Forsaken Soul

by Priscilla Royal

  “Then it seems we must ask God to send her a woman with a man’s nature,” she replied.

  A rustling sound came from the shrubbery a foot or two away, startling the prioress, but it was only the hospital cat. Trailing behind the creature were two kittens, one of which bore the distinctive markings of the prioress’ own orange tabby.

  Brother John smiled. “You ask for a difficult resolution, my lady.”

  A small bird landed a short distance away.

  “We must continue to believe in miracles,” the prioress replied.

  The cat hunched into the hunting pose. The kittens mimicked their mother.

  The monk bent his head in modest agreement. “I shall add my prayers to yours.”

  The bird flew off, accompanied by the high chirps of feline annoyance.

  Eleanor rose. “Perhaps we should continue to the anchorage,” she said. “How did Sister Juliana learn that you were watching her?”

  This time, Brother John kept pace. “I do not know how she could have discovered me, my lady, for I crouched close to the wall and held my breath when I thought she was near. Nevertheless, when she threw herself on her knees near the squint, begging that I send for you and crying that her soul was cursed, I did not ask questions but came for you at once.”

  “We shall soon find out the source of her pain, Brother.” Then the prioress looked back at the kittens. They had forgotten all birds and were now engaged in an intense new hunt for bugs.

  Suddenly Eleanor knew she had a solution to at least one of her problems.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Tibia clutched her staff with such force that her knuckles shone bone-white.

  “You must go to the priory hospital,” Signy urged as she eased the tortured woman onto an inside bench near the inn door. “I will take you there.”

  Her jaw tight and eyes squeezed shut, Tibia shook her head with the impatience of the suffering.

  “You need not fear walking. We will find a cart or men to carry you.”

  Tibia’s groan was like the cry of an animal, uncomprehending yet instinctively fearing the cause of its torment. She opened her eyes and turned her pale gaze on the innkeeper’s niece. “You’re a good woman. My son should have married you. He’d have lived then,” she gasped through lips thinned by pain.

  Signy said nothing. What merit was there in reminding this woman, whose mind seemingly wandered with grief and agony, that she had been too young to wed when Tibia’s son had died?

  “Methinks it’s easing,” the old woman whispered. Indeed some color was returning to her face.

  The innkeeper’s niece gently pushed a steaming bowl of pottage toward her.

  “I can’t eat.”

  “You must.” Gently, Signy rested her hand on a bony arm.

  “The Devil’s coming soon enough for my soul. I don’t mind if it be sooner than later. Give this to another in need, one whom God might love more.” The old woman sucked in her lips. With so few teeth, her sharp nose almost touched her chin. “Is it true the crowner thinks you killed Martin and his whore?”

  “I do not know what he thinks. We rarely speak.” Signy’s words sounded brave enough, but her trembling lips betrayed her fear.

  “He must know better!”

  The innkeeper’s niece shrugged. “He thought Ivetta killed Martin, but she has proven her innocence by dying herself. Perhaps I’ll be next. If so, I needn’t fret about the hangman’s mercy or whether my uncle will show kindness and pull my legs to break my neck as I dangle and choke.” She laughed in bitter jest.

  “What reason would anyone have to kill you?” Tibia’s eyes narrowed.

  “Why murder Martin, or why Ivetta?”

  “Does anyone mourn them? Martin was a skilled cooper, but he was a cruel man and another will come to take over his trade. Ivetta was evil. Simple as that.”

  “My heart held no love for either,” Signy said, reaching out to stroke the old woman’s arm, “and confessed as much to Prioress Eleanor. Perhaps I should not have done so. My honesty may suit our crowner well if he cannot catch the murderer but must find someone to hang.”

  “You’re innocent! Unlike the man before him, this crowner’s an honest man.”

  “The crowner before was honest enough, but he did make mistakes. Is Ralf so different?”

  “Honest?” The old woman snorted. “Perhaps he was for those who could reward him for it. Since I couldn’t, he ignored my son’s death. I don’t think the current king’s man is as blinded by the glow of a coin.”

