Belladonna at Belstone (9781471126345)

by Jecks, Michael

  Elias watched him go with waves of relief washing over him. For an instant he had thought Godfrey would give Constance away. It was fortunate that this knight was about to leave: his questions were approaching the truth. However, as a secular man, Sir Baldwin was potentially dangerous. What if he told others?

  Elias chewed his lip as he considered the unpalatable results of Baldwin’s letting slip rumours of what was happening within the convent.

  Lady Elizabeth squatted before the weeping infirmarer and used the end of her sleeve to wipe away her tears. ‘Constance, don’t trouble yourself in this way. What do you mean, you killed her?’

  ‘It’s true, my Lady,’ Constance said, and the tears flooded down her cheeks as she stared hopelessly at her prioress. ‘I gave her dwale so that she wouldn’t hear me or see me with my lover. I killed her as surely as if I’d stabbed her – I poisoned her.’

  Lady Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it. The woman before her clearly believed what she had said, and although Elizabeth herself didn’t, she should give Constance an opportunity to explain why she was so convinced of her guilt. Elizabeth returned to her desk, and nodded seriously. ‘Go on.’

  Constance closed her eyes and allowed her head to fall at an angle. She took a shuddering breath, then, ‘My Lady, I mixed dwale for Cecily, the lay sister, because she had broken her wrist and would not otherwise sleep. I gave her a strong helping. The infusion of poppy seed acts as a good soporific, and . . . and I wanted to ensure that Joan and Moll were peaceful as well.’ She looked up at the silent prioress. ‘I did it so that I could enjoy my lover alone, without fear of discovery by one of my patients.’

  ‘Especially Moll, I imagine,’ Elizabeth smiled tightly.

  ‘Especially her, yes,’ Constance agreed dolefully. ‘She always stuck her nose . . . Well, you know. Anyway, I gave all three a generous draught. Cecily drank hers down and was soon asleep. Joan is old and reacts quickly to dwale: I saw the drug overcome her almost immediately. I watched Moll drink a little of hers and left the rest of the jug at her side. It was not long before my lover arrived and we went to my chamber.’

  ‘I see,’ said the prioress. ‘And this was some time before Nocturns?’

  ‘Yes, my Lady.’

  ‘Would you have heard someone entering?’

  ‘Margherita tried to,’ Constance said. ‘I heard her and pushed her from the room, she made so much noise.’

  ‘She woke Joan or . . .’

  Constance shook her head. ‘All three were still asleep. I had given them enough dwale to sleep through anything.’

  The prioress gave a fleeting frown. ‘The door to the infirmary opens very quietly, doesn’t it? Why should Margherita have made so much noise?’

  ‘It was almost as if she wanted to make sure everyone could hear her.’

  Now she thought about it, Lady Elizabeth herself could recall having been woken by something. At the time she had assumed it was Princess, feeling poorly and wanting to join her mistress in the bed.

  Lady Elizabeth fixed Constance with a firm stare. ‘And the man was?’

  Constance covered her face with her hands in a moment’s indecision, before meeting her prioress’s stern expression. ‘My Lady, I cannot tell you that. I can answer for my guilt, but I cannot take another’s decision for him. How can I accuse him without redoubling my guilt? If I speak of him, I force you to judge him. Better that he should have the opportunity of admitting his guilt before his confessor. It must be enough for you to know that I was there, I committed this sin, and I am to pay the price for my stupidity and . . . and lust.’

  Lady Elizabeth was about to speak when her door opened, and the red face of Bertrand, breathless after climbing the stairs two at a time, appeared. ‘Lady Elizabeth, I would have a word with you,’ he began.

  For the second time in twenty-four hours the cloister rang to the bellow of a raised voice, but this time the astonished nuns and canons heard the distinct, precise enunciation of their own prioress.

  ‘Who do you think you are, to thrust yourself in upon the confessional? Do you dare to assume the right to interrupt a nun in solemn declaration? Remove yourself this instant!’

