‘Yes,’ Thomas agreed uncertainly. ‘But to be honest with you, Master, we don’t check the soundness of the walls as often as we should. I must do it as soon as we get back, because if one badger has found a way through there’ll be others soon, and foxes I shouldn’t doubt. Maybe even a wolf, if we’re unlucky.’

  ‘Do badgers eat chickens? Because I’ve heard nothing about the convent’s chickens being attacked.’

  ‘Badgers will eat anything if they’re hungry enough or if chance puts it their way. They usually feast on worms, but they’ll eat snails and they’ve been known to clean out birds’ nests. But you’re right, Master, the chickens haven’t been bothered. Of course, they’re behind a second fence to keep them in.’

  ‘Well, Thomas, since we can’t rule badgers out, perhaps you’d better have the money to buy a few snares. But I’d buy the rat traps and poison too, just to be on the safe side.’

  I returned to browsing in the bookstore when Thomas ran off. My interest having been piqued by our conversation, I almost asked the bookseller if he had any treatises on badgers. Fortunately, my eye fell on a particularly good edition of Busenbaum’s Medulla theologiae moralis, facili ac perspicua methodo resolvens casus conscientiae marked at a very reasonable price. I grant that Busenbaum’s rigid approach to moral theology is viewed as unhelpful by some professors, and there are men who will argue that conscience is a valid guide to right moral actions despite Busenbaum’s insistence that the moral law is independent of any human input, but his work is widely used in Catholic seminaries as a guide for confessors. [If I didn’t want you to write it down I wouldn’t have said it, Van der Meer. And no, I can’t repeat it.]

  With our purchases safely stowed, Thomas and I found an inn and were lucky enough to secure a quiet corner where we could enjoy our dinner. As will have been clear from these volumes, I am not an epicurean, and usually eat sparingly. Many years of Albrecht’s food have shaped my tastes and I have come to expect food to have a slightly charred flavour, but on this evening we feasted on some splendid pork and duck, and I found that book-buying had given me quite an appetite. Thomas was not used to fine food, but tucked in too, though admitting that he felt uneasy about all this luxury we were enjoying. Apart from any other consideration, the inn had a proper bed for each of us. Granted that Thomas’ bed was rather short and he was obliged to sleep with his knees tucked up, but a night on a feather mattress was a rare treat for him.

  I slept well, and in the morning we made a good, if simple, breakfast. After the night before I was still rather full, though Thomas ate well, especially of the cold pork. I spent a few moments looking at an old print of the convent on the wall, though it had not been a convent then, but a rather simpler hunting lodge with wings and a courtyard.

  There were a few other travellers who had slept in the large room downstairs. I hope the reader will believe me when I say that I have never been given to eavesdropping, but my ear was caught by a familiar sound. A couple of men were speaking Dutch. I had spent some weeks by now speaking good Latin and execrable German, so it was good to hear my native tongue spoken. It seemed that their visit had not been attended with the success that they had hoped, a business transaction having fallen through, and while one urged them to keep trying, the other said that he had urgent business at home and could not remain longer. Since their cart appeared to be his, the other was left with no option but to accept the termination of their stay. I wanted to commiserate with them, for they were far from home and no doubt had been put to some expense to travel all this way, which now seemed to have been wasted, but Thomas announced that we should begin our journey at once because there was the prospect of a nasty storm.

  He was, if anything, understating things. Apart from the heavy rain, there was thunder and lightning, such that I suggested that Thomas climb down from the box and take shelter inside the carriage for his own safety. One hears so much about postillions being struck by lightning and I could not drive the carriage myself if so awful a fate befell Thomas. The poor lad looked distinctly uneasy being inside with me, and kept brushing at the seat as if his very presence soiled it.

