'There's a way out,' Mark said, crossing to a heavy wooden door. I bent to the keyhole. There was no light from the other side. I put my ear to the door, but could hear nothing.
Slowly I turned the handle. The door opened quietly inwards and I saw the hinges had been greased. We came out behind another cupboard, which had been pushed just far enough from the wall to let a man squeeze through. We went out and found ourselves in a stone-flagged corridor. A little way off was a door, half-open. I heard a murmur of voices, plates clinking.
'It's the kitchen passage,' I breathed. 'Back inside, quick, before someone sees us.'
I squeezed in again after Mark, and bent to close the door, coughing a little in the damp air. Suddenly a hand was clamped over my mouth, and I froze as another pressed on my hump. The candles were extinguished. Then Mark whispered in my ear.
'Quiet, sir. Someone's coming!'
I nodded, and he lowered his hands. I could hear nothing; he had indeed the ears of a bat. A moment later the glow of a candle appeared round the corner and a figure followed; robed and cowled, staring into the prison room from a gaunt, dark face. Brother Guy's candle picked out our figures in the corner and he started.
'Jesu save us, what are you doing here?'
I stepped forward. 'We might ask you the same question, Brother. How did you get in here? We locked our door.'
'And I unlocked it. I had a message the pond was emptied and came to call you, but there was no reply. For all I knew you'd both dropped dead, so I let myself in with my key and saw that open door.'
'Master Poer has heard someone behind the wall several times, and this morning he found the door. We have been spied on, Brother Guy. You gave us a room with a hidden passage behind. Why? And why did you not tell me there was an open way from the infirmary to the kitchens?' My voice was harsh. I had begun to see Brother Guy as something like a friend in that place. I cursed myself for allowing myself to become close to a man who, when all was said and done, was still a suspect.
His face set. The candlelight flickered strangely over his long nose and narrow dark features. 'I had forgotten that door was in your room. Sir, this passage hasn't been in use for nearly two hundred years.'
'It was used this morning! And you gave us the one room where a spyhole could be cut in the wall!'
'It is not the only room,' he said calmly. His gaze was level, the candle held in a steady hand. 'Did you not see? This passage runs behind the panelling of the infirmary wall, behind all the rooms on that corridor.'
'But there is a spyhole only behind ours. Are visitors normally put in our room?'
'Those who do not stay with the abbot. Usually messengers, or officials from our estates come to discuss business.'
I waved my hand around the dank little cell. 'And what in God's name is this horrible place?'
He sighed. 'This is the old monks' prison. Most houses have them; in years gone by abbots used to imprison brethren who had sinned grievously. In canon law they still have the power, though it's never used.'
'No, not in these soft times.'
'Prior Mortimus asked a few months ago whether the old cell still existed; he was talking of bringing it back into use for punishment. I told him so far as I knew it did. I haven't been here since an old servant showed it to me when I took over as infirmarian. I thought the door was sealed off.'
'Well, it wasn't. So Prior Mortimus asked about it, did he?'
'He did.' His voice hardened. 'I would have thought you would have approved, the vicar general seems to want our life to be hard and cruel as can be.'
I let a moment's silence fall between us. 'Be careful what you say before witnesses, Brother.'