Unholy Murder: The Janna Chronicles 3

by Felicity Pulman

  “This is where you will sleep, above the undercroft.” Sister Brigid mounted a flight of steps and flung open a door. Janna squinted into the long, dark room, barely able to make out the humped shapes of the sleepers on their pallets. “Tonight you may sleep in the clothes you wear.” She paused to give an outraged sniff. “We shall find you more appropriate apparel tomorrow.” She waved Janna into the room and shut the door behind her, cutting off what little light had shone through from the starry night outside.

  Left alone, Janna stood still for a few moments until her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Now she could make out the sleeping figures once more. She moved cautiously as she looked about for a spare pallet on which to sleep. There was none. Nor had she been offered any refreshment. It seemed that Wiltune’s famed hospitality was reserved only for those with the coins to pay for it. The thought came to Janna that she’d just handed over silver enough to the abbess to pay for a banquet every night for the month to come. No matter. She was thirsty after her journey, but not hungry; she was too distressed for that.

  She was just settling into a space, resigning herself to sleeping the night on the rushes covering the wooden floor, when she heard a quiet hiss. Startled, she looked around for the source of the sound, and saw a pale hand beckoning her. Curious, she rose and walked toward it. The hand was attached to a young woman. Janna could just make out the pale moon shape of her face and the gleam of her eyes in the darkness.

  “My name’s Agnes,” the hisser whispered. “Come, sleep beside me. My pallet is thin and has many lumps in it, but it is large enough for both of us if we lie very still.” She shifted across to make room for Janna, who subsided gratefully.

  “My name is Johanna, but I’m usually called Janna,” she whispered in return. “Do not let these men’s clothes trouble you,” she added hastily, as she saw her companion peer more closely at her. “I really am a maid, but it’s a long story. I’ll tell it to you in the morning.”

  “Be quiet over there,” a sharp voice commanded. “Some of us are trying to get some sleep.”

  Agnes patted Janna’s arm. “Don’t mind her,” she whispered. “She’s like a gnat. Always whining.”

  Janna grinned in the darkness, her spirits lifted by the young woman’s show of friendship. “Thank you,” she whispered, and lay down to compose herself for sleep. She felt a little awkward lying in such close proximity to a stranger. Sharing a pallet reminded her of her life with her mother, when they had shared everything. Janna felt a shaft of pain at the memory of Eadgyth. It was quickly followed by hot annoyance; she’d been so intimidated by the abbess that she’d neglected to ask for information about her mother. Eadgyth might well have had to give an account of her misfortune to the abbess in order to win even such a derelict cottage as had been given to her. What might the abbess have told her, if only she’d had the wit to ask? Your mother’s disgrace. The abbess’s words echoed in Janna’s mind. A sinking feeling told her that she’d missed a golden opportunity to find out what she wished to know. It was unlikely she’d be granted another audience, and even if she was, the abbess obviously held Eadgyth in such contempt it was doubtful she’d willingly pass on any information at all. Nevertheless, Janna determined to question her if another opportunity arose. The more she could find out about her mother’s circumstances, and in particular where her mother had come from, the more it might help her find her father.

  “Why have you come to the abbey? Where’s your home?” Agnes’s whisper broke into her thoughts.

  Home! Janna’s heart twisted with grief. Fighting the urge to confide her misery to Agnes, she said only, “My mother and I lived not far from here, in a small cot beside Gravelinges forest. But—but she died and I was forced to flee.” That much was already known by the abbess, so there was no point in telling lies about it.

  “But why come here? Do you have a calling?”

  “No.” Janna hoped it was safe to tell this truth at least. “I know little of the Christian faith, and even less about life in an abbey,” she admitted. “Will you help me, please? What am I supposed to do?”

  “Observe the Rule of St Benedict. You have to take a vow of poverty, chastity and, most important of all, obedience,” Agnes said promptly. “And you have to confess if you’re not. Obedient, that is. Or if you do anything else wrong.”

  “Like what?”

