Now that the boy was on the mend and he had time to himself, Thomas felt a profound fatigue from his nights with little rest. Giving up sleep for the care of the little lad he had done with joy, but, when he did retreat to his bed, any deep slumber had been shattered by his all too frequent and terrifying dreams. In the months just after he had arrived at Tyndal, he had feared falling asleep because of them. When he did slip into unconsciousness, he’d soon find himself sitting bolt upright, sweating and whimpering like a child from the horrors they brought.
He did not remember feeling fear quite this strong when he was actually in prison and believed he might face death by burning because some zealous bishop had decided to make an example of him. Yet, in his dreams, the anticipation of the jailer’s rape and the fires flicking out to lick at his feet were more than he could bear. Those dreams came less often now, but Giles would still appear in them, on occasion, to mock the love Thomas had borne him. In ways, those were the worst dreams of all.
He set his materials down on a stair and leaned against the stone wall. The cold felt good against his throbbing forehead. He knew he should go back to the room he shared with Father Anselm and sleep. No one needed his services and it would be good to rest, if he could. He sighed and looked out the narrow window of the stairwell into the inner ward. The sunlight was becoming weaker as the day went on. Snow was coming. Thomas wondered how soon it would be before this fragile light shattered into a myriad of white flakes.
Down in the ward, he noticed two women and a man walking. From her colorful clothes that stood out even in the misty light below, he knew one of the women was Sir Geoffrey’s wife. She was walking at a discreet distance behind the couple. Thomas squinted to sharpen his sight. Surely the second woman was the Lady Juliana. Besides Lady Isabelle, she was the only woman of rank he knew to be in residence who did not wear a habit. If it was, then the man beside Juliana must be Robert.
Aye, he decided as he focused on him, that black hair and short stature would suggest that the man was his prioress’ brother. As he watched Robert woo his lady, the monk chuckled with gentle amusement. A man of honor, Robert was. Even though they were out walking in public, he made sure they were properly attended.
Suddenly, the threesome stopped and looked back. Thomas was too far away to distinguish words, but he did hear shouting and watched the party below wait as another man ran up to them.
It was the Lord Henry, Thomas concluded, or at least the man had the same round face and was dressed as Henry had been after the hunt. Considering the encounter between stepson and stepmother earlier, this could not be a happy meeting. Perhaps the stepson now wished to beg pardon for his recent behavior? Thomas rather doubted it.
The monk watched Henry walk over to the Lady Isabelle, put his arm around her waist and, once again, pull her to him. As Thomas bent forward into the window opening, he saw Juliana quickly bend down to pick something up from the ground, then start toward them. Robert pulled her back, leaning over to say a word in her ear. Then he pointed at Henry, his voice raising enough for the monk to hear the anger if not his words.
Isabelle twisted in Henry’s arms and pushed at him. Instead of releasing her, the young man rubbed his cheek against hers. She drew back and pushed again. He laughed, the sound of his harsh merriment rising easily in the cold air to the window where Thomas stood.
Robert abruptly left Juliana’s side. Henry continued to laugh as Robert walked toward him, one hand on his dagger hilt.
Henry pushed his stepmother away and drew a knife. Robert pulled his dagger from its sheath, and the two men began to circle each other.
Juliana shouted as she ran to her stepmother’s side, gesturing at something behind them. The men both stopped and looked where she was pointing.
As Thomas looked in the direction Juliana was indicating, he saw Baron Adam striding toward them as quickly as his bad leg would allow. In his hand was a sword and just behind him were several soldiers.
“Drop those weapons or I will have both of you put in chains,” he shouted.
The baron was the only one whose words he could hear from that distance. Now that was a voice trained in battle, Thomas thought with admiration.
Both Robert and Henry sheathed their knives.
Henry bowed as he said something to the baron, then walked away.
When Robert turned to the Lady Isabelle, she reached out for his hand and pressed it to her breast. As he jerked his hand from her grasp, she laughed. The sound was so harsh that Thomas’ ears ached more from that than from the cold.
