Otto Von Habsburg

  ‘I have been thinking on what Jerome said yesterday. You know he is mad. It is possible he himself believes the stories he told us, and that that made them sound – credible.’

  Mark met my gaze. ‘I am not sure he is mad at all, sir. Only in great agony of soul.’

  I had hoped Mark would accept my explanation; though I did not realize it then, I needed reassurance.

  ‘Well, one way or the other,’ I said sharply, ‘what he says had no bearing on Singleton’s death. It may even have been smoke to hide something he does know. And now we must press on.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  By the time I was shaved and dressed Mark had gone down the hall to breakfast. As I approached the kitchen, I heard his voice and Alice’s.

  ‘He should not make you labour so,’ Mark was saying.

  ‘It makes me strong,’ Alice replied in a voice lighter than any I had heard her use. ‘I will have arms thick and strong as yours one day.’

  ‘That would be meet for no lady.’

  Feeling a pang of jealousy, I coughed and went in. Mark was at table, smiling at Alice as she manoeuvred stone urns into a row. They did indeed look heavy.

  ‘Good morning. Mark, would you take those letters to the abbot’s house? Tell him I will keep the deeds for now.’

  ‘Of course.’ He left me with Alice, who set bread and cheese on the table. She seemed in better spirits this morning and made no reference to our conversation the night before, asking me only if I fared well that morning. I was a little disappointed at the formality of the question, for her words the evening before had gladdened my heart, although I was glad I had withdrawn my hand; there were enough complications here.

  Brother Guy came in. ‘Old Brother August needs his pan, Alice.’

  ‘At once.’ She curtsied and went out. Outside, the bells began tolling loudly. They seemed to echo round my skull.

  ‘Commissioner Singleton’s funeral will be in half an hour.’

  ‘Brother Guy,’ I said, suddenly awkward, ‘may I consult with you, professionally?’

  ‘Of course. Any assistance I can give.’

  ‘I am having trouble with my back. Since the long ride here it pains me where – where it protrudes.’

  ‘Would you like me to look?’

  I took a long, deep breath. I hated the thought of a stranger seeing my deformity, but I had been suffering ever since the journey from London and was starting to become anxious some lasting damage might have been done. ‘Very well,’ I said, and began to remove my doublet.

  Brother Guy went behind me and I felt cool fingers on my back, probing the knotted muscles. He grunted.

  ‘Well?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Your muscles have gone into a spasm. They are very knotted. But I can see no damage to your spine. With time and rest your back should ease.’ He stepped round and studied my face with a cool professional gaze as I dressed again.

  ‘Does your back often give you much pain?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said shortly. ‘But there is little to be done about it.’

  ‘You are under much strain. That never helps.’

  I grunted. ‘I have not slept well since coming here. But who is to wonder at that?’

  His large brown eyes studied my face. ‘Were you well before?’

  ‘My dominant humour is melancholy. These last few months I have felt it growing, I fear the balance of my humours is becoming undermined.’

  He nodded. ‘I think you have an overheated mind, not surprising after what you have witnessed here.’

  I was silent a moment. ‘I cannot help feeling responsible for that boy’s death.’ I had not meant to confide in him so, but Brother Guy had a way of drawing one out despite oneself.

  ‘If anyone is responsible it is I. He was poisoned while under my care.’

  ‘Does what has happened here frighten you?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘Who would harm me? I am only an old Moor.’ He was silent a moment. ‘Come to the infirmary. I have an infusion that may help you. Fennel, hops, one or two other ingredients.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I followed him down the hall, and sat on the table while he selected herbs and set water to heat on the fire. I eyed the Spanish cross on the opposite wall, and remembered the day before, seeing him lying prone before it. ‘Did you bring that from your homeland?’ ‘Yes, it has followed me on all my travels.’ He measured some herbs from his stock into the water. ‘When this is ready take a little, not too much or you will want to sleep away the day.’ He paused. ‘I am grateful you trust me to prescribe for you.’

  ‘I must trust you as a physician, Brother Guy.’ I paused. ‘I think you were unhappy with what I said yesterday, regarding the funeral prayers.’

