Entrance to the Monasterium Tenebrarii, the great secret repository of the knowledge and treasures of Christendom was an uncomfortable and undignified experience.
They found that not only was the door shut firm but it was starting to rot and the splinters around the hatchway caught in their clothes. Wat was particularly annoyed as a thread from his jerkin was pulled free.
‘You would think…’ he started on an consideration of why the monks of this place should be engaged in some routine maintenance. He came to a halt as he observed several pairs of sandals on the floor in front of them. Each pair full of feet. Dirty, nasty looking feet that looked they’d already been dragged through the marshes.
They all scrambled to town feet and stood facing the reception party.
One monk stood to the front, doubtless the Abbot. Hermitage took a half step forward and bowed. ‘I am Brother Hermitage, father. We have received instruction from the King to attend upon you.’
He rose from his bow and looked the Abbot in the eye. Or rather he didn’t as the Abbot’s eye was directed elsewhere. A spindly arm rose slowly and a finger, more bone than flesh, pointed like some spirit directing doom. ‘What is that?’ the Abbot intoned.
Hermitage followed the arm and saw where it was pointing. He was absolutely positive that Cwen would not be happy being referred to as “that”. He could see that Wat had a very tight grip on her arm. She had a look on her face that said she would like to snap something spindly off an abbot.
‘That is Cwen,’ Hermitage explained, nervously. ‘She and Wat have come at the King’s directions as well.’
The Abbot looked like he’d asked for the reliquary of Saint Thomas’s knuckles and been given Beelzebub’s bottom instead. ‘A woman?’ Two words managed to express horror, dismay and disbelief with a subtle hint of question as the Abbot tried to remember if this was what women looked like.
‘Indeed,’ Hermitage confirmed. ‘The King has sent us…’ he tried to move on.
‘We can have no woman in the monastery,’ the Abbot, sounded like he was about to shout an alarm. Next to “fire, fire” it would be the one word guaranteed to get everyone running for their lives. He turned and delivered a very hot glare at Brody. ‘You did this,’ he accused. Brody stepped back to get some monks between him and the Abbot. ‘Who else have you brought? Is there a crowd of followers outside?’
‘No Father,’ Brody gulped. ‘No one followed. And these were the people at the place the King sent me.’
‘I shall deal with you later,’ the Abbot promised in a rising scream.
Hermitage turned but Brody was already gone. Probably very wise.
Unfortunately, the Abbot’s declarations of shock had reached other ears and several brothers appeared from various doorways and corridors. As they gathered to look at the new arrivals, several of them seemed very pleased to be reminded that this was what women looked like.
‘How long have you lot been here?’ Wat asked, taking a protective step forward in front of Cwen, and looking like he was getting ready to run.
‘Shall we go somewhere private, to talk?’ Another brother stepped forward from just behind the Abbot. He held out an arm to direct the new arrivals away from the now gawping and muttering crowd, joined every moment by another monk from somewhere or other. This fellow looked well able to see off a band of inquisitive monks. He had the stance and build of a soldier and the worn look of someone who had been out in the world instead of being nurtured in the cloister.
‘That would seem best brother,’ said Hermitage. He had first-hand experience of what monks were capable of when they got together and were in a funny mood.
‘Brother Egbert,’ the monk introduced himself. ‘I’m the Claustral Prior. The Abbot’s study is this way,’
‘No,’ the Abbot forbade such an intrusion with a booming instruction.
‘Oh, very well,’ said Egbert, impatiently. ‘We’ll go to Father Ignatius’s chambers. Probably the best place to start anyway.’
He led them away from the main gate and across the compound to a plain rectangular building which was obviously the chapel. Or at least was now being used as the chapel. The Abbot followed but he clearly wasn’t happy about it. His sulking silence making a sixth companion.
The monks who had gathered to witness the miracle of Cwen dispersed to their own devices; probably a detailed discussion of the event, followed by a number of imaginative speculations as to how it could have been made much more interesting. One figure, a cowl pulled low over its face, loitered to watch the departing party. If anyone had been bothered to observe, they might have a seen a very slight but slow and deliberate shaking of the head within the cowl.
. . .