  “So you believe our current crowner is less fond of gold or inclined to error? In the past, we did think him different from his two brothers, but hasn’t he come back from court a richer man? Methinks he is now beholden to the powerful and become much like you think his predecessor was.” Her voice cracked on that last and she bent her head, perhaps to hide tears.

  Tibia drooped wearily. “You think he’d find an innocent guilty of murder then?”

  “Have you not heard the tale?” Signy asked, rubbing her eyes.

  “I hear little from my hut.”

  “The thatcher said the butcher told him that Ralf had gone to seize both Hob and Will for the murder of Martin.” Signy turned thoughtful. “Although the fishwife did claim she heard the men arguing, she said there was no mention of any arrest. In short, the crowner did not take either into custody because Hob struck him on the head and hurried Will away. Now Will has disappeared, and even his brother does not know his whereabouts. Or so my uncle has said.”

  “Do most think either is guilty?”

  “No one does, except our crowner. Why should they have killed Martin? The blacksmiths and the cooper have been like brothers since they were all lads.”

  “And Ivetta, their sister,” Tibia muttered, her eyes glowing with anger. “Incestuous whore!”

  “Well, she is dead in any case, and Will is gone. If he has any sense, he is on the road to the west. Of those our Ralf thinks guilty of murder, only Hob and I remain. I think he prefers me to Hob in this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the weapon was poison, a woman’s instrument according to the crowner.”

  “Most of the women in the village could poison a man if they wished. It’s a poor wife that doesn’t keep a good herb garden well tended for her family’s ills. There’s no reason for our crowner to set his mind on you in particular.” Tibia shook her head as color began to fade from her cheeks again. “Methinks no one will be arrested for murdering either Martin or Ivetta.”

  Signy raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “Satan owned their souls. If the crowner wants an arrest, he better try to set his chains on the Evil One for ‘twas the Fiend that called them to Hell.”

  “Surely a mortal hand helped?”

  Tibia lurched forward, groaning with a spasm of pain.

  Signy cried out as she reached out to comfort the woman. “Please! Someone find Brother Thomas and tell him that old Tibia desperately needs his potion!” she shouted to a nearby table of men.

  The herb woman began to cry out with agonized moans.

  A young man rushed to help. Another ran from the inn in the direction of the priory.

  “Carry her back to her hut,” Signy begged.

  The man nodded, then carefully lifted the trembling old woman into his arms and took her home.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “I have failed,” Eleanor muttered. As the prioress walked back to her chambers, she was oblivious to the lush perfume of summer that drifted gently around her. Instead, her soul was heavy with thoughts of murder and disgust at her own imperfections.

  Juliana’s cries of pain were still fresh in her ears. When Eleanor heard the source of her anguish, she had comforted her old friend but quickly left so Brother John could offer God’s consolation. The moment the door to the anchorage closed, Eleanor had fled out of fear that she might contaminate this wounded soul with her own foulness
. Was she herself not guilty enough in this matter?

  The good brother she had left behind was her confessor as well, to whom she would admit her worldly errors in due course, but now she needed time alone to let God know how much she understood her failings.

  In fact, the anchoress had done little wrong. Eleanor herself often begged audience with God and listened with blank mind and in silence until she felt, more than heard, His voice. In this, Juliana’s advice to those who sought her out held no error. Where the woman may have failed was in not recognizing a killer seeking justification for revenge.

  Could anyone else have seen the evil? Would she have done so any more than Juliana, a woman who feared the world and longed only to escape from it? On the other side of the argument, a reasonable person might say that a holy woman should have read the sinner’s heart even if a lesser mortal was incapable of it. Eleanor frowned, then dismissed the latter thought.

  Others might cast blame on Juliana, but the prioress of Tyndal could not. Neither she nor the village was worthy to determine the blessedness of any other mortal. Meanwhile, all she could feel for the anchoress was compassion. Even though Juliana might continue to bring trouble to the priory, her questionable ways likely to invite criticism from those with Sister Ruth’s cast of mind, Eleanor knew her old friend well.

