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plague Brother Hollings tonight?” Brother Morrison turned to us, his great leaden face tight with his displeasure. “He has suffered unaccountably and I should think an evening of contemplative prayer will serve him best now.”
    Colin took a moment before he finally answered. “Yes, of course. But we shall need to trouble you tomorrow or the next day. You are a vital witness, Brother, and we would be remiss to not learn everything we can from you. There may be critical things you saw that you are not yet even aware of.”
    â€œYou make it sound like witchery,” Brother Morrison snapped, shifting a surly grin between his fellow monks and Father Demetris. “Go on, Brother Hollings, there is no reason for you to listen to this babble. You go and pray for your salvation. Your words will be heard.”
    â€œThank you,” the young monk mumbled as he quickly got up and left the room on ghostly silent feet.
    â€œI should think I can answer most of the questions you have,” Brother Silsbury said as he looked at us, his face grave but his hazel eyes not unkind. “I was involved in a great many of the decisions that were made when the abbot’s body was discovered.”
    â€œNevertheless,” Colin insisted with a look that was more determined than accommodating, “because that young man discovered the body I will need to speak with him again. Especially given that he alone cleansed the abbot’s cell after his body had been removed.”
    â€œIt will be arranged,” Father Demetris said at once, his soft voice carrying the weight of Bishop Fencourt’s will.
    â€œYou are like a mongrel with a bone,” Brother Morrison hissed. “We will not apologize for the decision to rectify the abbot’s cell. We were not about to let that bloodied scene of carnage become a thing of gawking and gossip here. It demanded to be contained. . . controlled. We may be monks, but we are also mere men. So when Brother Hollings assured me that he was up to the task, I readily agreed. In fact, I believe it helped him to avoid dwelling on what he had seen by putting his distress into physical action. It pains me to see that now that a bit of time has passed, it has allowed the scourge of guilt to begin fouling his mind.”
    â€œHe is young in his faith,” Brother Wright put in, his voice as tight as the sharpness of his pallid face.
    â€œIt is not his faith I seek to question,” Colin remarked crisply, and I felt Father Demetris stiffen beside me and knew I would need to remind Colin to tread more carefully amongst these men. “How much time do you suppose would have passed between Brother Hollings’s discovery of the abbot’s body and his beckoning of the two of you?”
    â€œIt would take a man of Brother Hollings’s age no more than a minute or two to run from Abbot Tufton’s cell to our chapel,” Brother Silsbury answered.
    â€œDid you and Brother Morrison go back straightaway?”
    â€œWell, of course we did,” Brother Morrison shot back, the scowl on his face thick with his offense.
    â€œForgive me”—Colin tossed him a curt nod, his lips forming a straight line—“I do not want to presume anything.” He slid his eyes back over to Brother Silsbury, who appeared to have remained unperturbed. “Can you please describe for me what you saw when you arrived at the cell?”
    Brother Silsbury blinked as though stung and quickly crossed himself. “There was blood on the walls and a great pool of it on the floor beneath the abbot’s head. He was facedown and his right arm was stretched out as though he had been reaching for something, but there was nothing in his hand.”
    â€œDo you remember whether there was anything on the table in his cell?”
    â€œI don’t even remember looking at it.”
    â€œYou might imagine that we were focused solely on Abbot Tufton,” Brother