As they walked Hermitage grew confident that Wat was right. This place had been a Roman fort long before it was a monastery. The main gate opened onto a large rectangular area, the walls punctuated with watchtowers. The view he had from the dyke had revealed as much as there was to be seen. There were only three substantial buildings really, this chapel to the left, the dortoir towards the back of the site and the cloister area which joined the dortoir to the wall on its right.
Markings on the floor though clearly indicated that this place had once been much more crowded. Probably with wooden buildings which had fallen into disrepair, rotted away or been taken for firewood.
Other gates could even be seen on each of the walls facing north, south and east. They had long been blocked up with masonry, presumably to make the place more secure. Hermitage wasn’t sure how effective that would be as the blocking looked of very poor quality and rather precarious.
Egbert had brought them to the door of the chapel now and put his shoulder to the task of getting the thing open. Despite much grinding and groaning resistance the door shifted enough to let them slip through one at a time.
Windows, high in the walls of the place let the grey light of the marsh land drop to the floor and Hermitage examined the chapel briefly and without surprise. It was a plain but large room, the same as any chapel in most monasteries up and down the land. Seats for the brothers faced the front and the altar area was raised with a simple lectern from where the lessons would be read.
Nothing here to mark the place out at all. Apart, probably, from that large, gold-looking cross on the altar itself. Come to think of it, Hermitage noted, it did look very large for a place of this size. And very gold. And there seemed to be lumps of coloured glass decorating it. It must be a very prized possession.
Egbert led them on down the chapel towards a door on the right side of the Altar. The Abbot muttered his way along and Hermitage turned to make sure Wat and Cwen were with them.
Wat and Cwen were gawping. There was no other word for it. They too, appeared to have noticed the alter decoration and were studying it in great detail. Hermitage was pleased. They so seldom stood in awe of the might and majesty of the church. In fact most of the time they were very rude about it indeed. It was good to see that a place such as this could have an effect even on such as them.
They walked down the chapel as if in a daze.
‘It is magnificent, is it not,’ Hermitage commented, holding his arms out to encompass the full glory of the chapel. His own thought was that it wasn’t actually that glorious. Rather plain really. But if it effected Wat and Cwen, who was he to complain.
‘It’s, it’s,’ Wat seemed lost for words.
Hermitage smiled.
‘Gold,’ Wat found the word.
‘And jewels,’ Cwen found some more.
‘In the gold,’ Wat explained.
‘Which wraps round the jewels,’ said Cwen.
‘Ah, the cross,’ said Hermitage, seeing what was interesting them. ‘It is a rather magnificent piece for a place in the middle of a marsh.’
As they arrived at the altar, Hermitage saw that the cross was at least two feet high and very solid. The shards of coloured glass looked particularly well made.
‘Oh my,’ he said, when the ideas of the treasure of the church being hidden in this place, Wat and Cwen’s awe and the very shiny nature of the cross got together in his head. ‘Is that?’ He couldn’t bring himself to ask the question.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Wat, who had already worked out the answer.
‘Ah,’ said Egbert, seeing that they had all stopped. ‘You’ve seen our little altar piece.’
Hermitage nodded while Wat and Cwen simply opened their mouths some more.
‘Part of our burden of care,’ Egbert nodded solemnly.
‘Burden,’ Wat repeated in an odd tone.
‘Come,’ Egbert instructed. ‘To Ignatius’s chambers. I am sure there is much you wish to discuss.
‘Much,’ Wat repeated in the same, glazed manner.
Hermitage had to grab Wat and Cwen by the sleeves to drag them towards the small door that led to the room beyond.
Reluctantly following, the party found itself in what must be the chambers of the Sacerdos Arcanorum.
‘Erm,’ Hermitage raised a question before they walked in.
‘Yes?’ Egbert asked.
‘Ignatius isn’t erm, in here? Is he?’ He was never good with dead bodies, which he knew was a drawback for an investigator of murder. But it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t want to be investigator in the first place.
‘No, no,’ Egbert reassured him. ‘Father Ignatius has been interred.’
Hermitage nodded, contentedly.
‘We couldn’t leave him on the sundial,’ Egbert explained. ‘And bodies tend not to last very well in this neck of the woods. It’s the flies, you see.’
Hermitage urged Egbert to lead them on before the description became as bad as the body itself.
