At least he now had these nightly distractions. When Sister Anne suggested a new task to fill his sleepless hours, he accepted with eager gratitude. By providing aid to those who suffered far more than he, the monk found some relief. He might be the most wicked of men, but at least he could ease pain, bring comfort, and hold the hands of the dying. In addition, the walks into the village fatigued him enough to blunt the sharpness of tortured dreams when he did sleep.
Thomas exhaled a deep sigh. Poor Brother John was grieving over his failure to cure the melancholia. His confessor was a man of compassion and faith, but nothing John had suggested eased the feverish dreams, the taunting visions, or the coal-dark burden in his heart.
John himself believed in self-flagellation, but Thomas had stopped the practice when he found it gave him a troubling pleasure, a feeling he distrusted and disliked. On occasion, he found some spiritual ease when he lay face down on the stone floor of the chapel, but the moment he began repeating prayers, his soul filled with noise and peace took flight. God must flee the chapel at the very sight of me, Thomas had decided.
Nay, Brother John was innocent of failure. He could not staunch a hidden bleeding when Thomas was incapable of pointing out the lesion from which it flowed. Lust, especially for another man, was sinful. That simple thing he might have confessed, as he had done once. What he could not explain was the sweet tenderness woven into his physical longing for both Giles and the man at Amesbury. Wise men knew that God drew battered souls with tender gentleness while Satan lured a man’s soul with glittering lust. For this reason, the combination of purity and transgression in his heart confused him.
His shoulders fell with despair’s cruel weight. Maybe his confessor was right about the cauterizing effect of exorcism. As matters stood now, Thomas’ soul was dying of putrefying wounds.
As he approached the edge of the village, he stopped and rubbed his eyes. These questions inevitably circled back on themselves while God refused to give him answers. Perhaps he should be grateful for small mercies. Lust had ceased to bother him, except in dreams, and his current disinclination to sleep limited those occasions. While he was awake, he was blessed, as it were, with impotence.
“Very well,” Thomas laughed. “Hasn’t God graced me with some benevolence then? It seems I must be content enough with that.”
He continued on to the village.
The path from the priory into the village of Tyndal now merged with the more traveled road from the west, one that was uneven and deeply rutted by the wheels of lumbering wagons. Thomas focused on keeping a steady pace without stumbling and dropping the vials he carried.
For the most part, the village was dark, whether the rude dwellings of the poor or the windowed houses of more prosperous families. No one here wore furred robes, but a few earned more than subsistence required. Whatever the nature of their daily labor, most were weary enough to sleep when the moon gained supremacy. Candles rarely flickered long after the sun had set.
The only brightness came from the inn at the fork in the road, one of the branches leading to Norwich with its great cathedral, relics, and abundant herring for those partial to the fish. Travelers from the west, on pilgrimage to Norwich’s shrine of Saint William, brought profit to the inn, but the most business nowadays came from visitors to the priory’s hospital. That was due to Prioress Eleanor. The inn had been a paltry thing until she arrived and lent her support to the healing skills of Sister Anne.
Before that time, East Anglian fishermen, and those that farmed the damp land in this remote area, rarely had the coin for decent ale, and never wine. The hospital had brought demand for finer craft and more trade. As a consequence, Tyndal village had grown richer, hosting a regular market day as well as attracting merchants who catered to those who sought cures for gout, bad digestion, and other ills of leisure. Sister Anne had many remedies for the afflictions that plagued courtiers, and they were willing to pay for them, afterward finding solace in the pleasures offered by a well-appointed inn.
Thomas’ destination was just beyond it. Although it was not his nature to be sanctimonious, he lowered his eyes to avoid seeing the lewd glow. Inns held too many memories he wished to forget, and he increased his pace to pass quickly by. Joyous shouts and loud singing assaulted his ears. Shuddering despite the muggy heat, he muttered a plea for protection against the lure of worldly delights he had enjoyed in the past.
