen,’ she snapped with sudden energy at Freize. ‘You can eat and sleep in the barn. You—’ She took in the measure of Peter the clerk and judged him superior to Freize but still wanting. ‘You can dine in the kitchen gallery. You’ll find it through that doorway. They’ll show you where to sleep in the guesthouse. You—’ She turned to Luca. ‘You, the Inquirer, I will show to the refectory and to your own bedroom. They said you were a priest?’

  ‘I have not yet said my vows,’ he said. ‘I am in the service of the Church, but I am not ordained.’

  ‘Too handsome by far for the priesthood, and with his tonsure grown out already,’ she said to herself. To Luca she said: ‘You can sleep in the rooms for the visiting priest, anyway. And in the morning I will tell my Lady Abbess that you are here.’

  She was leading the way to the refectory when a lady came through the archway from the inner cloister. Her habit was made of soft bleached wool, the wimple on her head pushed back to show a pale lovely face with smiling grey eyes. The girdle at her waist was of the finest leather and she had leather slippers, not the rough wooden pattens that working women wore to keep their shoes out of the mud.

  ‘I came to greet the Inquirer,’ she said, holding up the set of wax candles in her hand.

  Luca stepped forwards. ‘I am the Inquirer,’ he said.

  She smiled, taking in his height, his good looks and his youth in one swift gaze. ‘Let me take you to your dinner, you must be weary. Sister Anna here will see that your horses are stabled and your men comfortable.’

  He bowed and she turned ahead of him, leaving him to follow her through the stone archway, along a flagged gallery that opened into the arching refectory room. At the far end, near the fire that was banked in for the night, a place had been laid for one person; there was wine in the glass, bread on the plate, a knife and spoon either side of a bowl. Luca sighed with pleasure and sat down in the chair as a maidservant came in with a ewer and bowl to wash his hands, good linen to dry them, and behind her came a kitchen maid with a bowl of stewed chicken and vegetables.

  ‘You have everything that you need?’ the lady asked.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said awkwardly. He was uncomfortable in her presence; he had not spoken to a woman other than his mother since he had been sworn into the monastery at the age of eleven. ‘And you are?’

  She smiled at him and he realised in the glow of her smile that she was beautiful. ‘I am Sister Ursula, the Lady Almoner, responsible for the management of the abbey. I am glad you have come. I have been very anxious. I hope you can tell us what is happening and save us . . .’

  ‘Save you?’

  ‘This is a long-established and beautiful nunnery,’ Sister Ursula said earnestly. ‘I joined it when I was just a little girl. I have served God and my sisters here for all my life, I have been here for more than twenty years. I cannot bear the thought that Satan has entered in.’

  Luca dipped his bread in the rich thick gravy, and concentrated on the food to hide his consternation. ‘Satan?’

  She crossed herself, a quick unthinking gesture of devotion. ‘Some days I think it really is that bad, other days I think I am like a foolish girl, frightening myself with shadows.’ She gave him a shy, apologetic smile. ‘You will be able to judge. You will discover the truth of it all. But if we cannot rid ourselves of the gossip we will be ruined: no family will send their daughters to us, and now the farmers are starting to refuse to trade with us. It is my duty to make sure that the abbey earns its own living, that we sell our goods and farm produce in order to buy what we need. I can’t do that if the farmers’ wives refuse to speak with us when I send my lay sisters with our goods to market. We can’t trade if the people will neither sell to us nor buy from us.’ She shook her head. ‘Anyway, I will leave you to eat. The kitchen maid will show you to your bedroom in the guesthouse when you have finished eating. Bless you, my brother.’

  Luca suddenly realised he had quite forgotten to say grace: she would think he was an ignorant mannerless hedge friar. He had stared at her like a fool and stammered when he spoke to her. He had behaved like a young man who had never seen a beautiful woman before and not at all like a man of some importance, come to head a papal inquiry. What must she think of him? ‘Bless you, Lady Almoner,’ he said awkwardly.

  She bowed, hiding a little smile at his confusion, and walked slowly from the room, and he watched the sway of the hem of her gown as she left.

  On the east side of the enclosed abbey, the shutter of the ground-floor window was slightly open so that two pairs of eyes could watch the Lady Almoner’s candle illuminate her pale silhouette as she walked gracefully across the yard and then vanished into her house.

  ‘She’s greeted him, but she won’t have told him anything,’ Isolde whispered.

  ‘He will find nothing unl
ess someone helps him,’ Ishraq agreed.