Egbert pushed ahead through a large, solid, arched door set into the stonework of the chapel and beckoned them to follow.
As they entered the chamber of Ignatius it was Hermitage’s turn to gawp. His mouth dropped open and sucked a body full of air in with one, languorous gasp. He turned this way and that but all around him the treasures were stacked from floor to ceiling. There was even a ladder to reach the higher shelves and the floor was a maze of stacked piles which had to be negotiated carefully for fear of knocking the priceless artefacts.
The room was huge. A great, timbered roof towered above their heads and solid, stone walls stretched off into the distance in either direction. It was big enough to contain the population of an entire monastery, never mind one priest. But then with all of these marvels in here it was a bit crowded
The Abbot and Brother Egbert did not seem in awe of this at all, but then they had probably lived with it all the time. Hermitage had never in his life imagined that such a place as this existed, or even could exist. Surely there was not enough material in the whole of Christendom to stock a room such as this.
The fact that this proved the place they were standing in was indeed the Monoasterium Tenebrarii had gone from his head. His sheer joy at seeing all of this laid out before him imposed itself on him and firmly made it known that this was the greatest day of his life. All the trials and tribulations of his days at the hands of his brother monks, at the boots of King William and Le Pedvin, and in the company of murderers, liars, drunks and idiots faded into a nagging annoyance that was easily ignored. Whatever he had gone through, it was now worth it.
All he had to do was make sure that this day, this moment, never ended. If he had any say in anything at all in his long and obedient career, it would be that he never left this room until he died. The waters beyond the great dyke could do what they liked. He would succumb to their inundations a happy monk.
His look was so excited he didn’t know where to let his eye rest first. He turned to share his amazement at this astonishing discovery with Wat and Cwen. They seemed a lot more controlled in the face of this revelation; perhaps the cross on the altar was as much as they could manage.
Wat did look about the place and gave a half-hearted cough. ‘Books,’ he exclaimed, not seeing anything in this room that warranted their attention. ‘Plenty to read then, eh, Hermitage?’
‘Plenty to? ’Hermitage was aghast. So shocked at the casual dismissal of the greatest treasure trove in the realm that he found his voice. ‘Wat, this is the greatest body of learning I have ever seen. I think it’s probably the greatest anyone has ever seen. I never even knew this many books existed, let alone that they were gathered in one place.’
Wat didn’t look impressed.
Hermitage went on. ‘It is rumoured that The Bishop of Hereford has a magnificent private library. One of the greatest personal gatherings of books outside of Rome.’
‘Really?’ said Wat, looking round to see if any of the books were made of gold.
‘Yes,’ Hermitage persisted. ‘And do you know how many books the Bishop of Hereford is rumoured to have in his private collection?’
‘Er,’ Wat made a play of thinking carefully about it, as if it was on the tip of his tongue, the number of books in the Bishop of Hereford’s library being a regular topic of discussion in his workshop. ‘No,’ he concluded.
‘Eight,’ said Hermitage. ‘The Bishop of Hereford has eight books.’ He held his arms out to indicate the rows and stacks of books there were in this one room. ‘And how many are here?’ he asked.
‘Four thousand nine hundred and twelve,’ Egbert replied.
Hermitage looked at him.
‘It was one of the facts Ignatius tended to share. Quite frequently.’
‘Four thousand,’ Hermitage breathed.
‘And he shared how difficult a task it was looking after all those books when they were being kept in the middle of a marsh,’ Egbert went on. ‘Rather than helping with the other jobs around the place.’
Wat picked up on the sharp tone, ‘Not a popular Sacerdos then?’ he asked.
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ said Egbert. ‘Kept to himself and his books, mainly. But he certainly wasn’t invited to the late night…’ Egbert paused and looked at his Abbot. ‘Discussions,’ he concluded.
‘I think we have more important matters to discuss,’ the Abbot demanded their attention. ‘He pointed his special woman-pointing finger at Cwen once more.’
‘Yes,’ said Wat, patronisingly. ‘Cwen is a woman.’
‘I can speak for myself, you know.’ Cwen spoke for herself.
The Abbot drew in a breath as if he’d just been shot.
‘The King has sent me here,’ said Cwen, laying it on rather thick. ‘So you’d better get used to it.’
