I went behind the desk and examined the bookshelves, noting a printed set of English statutes. 'One of nature's bullies, isn't he? He seemed to enjoy mistreating that novice.'

'The boy looked ill.'

'Yes. I am curious to know why a novice has been set to menial servants' work.'

'I thought monks were supposed to spend part of their time in manual labour.'

'That is part of St Benedict's rule. But no monk in a Benedictine house has done honest toil for hundreds of years. Servants do the work. Not only cooking and stabling, but tending the fires, making the monks' beds, sometimes helping them dress and who knows what else.'

I picked up the seal and studied it by the light from the fire. It was of tempered steel. I showed Mark the engraving of St Donatus, in Roman clothing, bending over another man lying on a pannier whose arm was stretched up to him in appeal. It was beautifully done, the folds of the robes rendered in detail.

'St Donatus bringing the dead man back to life. I looked it up in my Saints' Lives before we left.'

'He could raise the dead? Like Christ with Lazarus?'

'Donatus, we are told, came upon a dead man being carried to his grave. Another man was berating the widow, saying the deceased owed him money. The blessed Donatus told the dead man to get up and settle his accounts. He sat up and convinced everyone that he had paid his debt. Then he lay down dead again. Money, money, it's always money with these people.'

There were footsteps outside and the door opened to admit a tall, broad man in his fifties. Beneath his black Benedictine habit could be seen hose of wool velvet and silver-buckled shoes. His face was ruddy, with a Roman beak of a nose set in square features. His thick brown hair was long and his tonsure, a little shaven circle, the barest concession to the Rule. He came forward with a smile.

'I am Abbot Fabian.' The manner was patrician, the voice richly aristocratic, but I caught a note of anxiety underneath. 'Welcome to Scarnsea. Pax vobiscum.'

'Master Matthew Shardlake, the vicar general's commissioner.' I did not give the formal reply of 'and with you', for I was not to be drawn into Latin mummery.

The abbot nodded slowly. His deep-set blue eyes quickly swept my bent figure up and down, then widened a little when he saw I was holding the seal.

'Sir, I beg you, be careful. That seal has to be impressed on all legal documents. It never leaves this room. Strictly, only I should handle it.'

'As the king's commissioner I have access to everything here, my lord.'

'Of course, sir, of course.' His eyes followed my hands as I laid the seal back on his desk. 'You must be hungry after your long journey; shall I order some food?'

'Later, thank you.'

'I regret keeping you waiting, but I had business with the reeve of our Ryeover estates. There is still much to do with the harvest accounts. Some wine, perhaps?'

'A very little.'

He poured me some, then turned to Mark. 'Might I ask who this is?'

'Mark Poer, my clerk and assistant.'

He raised his eyebrows. 'Master Shardlake, we have very serious matters to discuss. Might I suggest that would be better done in confidence? The boy can go to the quarters I have prepared.'

'I think not, my lord. The vicar general himself requested me to bring Master Poer. He shall stay unless I wish him to leave. Would you care to see my commission now?'

Mark gave the abbot a grin.

He reddened and inclined his head. 'As you wish.'

I passed the document into his beringed hand. 'I have spoken with Dr Goodhaps,' I said as he broke the seal. His expression became strained and his nose seemed to tilt upwards as though the smell of Cromwell himself rose from the paper. I looked out at the garden, where the servants were making a fire of the leaves, sending a thin white finger of smoke into the grey sky. The light was starting to fade.

The abbot pondered a moment, then laid the commission on his desk. He leaned forward, clasping his hands.

'This murder is the most terrible thing that has ever happened here. Accompanied by the desecration of our church, it has left me – shocked.'

I nodded. 'It has shocked Lord Cromwell too. He does not want it noised abroad. You have kept silence?'

'Totally, sir. The monks and servants have been told if a word is breathed outside these walls they will answer to the vicar general's office.'

'Good. Please ensure all correspondence arriving here is shown to me. And no letters are to go out without my approving them. Now, I gather Commissioner Singleton's visit was not welcome to you.'

He sighed again. 'What can I say? Two weeks ago I had a letter from Lord Cromwell's office saying he was sending a commissioner to discuss unspecified matters. When Commissioner Singleton arrived, he astonished me by saying he wished me to surrender this monastery to the king.' He looked me in the eye, and now there was defiance as well as anxiety in his gaze. 'He stressed he sought a voluntary surrender and he seemed keen to have it, alternating promises of money with vague threats about misconduct – quite without foundation, I must add. The Instrument of Surrender he wanted me to sign was extraordinary, containing admissions that our life here has consisted of pretended religion, following dumb Roman ceremonies.' An injured note entered his voice. 'Our ceremonies faithfully follow the vicar general's own injunctions, and every brother has sworn the oath renouncing the pope's authority.'

'Of course,' I said. 'Otherwise there would have been consequences.' I noticed he wore a pilgrim badge prominently on his habit; he had been to the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham. But then, of course, so had the king in days past.

He took a deep breath. 'Commissioner Singleton and I had a number of discussions, centring on the fact that the vicar general has no legal right to order my monks and me to make over the house to them. A fact which Dr Goodhaps, a canon lawyer, could not dispute.'

I did not answer him, for he was right. 'Perhaps we could turn to the circumstances of the murder,' I said. 'That is the more pressing matter.'

He nodded sombrely. 'Four days ago Commissioner Singleton and I had another long and, I fear, fruitless discussion in the afternoon. I did not see him again that day. He had rooms in this house, but Dr Goodhaps and he had taken to dining separately. I went to bed as usual. Then at five in the morning I was woken by Brother Guy, my infirmarian, bursting into my room. He told me that on visiting the kitchen he had found Commissioner Singleton's body lying in a great pool of blood. He had been decapitated.' The abbot's face twisted with distaste and he shook his head. 'The shedding of blood on consecrated ground is an abomination, sir. And then there was what was found in the church, by the altar, when the monks went in to Matins.' He paused, a deep furrow appearing between his brows, and I saw he was genuinely upset.

'And what was that?'

'More blood. The blood of a black cockerel that lay with its head also off, before the altar. I fear we are dealing with witchcraft, Master Shardlake.'

'And you have lost a relic, I believe?'

The abbot bit his lip. 'The Great Relic of Scarnsea. It is rare and holy, the hand of the Penitent Thief who suffered with Christ, nailed to a fragment of his Cross. Brother Gabriel found it gone later that morning.'

'I understand it is valuable. A gold casket set with emeralds?'

'Yes. But I am more concerned with the contents. The thought of something of such holy power in the hands of some witch-'

'It was not witchcraft that beheaded the king's commissioner.'

'Some of the brethren wonder about that. There are no implements in the kitchen that could strike a man's head off. It is hardly an easy thing to do.'