Chapter Nine
Sir Geoffrey rammed his scarred stump into the palm of his left hand. “Juliana will marry and bed with Robert if I have to hold her down while he mounts her.”
Eleanor winced.
“Surely such will not be necessary, Geoffrey.” Adam shoved a pewter cup of wine within his friend’s reach. “She will see that this marriage is both a wise and happy course. I remember her as a dutiful child, however high-spirited.” He smiled.
Geoffrey did not.
“Has she never told you of her calling?” Eleanor asked her father’s friend.
Geoffrey swung around and glared at her. Eleanor instinctively drew back, the ferocity in his brown eyes hitting her like a sharp slap on the cheek.
“Calling?” he snarled. “She has no vocation. She is doing this out of sheer spite.”
“How so?” Eleanor asked. Her voice suggested greater calm than she felt.
“Because I married after her mother’s death. You know the pettiness of women, my lady.” His cheeks began to pale after the red flush of rage. “You are prioress over…how many is it now?” He sat back in his chair, the lines of his face sagging into the look of a very weary man.
“I, too, am a simple woman, my lord, and would benefit from your instruction.” Eleanor cut to the chase. “Death does not often allow us the joy of having our own dear mother or father guide and protect us for the years we might wish, and we are thus accustomed to the remarriage of our parents. Please explain, therefore, why your daughter would wish to spite you so?”
Sir Geoffrey looked heavenward as if seeking guidance, then closed his eyes as if he did not care much for the response.
Eleanor waited. She found herself grieving over the change in her father’s old comrade-in-arms. Once this man had been eager to bend his back and play horse to any child who wanted a ride. Once he had been a man who glowed like a young lover whenever his wife came into view. Now he was an old man, his eyes dull, hair lank, and his shoulders curved inward with whatever burdened him. Finally, with a soft voice, she continued. “In truth, the Juliana I remember from my youth was not malicious. Your daughter and now lady wife were as sisters. I would have expected Juliana to feel joy, both for her friend’s happiness at a fine marriage and her own good fortune in having the Lady Isabelle a permanent member of the Lavenham family from whom she need not be long parted.”
“Isabelle was her friend. That is true. Once they were like sisters, but when my beloved wife died…” Sir Geoffrey closed his mouth and turned his face away. His silence continued, stubborn and impenetrable.
Was there a connection between his wife’s death and the current discord between the young women? Eleanor glanced at her father, but he refused to meet her eyes. Apparently, he had chosen to stand with Sir Geoffrey in protecting whatever secrets his friend wished to keep. She felt a short burst of anger. Had he forgotten all the fine words he had spoken earlier that morning? Had she so quickly and easily lost the ground she thought she had won with him? Or did all fathers forget that their daughters forfeited the innocence of Eden when they became wives, mothers, and, indeed, prioresses?
Whatever the cause, she decided there would be no way she could help resolve the situation if she honored such foolishness. With a deep breath, she turned back to Sir Geoffrey. “You were saying that something happened after your first wife died, my lord?”
He blinked as if surprised at her question, then cough
ed. “Let it suffice to say that a man must be married, Lady Eleanor. I had no wife, you see, and I was young enough to father more children. Marrying Isabelle would give me wife, babes, and the lands which our family had preserved for her until she married.”
“A wise alliance,” Adam added, this time giving Eleanor a look she interpreted as a clear warning not to pursue her questions. Given his own recently stated misgivings to her over his friend’s new marriage, this remark was quite diplomatic. It was also a blatant lie. She chose to ignore his hint.
“Indeed. More good reasons for your daughter to celebrate your marriage,” she said. “Perhaps the Lady Isabelle was shy about the wedding night? Many women are and that might have caused some concern to Juliana.”
“Nay, the lass was willing, willing enough that she soon quickened with child. I knew it would be a good alliance with the lands, but, well, with the babe coming, I felt double joy. My daughter should have shared our happiness, but God gave me an unnatural child. Indeed she begged that I not marry her friend.”