  Eventually, the storm abated and we resumed our progress, finally arriving at the convent in the late afternoon, where we warmed ourselves by the kitchen fire while our boots and cloaks were dried and brushed, and enjoyed large bowls of broth, the sisters having already supped. Abbess Mathilde was delighted with our purchases, though she raised an eyebrow at the badger snares and made Thomas promise to check them regularly so that if some poor animal wandered into one, their suffering would not be prolonged. She may have said other things but I regret to say that, what with the warm fire and the delicious hot broth, I nodded off, which I might have concealed had I not fallen off my stool.

  And so to bed.

  I think it was on the next day that Veronica’s missing key was found. It was on the floor of her cell, right in front of the door. I was surprised that she had not noticed it before, but it was obviously a great joy to her to have found it.

  ‘St Anthony has been hard at work here!’ she exclaimed as she showed it to us all. ‘I must reattach it at once before it goes missing again.’

  She fastened it to the cord on her girdle with a good, strong knot. The key was not identical to the treasury door key, but it was of a similar size, and when we were walking to our respective workplaces I remarked that they were almost a matching pair.

  ‘They are, aren’t they?’ beamed Veronica. ‘I keep one on each side to keep myself balanced!’

  ‘Forgive me,’ I said, ‘but the cord that holds the chest key is shorter than its counterpart on your other hip.’

  ‘Oh, no, Master, it can’t be. I cut the two pieces of cord at the same time to the same length to keep the balance. If it appears so, I must have tied up more of the cord in the knot.’

  ‘Yes, that must be it,’ I agreed. ‘May I see the chest key so that I will recognise it if it goes missing again?’

  She consented and I held the key up, but actually I was examining the cord; and I did not like what I saw.

  Thomas set a badger snare. To ensure that no one at the convent should accidentally step in it, he attached a piece of red ribbon, which led Georg to ask whether this might not alert the badgers too. So Thomas removed it once again and resorted to asking Mathilde to announce the presence of the snare, on the theory that the badger would not attend lauds and thereby come to know of his plan. It seemed to work, because I looked round the chapel and there was definitely no badger there.

  I was beginning to hope that all the odd events were now at an end, when the most extraordinary thing happened. There were no witnesses, so I can only relate the story as Sister Veronica told it to us when we heard her call.

  It seems that she had locked the treasury after returning the Communion vessels and had walked just a few paces when she unaccountably stumbled and fell headlong on the flagstones. She was shocked and for a moment made no effort to get up. She had stretched out her arms when she felt herself falling and there was little doubt that her right wrist or arm was broken. Thomas was sent for and immediately dispatched to find the bonesetter in Melle, while Sister Clotsindis prepared a draught that would numb the pain.

  What, you might ask, is so unusual about this that I should classify it as a strange event? After all, old women fall all the time. They trip over their skirts, they slip out of a clog or their sight is weak and they fail to notice a step; and often when they fall they break a bone. Veronica was lucky it was an arm rather than her leg or her hip, because old women do not long survive such an accident.

  My reply is simple. I could see nothing that she might have stumbled over. I do the pious sister the courtesy of assuming that she was not drunk or otherwise inebriated; she was not normally unsteady on her feet. I grant that sometimes people fall for no obvious reason, but this was a passageway that she must have walked several times a day for many years without mishap. Maybe it was just my suspicion given what had gone before. All these things happening to Veronica seemed a great coincidence, and I have no faith in coincidence.

  But I get ahead of myself. Let me present the circumstances to the reader just as I experienced them.

  I had celebrated Mass and was in the vestry removing my vestments. It was, I suppose, about eight o’clock in the morning. Mathilde had postponed breakfast so that the sisters might receive the Blessed Sacrament before breaking their fast, and I suppose some of them might have been quite hungry. I know I was.

  Veronica had collected the vessels and returned them to the treasury for safekeeping. There was a set consisting of the chalice for the wine, the ciborium for the bread, and the two flagons for the wine and water, all of them very fine pieces magnificently wrought by some long-forgotten silversmith. Liese was in the chapel collecting the linen to take to the laundry. The other sisters had filed silently out and were making for the refectory.