  Agnes gave a small huff of sour amusement. “Just about everything! Even if you don’t know whether you’ve done a wrong thing, you can be sure someone will have seen you and they’ll report you at chapter. Then you’ll be punished. The punishment’s even worse if you haven’t admitted your fault, because it means you’ve shown the Sin of Pride, or the Sin of Forgetfulness, or the Sin of Something or Other. The prioress and the priest can always find faults and sins to be punished.”

  “And then what happens?” Janna was beginning to feel more and more depressed by the minute.

  “You have to do penance. You get to say a whole lot of Aves and Paternosters, or you go without meals or lose privileges, or you have to work extra hard and put in extra-long hours. But we do that anyway. They call us ‘lay sisters,’ but we’re actually servants here. We do all the hard, dirty jobs that the nuns won’t do for themselves because they’re too busy with what they call the ‘work of God,’ opus Dei. But the lay sisters work for God too, not just the nuns.”

  As the dreadful future she’d chosen was laid out before her, Janna fell into a dismayed silence. Then a thought revived her flagging spirits somewhat. “It can’t be that bad,” she said. “Being a nun is a chosen profession for many women, surely?”

  “For those who can’t get husbands,” Agnes said gloomily.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Because of this.” Agnes reached out into the darkness for Janna’s hand. She grasped it and held it to her face, smoothing Janna’s palm and fingers across her right cheek. Janna’s first instinct was to pull her hand away as she felt the rough scar tissue, but she forced herself to keep tracing the terrible wound that ran from Agnes’s eye right down to her chin. “What happened to you?” she whispered, appalled.

  “Fire. I crawled too close to our hearth as a child, and my hair caught alight. My shoulder was burned as well as my face.” Agnes’s voice sounded unbearably sad. “I was like to die, so my mother brought me here and begged the infirmarian to take care of me, and so she has. I am fortunate to be alive. And I have made my life here. Sometimes I think I would like to wed, and to bear children, but who would have me as I am?”

  Janna hesitated, unsure how to answer, then said, “Burns leave terrible scars, I know. But there are salves to relieve their pain. If you wish, I can make you such a one.”

  “That’s kind of you, Janna.” Agnes sounded surprised. “But there is no need for your trouble. Sister Anne still takes care of me. She is our infirmarian and she has given me an ointment to rub on my skin every night, to soothe it and keep it soft. She’s very kind to me, and she’s a very skillful healer. Her medicaments have helped us all.”

  Sister Anne. Janna made a note of the name. If she could impress the nun with her knowledge of the herbal lore that Eadgyth had taught her, she might well improve her lot while she was here; ease the burden of living in an abbey, the burden that had been spelled out so clearly by Agnes.

  “God be with you tonight, Janna. Sleep well.” Agnes turned over with a sigh, and settled onto her half of the straw pallet. Janna stared up into the darkness. Her eyes pricked and burned with tiredness, but her brain buzzed with voices, conversations and images from the day. So much had happened, from making up her quarrel with Godric, to finding the lost child and then being recognized by the lord of the manor and having to flee for her life. The abbess’s stern face and harsh words came into Janna’s mind. They were partly tempered by the friendliness of Agnes, and the news of a kind infirmarian.

  Janna turned on her side and tried to get comfortable on the lumpy pallet. It scratched and tickled, but it was still
much better than sleeping on rushes and a wooden floor, she told herself as she wriggled and squirmed in an effort to smooth out some of the bumps. Agnes stirred and murmured something unintelligible. Not wanting to disturb her, Janna forced herself to lie still. This, then, was to be her life: obedience or punishment. It wasn’t much to look forward to. It wasn’t much at all.

  Chapter 2

  Janna awoke with a start, heart pounding as she listened to the insistent tolling of a bell. For a moment she thought she was back at the manor farm, listening to the bell that had tolled repeatedly after Hamo disappeared, calling the lost child home.

  Then she remembered where she was, and her spirits sank even lower. She sat up and looked across at Agnes. Even though her touch had warned her what to expect, still the sight of the girl’s disfigurement in the daylight made her catch her breath with startled pity. Agnes’s right eye was half-closed from the injury, the skin above and below a crisscrossed mass of rough red scars. The whole side of her face was affected. Too late, Janna tried to conceal her shock, but Agnes’s eyes had opened, and she had seen.