Hermitage frowned at her. That was a rather broad interpretation of their instruction.
‘The King?’ The poor Abbot seemed rather confused and didn’t know which was worse, letting a woman into the monastery, or defying the King. He came to some sort of internal conclusion. ‘The King would not send a woman. Not to this place.’
‘What if I was the Queen?’ Cwen retorted.
The Abbot looked her up and down. He was clearly finding this conversation difficult to cope with. Egbert knew that the Abbot was a man of fragile temper; it took very little to send it flying all over the place. Being faced with anyone who answered him back tended to produce spluttering fury. A young woman who answered him back might be more than he could cope with. ‘You are not the Queen. If there even is one, now I hear that Harold is gone.’
‘Look,’ said Wat. ‘It’s too late now anyway, isn’t it? Cwen’s here. She’s in the monastery, in the chapel and in the dead priest’s book place.’
‘Library,’ Hermitage corrected.
‘Quite. So why don’t we just get on with business and see where that takes us?’ If Cwen turns out to be a problem, we can ask her to leave.’
‘If you ask her to leave, she will turn out to be a problem,’ Cwen growled at them all.
The Abbot still had a face like a thundercloud.
‘She’s in here now,’ Wat repeated. ‘Your only option is to take her out again. Past all those monks of yours. And by now I don’t think there will be a single one who isn’t fully informed of the fact that there is a woman in the monastery.’
‘The first,’ the Abbot croaked out anger and disappointment. ‘In all the years of the Monasterium there has never been a woman inside the walls.’ He seemed to be taking this as a personal failure. His temper had found no escape and so had gone back inside where it seemed to be doing something rather unhealthy to him.
‘Cheer up,’ said Cwen, unhelpfully. ‘There’s probably never been a murdered Sacerdos before either.’
The Abbot simply groaned at this.
Hermitage, who was never comfortable when Wat and Cwen started arguing, never mind when even more people were involved, wandered off among the aisles of books, stroking some of them and cooing at others. His hands hovered in front of him clearly burning to actually pick one up and open it, but not daring to in case it vanished in his hands.
‘About the murdered Sacerdos,’ he heard Wat asking quite loudly. Hermitage paused to wonder whether he, as King’s Investigator, ought to be back there asking questions. But there were so many books. It was a real conflict. But not a difficult one. The books won.
‘Not popular,’ Wat went on. ‘So not popular that someone might have done for him?’
Egbert considered the question carefully. The Abbot was too busy glaring at the world around him, more specifically at the woman in the middle of it, that he was in no state to answer questions.
‘I don’t honestly think so,’ Egbert answered. ‘In fact most of the brothers considered him a bit odd and tended to laugh behind his back. And in front of his back as well. He stomped about and shouted a lot but there was no bite in him.’ Egbert’s eyes wandered towards his abbot, clearly indicating where all the bite in the Monasterium was kept.
‘So if it wasn’t personal, it was probably to do with his role here.’ Wat speculated.
‘That’s what I thought,’ Egbert agreed. ‘The Sacerdos Arcanorum is unique and leads a secretive but privileged life. It could well be that some secret he held was of such value that someone wanted it very badly indeed.’
Wat screwed up his face in thought. ‘Why now though?’ he asked.’ How long had he been here?’
‘Longer than me,’ Egbert replied. ‘I came some four years ago and Ignatius was already part of the stonework.’
Wat rubbed his chin as he considered his next question. ‘It is a rather odd place,’ he suggested.
‘Not really,’ said Egbert.
Wat raised his eyebrows at this.
Egbert explained, ‘It is a completely, uniquely, extravagantly odd place. They don’t come much odder. Most of the world has forgotten the place is here at all and now that Harold is gone I expect it will vanish under the waters before anyone bothers about it again.’
‘But the treasure?’ said Wat, with rather more avarice in his voice than enquiry.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Egbert, reading Wat’s thoughts precisely. ‘There’s plenty more actual treasure around the place. But it was put here a long time ago. Most of the people who knew are probably dead. It was all a great secret at the time and remained so. More myth than monastery.’
‘How did you come here then?’ Cwen enquired, causing the Abbot to sit down on a stool by one pile of books.
