the same books he did, and at night he imagined that he lay in the same cell that some learned and pious Master of Paris or Bologna or Oxford had once reposed in many years previously.
The records showed nothing but the same continuous, comforting pattern of piety and learning, and Thomas thought that was as all Christendom should be. Never changing, but keeping to the ancient and tested ways, the comforting rituals, all under the careful guardianship of the Church, the custodian and interpreter of the word of God.
Only thus could evil be kept at bay.
On this cold April day Thomas came back to the library after Vespers to continue his study until the bells rang for Compline. Few other brothers had come back: the library was too cold this late in the evening.
But Thomas was drawn back, not only by his need to continue his study, but by a compulsion he couldn’t name.
There was something in the registers he needed to read. He knew it. St Michael had not actually appeared and told him so, but Thomas knew the archangel was guiding his interest.
Thomas had been reading the registers for the 1330s, and, as he pored over the unwieldy parchment rolls under his sputtering lamp, he suddenly realised what had been making him uncomfortable for the past few days.
There was an inconsistency within the registers.
St Angelo’s brothers moved through the registers in regular patterns: arriving at the friary, staying months or sometimes years to study, and then departing. During their time at the friary their daily routines never varied: prayers, meals, study.
But there was one friar who did not fit the pattern at all. His name ran through the records like a nagging toothache; he was a part of St Angelo’s community, but an unsettling part. For months he would move through the registers as other friars did, not varying his routine from theirs in the slightest manner—although, Thomas noted, he took no part in the weekly debates.
Then, twice a year, he would vanish from the registers for some eight weeks, before his name reappeared within the comfortable routine.
There was no explanation for his absences, and these continuing absences were abnormal. Friars came to St Angelo’s, they stayed awhile, then they left. They didn’t keep coming and going in such a fashion. If they had business elsewhere, then they travelled to that elsewhere and stayed there. They did not spend years using St Angelo’s as some tavern in which to bide their time until they needed to return to their true business.
The first year that Thomas had encountered the friar’s unexplained comings and goings he had simply assumed that the friar had some pressing business to attend to in another friary—something that had reluctantly pulled him away. But then the same pattern was repeated the next year, and then the next, and continued in the years after. The friar’s departures and returns were consistent: he left the friary in late May of each year and returned in late July, then he left again in early December and returned by the end of January.
Why?
Further, there was another inconsistency. If a friar did have to leave the friary, for whatever matter, then he had to seek permission from the prior, and that permission, as the reason for the absence, was recorded. During the 1330s three other brothers had left briefly, and the reasons, along with the prior’s permission, had been recorded in the registers.
Not so for this man.
Troubled, Thomas checked back through the records for the 1320s, trying to find when the friar had first arrived…to his amazement and increasing unease, Thomas discovered that the friar had been moving in and out of St Angelo’s all through the 1320s.
All without apparent permission, and always twice each year at the same time.
In late 1327 the incumbent prior had died, and when, five months after the new prior had been elected, this troubling friar had again departed without explanation, there was a record that the new prior had requested an interview with the friar on his return, no doubt to demand an explanation.
And there, at Lammas in 1328, was the record showing the interview had taken place on the friar’s return. The only comment on the outcome of this interview was, to Thomas’ mind, an outrageous statement that the friar was to be allowed to come and go as he pleased.
No friar came and went as he pleased! His individual interests were always subordinated to those of the Order.
Thomas checked back yet further, scattering rolls of parchment about in such a haphazard manner that, had the brother librarian been present, Thomas surely would have earned an angry hiss.
The friar had arrived at St Angelo’s in late 1295.
Scattering more rolls, Thomas searched forward until he found the last reference to the friar.
1348. The man had presumably died in the pestilence which had swept Christendom that year.
Thomas sat back, thinking over what he’d learned.
For some fifty-three years this friar had come and gone from St Angelo’s twice yearly with no explanation and no permission from his prior.
During those fifty-three years five priors had died, and each incoming prior—the last being Prior Bertrand in 1345—had called the friar into their private cell to ask for explanations and, presumably, to mete out discipline.
In all five cases the results of the interview were much the same: the friar was to be allowed to come and go as he pleased, no matter the inconvenience to the friary.
Thomas wondered what threats had been made in those five meetings.
Eventually, after carefully rolling up the parchments and placing them back in their slots, Thomas went to see Prior Bertrand.
He felt both curious and nauseous in equal degrees, and Thomas knew that he’d stumbled upon something of great import.
Prior Bertrand was again sinking down to his knees before the cross in his cell when the tap sounded at the door.
Sighing, Bertrand rose stiffly, one hand on his bed for support. “Come.”
Brother Thomas entered, bowing slightly as he caught Bertrand’s eye.
“Brother Thomas, what can I do for you this late at night?”
“I have come to ask a favour of you, Brother Prior.”
“Yes?”
“I would like to ask about Brother Wynkyn de Worde.”
Bertrand stared, unable for the moment to act or speak.
Wynkyn de Worde! He’d prayed never to have that name spoken in his hearing again!
In return, Thomas watched the old man before him with narrowed, speculative eyes.
“Brother Prior? Are you well?”
“Yes…yes. Ah, Brother Thomas, perhaps you will sit down.”
Thomas took the stool, as he had on the night of his arrival, and Bertrand again took the bed. “May I ask, Brother Thomas, why you ask about Brother Wynkyn?”
Thomas