  No matter how changed, Juliana was still the girl she had met as a child, a person with a kind heart who bore the world no malice even if she wanted nothing to do with it. Yet to atone for her one act of cruelty, God must have decided that Juliana should provide solace to many pilgrims filled with much grief and many sins. That would most certainly be a hard penance for the anchoress to bear.

  Nay, the prioress thought, she had no cause to condemn the anchoress. Had she herself not been so concerned with the worldly reputation of Tyndal, she might have heard the begging in Juliana’s voice when she confronted her just yesterday. If she had not been driven mad with jealousy over Brother Thomas’ visit to her old friend, she might have listened instead of interrupting when the anchoress tried to tell her about the murderer’s visit to the anchorage window. Although Eleanor had never used the whip on her back, this was one time she felt she merited that extreme penance.

  But who was the murderer? Juliana knew only that the voice belonged to a woman. That would eliminate both Will and Hob from the list of suspects. Since Ivetta was dead, surely she was innocent as well.

  Or was she? Had the prostitute killed Martin, only to be poisoned by someone else as revenge? If Signy’s story was true about Martin’s methods of seduction, more than a few women in the village might have killed him—and killed Ivetta out of anger, jealousy, or even spite. After all, if a prioress dedicated to the pursuit of God’s perfection could grow enraged when her monk chastely sought the company of an anchoress, any other mortal should be more easily blinded by evil.

  Eleanor shook her head with frustration. “There must be some clue that would solve this crime,” she said. “Why am I failing to see it? Why does my logic keep circling with such futility?”

  Not wanting to go back just yet to her chambers, she turned into the cloister garth and began to pace amongst the flowers of the gardens. What had Gytha told her about the women rumored to have visited the anchoress for advice? Who amongst them might be the killer?

  “I must look at each with dispassion. Surely logic may discount several as possible suspects, either because they or their kin have no obvious or serious quarrel with Martin. Try as I might,” she continued with a wry smile, “I cannot see that the baker’s wife would poison the man because her husband’s bread had not risen for three days after the cooper tried to put his hand up her dress. Would the fishwife do so after Martin jested about her husband’s infidelity? Perhaps, if she were not grateful he did bed others so she did not have to pay any marriage debt.”

  Martin had enough enemies, but she did think Ralf was right in his conclusions. Most men would have settled any quarrel with the man by a blow. Some already had. Many women would have found brothers or husbands willing enough to retaliate on their behalf for any insult or wicked jest. The number of suspects was now considerably reduced to a woman who had no such man to strike a good blow for her and must seek revenge in another way.

  Ralf had initially preferred Ivetta as logical choice for the killer. After her death, he assumed she had committed self-murder out of guilt. Eleanor never did agree with either conclusion. Was she wrong?

  “Ivetta discovered she was with child,” the prioress said as she settled down on the stone bench she had earlier shared with Brother John. “True or not, she believed the father was Martin. Yet surely she had quickened before now with his seed, as well as others, and most likely had sought remedy to hasten the ending to any pregnancy. Why would she choose not to do so now?”

  Ralf suggested she might have thought the cooper would marry her, Eleanor thought. Whether or not Martin had said anything in fact about this, the important point was that Ivetta might have thought he did or ought to have done so.

  Had he mocked her for thinking he would marry a woman he had sold to others? Did she then poison him in hurt anger and soon after attempt a fatal abortion? Brother Thomas was right, as Sister Anne confirmed, that many women were aware that yew was a most effective poison. Mothers even warned their children not to climb the tree out of a fear of it.

  Or was Ivetta killed by the person who killed Martin? According to Sister Anne, the poison was probably the same, although she had expressed cautious doubt and would not firmly decide that such was the case. “I am inclined to conclude that Ivetta was murdered as well,” Eleanor said, reaching down to draw a single line in the gravel. “I met with the woman. She was proud of her pregnancy! Even if I wanted to suppose she killed her bawd, a man she inexplicably followed like Hob’s dog does his master, I cannot believe that she would kill that babe. Surely she would not have taken a draught of yew willingly, knowing full well what the properties were,” she decided, “and therefore I think it unlikely that she killed Martin and tried to abort later.”