‘Harold told me to come. Said it was a reward for my services.’ The tone in Egbert’s voice shouted out that if this was a reward, bring on the punishment. ‘Apparently I had a special talent which perfectly suited me to life in a monastery built in a hole in a swamp.’
‘And what was that?’
‘He never told me,’ Egbert shrugged at the futility of life.
‘So,’ Wat was thoughtful. ‘If Ignatius was killed for being the Sacerdos Arcanorum,’ he paused. ‘I take it he was killed? Not an accident?’
‘Not unless he was on top of a ladder cleaning the cloister roof in the middle of the night.’ Egbert was clear that this was not the sort of thing Ignatius got up to.
‘Then it must be something he knew, or had, or was going to do, or hadn’t done?’ Wat scattered the ideas about.
‘That narrows it nicely,’ Egbert observed, wryly.
‘This King’s door thing?’ Cwen asked. The Abbot gave an audible gasp.
‘Ah, yes,’ Egbert, held up a finger. ‘The very nub of the matter. Ignatius was pointing at the King’s door. Now, if I’d just been impaled on a sundial I’d have more important things to worry about but Ignatius took his work very seriously. He wouldn’t point at the door for no reason.’
‘So we open it,’ Cwen concluded.
The Abbot stood now, he could clearly take no more. ‘We do not do anything,’ he instructed. ‘The monk sent by the King may have authority in this matter but I am fairly sure that you do not.’
Cwen opened her mouth to speak.
‘And even if you do,’ the Abbot went on, ‘I am in charge here and you are going nowhere near the King’s door.’
Cwen took half a step forward.
‘And if you think otherwise,’ the Abbot smiled, nastily, ‘I shall have you restrained by Brother Bedly.’
Egbert’s grimace made it clear that being restrained by Brother Bedly was not recommended.
Cwen scowled extravagantly.
‘Hermitage,’ Wat called out to the room as Hermitage could not be seen. ‘We might need to open the King’s door and you’re the only one who can do it, apparently.’
‘Have you seen this?’ Hermitage called from somewhere at the back of the room.
‘Er, no,’ said Wat.
‘I believe it’s the actual Historia Brittonum. Did you ever see such a thing?’
‘Was that the one I found down the back of the apprentice’s bedding the other week?’ Wat asked.
‘It could be original,’ Hermitage went on, oblivious to Wat’s response. ‘Brother Nemnivus may have touched these sheets himself over two hundred years ago.’
‘Pretty old them,’ Wat commented. ‘Not got any new books?’
‘It even tells of the Saxon invasion. Can you believe that? We have just been invaded by William and here is a book reporting the invasion of the people he invaded.’ Hermitage appeared among the piles of books, cradling a large volume in his arms, looking like he had just rescued a baby from a fire. ‘Brother Egbert,’ Hermitage moved the book half an inch towards Egbert. ‘Did you know this was here?’
‘Hardly,’ said Egbert with a snort.
‘Really? But you seem familiar with this room and the fact that the greatest library in Christendom is contained within your walls.’ Hermitage couldn’t believe that any monk in this monastery would not study the texts that were so close. Perhaps it was part of the rule of this place. A very cruel one, he thought, if only the Sacerdos was permitted access to the books.
‘Of course we didn’t know it was here,’ said Egbert lightly. ‘Only Ignatius was any use in that area. None of the monks here can read. Not me, not the Abbot, not the lowest novice.’
Hermitage simply looked at him and tried to take in the ghastly idea. He knew that reading was not a common skill but among monks it was more widespread. And surely in a place like this? Putting monks who couldn’t read in charge of a library? Well, it was like, it was like... He tried hard to think of something more ridiculous that it was like. All he could come up with was that it was like putting monks who couldn’t read in charge of a library.
Egbert was looking thoughtful. ‘Bit of a coincidence, that, come to think of it.’ He shrugged his shrug once more as he looked at all the books in the room. ‘Quite a lot of trouble to go to, finding a whole monastery’s worth of monks who can’t read and sending them here.’
‘And the Sacerdos was the only one who could,’ Wat speculated. ‘And now he’s dead.’ He paused to give someone else a chance to draw a conclusion.
Hermitage raised a finger. ‘Perhaps it was something he’d read.’