  The two drew back from the window and noiselessly closed the shutter. ‘I wish I could see my way clear,’ Isolde said. ‘I wish I knew what to do. I wish I had someone who could advise me.’

  ‘What would your father have done?’

  Isolde laughed shortly. ‘My father would never have let himself be forced in here. He would have laid down his life before he allowed someone to imprison him. Or, if captured, he would have died attempting to escape. He wouldn’t just have sat here, like a doll, like a cowardly girl, crying, missing him, and not knowing what to do.’

  She turned away and roughly rubbed her eyes. Ishraq put a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ she said. ‘There was nothing we could do when we first came here. And now that the whole abbey is falling apart around us, we can still do nothing until we understand what is going on. But everything is changing even while we wait, powerless. Even if we do nothing; something is going to happen. This is our chance. Perhaps this is the moment when the door swings open. We’re going to be ready for our chance.’

  Isolde took the hand from her shoulder and held it against her cheek. ‘At least I have you.’

  ‘Always.’

  Luca slept heavily; not even the church bell tolling the hour in the tower above his head could wake him. But, just when the night was darkest, before three in the morning, a sharp scream cut through his sleep and then he heard the sound of running feet.

  Luca was up and out of his bed in a moment, his hand snatching for the dagger under his pillow, peering out of his window at the dark yard. A glint of moonlight shining on the cobblestones showed him a woman in white, racing across the yard to scrabble at the beams barring the heavy wooden gate. Three women pursued her, and the old porteress came running out of the gatehouse and grabbed the woman’s hands as she clawed like a cat at the timbers.

  The other women were quick to catch the girl from behind and Luca heard her sharp wail of despair as they grabbed hold of her, and saw her knees buckle as she went down under their weight. He pulled on his breeches and boots, threw a cape over his naked shoulders, then sprinted from his room, out into the yard, tucking the dagger out of sight in the scabbard in his boot. He stepped back into the shadow of the building, certain they had not noticed him, determined to see their faces in the shadowy light of the moon, so that he would know them, when he saw them again.

  The porteress held up her torch as they lifted the girl, two women holding her shoulders, the third supporting her legs. As they carried her past him, Luca shrank back into the concealing darkness of the doorway. They were so close that he could hear their panting breaths.

  It was the strangest sight. The girl’s hand had swung down as they lifted her; now she was quite unconscious. It seemed that she had fainted when they had pulled her from the barred gate. Her head was rolled back, the little laces from her nightcap brushing the ground as they carried her, her long nightgown trailing in the dust. But it was no normal fainting fit. She was as limp as a corpse, her eyes closed, her young face serene. Then Luca gave a little hiss of horror. The girl’s swinging hand was pierced in the palm, the wound oozing blood. They had folded her other hand across her slight body and Luca could see a smudge of blood on her nightgown. She had the hands of a girl crucified. Luca froze where he stood, forcing himself to stay hidden in the shadows, unable to look away from the strange terrible wounds. And then he saw something that seemed even worse.

  All three women carrying the sleeping girl wore her expression of rapt serenity. As they shuffled along, carrying their limp bleeding burden, all three were slightly smiling, all three were radiant as if with an inner secret joy.

  And their eyes were closed like hers.

  Luca waited till they had sleepwalked past him, steady as pall-bearers, then he went back into the guesthouse room and knelt at the side of his bed, praying fervently for guidance to somehow find the wisdom, despite his self-doubt, to discover what was so very wrong in this holy place, and put it right.

  He was still on his knees in prayer when Freize banged open the door with a jug of hot water for washing, just before dawn. ‘Thought you’d want to go to Prime.’

  ‘Yes.’ Luca rose stiffly, crossed himself, and kissed the cross that always hung around his neck, a gift from his mother on his fourteenth birthday, the last time he had seen her.

  ‘Bad things are happening here,’ Freize said portentously, splashing the water into a bowl and putting a clean strip of linen beside it.

  Luca sluiced his face and hands with water. ‘I know it. God knows, I have seen some of it. What do you hear?’

  ‘Sleepwalking, visions, the nuns fasting on feast days, starving themselves and fainting in the chapel. Some of them are seeing lights in the sky, like the star before the Magi, and then some wanted to set off for Bethlehem and had to be restrained. The people of the village and the servants from the castle say they’re all going mad. They say the whole abbey is touched with madness and the women are losing their wits.’

  Luca shook his head. ‘The saints alone know what is happening. Did you hear the screams in the night?’