  If she eliminated Ivetta as the culprit, was it Signy? Once again, Eleanor bent down and drew another line next to the first. Thoughts swirled in her head like squalling mews looking for a safe landing after a fright. Attempting to bring back rational order to her mind, Eleanor took in a deep breath and let the pleasant scent of budding fruit from nearby trees fill her.

  “Aye,” she mused thoughtfully, “this is God’s blessing to us, His bountiful season, full of life’s vigor.” In just a short while, however, the frosts would come to give apples that sharpness needed for Sister Matilda’s tarts, simple treats to delight monastics. Then the snows would fall, breaking branches with cruel weight and killing young trees with bitter cold.

  Wasn’t the innkeeper’s niece much like that, Eleanor asked herself, a woman cruelly hurt who had rebounded like a hardy tree blossoming after a hard winter. Could such a person be a killer, a woman whose strength made a mockery of cowards like the cooper? And if he had pushed her beyond her ability to endure, might not Signy be more likely to take a broom to him, or even a knife? She was a strong woman, after all, and might well have surprised him enough to injure if not kill him.

  “Signy has faults enough,” Eleanor continued softly. “Lust has a strong hold on her, but she has never sworn herself to a chaste bed, only to break the vows as I have. Yet she has virtue enough, as I have heard. Many men have been cheered innocently enough at the inn with her merry ways, and no wives betrayed. And she has shown charity as well. Old Tibia is one whom she feeds without charge as God demands.”

  Yet the innkeeper’s niece had reason enough to hate Martin. He had taken her against her will as a girl, and then recently filled her womb with a child in her moment of blind weakness. When he threatened to make all this public, if she did not bring him the inn with marriage, she had reason to fear her uncle might cast her out. Whether or not the innkeeper would have done so, Eleanor understood Signy’s
terror at being faced with following Ivetta’s trade to stay alive.

  Viewed rationally, many must know that Signy was no virgin. Surely her brief affair with Ralf had been suspected, even if not mentioned above a whisper. Now there were rumors about Tostig. Although Gytha did not think he had bedded the woman, others must have concluded otherwise. As for the abortion, old Tibia would never speak of that, and, sin though it might be, many women shared her guilt. Surely Signy had confessed the deed and done penance.

  Overall, Eleanor could understand why the villagers saw little cause to condemn Signy and why they chose to keep their gossip to a murmur. The innkeeper’s niece brought no grief to any, only laughter to those whose lives were hard. Although people often damned others whom they did not like, they rarely had a quarrel with those that brought them cheer at the end of a tiring day. Besides, how many would care to encourage Martin’s lewd tales when they had suffered themselves from his stories?

  Was she making a similar mistake, ignoring sins and assuming innocence just because she found the woman pleasant? Gytha and Tostig also found her worthy enough. Until recently, that might have settled the issue since both were people whose judgements she respected. Now she had cause to distrust the good opinion of honest folk. After all, didn’t the two speak of Brother Thomas with high regard? Yet wasn’t he no better than a venomous snake, treacherously enjoying warmth in her breast?

  She rubbed her forehead just over her left eye. One of her severe headaches was coming on, and she knew she must quickly seek Sister Anne and take that feverfew remedy before the pain got worse. “This is not the time to be distracted by the blinding pain daylight causes.” She rose hurriedly to seek ease in the more subdued light of her chambers.

  Closing her door carefully behind her, Eleanor lowered her head to keep the brightness of the day from searing her eyes. Circles of color drifted in front of her, and, had she not known what these auras of beauty presaged, she might have taken them for revelations from God. Instead, she knew well enough that she was too sinful a creature for visions. She cupped a hand over her eyes to lessen the throbbing pain.