  “It’s really bad, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  Janna bit her lip. Of course there would be no looking glass here in the abbey, no way for Agnes to see the extent of the damage unless she caught a glimpse of herself in some piece of polished metal, or the still surface of a pond. But her own touch must tell her the worst of it. Yet the proud tilt of Agnes’s head warned Janna that her pity would not be welcome.

  “I think anyone coming to know you would soon see only your kindness and your sense of humor,” she said awkwardly.

  Agnes flashed a grateful grin. “It’s a Sin of Pride even to be asking!” she muttered. “Don’t tell on me, will you?”

  “Only if you promise not to tell on me—and I’ll wager there’ll be far more to tell about me than I could ever tell about you.”

  “That’s another sin to be confessed,” Agnes said promptly. “We never, ever make wagers in the house of God.”

  Janna pulled a face, and Agnes’s grin grew broader. “Sister Grace is the novice mistress,” she said. “She’s also in charge of discipline among the lay sisters. She’s quite fair, really, and a good teacher, but I’m sure her brain is crammed tight with all that learning and so I try not to bother her with things she doesn’t need to know.”

  “Like sins, you mean?”

  “Exactly. But we’ll have something else to confess unless we hurry.” Agnes jumped up and pulled a black gown over the tunic in which she’d slept. “It’s time for the special Mass to mark the beginning of the harvest,” she said, as she picked up the wimple laid neatly beside her pallet. “Lateness is one of the great sins, along with running, so we can’t hasten to the church either. Nor can we shout, skip or sing. Oh, and there’s also anger, bearing a grudge, causing friction, telling lies, being greedy, breaking silence, impure thoughts and desires, deceit, stubbornness—”

  “Stop!” Janna clapped her hands over her ears.

  The lay sister’s mouth curved up in a wide smile. “I’ll take you first to the reredorter,” she said, and hastily tucked a stray lock of hair into the concealing folds of her wimple.

  Reredorter? Janna followed her guide. Her question was soon answered, and she was glad of the chance to relieve herself, and also to visit the lavatorium to wash away the dust and grime from her journey.

  “Hurry!” Agnes urged, as Janna dried her face and hands on one of the rough napkins beside the long basin. The lay sister led the way across the open yard. Janna noticed that she carried herself straight, and that she favored her right arm. Agnes had drawn her veil down low over her forehead and had draped the soft folds of the wimple about her cheeks so that they were almost covered. To make doubly sure no-one had a chance to stare at her scars, she walked with her head bent, risking only swift glances up to check for obstacles.

  It had been too dark to see a great deal the night before, and now Janna looked about with interest, noting the pilgrims in their wide-brimmed hats, the wealthy travelers and their wives, and the beggars, the blind and the lame emerging from their various quarters set about the courtyard. Lay servants streamed through the gate; all were approaching a pair of carved wooden doors that opened into the great stone church. Janna looked about for the abbess and her nuns, but they were nowhere to be seen. She frowned as she tried to puzzle it all out.

  The abbess had worn a black veil with a silver cross embroidered at its center, and a long black habit with wide sleeves, and bound at her waist with a girdle. Underneath her veil was a white wimple, which sat in folds around her face and neck. The porteress had been dressed in similar fashion, although her garments were not of the same fine quality. Here, the lay sisters like Agnes wore white wimples and veils of rough homespun, while the lay servants coming through the gates wore the same smocks and breeches as the villeins on the manor farm from which Janna had come. She tugged on Agnes’s sleeve to get her attention.

  “Where is everybody?”

  “Who?”

  “The abbess, and the other nuns…” Janna waved her hand around the courtyard to indicate their absence.

  “We’re in the public part of the abbey grounds, and we’ll stay in the nave for the mass. The convent is through there.” Agnes indicated a narrow passage. “The nuns enter the church from their own part of the convent and sit together in the choir stalls.”