  He inclined his head. ‘I follow your reasoning. You believe God is indifferent to forms of prayer.’

  ‘I believe salvation comes through God’s grace. You do not agree? Come, let us forget my position for a minute and talk freely, as Christian scholars.’

  ‘Only as scholars? I have your word?’

  ‘Yes, you do. God’s bones, that mixture stinks.’

  ‘It needs to stew a little.’ He folded his arms. ‘I understand why the new ways have come to England. There has been much corruption in the Church. But these matters could be dealt with by reform as has been done in Spain. Today thousands of Spanish friars are at work converting the heathens in the Americas, amidst terrible privations.’

  ‘I cannot imagine English friars in that setting.’

  ‘Nor can I. But Spain has shown reform is possible.’

  ‘And has its own Inquisition as a reward from the pope.’

  ‘My fear is the English Church will not be reformed, but destroyed.’

  ‘What will be destroyed, though? What? The power of the papacy, the false doctrine of purgatory?’

  ‘The king’s Articles of Religion admit purgatory may exist.’

  ‘That is one reading. I believe purgatory is false. When we die salvation is by God’s grace alone. The prayers of those left on earth do not matter a rush.’

  He shook his head. ‘But then, sir, how should a man strive to be saved?’

  ‘By faith.’

  ‘And charity?’

  ‘If one has faith, charity will follow.’

  ‘Martin Luther holds that salvation is not really by faith at all, God predetermines before a soul is even born whether it will be saved or damned. That seems a cruel doctrine.’

  ‘So Luther interpreted St Paul, yes. I, and many others, say he is wrong.’

  ‘But if every man is allowed his own interpretation of the Bible, will not people bring forth such cruel philosophies everywhere? Shall we not have a Babel, chaos?’

  ‘God will guide us.’

  He stood and faced me, his eyes dark with – what? Sadness? Despair? Brother Guy was always a hard man to read.

  ‘Then you would strip away all?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, I would. Tell me, Brother, do you believe like old Brother Paul that the world is drifting towards its end, the Day of Judgment?’

  ‘That has been the central doctrine of the Church since time immemorial.’

  I leaned forward. ‘But must that be? May not the world be transformed, made as God willed it?’

  Brother Guy clasped his hands before him. ‘The Catholic Church has often been the only light of civilization in this world. Its doctrines and rituals unite man in fellowship with suffering humanity and all the Christian dead. And they urge him to charity: Jesu knows he needs urging. But your doctrine tells each man to find his own individual salvation through prayer and the Bible. Charity and fellowship then are lost.’

  I remembered my own childhood, the fat drunken priest telling me I could never take orders. ‘The Church showed me little charity in my youth,’ I said bitterly. ‘I seek God in my heart.’

  ‘Do you find him there?’

  ‘Once he visited it, yes.’

  The infirmarian smiled sadly. ‘You know, unti
l now a man from Granada, or anywhere in Europe, could go into a church in England and be immediately at home, hear the same Latin services, be comforted. With that international brotherhood taken away, who now will place a halter on the quarrels of princes? What will become of a man like me when he is stranded in a hostile land? Sometimes when I have gone into Scarnsea the children have thrown rubbish at me. What will they throw when the monastery is not there to protect me?’

  ‘You have a poor view of England,’ I said.

  ‘A realistic view of fallen mankind. Oh, I see it from your perspective. You reformers are against purgatory, Masses for the dead, relics, exactly those things the monasteries epitomize. So they will go, I realize that.’

  ‘And you would prevent it?’ I looked at him keenly.

  ‘How can I? It has been decided. But I fear without the universal church to bind us together, a day will come in this land when even belief in God will be gone. Money alone will be worshipped, and the nation, of course.’

  ‘Should one not be loyal to one’s nation, one’s king?’

  He picked up his potion, said a quick prayer over it, and poured the mixture into a glass bottle. He looked across at me sternly.

  ‘In worshipping their nationhood men worship themselves and scorn others, and that is no healthy thing.’

