'No, no, those are my men, paid by me.' He gave me a haughty look. 'I was sorry you did not wish to stay with me while you are here.'
'This place has unhappy memories. I am better in the town, I hope you will understand.'
'Very well, sir, very well.' He nodded condescendingly. 'But you will dine with me later, I hope. I would like to show you the plans my surveyor here has drawn up; we are going to turn some of the monastery outhouses into sheep pens once the main buildings are down. That will be a spectacle, eh? Only a few days now.'
'It will indeed. If you will excuse me for now.' I bowed and left him, wrapping my coat around me against the wind.
I went through the door to the claustral buildings. Inside, the cloister walk was dirty and muddy from the passage of many booted feet. The auditor from Augmentations had set himself up in state in the refectory, where his men brought him a constant stream of plate and gilded statues, gold crosses and tapestries, copes and albs and even the monks' bedding — everything that might have value in the auction to be held in two days' time.
Master William Glench sat in a refectory stripped of its furnishings but filled with boxes and chests, his back to a roaring fire, discussing an entry in his great ledger with a scrivener. He was a tall, thin man with spectacles and a fussy manner; a whole raft of such people had been taken on at Augmentations over the winter. I introduced myself and Glench rose and bowed, after carefully marking the place in his book.
'You seem to have everything well organized,' I said.
He nodded portentously. 'Everything, sir, down to the very pots and pans in the kitchens.' His manner reminded me momentarily of Edwig; I suppressed a shudder.
'I see they are preparing to burn the books. Is that necessary? Might they not have some value?'
He shook his head firmly. 'No, sir. All the books are to be destroyed; they are instruments of papist worship. There's not one in honest English.'
I turned and opened a chest at random. It was full of ornamentation from the church. I lifted out a finely carved gold chalice. It was one of those Edwig had thrown into the fish pond after Orphan's body, to make people think her a runaway thief. I turned it over in my hands.
'Those are not to be sold,' Glench said. 'All the gold and silver is to go to the Tower mint for melting down. Sir Gilbert tried to buy some pieces. He says the ornamentation is fine and so it may be, but they're all baubles of papist ceremony. He should know better.'
'Yes,' I said, 'he should.' I put the chalice back.
Two men carried in a big wicker basket and the scrivener began unloading habits onto the table. 'These should have been cleaned,' the scrivener said crossly. 'They'd fetch more.'
I could sense Glench's impatience to be back at work. 'I will leave you,' I said. 'Make sure not to forget anything,' I added, taking a moment's pleasure in his affronted stare.
I crossed the cloister to the church, keeping a careful eye on the men scrambling over the roof; already fallen tiles lay dotted round the cloister square. Inside the church, light still streamed through the ornate stained-glass windows, still created a kaleidoscope of warm colours on the floor of the nave. But the walls and side chapels were bare now. The sound of hammering and voices echoed down from the roof. At the head of the nave the floor was broken, a mass of shattered tiles. It was the spot where Edwig had fallen and also where the bells would have landed when they had been cut from the roof. I looked up into the yawning empty space of the bell tower, remembering.
Going round the rood screen, I saw the lecterns and even the great organ had been removed. I shook my head and turned to leave.
Then I saw a cowled figure sitting in a corner of the choir stall, facing away from me. For a moment I felt a thrill of superstitious dread as I imagined Gabriel returned to mourn the ruin of his life's work. The figure turned and I almost cried out, for at first I could see no face under the hood, but then I made out the gaunt brown features of Brother Guy. He rose and bowed.