Oddly, Bell’s hard embrace seemed to have steadied the sacristan. He was weeping now, but not fighting Bell’s hold, and Bell asked softly, “Who was killed, Brother Paulinus?”
“Brother Godwine,” the sacristan replied, sobbing. “Who would kill so gentle, so kind, so holy a man?” He jerked in Bell’s arms, so violently that he almost broke loose. “Only one inspired by the devil. Only a whore.” He strained to look around Bell at Magdalene and the other women, who had come to the end of the corridor and were standing there, clinging to one another. “Murderers!”
“Not these whores,” Bell said, tightening his grip. “Magdalene and her women have been under my eye—or under some man’s body—since dinnertime. This must have happened after Compline, for the prior must have led services from the altar then. We were all sitting together from soon after Vespers, when I myself locked up the house, until we heard you at the door. None of these women can be guilty.”
‘They are! They are! You are lying to protect them because your lust has put you into the devil’s power.”
“The devil may have inspired me to lust, but not to lunacy,” Bell snapped, patience all but exhausted. “The whores were in this house behind locked doors when the brother was killed. Forget them for a moment and tell me when Brother Godwine was discovered.”
“Now, just now.”
Bell’s eyes widened. “You mean you discovered the body and ran here without telling anyone? And how did you get to this back door? How did you come through the locked gate?”
“The gate was not locked.”
“But you locked it yourself, last Thursday,” Magdalene protested.
“It is not locked now,” the sacristan shrieked.
“Who has the key?” Bell asked, still gripping the sacristan but holding him away so he could look into his face. “It was locked this morning. I forgot and tried to use the back way, which is shortest, to go to the bishop’s house. Then I remembered I would have to ride to St. Paul’s and went for my horse—but I had tried the gate, and it was locked.”
Magdalene shivered. “So sometime after Prime—you left between Prime and Tierce—someone unlocked the gate. But why?”
Bell looked across the sacristan at Magdalene. “So someone could enter or leave the priory without passing the porter at the priory gate.” He transferred his gaze to the sacristan. “Did you find the porter’s keys?” he asked.
“I did not look,” Brother Paulinus cried. “Brother Godwine was dead. Who should I ask for keys?”
Bell opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head impatiently. “Never mind that. Brother Godwine’s death must be reported to the prior and to the bishop. If I let you go. Brother Paulinus, will you go to the prior with this terrible news instead of trying to attack Magdalene, who is innocent of this?”
The sacristan, who had been intermittently straining against Bell’s hold, again stood still. “Oh, no! I came here to bring the guilty to justice. You must come with me to stand before the prior and the bishop. You will repent your sin when you face your master, Sir Bellamy. You will tell the truth and let justice prevail over this harlot.”
“I am very willing to come with you, and I will certainly tell the truth both to my master and the prior,” he agreed and released his grip on one of the sacristan’s arms. “Now” —he showed the sacristan the key he had thrust into his belt when he grabbed for his hands— “this is the key to the doors of this house. The front is already locked. You may go try it if you like. I will lock the back when we go out and keep the key. Thus the women will be confined within—
“No!” Brother Paulinus cried. “She goes, too.” He pointed at Magdalene. “Let her face the dead. God will raise Brother Godwine to point his finger at her. His wounds will bleed anew. God will prove her guilty.”
Bell drew breath to argue, but Magdalene put a hand on his arm. “If it will content him, I will come.”
She went to get her cloak and veil, accepting with a somewhat tremulous smile the hugs and kisses of her women when she passed. As they went through the gate, not only unlocked but flung open so hard that the front post had caught on the rise in earth at the verge of the path and stuck wide open, they could see that either someone else had independently discovered the corpse or the sacristan had not, after all, been alone when he discovered it. Lights were blazing through the windows of the apse, and the chanting of prayers mingled with sobs floated out to them.
The sacristan rushed through the north door, gripping Bell firmly with one hand and Magdalene with the other and crying out, “I have them! I have the guilty ones!”