  “Don’t we see them or have anything to do with them?” Janna felt a vast disappointment at having her plans thus shattered just when the next step had seemed so close.

  “Yes, we do. Shh.” Agnes laid a cautionary finger across her lips as she went through the door of the church. She stopped to dip a finger into a dish of holy water, and made the sign of the cross. At once, Janna copied her, then followed her new friend into the nave where a group of lay sisters, servants and guests were already waiting for the Mass to begin. Full of amazement and awe, she looked about her, studying her surroundings.

  The roof of the church towered high above her head, supported by thick columns down each side of the nave, joined together with rounded arches. Some of the windows in the church were set with glass, which let in shafts of sunlight. Most of the glass was clear, but there was colored glass in a couple of the windows, forming pictures of people with gold rings around their heads. The light that shone through them cast bright lozenges of red, blue and green onto the stone flagging. Janna had never seen anything so wonderful. Fine, fat beeswax candles stood on an altar at the end of the nave, illuminating the gold crucifix in the center. A fainter light came from burning wicks that floated in shallow stone bowls filled with animal fat. The church was redolent with their rank, smoky smell, overlaid with a spicy scent that mingled with the odor of sweat and unwashed bodies.

  The walls of the church were plastered and painted with scenes of people, each one different from the last. The same figures appeared in several of the scenes, a man with golden hair and long white robes who was also crowned with a golden ring. There was a woman in blue, seated and nursing a small child on her lap. Janna recognized the figures from various shrines she’d encountered while journeying between Berford, Babestoche and Wiltune. They were Christ and His mother, Mary. The same Christ figure hung from the cross on the altar. There He wore a crown of thorns and an expression of agony. Janna shuddered. She knew something of His birth, His crucifixion and resurrection, and when they were celebrated. Her gaze moved on to a picture of His crucifixion that was painted on a wall. She wondered about the other pictures; perhaps they all told stories from the life of Christ?

  She was about to ask Agnes when a line of black-clad nuns filed in from a side entrance and settled into the choir stalls. Following close behind came a man in a long white robe, carrying a stoup of water. Janna craned to see what was happening. The bearer headed a procession to the high altar at the farthest end of the church, where the water was blessed by a priest. The man then set off once more, moving down into the nave at the head of the proc
ession. Behind him came someone else carrying a large cross, flanked by two more men, each with a lighted candle. A man bearing a large bound book followed them. Next came the priest, who wore a glorious embroidered vestment over his white robe. He seemed to be in charge of the proceedings. Several young boys brought up the rear, one of them swinging a censer. Janna caught another strong whiff of the spicy fragrance. In a wave of rustling movement, the congregation knelt as they passed by. The procession moved along the back of the church, the bearer sprinkling the holy water as he passed. They came back up the nave toward the altar, passing by on the other side.

  Janna nudged Agnes, leaning over to speak in her friend’s ear. “Who are all these people?”

  “That’s Father Mark, the priest. He comes from St Mary’s in Wiltune to celebrate the Mass. The deacon and subdeacons are in front of him, and there are some acolytes as well.”

  “Why can’t the abbess celebrate the Mass?”

  “She’s not allowed. Shh.” Agnes closed her eyes and listened with a rapt expression as the priest came to a halt beside the altar. He stood with his back to everyone as he made the sign of the cross, “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”

  Janna listened intently to the Mass, anxious to understand what was going on. But the priest wasn’t speaking in the Saxon tongue, nor were the words Norman French. She remembered again the first and only time she’d been into a church. It was new, and not nearly so grand as this one. It had been built to replace the old preaching cross at Berford, and a new priest had been appointed in place of the elderly priest who used to visit their community once a month. The new priest had prayed in what sounded exactly like this gibble-gabble. Eadgyth had called it Latin, the ancient language spoken by the Romans. Janna had asked her mother if she understood what the priest was saying, and Eadgyth had said she did not. Janna had formed the impression at the time that her mother might have understood more than she’d admitted. She’d certainly seemed to know when to kneel and when to stand. As they were doing now, Janna realized, and scrambled to her feet.