Vale of Tears

by Sarah Hawkswood

  It was her turn to think, but she did not take long. She twisted her floury hands together for a minute, and bit her lip, then looked Leofwine the Steward straight in the eye. She crossed herself.

  ‘God’s will be done.’

  Brian de Nouailles did not knock. Knocking was for those without right, and in Harvington he had right over everything. He threw the door open wide, so that it banged back upon its hinges, and stepped into the priest’s simple home. The Widow Nesta, laying a fresh fire in the little hearth, looked up and was afraid. De Nouailles said nothing, turned, and left. The woman shuddered, and offered up a prayer for the well-being of Father Paulinus, for the look upon the lord’s face had been murderous.

  Father Paulinus was on his knees, lost in quiet prayer for the soul of the shrouded Aelfric, who awaited burial. The sight of the priestly Benedictine in this position fuelled Brian de Nouailles’ anger all the more. He advanced up the short nave towards the chancel step, the acoustics amplifying every heavy tread. The priest continued on his knees, perhaps expecting that his orisons would be respected, and the visitor await their conclusion, but as the footfalls grew close, he sighed.

  ‘Can I assist you, my son?’ He did not look round.

  The appellation drew a low, animal growl in response. In a dog it would signal an imminent attack, and Father Paulinus crossed himself and rose from his knees, slowly, deliberately, and turned to face the incensed lord.

  ‘I offer what help I can.’ His voice was gentle, but he knew he stood in danger, for the man in front of him was tensed, a muscle working in his jaw, the pulse throbbing in his neck, his eyes narrowed to flashing slits, his mouth a hard line.

  ‘“What help you can”. Such lies! You help yourselves, you black monks, and cloak it all in “holiness”. But I am not deceived. I do not listen to your honeyed words and let them clog my mind. All you really want is power, power over this life by saying you have power to influence the life to come.’

  ‘Each person has that power within them, if they listen to God’s word. I make no claim for myself, nor for any priest.’

  ‘No? Yet it is up to you to grant absolution, to set penance. How often have I heard it suggested that if one takes a certain course, one which gives money, land, goods, to the Church, then it will weigh in favour at Judgement.’

  Father Paulinus was too honest a man not to admit that some clergy had been known to say such things, though he deplored it.

  ‘You have never heard such claims from me.’

  ‘No, because you know I would not believe them. Did you try them with my wife? Did you make her unhappy that she had come to wealth and position? Were you hoping for largesse, thinking she would influence me where you could not?’

  ‘No, my lord de Nouailles, I did not. I prayed for her happiness, and acknowledged her as an example of goodness, which I can only aspire to copy. Her spirit was more pure than any woman I have ever met, and her sweetness and goodness made her unhappy when she felt the human failings of those she loved as wounds upon her heart.’

  ‘You mean me. She loved me.’

  ‘She loved everyone, seeing them in God’s image as a Christian should do, but yes, above all others, she loved you.’

  ‘So you blame me, me who would do anything for her. You see how you work against us, priest, loading us with guilt so we “need” you the more?’

  Father Paulinus could not help the hint of a sad smile at the man’s self-deception. His devotion had been real enough, but he had never given his lady what she truly wanted, which was for him to think of others, not reserve the only softness in him for her. De Nouailles saw the smile, and something in him snapped. The priest took a sudden step back out of instinct, and as instinctively sought to defend himself in the only way he could; he made the sign of the cross.

  De Nouailles grabbed at him, taking him a handful of cowl and twisting it so that it half-strangled the cleric, and pulling upwards so that he was forced onto his toes. As the door of the church was flung wide he did what even he had previously been unable to do within a church, let alone ‘his’ church, to which his grandsire had added the short bell tower, and drew steel, his dagger catching the light from one of the little round-arched windows.

  ‘De Nouailles!’ Bradecote’s shout filled the stone enclosed space.

  Brian de Nouailles looked down the aisle, and sneered.

  ‘Always one step behind, aren’t you, sheriff’s man? Well, you can halt your steps right there, unless you want to see me prove monks are as frail and human as the rest of us.’

  ‘He is a priest. He is your priest, and he has done you no harm.’

  ‘He’s still a black monk, and they scheme together, still flock like rooks, sticking their beaks where they are not wanted. Who told the Evesham Abbot about Thomas and the lease, priest?’

  ‘I did.’ Walkelin spoke up. ‘That you used a clerk who had been at Evesham was no secret. And we suspected that what he did was not just read for you. You are seeing what does not exist.’

  ‘You? You could not work out which end of a horse to face.’ De Nouailles sneered, but his attention was distracted a little.

  Catchpoll, who had arrived a couple of yards behind the younger men, leant a little forward and whispered in Walkelin’s ear.

  ‘That’s it lad, focus him on you, and edge to the left. I will see if I can get near enough on the right to make a rush at him.’

  Walkelin obeyed, speaking with a swagger and confidence that were at variance with his normal self-effacing manner.

  ‘Not only can I work that out without being told by some high-and-mighty lord, I can tell one horse from another, even when the same colour.’