  Bertrand had expected an apologetic, slightly anxious woman, a prioress anticipating removal prior to the installation of her replacement. To be met with this icy blast of rage was almost physically blinding. He blinked and took a step backwards. Rallying his forces, he managed to point out, ‘But you cannot take confession. You’re no priest, you’re a woman.’

  ‘Be silent!’ Lady Elizabeth stormed, rising from behind her desk. ‘How dare you question my rights in my priory. Get out of here before I have the canons remove you from the whole of the precinct and bar you from ever returning. And be assured that if you force me to take this action, I will immediately write to my Lord, the Bishop of Exeter, and demand that you be advised never to come here again. Now be gone!’

  The man licked his lips, glanced swiftly from the prioress to the nun then back again. Lady Elizabeth appeared to have grown to fill the room. Her unblinking stare was appallingly compelling. It was hard not to meet it. And once he had, he was mesmerised by her sheer fury. He wavered, but only for a moment, then withdrew, quietly closing the door behind him.

  As soon as he had gone, Lady Elizabeth let out her breath in a long, disapproving sigh. ‘Stupid little man,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘Now, then, Constance, where had we got to? Ah yes, you were saying that you felt the guilt of your action. You need not worry yourself about that.’

  ‘But I killed her!’ she wailed. ‘My dwale overheated her and caused her artery to burst!’

  ‘No. Did you smother her or cut open her arm?’

  ‘Her arm?’

  ‘She was murdered. Someone went into the room and suffocated her then opened her artery to make it look like an accident.’ Lady Elizabeth was suddenly silent. ‘But tell me, when you met your lover before, did you also give the inmates dwale to keep them asleep?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So he was aware your patients would be quiet?’ Lady Elizabeth asked.

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Then surely you weren’t responsible for her death in any way. Your lover wouldn’t have killed Moll either, for her knew Moll would be asleep.’

  ‘I am still guilty.’

  ‘Why, Constance?’

  ‘I should have been there to protect her.’

  Bertrand stopped at the bottom of the stairs, trying to gain some composure. He had never been shrieked at like that before, and the shocked cleric put a hand to his breast, feeling the thundering of his heart as he took some steadying breaths.

  The church door was before him. Keeping his eyes fixed on the ground in a solemn imitation of meditation, he slowly walked along the cloister and went inside. All was still and he made his way swiftly to the connecting door into the monks’ section, sighing with relief when he could shut it behind him.

  Lady Elizabeth was no better than a fishwife, he thought. Screeching in that manner – she was obviously brought up to behave like a villainous peasant. With such reflections to soothe his ruffled feelings, he walked to the men’s cloisters, but before emerging on to the grassy quadrangle, he let his feet take him away from the gaze of all the brothers. Before he knew where he had gone, he was near the grille, where he saw Elias hanging around.

  The sight made Bertrand curl his lip with contempt. That a lay brother should lurk, waiting for an opportunity to ogle the sisters was deplorable. He was tempted to shout at the man – but something made him stop. A brother so debauched was surely past redemption.

  Bertrand turned on his heel and went back to the cloister. He was almost there when he heard the shouting and the loud cry.

  In the guestroom, Simon dropped onto his bed and gazed speculatively at Sir Baldwin. ‘So you think that this place is rife with rampant clerics, and somehow that’s why young Moll got herself killed?’

  Baldwin made
a small, futile gesture with his hand. ‘It sounds perfectly stereotypical, doesn’t it? The nuns all repressed and suppressed within the cloister, a number of men living alongside; inevitably the two mix. Stereotypical, and yet so often it proves true.’

  Simon knew of Baldwin’s past as a Knight Templar and didn’t need to ask how Baldwin knew so much about the deeds of religious people. ‘You reckon Moll herself was having an affair? It was another nun, a jealous one, who killed her?’

  ‘It could have been, certainly, but it could equally easily have been a canon. Don’t forget, it was ridiculously easy to cross between the cloisters when we wanted to, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It’s all very well to say that, but remember how the nuns gawped at us when we asked for a drink? It was as if they’d never seen a man before.’