  ‘You are sore mistaken as to what we want. We seek the Christian commonwealth.’

  ‘I believe you, but I fear I see things falling into a different path.’ He handed me the bottle and a spoon. ‘That is my opinion as a scholar. There, you should take a measure now.’

  I swallowed it with a grimace; it tasted as bitter as it smelt. The slow peal of bells, which had formed the background to our talk, grew louder. The church clock struck eight.

  ‘We should go,’ Brother Guy said. ‘The service is about to start.’

  I put the bottle in my robe and followed him down the corridor. Looking at the fringe of black, woolly hair round the dark crown of his head, I reflected he was right in one respect: if the monasteries were dissolved he would have no safe haven in England any more; even his spicy odour was different from the common stink. He would have to beg a licence to go abroad, to a Spanish or French monastery. And he might not be given one, those countries were our enemies now. If the monastery went down, Brother Guy had more to lose than any of them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE MONKS WERE PROCESSING into the church, led by the abbot. Brother Guy left me to join his brethren. Among a couple of other latecomers I saw Prior Mortimus and Brother Edwig hurrying across the cloister yard from the counting house. I remembered what Goodhaps had said about the two of them running the place. And yet I had seen no signs of friendship between them. The prior moved along at a fast walk, kicking up the snow, the little bursar half-running to keep up. Mark joined me. Old Goodhaps was by his side, casting glances at the sky, which was grey again.

  ‘Good morning, Master Shardlake. Do you think it will snow?’ he asked anxiously. ‘I want to be on the road once the service is over.’

  ‘The road to Scarnsea is passable. Now come, we shall be late.’

  I led the way into the church. The monks had filed past the rood screen into the choir stalls, I could hear them coughing and shuffling. On our side of the screen Singleton’s coffin, still open, had been set on some chairs. Some way off another coffin stood surrounded by candles: Simon Whelplay’s. The abbot stood by Singleton’s coffin; not too near, for as we approached we caught again the smell of decay.

  ‘If you lay mourners would sit with the coffin while the Dirige is offered up,’ he said solemnly, ‘and afterwards bear the coffin to the churchyard. Prior Mortimus has offered to be the fourth bearer. If, er –’ he glanced at my hump – ‘you are able to take the weight.’

  ‘I am quite capable,’ I said sharply, though I winced at the thought.

  ‘I can’t,’ Dr Goodhaps piped up. ‘I have arthritis in my shoulder, I should be in bed a week—’

  ‘Very well, Dr Goodhaps,’ the abbot said wearily. ‘I will find a monk to be the fourth bearer.’ For the first and last time I exchanged a look of sympathy with Abbot Fabian over the old man’s head. Then he bowed and walked behind the screen, and we took our seats behind Singleton’s coffin. Goodhaps coughed and buried his nose in a handkerchief.

  The service began. That morning, for all I sat behind the stinking coffin of a murdered man, I found myself lulled along by the monks’ beautiful, polyphonic chant. The psalms, and the Latin readings from Job, struck a chord.

  And thou sayest, how doth God know? Can he judge through the dark cloud? Thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seest not; and he walketh in the circuit of heaven.

  Thick clouds indeed, I thought. I am still in a fog here. I shook myself angrily. This would not do, where was my resolution? And then something occurred to me that I had not considered before, though I should have. Mark and Dr Goodhaps sat on either side of me; the old man still with the handkerchief to his nose while Mark stared before him, lost in thought. I nudged him.

  ‘Will Alice be in the infirmary this morning?’ I whispered.

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Good.’ I turned to Goodhaps. ‘And I would like you to come there too before you leave.’ He gave me a put-upon look.

  I turned back to the service. The chanting ebbed and flowed, dying out at last to silence. The monks filed out of the choir and a servant who had been waiting in the church hurried over and took up the coffin lid. I looked for the last time at Singleton’s hard face and had a sudden memory of him in court, the fiery words and lively sweeps of the arm, the passion for argument. Then the lid was screwed down and his face was put in darkness for ever. The prior and a squarely built, middle-aged monk appeared and Mark and I bent with them to take the weight of the coffin. As I lifted it I felt something move within. Mark turned to me, his eyes wide.