It was interesting, Eleanor thought, that he had avoided saying the child had been conceived before any contract to marry, then slipped in the final telling. A rare, albeit failed, subtlety for a man of otherwise blunt speech. “What reason did she give?” she asked, deliberately turning away from her father, whom she knew would try hard to gesture her into silence.
“What reason indeed? She had none. When I demanded she state her objections, she said first that Isabelle was too young for me.” His laughter was biting. “Can you imagine? She thought me an old fool with a member limp from disuse!”
“Surely she did not mean that, Geoffrey.” Adam filled his friend’s cup once more with wine, then stood in front of Eleanor, offering her more refreshment as he glowered a silent demand that she cease her questioning.
Eleanor shook her head, refusing both, and gave her father a puckish smile. “You were saying, my lord?” she asked Sir Geoffrey.
“Indeed she backed away soon enough when I told her what I thought of that, but then she whined some female nonsense about her mother would not have wanted me to marry Isabelle. I told her that her mother had beseeched me to leave her be when she sickened, begged me to find some lusty young woman to warm my bed in recompense. You should have seen the shocked expression on Juliana’s face when I told her that, the silly wench!” His face began to turn red and he threw his head back, swallowing the wine in one gulp.
Adam poured him more. Eleanor noticed, however, that her father had barely touched his own cup.
She turned back to look at Sir Geoffrey as he swirled his wine and stared at it with a determined focus. His last comment had been interesting, she thought, considering the vow of celibacy Robert had once told her Sir Geoffrey had taken during his wife’s illness. Indeed, the man she remembered would never have forced an adored and ailing wife to bed with him. Had she not known that man, she would have believed that this man, now sitting in front of her, would have made a sick wife beg to be left alone. What had caused the change, she wondered: his lost hand, his waning virility, or something else entirely? “You did not believe her second reason to be the true one then?” she asked at last.
“She has no objection to my remarriage beyond jealousy. Jealousy is the sole reason, Lady Eleanor. Juliana is young, lusty as women are at that age, and long overdue for a husband and babes of her own. Isabelle was getting a husband first and Juliana was consumed with envy. She now pales with it. She has gone mad with it and does everything she can to cause me grief. Isabelle has tried to make peace with my daughter and has begged me not to send her off to a convent. I was willing to let her go to learn the barrenness of pride and jealousy, but my wife has a softer nature and I have chosen to honor her compassion. The ungrateful girl will marry Robert, gain a fine husband despite her undeserving nature, and thus stay close to a soul that loves her. Still, I do find it hard to forgive Juliana for playing so cruelly with my wife’s good heart.”
Adam poured another cup of wine for his friend. “This madness is surely temporary, Geoffrey,” he said. “I remember far better days when your daughter delighted all of us with her quick wit and loving ways. Indeed, she shall marry Robert and, in good time, the foolish girl will make peace and be as a sister again with your wife. You speak the truth of it, I believe. A husband and babes of her own will, without doubt, put an end to such silly rivalry.”
Eleanor bowed her head. Little was quite as everyone wished it to seem, she thought. Of course she had known there was far more behind Juliana’s desire to enter Tyndal as an anchoress than she had expressed. Few women, even with genuine callings to the contemplative life, choose such a severe test of faith. Wisdom demanded that she look beyond a shaved head and eager words before accepting Juliana’s sincerity about her calling, and she would. She would even take Sir Geoffrey’s opinions into account with as little partiality as she was able, but she had also heard the ring of true coin in Juliana’s plea, and that she would honor as well.
As to the other things she had just heard, she had been amused as her father so firmly expressed approval of the marriage between his friend and ward, an approval she knew he most certainly did not feel. Nor was Sir Geoffrey’s current marriage the joyous one he tried to portray just now, at least according to the baron. Her father must have choked to hear the Lady Isabelle described as a woman of generous heart and softness, yet she had not seen even the barest flicker of an eyelid to betray his thoughts. From his days in the king’s court, her father had indeed become quite skilled in diplomatic thrust and parry. She could learn much from him if he were willing to teach her.
