The problem was Brother Thomas and her unrelenting lust for the man.
Although she might be a respected leader at her priory, Eleanor was fully aware that she was also a woman, subject to strong passions. She knew her vocation to be a true one, but Thomas was also a most attractive man.
“And he will be returning soon,” she whispered aloud, her emotions quite mixed at the thought. “His absence over the last few months has given me much peace.”
From the day the auburn-haired priest had first arrived, she had been in love with him, a feeling she would never allow herself to express outside the confessional. Daily she had battled against her lust, but despite lying face down on the cold stone of the priory chapel for an hour each evening, her longing for him had brought vivid dreams on many nights of the sweet pleasures she had once so willingly vowed to cast aside. After months of this torture, her body was exhausted.
“Perhaps I should ask our abbess in Anjou to transfer Brother Thomas to another priory?” She directed this question to the darkening sky outside her window. As she stood there quite alone, this seemed to be the best choice. She knew that whatever calm she now felt would flee the moment she saw Thomas. How long could she continue to win the battle against carnal joy? In addition, she now realized, she must also worry about Brother Matthew discovering her sin and making use of it against her.
“My resolve can withstand only so much assault! Even stone crumbles when battered by the sea,” she lamented, pressing her eyes shut with her fingers. Then she turned from the window and looked back at the cross hanging on her wall over the prie-dieu. “If my woman’s weakness were the only consideration, I would not hesitate to send him away.” She pressed her hand to her heart. “Sadly, that is not the case.” It was times like these that she hated her fondness for the balanced view.
There were excellent reasons not to send the troublesome brother away. The strongest argument involved Sister Anne, Eleanor’s confidante and dearest friend. Anne relied on Thomas’ competent and sensitive help with her patients. Equally well, Eleanor knew how much the nuns counted on his common sense as their confessor. Sending him hence just because she longed to bed him would be a most selfish choice.
“I should count myself blessed to have a man like this amongst my monks,” she growled, then added with bitterness, “and equally cursed.”
As she thought more on the consequences of the monk’s return, frustration and fear began to flood through Eleanor, then hot anger at her own frailty. Pounding her fist on the prie-dieu, she rushed from her chambers. The door banged with so much force behind her that the wood trembled.
Gytha stared at the door and frowned with concern.
Chapter Five
Brother Andrew rested one hand gently on the calf of the ripening corpse. The horse that bore that unwelcome load nickered hopefully as Andrew watched Cuthbert take his own mount off for stabling. When no one moved to take this foul burden away, the beast snorted with equine disgust.
“A crusader who survives the Saracens only to die at the hands of one of his own countrymen? A sad commentary on our dark days, Crowner.” The porter shook his bald head in sympathy.
“The murderer may not be a subject of good King Henry, Brother Porter. The dagger in his chest was not one I have ever seen made by an Englishman.” Ralf stroked the skittish horse with a calming touch, expressing sympathy that the creature was forced to carry such a dead weight.
“For cert?”
“You were a soldier once yourself, were you not?”
“Had I not been, I would not have this limp.”
“You might know the make.”
“My war was on English soil, Crowner. Nevertheless, show me the knife.”
Ralf passed the weapon to him, hilt first. “I fought far from England’s shore as a mercenary but never saw this kind of thing in the hands of any Christian man.”
Andrew squinted, then held the darkly stained knife at arm’s length from his eyes, turned it over, and silently considered the design. “Only once have I seen markings like this. They are not something one forgets easily. A man in my village had an object with similar engraving and told me it was a war trophy from his grandfather who had served under King Richard in Outremer. The script was Arabic, he told me.” He handed it back to Ralf. “This may be a Saracen weapon.”
Ralf frowned as he looked down at the knife. “I feared as much.” Then he glanced around to see if there was anyone within hearing. “I have heard tales of men called Assassins,” he said with soft voice. “The tellers say that no wall is thick enough nor castle strong enough to keep a man safe once these murderers are set upon a killing. Nor do they care if they lose their own lives in the act. I mention this to you, Brother, because you are a man who is not inclined to believe fables men tell to frighten others and thus are unlikely to be alarmed without need. But to you I confess that this dagger troubles me in light of these stories, and I do wonder if…” He stopped and put the weapon back into the pouch on the horse. “Has any stranger passed your gate today or stopped at the priory…?”
“Not with a hue darker than that of an Englishman who has spent too long in the desert sun, my friend.” Andrew shrugged. “Nor would it be likely that a man like that would seek hospitality in a place dedicated to the service of a Christian God. Nay, no Saracen will be found, still on his knees in the front of our altar, praying for forgiveness.”
Ralf flushed. His smile lacked humor.
Andrew clapped his hand on the crowner’s shoulder. “But you might have the right of it, Crowner. If a man were as clever as those stories would have it, he might well bow down to our God and thus hide within the shadow of the unexpected to avoid detection. That aside, we have had none of foreign visage come to our gate and your question was, after all, about strangers in general.”
“I agree that the latter is the more likely suspect, despite the evidence of the knife. Strangers, then, of any ilk, especially those coming from the west?”
