I had been awake some hours when at last I heard footsteps in the room outside. I summoned up enough energy to kick my heels on the door and a moment later it opened. I winced and blinked at the sudden daylight as Brother Guy looked down at me, his mouth an 'O' of astonishment. Irrelevantly I thought he had done well to keep a full set of teeth to middle age.
He untied my bonds and helped me to my feet, telling me to move slowly lest I injure my stiff back with sudden movement. He led me to my room, where I was glad to sit before a fire, for I was frozen. I told him what had happened, and when he learned Alice had been Singleton's murderer he sat down on the bed with a groan.
'I remember telling her of that passage when she first came. I was trying to make conversation; she seemed so lost and alone. And to think I gave her the care of my patients.'
'I think it was only Singleton who was ever in danger from her. Brother Guy, tell me, is Edwig still at large?'
'Yes, he has vanished as completely as Jerome. But he might have escaped. Bugge left his lodge unattended last night when the hue and cry broke. Or he could have got out at the back, by the marsh. But I did not understand why you were so keen to have him arrested. You have heard worse words than his since you have been here.'
'He killed Gabriel, and Simon, and I believe the girl Orphan as well. And he has stolen a fortune in gold.'
Guy sat stunned, then put his head in his hands. 'Dear Jesu, what has this house become that it has nourished two murderers?'
'Alice would not have been a murderess but for the times we live in. And Edwig would never have got away with this fraud had things been more stable. You might as well ask what a country England has become. And I have been a part of it.'
He looked up. 'Abbot Fabian collapsed last night. After you ordered Brother Edwig arrested. He seems unable to do anything or talk to anyone; he just sits in his room staring into space.'
I sighed. 'He was never capable of dealing with this. Brother Edwig took his seal and used it on the deeds when he sold those lands. He swore the buyers to secrecy and they must have assumed the abbot knew.' I heaved myself up. 'Brother Guy, you must help me. I need to go to the back of the monastery. I need to see whether Alice and Mark could have got away.'
He doubted I was fit for such a journey, but I insisted and he helped me to my feet. I took my staff and we went outside. The monastery lay under a cloudy sky, the air mild and muggy. Its appearance had changed utterly. Everywhere in the courtyard lay little pools of water and piles of dirty slush that only yesterday had been mounds of snow.
People going to and fro stopped and stared as I limped by. Prior Mortimus hurried over. 'Commissioner! We thought ye dead like Singleton. Where is your assistant?'
Again I told the story as a shocked audience of monks and servants surrounded us. I ordered Prior Mortimus to send for Copynger; if Edwig had escaped, the country must be roused to find him.
I do not know how I made it through the orchard. I would not have done without Brother Guy's support for my back was an agony after that night in the cupboard and I felt faint. At last, though, we reached the rear wall. I unlocked the gate and passed through.
I found myself staring at a lake half a mile wide. The whole marsh was covered in water, the river distinguishable only as a ribbon of rapidly flowing current in the centre of an expanse that reached almost to our feet. It was shallow, no more than a foot covering the mud for everywhere reeds poked through, waving in the light breeze, but the soft ground beneath must have been saturated.
'Look!' Brother Guy pointed down at two pairs of footprints, a larger and a slightly smaller one, imprinted in the mud by the gate. They led down the bank, into the water.
'By Jesu,' he said. 'They went in there.'
'They can't have gone a hundred yards,' I breathed. 'In that mist, in the dark, in all that water.'