Eleanor glanced up. Her father and Sir Geoffrey were now bending over the table, drawing imaginary maps with their fingers on the wood and lost in tales of old battles. Both seemed to have regained their youth in the telling, and the love born of much shared pain and joy over the years was so evident between them.
She looked at Sir Geoffrey and now saw remnants of the person she had known many years ago before his first wife died. She could not forget that he had once been a kinder man, one who would never speak with the harshness she had heard today. Nor would she ever forget that it was he who had saved her father’s life after the Montfortians had pulled the baron, weakened from a deep thigh wound, from his horse. Had Sir Geoffrey not risked his own life to do so, she would be praying at her father’s tomb this day, not arguing with him, a man she honored and loved, stubborn mule that he often was.
She took a deep breath and rose quietly to leave the old friends alone. Even if Juliana had convinced her beyond any doubt of the sincerity of her calling, Eleanor would win no arguments on her behalf this day.
Chapter Ten
Thomas’ midday dining companions were less than congenial. On one side was the sulky and silent Lord Henry. On the other was Father Anselm, a priest of middling intellect but much higher odor. The company of a fellow religious was to be expected, of course. To be seated next to the Lavenham heir-apparent was intended as a compliment, and Thomas had mentally marked the honor with due gratitude. After five minutes between the two, however, Thomas was tempted to renounce both his vocation and the honor to seek a bench well below the salt.
“You eat meat, do you?” the good priest asked. His breath, heavily scented with a rotting sweetness from decomposed teeth, was even more fetid than the sour stench of his unwashed underlinen that enveloped flanking diners every time the priest shifted position.
Thomas looked at the dark slices of roasted boar meat on the platter in front of him. Due to Tyndal’s reduced revenues during this first winter after his arrival, meat at any meal had been such a rarity that Thomas had almost lost the taste for it. Out of courtesy to his host, however, he had allowed the servant to put some ginger, wine, and garlic sauce on his trencher and had then accepted a small portion of the meat. What little desire he might have had for more had been destroyed by sitting next to the aromatic priest.
As he looked into the priest’s tiny, close
-set eyes, an irresistible impishness suddenly overtook Thomas. He reached out with his knife to stab a thick portion of the boar and, with an exaggerated grunt of pleasure, plopped the bloody slab onto his trencher, then turned and smiled at the priest.
The priest pursed his lips but was otherwise unfazed. “Heats the blood, you know,” he said, nodding at the fragrant meat in front of Thomas.
Thomas was not to be outdone. He gestured at the goblet Father Anselm clutched to his narrow chest. “So does wine, I’m told.”
The priest sniffed in contempt. “Our Lord drank wine.”
Thomas coughed from the puff of bad breath. “Might have eaten venison for all we know. Boar, I’ll concede, he did not.”
“Our Lord ate only fish.”
Thomas tried to remember what had been served at the marriage feast in Cana. Fatted calf came to mind as the popular choice in various scriptures he recalled. “How sad,” he said. “Maybe there weren’t any deer in Galilee. I’d wager Our Lord would have liked a good brisket.” He hesitated and then let an almost beatific look transform his face. “What do you think? Perhaps God gave England so many deer so we’d know what a blessed land we occupied, that we were given what even His beloved son could not have.” Thomas gave Father Anselm his most ingenuous look.
The priest blinked and Thomas could almost read what was going through the man’s mind. To argue that God had not granted any abundance, no matter how it heated the blood, seemed rather blasphemous. To argue that England wasn’t an especially blessed land to have it might cast doubt on his own loyalty to good King Henry and the Baron Adam who sustained him. Anselm resolved the entire dilemma by raising his cup in a vague toast to God and king, draining it thoroughly, and grabbing at the sleeve of a passing servant for a refill.
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