The sheriff was losing patience and finally interjected: “All that may be argued with differing opinions amongst honorable men, but the fact remains, an unarguable fact, that this woman, who has confessed to lust before you all, was seen near the stable the night the groom was foully sent to God with all his sins riding on the back of his crooked soul. On that alone, I must arrest her.”
“If you will give me leave, Master Stevyn, I must speak.”
Eleanor looked up in surprise to see her monk maneuvering through the crowd toward the sheriff.
Sir Reimund opened his mouth to protest.
“Let us hear what you have to say, Brother.” The steward seized the sheriff’s arm with such strength that the man winced.
Thomas nodded gratitude for the permission. “The night the groom was killed, Master Huet and I shared a straw mat in the kitchen near the hearth. Since we had huddled closer to retain warmth from the dying ashes as the night went on, I awoke when Master Huet rose to attend a call of nature. I saw the cook in the kitchen, fast asleep on the nearby bench. That was the same place I had seen her lie down before I, too, fell sleep.”
Eleanor overheard an abrupt intake of breath behind her but instinctively pretended she had not heard Huet’s reaction.
“She could have left the kitchen and returned either before you awoke or after you had fallen back to sleep, Brother,” the sheriff replied, his voice tense.
“Since I am accustomed to rising for the early Office, I stayed awake and prayed until just before dawn broke. Only then did the cook leave the kitchen but for no longer than it might take anyone to visit the latrine or do a quick morning wash before returning. By then others were about. I could hear them.”
Master Stevyn raised a questioning eyebrow at the sheriff.
“That does not give her an excuse for much earlier in the night, Brother.” Sir Reimund’s voice shook.
Was his visible dismay caused by anger or doubt? Eleanor wondered.
“Since you surely examined the corpse and noted the extent of its stiffness, you must know that he could not have been killed too close to the time the sun set.”
Instead of replying, the sheriff glowered at the guard he had assigned to the prioress, as if he had expected him to prevent interference from all others as well.
Fortunately, the man failed to see his lord’s displeasure since he was bent in close conversation with a young woman.
Eleanor lowered her eyes and prayed that Thomas would rein in his tongue. She may have decided to get involved in this crime for reasons she deemed proper, but she also knew they had no explicit right to do so. Giving testimony in private was one thing, but they must tread lightly and most certainly must not reveal so publicly that they knew details they should not. Justice might be cruelly thwarted if a protest was raised because of Church interference in matters rightfully under the king’s authority.
“As for witnesses, Sheriff,” Huet called out, “I can add my testimony that the cook was asleep when I went to the privy. Since my bowels were loose that night, I spent some time there, or pacing nearby in discomfort, and neither saw nor heard anything untoward. Hilda was snoring when I returned. Brother Thomas was on his knees in prayer.”
Thomas blinked and then nodded in silence.
“Thus we have a highly regarded witness to her probable guilt and reputable witnesses to her possible innocence,” the sheriff muttered. “Where there is conflict…”
“…there is reason for caution and doubt,” Master Stevyn finished. “As to the testimony of the first witness?” He turned to his eldest son. “Can you swear it was our cook whom you saw? Can you give an hour?”
“A woman slipped into the stable. When I saw her, I thought she was Hilda. Tobye greeted her with a laugh and, although I could not hear their exact words, I did note her wheedling tone. I remember thinking it odd that our cook would have any honest cause to seek out the groom at such a time and place. I confess I did not see her face, nor can I tell you the hour of the night.” He folded his arms. The gesture was defiant, but his face was ashen and he could not meet his father’s eye. “I was on my way to pray.”
Eleanor felt a chill shoot through her. Ranulf’s testimony suggested far more than a woman simply being in the general vicinity of the stable.
Mistress Maud briefly touched the steward’s arm, and he bent an ear to her whisperings.
Ranulf glared at Huet. “When I rise from my bed, my sins trouble me more than my bowels, but then I am more abstemious than certain sinners amongst us. I go to the chapel from my bed, not the privy because I have gotten drunk.”
And, of course, you would never stop in your rush to seek God’s mercy to eavesdrop on how others are progressing in their many lusts, Eleanor thought, disgusted at the man’s hypocrisy. She was not sure whether Ranulf or his wife was the more tiresome, but the former was no longer a minor irritant. Anyone who tried to shove a woman, possibly innocent of any wrongful act, to her hanging was a grave threat to justice. Yet was she so innocent?
“May I suggest a compromise, Sir Reimund?” Stevyn now asked.
“I always listen to a reasoned voice,” the sheriff replied, his teeth visibly clenched as if fighting a feverish chill.
“I do not believe my eldest son’s statements can be dismissed, yet we have all heard equally compelling stories that cast doubt on their precise accuracy.” He looked over to Eleanor. “Since we have the Prioress of Tyndal here as an honored guest, I would like to ask her permission to involve Brother Thomas in this matter.”
Well practiced in restraint, Eleanor did not visibly react. After delaying a suitable amount of time to suggest reflection, she nodded her agreement.