“Strangers.” Andrew looked toward the hospital with sadness. “When do we not have a stream of unknown men nowadays? There have been an ever-increasing number of returning soldiers and a grim and silent lot they are. I do wonder how the war goes in the Holy Land.”
“Their arrival here does not surprise me if they are sick or wounded. Many may well thank God that your prioress had the wisdom to recognize Sister Anne’s healing talents and allow her to teach others her skills.”
“Aye, some do come, having heard of her reputation for cures. Others stop only to rest on their way to Norwich. There they hope the bones of the sainted William will bring sight back to their empty eyes and restore arms or legs left behind in Outremer.”
Ralf snorted. “And those who are too weak or poor to make the journey to the English shrines are waylaid by sellers of relics. Forgive me if I sound impious, Brother, but my men have found enough splinters of the True Cross being sold on the nearby roads to build our king a holy fleet. In fact, we were hunting one such fraud today when we came upon this corpse.” He gave the thigh of the dead man a brisk slap.
“Selling false relics is a sin, Crowner, and I applaud your efforts to protect the innocent. I grieve over this abuse of the faithful.” He raised his eyes with a quick glance heavenward. “And I pray we continue to hold fast to the Fontevrauldine tradition of rejecting the housing of any relics in our priory. If Brother Matthew has his way and does bring a relic here, that would certainly add to your problems by drawing the sellers of fraudulent items as well as forcing us to examine carefully each alleged miracle for validity.” He took a deep breath. “But I should not trouble you with priory squabbles, and I fear I have, once again, gotten away from your question about strangers at our gates today.” Andrew closed his eyes in thought. “Most who have come are known to us. A few not.”
“Can you list them?”
“A few mothers brought their children with running noses and sore throats. It is the season for that
according to Sister Anne. An old woman brought her husband. His lungs were full from the damp. He came to die, I do believe.” Andrew was counting on his fingers. “Some courtiers from Westminster, but we were given advance notice to expect them with their attendant. One suffers from the gout and another from swollen veins.” He chuckled. “Sister Anne will put those two right enough while our stables give their horses much needed rest from the weight of their masters! Oh, and one villager came with tertian fever. Only one. A minor miracle, that.”
“Perhaps we can ignore those you have named. Methinks they are more concerned with their suffering children, bilious humors, and God’s judgement than committing murder with an infidel’s knife. But no one else has come?”
“Some soldiers came early this morning. One may have leprosy and has been separated from his fellows. Another is so ill I am surprised he survived the trip. Others suffered less dire ailments and were not ill enough to warrant immediate attention. These men are, of course, unknown to us, but if you follow me to the hospital courtyard, I could point them out to you. Perhaps amongst them are travelers who have come along the road from the inn.” He nodded at the dead man. “And bring your corpse for Sister Anne. Even her fine skills could not bring life back to this ravaged body, but she might have some observations about how he and his soul were parted.”
As the two men turned toward the hospital, Andrew suddenly brightened. “I almost forgot to give you some good tidings! Word is that Brother Thomas will soon be home. One of the villagers told me yesterday that someone had seen our brother on the road from Cambridge.”
“That does cheer my heart! I have missed his wit.” The crowner grinned. “He has an agile mind and a soldier’s courage, as I remember well from that sad affair last year.”
Andrew nodded concurrence.
“Your mention of the inn reminds me that Brother Matthew spends more time at its door than is meet for a man who forswore the world.”
“He may bear little love for our hospital, but he hates the new inn more. I am told he stands on a small rise near the entrance and berates those who go inside for bone-warming ale.” Andrew’s laugh was less than monkish.
“Perhaps he hopes that someone, for a prayer, will give him a free drink,” Ralf replied with scorn. “I, for one, am grateful for the place. The innkeeper gives good value for the coin he takes. I see no sin in good ale and a decent stew—or, for that matter, in enjoying the sight of Signy. Her beauty is a credit to God’s skill in creation.”
Andrew smiled but chose not to comment further on God’s craft. “With the roads to Tyndal crowded with so many coming here to seek our cures or travelling to Norwich to visit the relic, our good brother fears an increase in drunkenness and lechery because of the inn. Thus he takes on the burden of seeking both sinners and the holy alike for long talks on their spiritual needs on fair-weather market days.”
“Our Brother Crow has cawed in my ear as well when I have gone to take some ease at the inn,” Ralf grunted. “How can anyone avoid him?”
Andrew clapped the crowner’s shoulder with good humor, then gestured toward the hospital. “Come to the one place he rarely visits, my friend.”
Chapter Six
The man from Acre looked around the crowded hospital courtyard, his mouth twisting with contempt. What mewling and weeping! Did these fools truly think their living bodies had ever been anything but decaying flesh? He could understand those awed into silence by imminent death, but he felt only disdain for the ones who squalled about it like spoiled children. Why did they imagine that God paid any more heed to mortal whining than He did to the sound of wind over an empty sea?
A sharp pain stabbed through one eye. Once. Twice. He held his breath to keep from groaning. For him, the act of living had become too hard, and he longed for the hour when only flies and worms made his rotting carcass quiver. The knife-like jabs stopped. He breathed in deeply, but the cold air now burned his lungs like ice on skin.
