Read Chapter 31: A New Beginning

The scriptorium was quiet for the first time in weeks, the fever of celebration having finally burned itself out. Thomas sat at his writing desk, a fresh sheet of vellum before him, a pot of ink warming by the small brazier. The abbot had granted him leave to compose his treatise on poisons, and the page lay empty, waiting for him to fill it with knowledge that might save lives.

He dipped his quill and wrote the title in careful uncials: *Of Venoms and Their Remedies*. A modest beginning. He would need chapters on animal poisons, on corrupted foods, on the subtle arts of the herb-woman and the apothecary. He knew enough to fill a volume, perhaps two, if he could recall everything Brother Ambrose had taught him before the old infirmarian had passed to his reward.

But the words would not come.

His mind kept circling back to a different question, one that had nothing to do with hemlock or viper's venom. Anselm's body had been found in the orchard, a wound in his side, and in all the weeks since, no one had been brought to account for it. The conspiracy of the forged charter had been exposed, yes—the sins of greed and deception laid bare for all to see. But the man who had actually driven the blade into a brother's flesh still walked free.

Thomas set down his quill. The letters would wait. A dead man's justice would not.

He found Prior Aldric in the cloister walk, reading his office in the thin morning light. The old prior looked up as Thomas approached, his eyes sharp despite his years.

"Brother Thomas. I thought you would be buried in your books this morning."

"I need to speak with you about Anselm."

Aldric marked his place with a strip of leather and closed the psalter. "I wondered when you would come to that."

"You knew?"

"I knew you would not let it rest." The prior gestured to the bench beside him. "Sit. Ask what you must."

Thomas settled onto the cold stone. "Who examined Anselm's body when he was found?"

"Brother John." Aldric's voice held no warmth. "He was infirmarian then, as you know. He washed the body, prepared it for burial, and filed his report with the abbot. The wound, he said, was consistent with a fall upon a scythe left carelessly in the long grass."

"An accident."

"So it was recorded."

Thomas thought of the orchard, of the old stone wall that bordered it, of the monks who walked there in meditation. He had seen the place where Anselm had died—a patch of matted grass and dried blood that the brothers had refused to disturb for weeks after.

"Was there any suggestion otherwise?"

"Brother Anselm's brothers in the choir were satisfied. The abbot was satisfied." Aldric paused. "I was not."

"You believed it was murder."

"I believed it was *possible*. Anselm had been assistant to the cellarer. He knew the accounts, the storehouses, the comings and goings of every cart and messenger. Such men sometimes see things they should not."

Thomas leaned forward. "Did you ever raise your doubts?"

"Once. With the abbot, privately." Aldric's jaw tightened. "He told me that grief had clouded my judgment, that I should trust Brother John's examination and let the matter rest. He reminded me that our order was already under scrutiny, that talk of murder within our walls would only feed the rumors circulating about our abbey's troubles."

"And you let it rest."

"I am an old man, Thomas. I have learned when to press and when to yield." He met Thomas's gaze. "But you are young, and you have a gift for pressing. Perhaps the abbot will listen to you where he would not listen to me."

Thomas returned to the chapter house after the midday meal, but he did not go to his desk. Instead, he went to the small chamber near the infirmary where Brother John had kept his records. The cell was swept bare now, the new infirmarian—a young monk named Hubert who had been Brother John's assistant—already arranging his own order.

Hubert looked up from a ledger as Thomas entered. "Brother Thomas. I was sorry to hear how everything ended with Brother John."

"As was I." Thomas moved to the shelves, running his fingers along the spines of the volumes there. "I have a few questions about his records. The ones he kept on Brother Anselm's death."

Hubert's face clouded. "I did not think anyone would want to look at those."

"Nevertheless." Thomas drew out a thin sheaf of parchment, tied with a cord. "Did Brother John leave notes on the examination?"

"A few." Hubert gestured to the packet. "That would be his account of the wound and the burial. It is brief."

Thomas untied the cord and scanned the contents. Brother John's hand was neat, almost too neat. The wound, he had written, was a single puncture just below the ribs, an inch wide at the mouth, tapering to a narrow point where the blade had entered. There was bruising around the edges, which Brother John attributed to the weight of the body pressing against the scythe's curve. He had noted the color of the blood—dark, nearly black—and the absence of any other marks on the body.

Thomas read the passage twice. There was something in it that disturbed him, though he could not at first say what. He turned the page and found a second sheet, less formal, perhaps a memorandum Brother John had written for himself.

*The soil about the body was disturbed, as if he had been dragged. But the grass beneath him was dry. If he fell where he was found, why was the earth churned at his heels?*

Thomas stared at the words. Brother John had noticed the inconsistency. He had recorded it, hidden among his private notes. And then he had filed his official report declaring the death an accident.

"Hubert," Thomas said slowly, "when Brother John left, did he take anything with him? Any records, any personal effects?"