Briefly, he hesitated. Did he not hear that Crowner Ralf had recently returned and might his friend be at the inn? Thomas turned to look back. He had grown fond of that rude but honest man. The former soldier and the unwilling monk had become friends before the crowner had deserted the village for the court. Thomas had missed him. Should he not seek him out, share some ale, and welcome him home?
Nay, I shall not, he said to himself. I would not be cause for any wicked rumor to reach Prioress Eleanor. I am no minor clerk, rather a monk, and have no cause to be drinking ale at any inn. Firmly bowing his head, he gripped the sleeping draught he had brought for old Tibia and hastened away.
The woman’s hut was but a few yards further on. The dwelling looked quite dark as the monk approached. No window fronted it, but there were spaces enough in the walls to show any light if a candle had been lit. Was Tibia fast asleep without this potion? Or was she gravely ill and in need of aid? Fearing the latter, his heart began to pound.
He tried the door. Although the alignment was askew and the door caught in the hard earth, it finally opened to a firm pressure from his hand.
“Mistress?” he said, his voice rising above the noise from the inn. “Are you ill?”
Nothing.
He began to ease himself inside.
“Careful, Brother. Wait for me. I don’t want you to trip over some pot.” It was a woman’s voice, roughened by age, the tone flattened with an effort to disguise pain.
Thomas leapt back and turned.
“You’re wondering that I am not in my bed?”
The woman limped closer, a dark shadow outlined against the light from the inn. Pulling herself forward with a thick bough, her progress was slow. Her back was bent so cruelly that Thomas was doubtful she could see much beyond the earth under her feet.
“You think I should lie still on my straw, waiting for my fate because I must die soon?” She hissed these words as she stopped in front of him and then laughed. The sound was sharp like the snapping of twigs.
Thomas drew away from the over-sweet foulness of her breath. “Nay,” he said, “yet I wonder that you can do otherwise.” Not a kind statement, he realized and chastised himself for his thoughtlessness.
She waved impatiently at him. “For God’s sake, Brother, step aside. I can no longer stand.”
He moved away from the open door.
“Nay, not inside.” She pointed with one trembling, gnarled finger. “Help me to sit. That stool. There.”
As he eased her down, he marveled at the lightness of her body.
“Ah, he is so youthful,” she sighed.
Thomas quickly understood that she was not speaking to him. Had her wits wandered? Did she imagine some long dead companion sat beside her, or a sister, maybe a husband?
“The young see in themselves only the beauty they’ll lose.” Tibia chuckled as if sharing a joke with her invisible friend. “And us? We’re just crones to them, as if we’ve never been else. But we know better.” She began to rhythmically tap her hand against her knee. “When we see these wrinkled faces in rain puddles, we can still see the shadows of proud breasts and straight limbs in all our drooping flesh. Isn’t that so? And white teeth, too, in these empty mouths.”
Thomas shivered. “May I bring you something to eat or drink?” he asked, eager to recall her wits if nothing else.
Turning her head, Tibia looked up at the monk. Her narrow-set eyes blinked nervously as she struggled to remember who he was.
To ease any fear she had, he grinned like the foolish youth she had just de
scribed.
“Signy fed me bits of softened meat at the inn,” she replied, the unseen companion now forgotten, or else dismissed back to the spirit world. “A good woman. Some claim she holds her head too high for a tavern wench. I wouldn’t. She comforts me. Why not find kindness when she lays a gentle hand on my arm? It’s a rare enough thing,” she cackled, pointing her twisted finger at him. “Old women know how cruel men can be.”
Was this woman a witch or simply mad? What should he make of her words? Thomas grew more uneasy and bent forward to look at her sharp-featured face, hoping to learn something from the look in her eyes. The angle of her head made it impossible. All he could see was white hair that provided but scant covering to the top of her head.
“Aren’t you the silent one, Brother! Am I so disgusting? Or do you think me sinful for feeding this…” She brushed one hand lightly over her breasts. “…decaying flesh? Should I have prayed instead?”