Stevyn bowed, then continued: “May we not keep our cook here under close guard and ask Brother Thomas to speak with Hilda about the future of her soul? A guard would make sure she did not escape, and you would have time to resolve any discrepancies between the statements given. If Hilda is guilty, she may well confess for the good of her soul or you may find a satisfactory resolution of the conflicts.”
The sheriff remained silent but glanced at Eleanor as if she were to blame for this.
“Your proposal holds merit,” she replied to the steward. How fortunate these people were, she thought, to have Master Stevyn to preside over the manor courts. The jury might decide the matters at hand in such situations, but his considered opinions would surely tilt them to a more just conclusion.
“Very well,” Sir Reimund replied. “Let me know where the cook will be housed, and I will set a proper guard.”
Stevyn pointed at a low hut nearby. “One door. No windows. It was storage, but we’ve just finished a larger building. This one is empty.”
Mistress Maud walked to the bedraggled cook, gently lifted her to her feet, and directed Hilda through the crowd.
Eleanor noted the kindness but then grew troubled. Her vague impression that the widow had left the chambers, where Mariota lay, on the night of the groom’s murder would not fade. Surely she was wrong and the memory false. Yet she could not set her question aside. If Ranulf had seen a woman with Tobye that night, a woman who was not Luce but bore a resemblance to Hilda, might she have been Maud? In truth, she hoped neither the cuckolded steward nor this healer was involved, but she knew she dare not base a fair judgment of either on such short acquaintance.
As everyone dispersed and the steward walked away with the sheriff, Brother Thomas made his way to Eleanor.
“Do you believe in Hilda’s innocence?” She kept her voice low enough that the guard, who was still talking to the woman next to him, would not hear.
“I do, my lady, but I am troubled.”
The prioress held up her hand for silence and walked over to her guard. “Brother Thomas has asked that we go to the chapel to pray for Hilda. Will you be kind enough to accompany us there? Afterward, I will make sure you get a good supper.”
A mother’s smile could not have been sweete
r, but Eleanor did feel properly contrite over her use of prayer as deception.
Chapter Twenty
Mistress Constance drew back from the window overlooking the courtyard, but her legs trembled so that she could not stand. Slipping down to sit on the narrow stone step, she clasped her hands together and gnawed on her reddened knuckles.
“Cursed creatures,” she hissed and closed her eyes so tight that her head pounded and Hell’s scarlet flames danced against her lids. “Oh how the Devil rules here!”
And lust was surely the deadliest of his evils. Did she not see enough proof of that as a young girl? Her mother had screamed with each hard birth, until she finally died when the blood would not stop after the last dead babe. Yet she had heard her parents continue to couple like rutting goats after each childbearing. Why had they failed to learn what God was trying to teach? Giving in to lust with a man was the straightest path to death and Hell for a woman. At least she had understood that lesson.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself up, scraping her hands against the rough stone, and stared again down into the courtyard.
Her husband was still there, a man she hated. He pretended virtue, but she knew what he did in bed after she refused his vile demands. Payment of the marriage debt indeed! All her mother had gained from that was a very narrow grave.
And still standing in the courtyard beside Master Stevyn was Mistress Maud, a true Jezebel who wore the chaste and simple robes of widowhood while her body festered with abominable sin. That one was no better than Mistress Luce, a woman who would couple with Satan himself if a mortal man was not ready to service her.
As for Hilda, she felt no pity. Hanging was no more than the woman deserved. She had seen her pant shamelessly over Tobye. No better than a bitch in heat.
Fools! Constance snorted in contempt. They probably thought she was immune to lust and that chastity was an easy choice. But wasn’t she her mother’s daughter, hungering for a man between her legs just like any other wretched woman? She understood how longing twisted its way into the soul, turned it black with the gangrene of iniquity, and brought incubi to shatter a woman’s peaceful dreams.
How she wished her father had listened when she begged for entrance to a convent, but he suffered as much from avarice as lust. The chance to bind her to the steward’s eldest son was too tempting, and he had persuaded her to agree by suggesting that Ranulf would follow his own mother’s pious example and demand only an heir or two from the marriage bed.
Instead, Ranulf had thrown her on the rushes and rammed her like a bull despite her cries of pain the night after they took vows at the church door. The babe he seeded in her died in a rush of blood a few months later, but she had survived and soon learned that her husband was easily filled with guilt for the weakness of his flesh, if not completely persuaded to deny his too frequent need to satisfy it.
Thus God had revealed how compassionate He could be to those longing to remain chaste and had shown her the way to keep her body unsullied by Ranulf’s loathsome touch—at least most of the time. As for her dreams, they were minor failings compared to the brazen sins of others. She did not willingly allow any mortal man to touch her, even her husband, and kept a small whip for secret penance on those occasions when the incubi mounted her and she failed to awaken until she howled with bucking lust. Indeed, God was surely pleased enough with those atonements.
Until now.
She pressed her nails into her cheeks. Despite His patient mercy, was there anything she could do to keep Him from flinging her soul into Hell after what had happened that night?
Leaning back against the wall, she began to weep.