  I heard Veronica cry out, but my head was half in and half out of the chasuble. Surprised by the call, I let the fabric drop back around my head and it was fortunate that I did not fall myself.

  I heard running, then Liese talking to Veronica, urging her to lie still while she went for help, as she was not strong enough to lift Veronica on her own. However, first she rearranged Veronica’s habit to cover her legs for decency’s sake, and soon returned with Brigitte, Angela and Landrada, the latter two of whom were undoubtedly the strongest women there. Angela worked with the animals and Landrada was used to rolling barrels of beer around. I would have helped myself, of course, had I not become entangled further with the wretched robes. Trying to hurry, I had caught the laces at the neck of my alb in a horrible knot. Since it was just under my chin, I could not see to untangle it, so I decided to go as I was, and by the time I arrived Veronica was being helped to her feet and instructed to sit on a stool that someone had found.

  Mathilde arrived and immediately told Perpetua to tell Thomas to go to Melle with all haste for the bonesetter and not to come back without him. Clotsindis was checking Veronica for any other injuries — she had bloodied her nose and a swelling was beginning to make itself evident at the top of her cheekbone — while the others clucked around like chickens. I managed to attract Liese’s attention and persuaded her to unpick my knot so I could appear properly dressed rather than stumbling around in a white overshirt all my days.

  Veronica was borne away to the infirmary, while Mathilde instructed all except Clotsindis and herself to take their breakfasts so good food was not wasted. I returned to the vestry to hang the alb on its peg, so by the time I returned to the passageway all was quiet.

  That was when I fell to my knees and began inspecting the floor for uneven tiles or puddles where the roof was leaking. I found none. And there was something else. Veronica had locked away the vessels in good order, so she had not tripped on her first passage along the corridor. Indeed, since she had taken them out earlier, she must have passed that way at least three times that morning. If there had been any temporary hazards she had been well able to deal with them. I was so deep in perplexed thought that I almost forgot to go for breakfast, then felt rather ashamed that I was sitting eating while poor Veronica was awaiting the arrival of the bonesetter in great pain. On the other hand, what good would my going hungry do?

  The bonesetter arrived and was admitted to the private area of the convent, since it was clearly unreasonable to expect Veronica to move from the infirmary to receive treatment. In any event, Clotsindis had given her a draught of some kind of poppy juice, so I doubt the poor woman could successfully have walked all along the east corridor to the gate. She had enough trouble sitting upright while the bonesetter gripped her arm and pulled. I understand that poppy is supposed to overcome the pain one feels, in which case I beg to report it seemed somewhat lacking.

  Veronica cried out piercingly as the man carefully wiggled her arm in all directions until the bones were in their proper positions, then he produced two laths of wood and some leather strips and clamped the injured arm firmly between them, telling Veronica not to use the arm — which seemed a rather superfluous instruction given that her hand was between the two boards with only the fingertips poking out. To compound her difficulty, he took a square of cloth and made a sling to support the arm. Veronica grumbled that holding the arm up was already difficult, and having two large pieces of wood attached to it was not helping in that regard, but he explained that these were precautions to protect the arm from further damage while nature took its course.

  I have spent enough time around surgeons and bonesetters in my life to know that ‘nature taking its course’ is a euphemism for doing nothing yourself. It is true that the human body, left to itself, can sometimes produce prodigious repairs. On the other hand, there are plenty of soldiers limping around missing a limb to know that nature is not always allowed to take its course. Presumably there is some craft in knowing which limb can be repaired and which cannot; I made a mental note to ask Drelincourt when I next saw him (and, of course, forgot to do so).

