Free Dissolution (Matthew Shardlake Mysteries) by C. J. Sansom Page A

colourful Flemish tapestries, old but very fine. The windows looked over a large cemetery dotted with trees, where a couple of servants were raking away the last of the leaves.
     
    ‘My lord abbot is changing out of his riding clothes. He will be with you shortly.’ He bowed himself out, and we stood warming our rears at the fire.
     
    The room was dominated by a large desk covered with a clutter of papers and parchments, a cushioned chair behind it and stools in front. The great seal of the abbey lay on a block of sealing wax in a brass tray, next to a flagon of wine and some silver cups. Behind the desk, bookshelves lined the wall.
     
    ‘I didn’t realize abbots lived so well,’ Mark observed.
     
    ‘Oh yes, they have their own separate households. Originally the abbot lived among the brethren, but when the Crown started to tax their households centuries ago they hit on the device of giving the abbot his own revenues, legally separate. Now they all live in fine state, leaving most of the daily supervision to the priors.’
     
    ‘Why doesn’t the king change the law, so the abbots can be taxed?’
     
    I shrugged. ‘In the past kings needed the abbots’ support in the House of Lords. Now - well, it won’t matter for much longer.’
     
    ‘So that Scottish brute actually runs the place from day to day?’
     
    I went behind the desk and examined the bookshelves, noting a printed set of English statutes. ‘One of nature’s bullies, isn’t he? He seemed to enjoy mistreating that novice.’
     
    ‘The boy looked ill.’
     
    ‘Yes. I am curious to know why a novice has been set to menial servants’ work.’
     
    ‘I thought monks were supposed to spend part of their time in manual labour.’
     
    ‘That is part of St Benedict’s rule. But no monk in a Benedictine house has done honest toil for hundreds of years. Servants do the work. Not only cooking and stabling, but tending the fires, making the monks’ beds, sometimes helping them dress and who knows what else.’
     
    I picked up the seal and studied it by the light from the fire. It was of tempered steel. I showed Mark the engraving of St Donatus, in Roman clothing, bending over another man lying on a pannier whose arm was stretched up to him in appeal. It was beautifully done, the folds of the robes rendered in detail.
     
    ‘St Donatus bringing the dead man back to life. I looked it up in my Saints’ Lives before we left.’
     
    ‘He could raise the dead? Like Christ with Lazarus?’
     
    ‘Donatus, we are told, came upon a dead man being carried to his grave. Another man was berating the widow, saying the deceased owed him money. The blessed Donatus told the dead man to get up and settle his accounts. He sat up and convinced everyone that he had paid his debt. Then he lay down dead again. Money, money, it’s always money with these people.’
     
    There were footsteps outside and the door opened to admit a tall, broad man in his fifties. Beneath his black Benedictine habit could be seen hose of wool velvet and silver-buckled shoes. His face was ruddy, with a Roman beak of a nose set in square features. His thick brown hair was long and his tonsure, a little shaven circle, the barest concession to the Rule. He came forward with a smile.
     
    ‘I am Abbot Fabian.’ The manner was patrician, the voice richly aristocratic, but I caught a note of anxiety underneath. ‘Welcome to Scarnsea. Pax vobiscum .’
     
    ‘Master Matthew Shardlake, the vicar general’s commissioner.’ I did not give the formal reply of ‘and with you’, for I was not to be drawn into Latin mummery.
     
    The abbot nodded slowly. His deep-set blue eyes quickly swept my bent figure up and down, then widened a little when he saw I was holding the seal.
     
    ‘Sir, I beg you, be careful. That seal has to be impressed on all legal documents. It never leaves this room. Strictly, only I should handle it.’
     
    ‘As the king’s commissioner I have access to everything