Chapter Twenty-One
The guard had taken Eleanor’s invitation to accompany them to the chapel quite literally and was now kneeling in ardent prayer only a few feet away.
“What news have you for me?” Eleanor sang softly in Latin as she kept an eye on the guard to her left.
After hesitating over how best to respond, Thomas chanted, “The dagger and some concerns.”
The first part of his answer pleased the prioress. “Tell me of the former.”
“I found it hidden in the straw, where others should have discovered it had they looked, but none did, which is no better than we feared.”
“Alleluia!”
Thomas buried his face in his hands and hoped he could match his prioress’ discretion in this covert conversation. “The crafting is well done, yet the object bears no distinctive mark.”
“Has it kin amongst the cook’s tools?”
“Sadly.”
“Might it have been stolen?”
He hesitated, wanting very much to say it had been. “Or not,” he finally forced himself to reply. “Whether dropped by accident in the rush to escape, or deliberately left as some ruse, remains unclear.”
Eleanor fell silent as she studied the guard. Although he seemed uninterested in their discussion, she began a regular litany of prayers.
Thomas dutifully followed until the final Amen.
The guard remained on his knees, hands clasped tightly, and apparently unaware of his companions.
“Will you ask if anyone recognizes the knife?”
“If so, I shall claim I found it near the kitchen.”
Eleanor gazed up at the cross. “Be careful, lest you ask the man who did this deed. He might choose to silence you.”
The likeness of one immediately came to the monk’s mind, the man’s arms encircling him. Then he imagined a knife pricking his breast. Thomas flinched. The vision vanished, and he nodded concurrence with her plea for caution.
The guard rose to his feet.
Their chance to exchange information had ended, but Eleanor knew her monk had more to say and that something troubled him. After all the crimes they had solved together, she knew Brother Thomas would never recoil at the prospect of facing a murderer. What else was worrying him? She would chance one last question.
“Have you left a concern unspoken?” she chanted.
Thomas visibly paled.
Although the guard’s head was bowed, he now leaned against the chapel wall where he could see what the two religious did.
“Tell me quickly. We must leave.”
“The younger son gave false witness today. He did not return as he claimed in the early morning. I did not see him at all until later in the day.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened. That might well make Huet another suspect in this killing. Yet, if he had done it, his heated defense of the cook suggested he did not want an innocent to suffer for his crime. Might that mean there was a complication to this murder? Might it even have been self-defense? Yet there had been no sign of a struggle.
She frowned. There was something else that bothered her. Why had Huet lied so publicly when he knew Brother Thomas could give witness against him?
Glancing at the guard, she saw he was showing some impatience and knew she could not ask her monk more.
“I pray that God will have mercy on his soul if he is guilty of this sin,” she whispered.
“Amen,” Thomas responded, turning his face away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The current storm had passed, even the weakening rainfall had ended, but the air remained heavy with moisture. Looking across the courtyard, Eleanor wondered if she should chance a walk through that chill mist.
Mariota had fallen asleep. A servant, rhythmically twirling a spindle to twist wool into thread, sat nearby and watched over the girl. There was no reason for the prioress to stay inside after chapel, and she was never inclined to remain sedentary for long. Even if the ground was sodden, she longed for the exercise. It would help her think, and she had much to ponder.
As she walked down the steeply curving staircase to the hall below, she forced herself to confront the question of why she had gotten involved in this matter of murder. It was no business of hers. This was not priory land. The king’s law ruled here. Although t
he sheriff may have offended her, and he did prefer the easy answer to problems, he was not dull-witted. That young guard he had assigned to make sure she did not meddle in his affairs was one proof of that.
Why did she not remember her teachings and step away, forgiving Sir Reimund his offense as she should? He could easily solve this crime—if he chose justice over furthering his own ambition. She bit her lip. Of course she doubted he would choose truth over self-interest and thus ached to thwart him. But was her reason based in a desire to render justice or was the motivation born of vanity?
After her successes in similar affairs, she may have grown conceited, believing that only she would be disinterested enough to discover the truth. If so, she must cease her involvement immediately and confess her overfed arrogance.
Yet the more she learned about the circumstances surrounding the groom’s death, the more she feared some innocent would be hanged, and her soul balked at the very thought. Although she had not spoken with the cook, both Huet and Brother Thomas had argued forcefully for her innocence, and the steward had shown frank disbelief when she was arrested.
If the sheriff was finally convinced to release her, would he substitute another innocent victim of low rank? The speedy choice of Hilda suggested he would follow that pattern again and ignore the possible involvement of both the steward and his younger son. Eleanor knew she could not sit back and let that happen.
As the prioress walked through the entry door to the courtyard, she glanced behind her and realized her faithful guard was not in attendance. Then she heard a girlish squeal and saw a child race toward her, skidding to a stop just before she collided with the Prioress of Tyndal.
“My lady, please forgive my daughter! She meant no harm.” The young guard was red-faced as he approached the girl and put a hand gently but firmly on her shoulder.
The child dutifully bobbed but stared round-eyed at the woman before her.
“Now ask politely for what you wanted,” the father bent to whisper.
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