  ‘Most of them, yes, were taken aback to see us there – but that means nothing. An individual nun finding a man somewhere she expected him to be wouldn’t react in the same way. Godfrey implied he could get to the infirmary whenever he wanted; others could probably do so just as easily.’

  ‘So we’re probably lucky to be told to go home,’ Simon said.

  ‘Yes,’ Baldwin answered with a sigh. ‘You could say so. If we were to remain, we would have to question all the nuns and all the canons – not forgetting the lay brethren.’

  ‘Then thanks be to God that we can return home,’ Simon said with feeling and allowed himself to fall back on his mattress, closing his eyes. ‘I don’t know about you, but I will be glad to get back to my Meg and Edith. The thought of leaving them both while the Despensers are trying to start another war is not pleasant, even with the castle for them to run to. You must be relieved, too.’

  ‘Hmm?’ Baldwin looked up, a faintly confused expression on his face.

  ‘I said it’ll be good to get home and make sure that the Despenser armies don’t destroy our houses,’ Simon said with his eyes closed. ‘Although for now, I’ll be glad to take an hour or so to snooze. Rising in the middle of the night doesn’t do much for me.’

  Giving a half-hearted grin, Baldwin walked to the window. The ever-glum Hugh was already lying on his bench, with every appearance of being dead to the world, and Simon was soon breathing quietly, always guaranteed to be the prelude to loud snoring.

  Baldwin threw open the shutters, catching them before they could slam against the wall, and stared out. South of the cloister, the weather was gloomy and threatening. Dark, steel-grey clouds hung apparently motionless in the sky, and when Baldwin leaned out and peered at the hill to the east, the whole of its summit was hidden. The snow which had fallen overnight had melted, but the air was sharp with the promise of more to come.

  He pulled the shutters to. Getting up for Nocturns and Matins had not affected him so severely, for his experience as a monk had inured him to being deprived of his sleep. He felt fine now, although he had a sneaking suspicion that he would feel worse later.

  It was hard to concentrate. He was used to action, and to have come here with a specific purpose which he had now been told to leave felt oddly anticlimactic: he was at a loose end, and had no idea how to fill the time until their departure.

  On a whim he pulled on a cloak and went out, walking along the cloister. The frater was on his right and he stepped into the garth, crossing the grassed quadrangle to approach the church.

  Something struck his cheek and he glanced upwards. The clouds were unleashing their burden and fresh snow began to drop. It was a curiously peaceful sight. The breeze had died away and snowflakes were falling in a continual stream, not dancing or eddying, but drifting down in great numbers, like the feathers of thousands of geese. Baldwin closed his eyes and inhaled with delight. Snow meant that war was all but impossible. Armies could not fight when the clean white covering smothered the landscape.

  Opening his eyes, he stared up and suddenly caught a flicker of movement on top of the church roof. It was a huddled, robed figure. He screwed up his eyes to focus better on the strange sight, but with the swift-falling snow and the distance, it was impossible to see whether it was male or female, let alone recognise who it might be.

  His curiosity stirred, Baldwin wandered to the church’s wall and stared upwards. He stood near the cloister’s roofed corridor, trying to see who it could be. Then a huge snowflake hit his eye, and he blinked, turning away, wiping at it with his palm, bending down and inclining his head.

  Thus it was that the slate did not hit his head directly, but caught him a glancing blow, a sharp edge raking along the back of his skull and slicing off a long strip of his scalp. He fell, eyes wide, his head filled with the thundering roar of his blood, and was aware of the cold white snow covering the grass beneath his face. A loud whistling in his ears seemed to be deafening him, and he blinked slowly. Then, realising he had been struck, he rolled to one side, and found himself staring up at the cloister’s covered walkway.