Yet there had been a time when he’d believed as they did. He fought the onrush of recollection, but the pungent scent of green English earth was too strong an ally to his bitter memory of hope. A drop of blood crested on his lip, broke, and wove slowly down his chin.
That day the silver-tongued priest had come to preach the crusade had been a fair one, sweet as only an English spring could be, damp and soft with the scent of expectant life. Although the man of God had spoken to many, his words had challenged his manhood, filled him with lust to fight for His glory in Outremer. Thus he had knelt before the priest, pledging his sword for the Cross, and taken the pilgrim’s staff with joyful conviction. Long before the king’s own son had done so, he had set off for Acre.
With high passion, he had battled against the infidels, sending scores to Hell with his sword while the red cross of the true faith burned over his heart. After this combat, his body might have ached, but he felt only profound satisfaction. Nor was he alone in that. Knowing they had survived another day’s slaughter brought greater pleasure than any woman’s body ever could. Those evenings, he and the other warriors still living had drunk deeply, singing with joy.
Then God had abandoned him. His lips twitched as his mouth filled with a sour taste. His company of soldiers had been ambushed, and he was gravely wounded. Was it an imp of Satan who brought the Saracen woman to him? At the time he thought she was the instrument of God. She had saved him, dragging him from the bloody earth into her hut and caring for him with kindness and skill. Her faith demanded mercy, she told him once. When the fever left him and his manhood returned, he had taken her with gentleness into his bed, and they had loved each other most tenderly.
Later, when his Christian brethren retook the land, he had saved her honor and life, claiming her as his property and swearing that she had begged for baptism. He did so love her, as she had him, and, in the sweet darkness of their nights together, he had begged her to convert so they could marry. She would be safe, he promised, as a Christian and his wife. In the bright sunlight of the day after she had done so, he did indeed marry her—in secret.
He ran his hands down his face, the tips of his bent fingers snagging in the deep furrows of his forehead. How could he have done otherwise? If he had openly taken her to his bed as his lawful wife, his fellow soldiers might well have killed them both as they lay in each other’s arms. Or so he had believed.
Bed the Saracen if you must, they’d have shouted at him. Breed bantlings on her. But marriage to an enemy woman, one whose kin has killed ours? That is treason!
Never again would they have trusted him in battle, a man who had taken an infidel to his heart. Thus he had left her with the other Saracen women captured by the Christians. It would be safer, he told her, and she would be happier with others who spoke her language. Soon they could reveal their secret union. Soon.
What a madman he had been, dreaming that he could someday bring her home to England and that any son of theirs would inherit the manor lands despite his eastern hue. If he could not admit the marriage to his soldiers, why had he imagined his family would have greeted her with any joy? Fool echoed through his head like the chant from a choir of demons.
He shuddered. An ominous chill had wrenched him back to the present, and he turned to stare at the courtyard entrance. In the shadows, he could see the figure of a monk, behind him a man with a horse. He recognized neither of the men, but the horse bore a burden he did know well and hated even more.
Hate? Did he still? He remembered how he had quivered with a small joy as he pressed the knife into the soldier’s soft lower belly, then ripped it upward. And had he not felt a twinge of pleasure when he saw the soldier’s eyes widen and his hands flutter to catch his own steaming guts as they tumbled out just before Death snatched his soul?
With a vague sadness, he remembered a time when he had not hated that soldier. They had both come to Outremer from the same village, and, although different in rank, were kin as all men are in battle. So would this man h
ave purposely chosen his wife to rape and butcher, or were the acts some random whim of the Devil? Would he ever know? Did he even care?
Unable to turn his eyes from the corpse in the shadows, he closed them, but now his dead wife stared back at him against the backdrop of his lids, her mouth stretched wide with the howl of the burning damned. God had not blessed her for denying the faith of her fathers, he heard her scream. Hadn’t he promised that baptism would protect her from harm? Why had he lied?
“I did not lie,” he whispered. “I believed what I promised was true.”
He put his fingers against his lids and forced them open. Now his wife’s ghost faded and her voice was silenced, but he could still smell the smoke she had brought with her from the infernal world.
He looked back at the corpse on the horse. Nay, he no longer hated the man he had killed. He felt envy. The soldier was dead while he still remained in the cold sun, a twitching piece of clay longing for the warmth of Hell.
Chapter Seven
Eleanor hastened across the cloister garth, through the gate kept locked to protect her nuns from intrusion, and into the public grounds. She often hurried, for that was her nature, but the passion of anger now drove her.
“When will it please God to free me from this sinful affliction?” she muttered. Her confessor had urged patience on her, warning that lust was often a stubborn thing. Being of an admittedly determined nature herself, she understood the nature of obstinacy, but the comprehension gave her little comfort.
The rain had stopped, but the air remained cold and heavy with dampness. She slowed her pace and glanced around her, clasping the hood of her robe more tightly around her neck. The lush flowers that gave her joy in summer were gone, leaving only thorns and twisted branches that had turned black with this never-ending seacoast rain. Even the snows of winter had a soft beauty, almost like the entrance into Heaven, but this season reminded her of the act of dying, not its rewards. She hated autumn.
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