  ‘Lord save us, no. I slept in the kitchen and all I could hear was snoring. But all the cooks say that the Pope should send a bishop to inquire. They say that Satan is walking here. The Pope should set up an inquiry.’

  ‘He has done! That’s me,’ Luca snapped. ‘I shall hold an inquiry. I shall be the judge.’

  ‘Course you will,’ Freize encouraged him. ‘Doesn’t matter how old you are.’

  ‘Actually, it doesn’t matter how old I am. What matters is that I am appointed to inquire.’

  ‘You’d better start with the new Lady Abbess, then.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it all started as soon as she got here.’

  ‘I won’t listen to kitchen gossip,’ Luca declared haughtily, rubbing his face. He tossed the cloth to Freize. ‘I shall have a proper inquiry with witnesses and people giving evidence under oath. For I am the Inquirer, appointed by the Pope, and it would be better if everyone remembered it. Especially those people who are supposed to be in service to me, who should be supporting my reputation.’

  ‘Course I do! Course you are! Course you will! You’re the lord and I never forget it, though still only a little one.’ Freize shook out Luca’s linen shirt and then handed him his novice’s robe, which he wore belted high, out of the way of his long stride. Luca strapped his short sword on his belt and notched it round his waist, dropping the robe over the sword to hide it.

  ‘You speak to me like I was a child,’ Luca said irritably. ‘And you’re no great age yourself.’

  ‘It’s affection,’ Freize said firmly. ‘It’s how I show affection. And respect. To me, you’ll always be “Sparrow”, the skinny novice.’

  ‘ “ Goose”, the kitchen boy,’ Luca replied with a grin.

  ‘Got your dagger?’ Freize checked.

  Luca tapped the cuff of his boot where the dagger was safe in the scabbard.

  ‘They all say that the new Lady Abbess had no vocation, and was not raised to the life,’ Freize volunteered, ignoring Luca’s ban on gossip. ‘Her father’s will sent her in here and she took her vows and she’ll never get out again. It’s the only inheritance her father left her, everything else went to the brother. Bad as being walled up. And, ever since she came, the nuns have started to see things and cry out. Half the village says that Satan came in with the new abbess. Cause she was unwilling.’

  ‘And what do they say the brother is like?’ Luca asked, tempted to gossip despite his resolution.

  ‘Nothing but good of him. Good landlord, generous with the abbey. His grandfather built the abbey with a nunnery on one side and a brother house for the monks nearby. His father endowed both houses and handed the woods and the high pasture over to the nuns, and gave some farms and fields to the monastery. They run themselves as independent houses, working together for the glory of God, and helping the poo
r. Now the new lord in his turn supports it. His father was a crusader, famously brave, very hot on religion. The new lord sounds quieter, stays at home, wants a bit of peace. Very keen that this is kept quiet, that you make your inquiry, take your decision, report the guilty, exorcise whatever is going on, and everything gets back to normal.’

  Above their heads the bell tolled for Prime, the dawn prayer.

  ‘Come on,’ Luca said, and led the way from the visiting priest’s rooms towards the cloisters and the beautiful church.

  They could hear the music as they crossed the yard, their way lit by a procession of white-gowned nuns, carrying torches and singing as they went like a choir of angels gliding through the pearly light of the morning. Luca stepped back, and even Freize fell silent at the beauty of the voices rising faultlessly into the dawn sky. Then the two men, joined by Brother Peter, followed the choir into the church and took their seats in an alcove at the back. Two hundred nuns, veiled with white wimples, filled the stalls of the choir either side of the screened altar, and stood in rows facing it.

  The service was a sung Mass; the voice of the serving priest at the altar rang out the sacred Latin words in a steady baritone, and the sweet high voices of the women answered. Luca gazed at the vaulting ceiling, the beautiful columns carved with stone fruit and flowers, and above them, stars and moons of silver-painted stone, all the while listening to the purity of the responses and wondering what could be tormenting such holy women every night, and how they could wake every dawn and sing like this to God.

  At the end of the service, the three visiting men remained seated on the stone bench at the back of the chapel as the nuns filed out past them, their eyes modestly down. Luca scanned their faces, looking for the young woman he had seen in such a frenzy last night, but one pale young face veiled in white was identical to another. He tried to see their palms, for the telltale sign of scabs, but all the women kept their hands clasped together, hidden in their long sleeves. As they filed out, their sandals pattering quietly on the stone floor, the priest followed them, and stopped before the young men to say pleasantly, ‘I’ll break my fast with you and then I have to go back to my side of the abbey.’