  It was at that moment that the body struck the roof of the cloister and he saw the slates shatter with the force of the blow before the figure rolled down the incline and crashed on to the grass surrounded by shards of ruined slates. Baldwin had enough energy to throw himself out of the path of the shower, but as he moved the pain in his head expanded to cover his whole body. Even as he cried out, his vision clouded and he fell unconscious.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Simon grinned at his wife as she shook her head at him. Meg had a way of half-raising an eyebrow, while mock-seriously admonishing him, that never failed to give him a warm erotic charge, and he was about to grab her and tease her all the way to their bed when their house began to ring with the pounding of artillery. The Despensers were attacking – war must have started without his knowledge! Meg was terrified, he could see it in her face, but before he could protect her, he heard a scream, and saw that Edith, his daughter, had been hit by a huge block of falling masonry.

  He gave a great roar, for she was his only child now that his boy, Peterkin, was dead, and he ran to her side, trying to lift the lumps of moorstone from Edith’s body, but no one would help him. It was impossible to shift it on his own. The rocks were too massive for him to move, and even as he stared down in disbelief, he saw the light of life fading from Edith’s face.

  ‘Bailiff, in God’s name! Wake up!’

  It was a man-at-arms for the Despensers. Simon grabbed the arm that shook him, reached for his sword, but the hilt was missing, so instead he grasped the bastard’s throat.

  ‘Master, no.’

  Simon felt his hand prised away from the man, and opened his eyes to see Hugh staring down at him in concern. Behind him was the suffragan, who gave him a baleful look while he rubbed his neck.

  ‘Bishop, my apologies, I never intended . . .’

  ‘Remind me, Bailiff, never to insult you. If this is what you can do in your sleep, I hate to think what you’d be capable of in wakeful anger.’

  ‘I dreamed someone had murdered my daughter,’ Simon explained. He still felt shaken.

  ‘It was a dream, no more,’ Bertrand said. ‘However, your friend is in danger. A novice fell from the church roof, and a dislodged tile knocked him out.’

  Simon swung from his bed. ‘Where is he?’

  After speaking to Baldwin and Simon, Godfrey had gone to walk in the precinct, and it was here that he met Rose. Godfrey was concerned at what she had to say. There was no doubt in his mind that Rose thought she was telling the truth, but he wasn’t sure she had got her story right. Elias was not the kind of man who would try to run from the convent, and he would find it hard to persuade a nun to go with him.

  No, Godfrey was fairly confident that Rose had misinterpreted the whole thing. All the same, perhaps Godfrey should ensure that Elias had absolutely no opportunity of leaving, just to make sure.

  ‘Godfrey, Godfrey!’ A young canon came running breathlessly towards him.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded testily.

  ‘Katerine fell from the church roof and hit the knight, in the cloister,
right in front of me – come quickly!’

  As the two hurried to the garth, the youth told Godfrey how Baldwin had been hit, how Katerine had struck the ground moments after. Godfrey shuddered with horror and quickened his pace, but he still had to ensure that Elias’s supposed plan to escape was foiled. Reluctantly he decided he must tell the prioress.

  ‘There’s something I need you to do,’ he gasped. ‘Tell no one except the prioress, understand? No one! Tell her this: that Elias is going to try to escape from the priory, and . . .’

  Lady Elizabeth had been called to see to the mangled body as soon as the novice had been brought back to the nuns’ cloister. Now she stood over the corpse, her soul heavy within her. To see this second young life destroyed was terrible. It was as if the convent itself was damned. Lady Elizabeth had seen enough lives ended in her time, but to have lost two promising novices over the space of a few days was awful: first poor Moll – and now Katerine.

  Not that there was much similarity between the two, of course. One had been murdered, although why was anybody’s guess, and now this child had fallen from the roof – although God only knew what she had been doing up there. Either she had slipped, or . . . But Lady Elizabeth shied away from the notion that one of her novices could have committed suicide.

  Katerine’s face was scratched on one side, and there was a deep, jagged cut on her cheek where a sharpened piece of slate had caught her, but neither of these injuries had ended her life. The reason for her death was obvious from the hideous, leaking wound in her head. Blood mingled with her hair to form a hardened, matted cap. Lady Elizabeth grimaced at the sight, and didn’t fail to notice how the girl’s head sat at an odd angle. When they had carried Katerine’s body here, her head had flopped loosely. She must have fallen head first, her neck breaking instantly upon hitting the ground.