  ‘His head,’ I whispered. ‘It’s slipped away.’

  We bore the coffin from the church, horribly conscious of the head and the piece of wood rolling about inside, the monks following behind in a long procession. On the way out I saw Brother Gabriel standing over Novice Whelplay’s coffin, praying fervently. As we passed he looked up at us with blank, despairing eyes.

  We walked through the snow, the deadbell tolling in our ears, to the lay churchyard, where a grave had been dug, a brown slash in the white expanse. I glanced at Prior Mortimus beside me; his hard face wore an expression of unaccustomed thoughtfulness.

  Servants were waiting with spades; they took the coffin and laid it in the grave. Snowflakes began falling silently in the grey morning, dusting the excavated earth as the final prayers were said and holy water sprinkled over the coffin. As the first clods banged down, the monks turned and processed silently back to the church. As I followed them, the prior fell into step beside me.

  ‘They can’t wait to be out of the cold. If they’d had the watches I’ve had in winter weather—’ He shook his head.

  ‘Indeed?’ I asked with interest. ‘Were you once a soldier?’

  ‘Do I seem that rough to you? No, Master Shardlake, I was once the town constable at Tonbridge. I helped the sheriff arrest wrongdoers, watched for thieves on winter’s nights. And in the day I was a schoolmaster. Does that surprise you, that I should be a scholar?’

  I inclined my head. ‘A little, but only because you cultivate a rough manner.’

  ‘I don’t cultivate it, I was born with it.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘I am from Scotland; we don’t have your smooth English ways. We don’t have much at all beyond fighting, not in the border country I come from. Life there is a battle, cattle-raiding lords fighting each other and you English.’

  ‘What brought you to England?’

  ‘My parents were killed when I was a boy. Our farm was raided – oh, by another Scots lord, not the English.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘I was at school at Kelso Abbey then. I wanted to go far away and the fathers paid for me to go t
o an English school. I owe everything to the Church.’ His mocking eyes for once were serious. ‘The religious orders stand between the world and bloody chaos, Commissioner.’

  Another refugee, I thought, another beneficiary of Brother Guy’s international community.

  ‘What made you take orders?’

  ‘I tired of the world, Commissioner, of how people are. Children forever fighting and avoiding lessons unless ye keep them well whipped. The criminals I helped catch, all the stupid greedy men. A dozen more waiting to be caught for every one tried and hanged. Ach, man is a fallen creature, far from grace and harder to keep in order than a pack of dogs. But in a monastery at least God’s discipline can be kept.’

  ‘And that is your vocation on earth? To keep men disciplined?’

  ‘Is it not yours? Do ye not also feel outrage for that man’s murder? Are ye not here to find and punish his killer?’

  ‘The commissioner’s death outraged you?’

  He stood and faced me. ‘It is a further step to chaos. You think me a hard man, but believe me the Devil’s reach is far and even in the Church men like me are needed to keep him at bay. As the king’s law seeks to keep order in the secular world.’

  ‘What if the laws of the world and the Church conflict?’ I asked. ‘As they have in recent years?’

  ‘Then, Master Shardlake, I pray some resolution may be found so Church and prince may work in harmony again, for when they fight they allow the Devil in.’

  ‘Then let the Church not challenge the prince’s will. Well, I must return to the infirmary. I will leave you here, you will be returning to the church. For the funeral of poor Novice Whelplay,’ I added meaningfully.

  He answered my gaze. ‘I shall pray for that lad to be admitted to heaven in God’s time. Sinner as he was.’

  I turned away, peering through the snowflakes to where Goodhaps was tottering along; Mark had given him his arm. I wondered if he would make it to the town, make his escape.

  IN THE INFIRMARY HALL Alice was still tending the old dying monk. He was conscious again and she was gently spooning gruel into his mouth. Attending to the ancient her face had a new softness, a gentleness. I asked her to accompany us to the infirmarian’s little kitchen. I left them all there while I fetched the book the bursar had given me. They all looked at me expectantly as I held it up.