“You may be old but are not yet dying,” Thomas replied. His words might have been innocuous, but his tone was sharp with irritation. She was no witch, he thought, just a troublesome hag. He bit his lip in repentance, cursing the weariness that made him impatient and harsh to a querulous old woman in pain. “As for the innkeeper’s niece, I do not listen to mean-spirited gossip,” he added quickly.
“Ah, charity! That’s always the greatest virtue, isn’t it? Never hope. Why’s that? I’ve always wondered.” Tibia laughed but there was no joy in it. “Ah, Brother, forgive me. You came here with warm compassion, and I burn your ears with blasphemy. I confess it. I have sinned. Will you forgive me in God’s name?”
“God forgives everything.” Thomas extended his hand. “Would you not go inside and seek your bed? Sister Anne has sent a sleeping draught.”
Briefly, Tibia struggled to stand, then gave up with a loud gasp. “Lift me, if you’re willing. Take me to my straw pile,” she whimpered. “Were my son alive, he’d have made me a softer place to lie in and stayed while I fell asleep…”
Thomas felt a twinge of guilt. “Then after you drink this, let me wait in his stead until you sleep,” he said, bending to pick her up.
She uttered a sharp cry as he set her on her feet, and then pushed weakly at him when he took one arm to steady her. “You’re most kind, Brother,” she hissed in pain. “Please sit at my side. As you offered. Tell me of God’s grace. That would bring comfort. I must think on dying.”
With that, she slipped through the small opening to her dwelling.
Thomas followed her into the darkness.
Chapter Three
Signy reached out, desperately grasping for the wall to steady herself.
Her head spun. A cold sweat rolled down her temples and cheeks. Then her fingers did find the wall and she leaned against it, pressing her face against the rough surface as if greeting a dear friend. Slowly the nausea eased, but the sweat did not dry in the oppressive air of the upper rooms.
It is over, she thought. It is done with. Yet she trembled with the weakness of a newborn babe. The innkeeper’s niece squeezed her eyes shut to keep from weeping.
Below her, the patrons of her uncle’s inn shouted. A few sang bawdy songs, and their raucous joy rose with the stench of their hot bodies.
Signy took a deep breath, taking in the familiar smell to reassure herself that the world was no different than it had been but a few minutes ago. Turning around, she leaned her back against the wall. A sharp twig protruding from the hard clay wall scratched her arm. From the thatch above her, she heard a familiar rustling. Rat or mouse most likely, creatures she hated, but tonight their stubborn presence was a source of comfort.
“I loathe Martin,” she muttered and felt better for having said it. Why should she feel otherwise? He was a man who took whatever he wanted, discarded it at will, but always left evidence of his possession like gangrene in a poisoned wound.
“And I hate his foul jests,” she said.
Bringing Ivetta here on a regular basis, as if the inn were a brothel, was just one example. Why not swyve the town whore midst the wood splinters on the floor of his cooper’s shop, when he wanted a woman, or rent out his stinking bed when he had a paying customer for her?
“Because he wished to mock me,” she answered herself.
Signy pushed herself upright, walked slowly to the top of the stairs, and looked down at the milling crowd below. The inn was a profitable enough business, so why did her uncle permit this blatant whoring? Surely it did not bring him that much extra coin.
“I like the king’s face on silver as much as my kinsman,” Signy whispered, “but I would have spat in Martin’s face, not grasped his hand in agreement, when he suggested this arrangement.”
Of course she had particular grounds to hate such a proposition, the cause of which her uncle was quite ignorant. But Martin knew her reasons well and found especial pleasure in the distress this whoring brought her. “I may not be chaste,” she said, as if arguing with some critic in the shadows, “but I have never given myself for gain.”
Not that many of the men below had not hoped otherwise when she first came to serve at the inn, but her uncle soon knocked several heads together. The word quickly spread that the innkeeper’s niece might be a buxom lass, but her body was not for hire. Now she might still suffer ribald jests but only the occasional, rude touch. The former she answered with light and practiced retorts. The latter she greeted with the prick of a pin she kept secreted in her sleeve.
