As soon as they reached the watergate at St Fulcher’s, they recognized some dreadful act had recently taken place. Lay brothers clustered around the quayside or just within the watergate. Cranston leapt from the barge, helped Athelstan out and immediately tried to impose order on the brothers, who gathered around him like frightened chickens. Eventually a young man, face bronzed by the sun, his dark hair neatly cropped to show the tonsure, made his way through the throng. He pushed his hands up the voluminous sleeves of his black gown and bowed.

‘Sir John Cranston, Brother Athelstan, pax et bonum. I am Sub-Prior Richer, librarian and keeper of the scriptorium. Welcome indeed to St Fulcher’s. We have been expecting you but the murder of poor Hanep has been overtaken by another slaying, Ailward Hyde.’ He ushered them through the watergate and pointed to the great black stains on the frozen ground then the splashes of blood on the curtain wall. ‘Murdered most recently — we’ve just removed his corpse to our death house.’

‘How?’ Athelstan asked.

‘A fatal sword thrust to the belly.’ Richer swallowed hard. ‘A killing cut which sliced his vital organs. His screams were terrible. The good brothers working in the gardens have never heard the like before. Father Abbot, indeed our whole community, is most disturbed. Lord Walter and Prior Alexander are waiting for you.’ He led them across what he called Mortival meadow. Athelstan stared around with a pang of nostalgia. The great field with its rolling frozen grass and mist hung bushes and copses evoked memories of his parents’ farm at this time of year, of him running wild with his brother and sisters. How he used to stop to watch the peddler with his emaciated horse come along the trackway at the bottom, followed by the warrener with his sack of rabbits or foresters with a deer slung on their poles.

‘Enter by the narrow door!’

Athelstan broke from his reverie.

‘Sir John?’

‘I was quoting scripture,’ Cranston whispered, plodding behind the fast-paced Richer. ‘We are, my good friend, about to enter the halls of murder yet again. Pray God we enter the narrow door and leave just as safely.’

They continued on up into the abbey precincts. Athelstan caught his breath at the sheer magnificence of the buildings, dominated by the great church with its scores of windows, most of them filled with coloured glass. Soaring buttresses and elaborately carved cornices with balustrades and sills closed in around them. Saints, angels, demons, satyrs, babewyns and gargoyles stared down at them with a variety of expressions on their holy or demonic carved faces. They crossed the sand-packed bowling alley, through gardens of neatly laid out herb and shrub plots, all contained within small red-brick walls, the path winding around them covered in packed white pebbles. Richer pointed out the dormitories, chapter house, guest house, refectory, infirmary and the rest, a bewildering array of grey stone or pebble-dashed buildings. Bells chimed and the stony corridors echoed with the slap of sandals and the murmur of voices. Snatches of plain chant trailed. The air grew rich with a variety of smells, odours and fragrances: incense, sandalwood, burning meat, fresh bread, candle wax and tallow. The tang of soap and the powerful astringent the brothers used to scrub the paving stones permeated the great cloister. They crossed baileys and stable yards, went around duck and carp ponds, hen coops and dove cotes. Athelstan tried to recall what he knew about St Fulcher’s. All he could remember was that the Benedictine abbey, like many of the houses of the black monks, had waxed rich and strong over the centuries, generously endowed by kings, princes and all the great ones of the land. He tried to make sense of his surroundings but his heart sank. The abbey was as intricate and complex as any labyrinth of runnels and alleyways in Southwark. An assassin’s paradise, Athelstan mused, with stairs and steps leading here and there, alcoves for towel and linen cupboards, passageways and narrow galleries abruptly branching off in all directions. Dark recesses and tunnels yawned, ending in broad open spaces full of light. He was increasingly aware of hedges, walls, gates and postern doors as well as steps and stairs leading down into the cellars and crypts. Oh yes, Athelstan thought, a flitting place of many shadows where a killer could hunt and slay as stealthily as any assassin in the darkest forest.

At last they were free of the main abbey buildings and entered a walled enclosure guarded by freshly painted gates. A garrulous lay brother bustled out from the small lodge saying he was the abbot’s doorman and porter. Richer just ignored him. At the far end of the enclosure rose a stately manor house of beautiful honey-coloured Cotswold stone with a black slated roof, chimney stacks and broad windows of mullion-coloured glass. Steps of sandstone swept up to an impressive door with gleaming bronze metal work. A small bell hung in its own coping, its rope, white as snow, attached to a large clasp. On either side of the main house ranged other two-storied buildings — those to the left of the gate were the abbot’s own kitchens, scullery, buttery and bakery. On the right, with its elegant paintwork and glass-filled windows, stood the Lord Abbot’s guest house for his own special visitors. The door to this opened. A young woman dressed in russet cloak over a samite dress, a white veil around her auburn hair, came out, one arm resting on an older, grey-haired, severe-faced woman garbed in a similar fashion. They both paused and drew apart to pull up their hoods. Richer led his guests along the paved path which cut between neatly cultivated garden squares. He paused in front of the women and bowed.

‘My ladies, these are Lord Walter’s guests, Sir John Cranston and Brother Athelstan.’

The young woman, plump and pretty-faced, smiled and nodded; her older companion simply glared. Athelstan guessed there was little love lost between the sub-prior and the lady whom he introduced as the Lord Abbot’s sister, the younger woman being his niece. The two women walked away as Richer took Athelstan and Cranston up into the luxurious manor house, smelling delicately of polish and the fragrance of crushed flowers. Dark, wooden panelling, balustrades, wainscoting and floor planks gleamed in the light of many candles. The abbot’s own chamber was an elegant, oblong-shaped room boasting finely carved furniture. Striking black crosses hung against two of the smooth walls, brilliantly coloured tapestries and turkey rugs covered the others whilst the intricately tiled floor described a map of the world with Jerusalem at its centre.

Abbot Walter and Prior Alexander were sitting in chairs before the great mantled hearth. They rose as Cranston entered. The coroner and Athelstan immediately genuflected to kiss the abbatial ring. Once introductions were finished, they were ushered to the waiting chairs, each with a small table beside it holding a goblet of white wine and a bowl of sugared dry fruit. They made themselves comfortable after the freezing river journey. Athelstan basked in the heat from the flaming logs whilst quickly studying the abbot. Lord Walter was a small, plump man; his black robe was of the purest wool, thick buskins on his feet and a precious pectoral cross hung around his fat throat. Soft and comfortable, Athelstan considered, Lord Walter was portly with a shining, balding pate, his gloriously rubicund, clean-shaven face glistening with perfumed oil. Nevertheless, a stubborn, determined man. Athelstan noted the pert cast to Lord Walter’s thick lips and the shifting eyes ever so quick to wrinkle in a smile as if the abbot was wearing a mask to face other masks. Prior Alexander was different, tall and gangling with a slight stoop to his bony shoulders, his closely cropped red hair emphasized a long, pale face, sharp green eyes with a beaked nose over a thin lipped mouth. Simply by watching them Athelstan sensed the tension between abbot and prior; they hardly looked at each other when they talked whilst their gestures were off hand, as if they were fully aware of some resentment between them. Richer, however, urbane, cultured and soft spoken, seemed to be well liked by both, especially Prior Alexander.