  Bradecote was quite surprised at how cocksure Catchpoll’s protégé could pretend to be; at least he presumed it was all an act. It certainly seemed to be working on de Nouailles, whose sneer became a snarl.

  ‘Insolent dog. When I’ve taught the clergy a lesson, I have one for you too.’

  ‘Rank doesn’t mean you fight better, just with a prettier dagger.’ Walkelin was warming to his task. There was something dangerously liberating about speaking back at a puissant lord.

  Catchpoll had manoeuvred himself a little closer up the side of the church in light shadow, taking things very steadily. Father Paulinus saw, and studiously avoided watching, but he tensed, and that was all that it took. De Nouailles turned his head, for Catchpoll had almost been in a blind spot.

  ‘Nice try, you old fox, but I am not to be taken that easily. Get back, now.’

  Catchpoll did not wait to confirm his action with Bradecote but stepped back, hands raised in a gesture of compliance.

  ‘Why continue this, de Nouailles? At some point you have to give in.’ Bradecote kept any note of triumph out of his voice.

  ‘At some point, aye, but that point is of my choosing, Bradecote, and when I have all I want from this interfering snake. You see, not only do I still think he is behind Evesham clawing back what was mine, but he spoke to the woman Agatha. What chance you told her to make herself scarce?’

  ‘All I did was take away the risk of another mortal sin.’

  ‘Thoughtful of you, but is it not also a mortal sin for a priest to break the seal of the confessional?’

  ‘It is, and I have not broken it.’ Father Paulinus, who had, at the prick of the knife at his throat, suffered a moment of very human weakness and not desired an early meeting with his Maker, had now regained his composure.

  ‘With this lot about your hearth every eventide? I do not know whether to account that another lie or a jest, but you had better hope the former, for if I laugh, my hand will shake, and your throat will feel steel.’

  ‘I have not broken the sanctity of confession, anyone’s confession.’ He stressed the penultimate word, and de Nouailles stiffened.

  ‘What have the godly to confess?’ he growled.

  ‘Only the saints no longer sin. Even the godly fail, though it might be because they are placed in so difficult a posi
tion that they are complicit with sin.’

  ‘You think I dragged her down? No, you made her dwell on things not her fault, and for that you will—’

  The church door, not more than half-closed from when the sheriff’s men had entered, swung wide again. Agatha stood upon the threshold, Leofwine at her back.

  ‘For God’s sake, I told you to get rid of her, not bring her back, you mindless bull’s pizzle,’ yelled de Nouailles.

  Agatha, calm as if she were coming to Mass, walked up the aisle, even past the sheriff’s men. Leofwine followed, but hung back a step.

  ‘Well you see, my lord, we had a little talk about that, Leofwine and me, and decided there had been enough deaths hereabouts these last weeks, and all unnatural as they were. So I am back, and if you thinks harming the good Father will clear your path, then you are mighty mistaken. I know what I must do, and what I must say, and so it will be, even if you try to make an end of me for it.’

  ‘Then be wise, woman, and step back out of reach,’ murmured Catchpoll, suddenly nervous that their star witness, who could make all the pieces fit together, was putting herself into danger.

  Agatha ignored him.

  ‘You thinks you wants our priest, but it is me, Agatha, daughter of Cuthwin the Deaf, who will denounce you to the law.’

  ‘And you are nothing. Denounce away, woman. Any jury will be as deaf to your words as your father was.’

  ‘You forget we have witnesses who have seen you threaten the priest, and admit that you commanded your man to kill this woman.’ Bradecote wanted this stand-off over. There was, as the woman said, no sense in harming Father Paulinus, but he was not sure that de Nouailles was thinking with sense, just gut anger. His next words confirmed that.

  ‘And you think that worries me? You want me, you will have to take me by force. I am Brian de Nouailles and ashamed of nothing I have done.’

  ‘Ashamed? How can you stand there and say such a thing?’ Agatha was so indignant that she pressed forward, shaking off even Leofwine’s restraining hand.

  ‘Nothing, woman.’

  ‘Not ashamed that you killed that … angel?’

  The disdain on his visage changed to black wrath, and he let Father Paulinus go, almost throwing him from him. The priest staggered, putting out his hands to prevent him falling flat on his face upon the floor. Bradecote and his men stepped closer, ready for a concerted attempt to grapple with de Nouailles.

  ‘A black lie, and I shall take your tongue for it, you old bitch.’

  ‘A truth, a truth you cannot face! You killed her as sure as if you had broke her neck with your bare hands. Murderer!’ Agatha was screaming, and pointed at him, making the accusation a curse. ‘You broke her heart with your lies and your killing, and she was sore tormented by it, for she could no more turn upon you than I could turn upon her. Death released my poor lady from you, from your evil, and if ever there was one upon whom the Good Lord will have mercy it is she. You killed her, you killed my lady!’

  Bradecote tensed, ready to throw himself between the man and the near hysterical woman as he pounced. Brian de Nouailles’ eyes widened, his nostrils flared, yet even as the undersheriff leapt forward, the lord of Harvington looked heavenwards and howled ‘No’ like a wolf in the night. The dagger clattered to the ground and he was sinking to his knees before the three men grabbed hold of him, and pinioned him. He was convulsed by wracking sobs, and his colour drained so much that had the blade not been clear upon the stone at his feet, Bradecote would have sworn he had severed some vital vessel.