Signy looked behind her at the closed door. The nausea returned, and she quickly shifted her gaze around to the room below. Straightening her back, she started down the narrow stairs. “Business is good,” she said aloud. That would please her uncle as much as it did her.
Halfway down, she stopped and bent to look toward the inn door. Old Tibia must have left, she thought. Her heart ached for the poor soul, alone in the world and growing aged without kin to take her in. Although she and her uncle might disagree about allowing Ivetta, the harlot, to ply her trade in the room above, they did not argue about giving the old woman a meal and a cup of weak ale.
In the past, the woman had often sat at that bench near the door and earned enough crumbs by selling remedies to ease mortal ills to keep herself alive. She enjoyed an especially brisk business in herbs that counteracted the effects of too much ale and was known to have tonics that helped men plagued by impotence. Even after the priory hospital became so popular, she kept her following of those who preferred not to share their particular sins with lay brothers, many of whom were reputed to be gossips. In the last few months, however, Tibia had plied her trade less and less.
Signy shook her head. The old woman must be suffering so much pain now from her back and leg that death would be a joy. Youth surely had its curses, but those attendant upon the aged must be harsher to bear. Was there some merit in dying before the hair turned gray?
She glanced back at the now invisible room above, shuddered, and hurried down the remaining stairs.
Easing her way through the crowd of men shouting orders for food and drink, she caught sight of Ralf the crowner, still in his corner and staring at nothing, grim as ever. Through the crush of milling bodies, she watched him for a moment without danger of being seen. He had reason enough these days for that dour look after the death of his wife. A pang of sympathy did prick her heart, and she asked herself if she had finally forgiven him for using her so cruelly that brief time now past.
She rolled the thought around in her mind as if seeking out any hidden bitterness. One part of her argued she should not condemn him. After all, wasn’t it simply a man’s nature to care little if the soft body he rode so casually offered that sweet ride out of love? Another now roundly cursed that she had been born one of Eve’s descendants, creatures with much cause to resent God’s decision to make them helpmeets to Adam. “Our Lord should have chosen some other to serve instead—like the perfidious serpent,” Signy muttered.
As she watched Ralf
pick up his pitch-sealed jack of ale, hesitate, and then drink with eyes shut, she felt a sharp pain in her heart. How many times had she watched this small habit of his and smiled?
She clenched her fist and hurled silent abuse at his head. The very next moment, her heart cooled her fury and she concluded she was being unfair to the man.
He was rude, prickly as a hedgehog, but a good man who had loved another for many years. Of course she had heard the tales before she took him into her bed, but she imagined she could turn his heart away from a woman who was now a nun. Instead, he cried out Sister Anne’s name while swyving Signy.
“Had he wanted something more than a mere vessel in which to release his seed,” she muttered, “I could have been patient and taught him how kindly I could love. Instead, he ran off to court and married a woman with land. Fa!” She spat. “No better than his greedy boor of a brother, he is.”
An arm brushed against her breast.
Signy felt her face turn hot with angry humiliation, and she reached for her pin.
The man looked down at her, blinking with drunken concentration. “I meant nothing. I was pushed,” he slurred, nervously casting his glance sideways to measure the distance to the inn door should the innkeeper seek amends.
Signy nodded forgiveness and then pushed a path through the bodies toward the door herself. When she reached cooler air, her thoughts slipped back to the deceitful crowner. At least she had not quickened with child from her brief bedding with Ralf before he deserted her. She shook with a brief chill.
A pregnancy would have caused her much difficulty at the inn. Although some in the village suspected that she had granted her favors to the man, there was no obvious proof that she had shared her bed with Ralf. Rumors were whispered, but they often were even where there was no truth in the tales. Had she provided evidence with a rounded belly, however, many would have called her whore as they did Ivetta, and men would have expected similar service.
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