  However, I digress. I had returned to my tasks in the library when an idea came to me. I left my stool and returned to the corridor outside the treasury. It took some effort to recall exactly what I had seen when I arrived, but I will describe it as accurately as I can. As I stood at the door to the treasury, once more locked by Mathilde’s order, there was a small step down to an open area with one of the cloister’s pillars at the end. I should explain that the vestry opened on to the east end of the chapel, while the treasury was at the west end, and for some reason there was no direct entry from the treasury to the chapel. I imagine it might have been inconvenient if the sisters had to go through the chapel every time they went to the treasury, and would disturb anyone at private prayer. Anyway, the treasury door faced south and opened towards this space. The treasury ran north to south across the west end of the chapel and received limited light through the windows, which had been barred for security. This bathed the precious objects in the most wonderful light in the late afternoon, but meant that it was rather dark there in the mornings. I think it must have been mid-morning when I stood there, and it was still gloomy. I had to allow my eyes to adjust to the low light, and it would have been even darker when Mass began.

  I said that there was a space before the cloister pillar. It was, perhaps, four paces from the door to the pillar, but the passageway alongside the chapel was about two paces narrower. That is, there was a small square of pavement in front of the treasury which could not be seen from the passageway and vice versa. As one left the treasury, a small table, not much more than a ledge, stood to the right, presumably so that Sister Veronica could empty her hands while she locked the door behind her. I had not thought about it earlier, but visualizing the scene again I had the impression that Veronica must have pulled the table towards her as she fell, because it usually sat at right angles to the door and I was sure that it had been moved as she fell. At any event, someone had replaced it now, and wiped up the blood from Veronica’s nose. All was at it should be.

  I looked about me and saw nobody, so I tried to lift the table to take it to the light. It was surprisingly heavy and I ended up dragging it. The wood was old, not stained, I think, but darkened with age, and on one of the legs there was a new scratch at the back. It was in the shape of a cross, wider than it was tall.

  There is some evil afoot here, I thought, but I have no idea what it is.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It is hard to put into words how much I was enjoying my work in the library. Needless to say, I enjoyed working at the University of Leiden too. I amused myself one afternoon by making a list comparing the two, which I reproduce below.

  THE CONVENT

  The peace and tranquillity of the countryside

  The Abbess and the chance to make new friends

  Edible food

  Living in a guest house

  Often alone

  LEIDEN

  All the amenities of a town

  Old friends

  Albrecht’s cooking

  My larger rooms

  Undergraduates

  At that point I stopped and went back to work.

  Nevertheless, all good things come to an end, and summer was drawing to a close. In a week or two I would have to pack and return to Leiden, and given that I had to make my own way, it was necessary to go to Melle and work out what my options for the journey were.

  Mathilde had offered me the use of her carriage, but it would be denied her for the better part of two weeks and Thomas would have to make the return journey alone. While I had seen good evidence of his self-reliance and ability to use firearms, I could not countenance putting him at further risk.

  Hiring a horse or walking home were made more difficult by the number of books that I seemed to have accumulated. I would need to buy another chest in Melle while I was there.

  Mathilde had given me an introduction to Bruno, an innkeeper in Melle, who was well-versed in travel arrangements and had assisted her in the past. Bruno suggested two possible routes.

  ‘Well, Master, you’d either go to Bielefeld or to Osnabrück. Bielefeld is in the wrong direction, but there you might pick up a carriage heading to Münster. Either way, your problem is going to be finding anyone who is going to the Low Countries from Münster. You might buy yourself a carriage there, or hire one, I suppose.’

  ‘Is that possible?’ I asked.

  ‘Everything is possible, Master, when you have money.’

  This came as something of a blow to me. In my country, getting around is quite easy. We have this stuff called water. It is all over the place, and boats are always moving across it. One can cross the country quite quickly with minimal effort. The Germans also have water, but not as much of it, and not in the right places. German rivers also have an annoying habit of running in the wrong direction. I was bemoaning this when a customer mumbled something in the local dialect that I did not quite catch. This provoked an animated discussion and much waving of arms, but since my German is fairly rudimentary and only of the purest kind I was quite unable to follow what was being said. Luckily, the innkeeper then summarised it for me.