  Leofwine took the trembling Agatha, sobbing even louder, and held her, soothing her with words even as he looked over her head at his lord, and Walkelin was struck by the thought that the words were for him also. Father Paulinus, shaken as much in mind as in body by what had passed, covered his eyes for a moment and intoned familiar phrases of liturgical Latin which gave him calm and strength. Then, not sure whether the broken de Nouailles would yet be open to accepting even his own forgiveness, he went to the steward and laid his hand upon the man’s shoulder, for he could see, as perhaps few others could, how desolated the man was by the fall of a man to whom he had looked up to for decades. The words that sprang to the good priest’s tongue, were those of his Saviour upon the Cross.

  ‘It is finished.’

  Brian de Nouailles had ‘given up the ghost’, but ‘the ghost’ had not yet given up on him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The funeral of Aelfric was an odd affair, not only because it was known that he had killed the girl the villagers had seen laid to rest only the day previously, but because all knew that their lord faced a capital charge, and there was worry over who might come to them in his stead. Nothing was said but much was conjectured, and from more guessing than knowledge. The future of the village was in all minds, even Leofwine the Steward’s. Some questioned how it could be that Agatha stood beside him, and made her responses as firmly as any, when his nephew had killed her daughter, or how she could hold his hands in her own and weep with him at the conclusion. They did not know as she did, that he was mourning not only his kin but the man he had served, almost blindly, from boyhood.

  Brian de Nouailles had been taken by the sheriff’s men and locked in his own ‘cell’ beneath his hall, and there Walkelin took the first watch over him, with the promise that he would be relieved after the evening meal, and that plenty would be kept hot for him. Hugh Bradecote also told him that he faced the first watch through the eating hour to remind him ‘this particular “high-and-mighty lord”’ would continue to tell him what to do, but as Walkelin began to stammer that his disrespect had all been an act, Bradecote’s lips twitched, and he patted his worried underling on the back.

  ‘There was a time for it, Walkelin, and you did well. Just remember to keep it like a best cotte, to be brought out rarely.’

  When undersheriff and serjeant sat in the priest’s house, watching the bubbling pot from which came the enticing smell of fish and barley stew with herbs, only Serjeant Catchpoll showed any interest in it. Father Paulinus sat upon the edge of his narrow bed, deep in his own thoughts, and Hugh Bradecote stared at the simmering liquid dolefully, without seeing it.

  ‘Have we been successful here, Catchpoll?’ His voice had a dullness to it.

  ‘Yes, my lord. How can you doubt it? We are taking a murderer twice over for justice, and the other is dead and left to the judgement of heaven. All we have missed is restoring a stolen horse.’

  ‘But since we started there have been two more deaths.’

  ‘Which we could not have avoided, as far as I can see.’

  ‘And if we had not stirred up the hornet’s nest, would not the latter two not have been stung, and died.’ Bradecote felt a sudden wave of guilt.

  ‘Ah, now that is no way to think, my lord. If the law did not seek out the breakers of law then in short shrift there would be mayhem. Do you think that de Nouailles would have been all mild and biddable in the future? Or that Aelfric would have sat upon his hands and waited for his uncle to hand over the reins of stewardship? Well, before you answer, I will tell you, and the answer is “no” to both things. It is unfortunate, I grant you, but suggesting that “leave well alone” should be our watchword is like suggesting not disturbing a fox in your henhouse lest he wreak more havoc.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ The undersheriff did not look much cheered, however sensible the advice.

  ‘Forgive me, my lord. I would not say this with young Walkelin in earshot, but we all of us have faults, even me,’ Catchpoll made this sound as if the revelation would be a surprise to all who knew him, ‘and yours is a tendency to over-think, and to lay blame upon yourself where no blame should be.’

  ‘You told me last time we hunted together, that you must not get too involved because that clouds thinking. Well, I let my dislike of de Nouailles lie over everything like a blanket.’

  ‘And yet it did not lead you astray, my lord. It was you who was at first so sure he did not kill his
lady, whatever you thought of him, and when you got angry, well, you used that anger to show that the office of undersheriff sets you apart from being the simple equal of a manor lord, and that such a one cannot refuse you entrance or speech. I call that using the anger well, my lord, like using the power of the Avon to drive a waterwheel.’

  Even this did not seem to raise his superior’s spirits, and he made a poor meal, which, Catchpoll commented, would please young Walkelin, since it left him an even more generous portion. Thanking the priest, Catchpoll rose and went to relieve his ‘serjeanting apprentice’.

  Father Paulinus, whose own meal had been abstemious, looked at the undersheriff and frowned.

  ‘Your serjeant has the right of it, I am sure, my lord. That becoming involved hastens evil deeds must be so at times, but does not mean one stands back. Without law the highest power is … power itself, regardless of right.’

  ‘I know, Father. It is.’ Bradecote sighed. ‘I think my guilt is as much over the fact that however much I loathe the man, Brian de Nouailles truly loved his wife.’