The young monk frowned. "He left almost everything. He said he was going to Paris to study, that he would not need his old notes. He took only his clothing and a small leather satchel."

"A satchel of what?"

"I do not know. I assumed papers. He was always writing letters."

Thomas returned the packet to the shelf. He thanked Hubert and left the chamber, his mind working. Brother John had seen the truth about Anselm's death. He had recorded it, as if unwilling to let it go entirely. And then he had made a choice—to bury it, to declare the death an accident, to leave the murderer free.

Why?

The answer came to him as he crossed the courtyard. Because Brother John had known who the murderer was. And that knowledge had made him afraid.

He went to the stables, where old Humbert had remained as a guest while the legal matters were sorted. The farmer was brushing down a bay gelding, muttering to it in the soft dialect of his village, when Thomas found him.

"Brother Thomas." Humbert straightened, a grin cracking his weathered face. "The hero of the hour. What brings you to the stables?"

"Your grandfather's seal," Thomas said. "You told me he made it himself, for signing documents."

"Before he learned to write his name, yes. Why?"

"Did he ever speak of other men who used seals they should not have had? Men of the church, perhaps?"

Humbert's grin faded. "You are asking about the night Brother Anselm died."

Thomas had not known the farmer had heard the details, but of course he had. News traveled fast in a monastery.

"What do you know of it?"

"Only what I have heard in the kitchens. The brothers say he was found in the orchard, killed by a carelessly placed tool." Humbert spat into the straw. "I have farmed all my life. I have seen what a scythe does to a man when it falls by accident. The wound is ragged, torn. A single clean puncture, true to the ribs, is not the work of a falling blade. It is the work of a steady hand and a sharpened point."

Thomas looked at the old farmer with new respect. "You sound like a man who has seen such wounds before."

"In my youth, I served as a lay brother during the troubles. They took sick men to the infirmary and came back with clean stories." He shrugged. "I learned not to believe everything I was told."

"Who reported Anselm's death to the abbot?"

"The infirmarian, I was told. Brother John." Humbert's eyes narrowed. "But it was the baron's nephew who was overseeing the estate that day. He was the one who came to my village to ask about the charter matter. He seemed to know a great deal about the monastery's business."

Thomas felt the pieces begin to move in his mind. The baron's nephew, Sir Payn de la Roche, had been at the abbey that day. He had been the one shuffling between the monks and the outside world, spreading money where it would loosen tongues. Brother John owed him a debt. A debt that could not be repaid in coin, perhaps, but could be repaid in silence.

He thanked Humbert and walked back to the scriptorium. The abbot was in his study when Thomas knocked, and he looked up from his correspondence with a thin smile.

"Brother Thomas. Have you made progress on your treatise?"

"I need to speak with you about Anselm's death."

The smile faded. "That matter is closed."

"It should not be." Thomas advanced into the room, standing before the abbot's desk. "I have evidence that Brother John knew the death was no accident. And I believe he suppressed his knowledge because he was in debt to the baron's nephew, who was at the abbey that day."

The abbot studied him for a long moment. "You have grown bold, Brother Thomas."

"I have grown certain."

"Sir Payn de la Roche was a guest of the abbey, but he took his meals in the guest hall, far from the brothers' quarters. He had no reason to venture into the orchard."

"And yet his men were seen loitering near the storehouses in the weeks before Anselm died. Anselm was assistant to the cellarer. He knew who had been buying grain and wool at prices that favored the baron's family."

The abbot's face went pale. "You are suggesting that Anselm discovered a conspiracy within the abbey itself? That the baron's men silenced him to protect their scheme?"

Thomas said nothing. The abbot's own fears were speaking better than any argument Thomas could offer.

The abbot looked away, staring at the window where the light fell across his desk. He was silent for a long time.

"If you pursue this," he said at last, "you will reopen wounds that have only just begun to heal. The abbey has suffered enough. We have been humbled by scandal. To now accuse our own brothers of covering a murder—"

"Anselm did not fall on a scythe," Thomas said quietly. "He was killed by a man with a steady hand and a reason to want him silent. Until that man is found, the abbey is not healed. It is merely pretending."

The abbot bowed his head. When he looked up again, his eyes were tired. "What do you propose?"

"That I begin by examining the deaths another way. The orchard, the wound, the blood. There will be evidence still there, if we know where to look."

"And if you find nothing?"

"Then I will have written my treatise in peace, content that I asked what no one else would."

The abbot nodded slowly. "Go, then. But be careful, Brother Thomas. The man who killed Anselm is still free. And if he fears you are close to finding him, he may decide that one silenced monk is not enough."

Thomas left the abbot's study and returned to his desk. The vellum of his treatise waited for him, half-filled with careful letters. He sat down, dipped his quill, and added to his page a new heading:

*Of Wounds and the Manner of Their Infliction.*

Science, he had learned, was not only for cures. Sometimes it was for truth.