Justice for the Damned

by Priscilla Royal

  “My selfishness has brought about two deaths. I will say nothing in my defense and shall go to my hanging without protest.”

  “What self-interest was involved in getting the vintner to confess in front of half the priory that Mistress Eda was innocent of both self-murder and adultery?” Thomas asked. “Nor did you have any reason to save my life. When Herbert wanted to finish the task of killing me in the library, you drew him away. You knew I was still alive.”

  Sayer said nothing.

  Bernard sat on a stool next to the bed. “I beg you to admit the good you have done and save yourself. Like many, you have done no more than loan your soul to Satan.”

  “Let me be.”

  “Sayer needs the advice of a confessor, Master Bernard. Would you leave us?”

  The glover blinked, then quickly rose. “I will be walking in the gardens outside.”

  Thomas took the vacant seat.

  “Leave me in peace, monk. I have no longing for any priest.”

  “Your guilt over your father’s death and that of the librarian troubles you deeply, but you have other reasons for wanting to join Satan in Hell.”

  Sayer put his uninjured hand lightly on the monk’s knee. “Do you blame me?” he asked softly.

  “Yes.”

  “I have no wish to take a vow of celibacy,” Sayer replied. “I will continue to dance with the Devil.”

  “Dance with a wife. Beget children. Bring the joy of grandchildren to your mother.”

  “And thus God will forgive me?” Sayer’s laugh was bitter.

  Thomas nodded gravely.

  “Yet the Church will surely condemn me for the theft…”

  “Bernard will tell Sister Beatrice how you plotted to save the Psalter and expose a killer at the risk of your own life. I will swear that you saved my life and confirm the vintner’s confession to the murder of both Brother Baeda and Wulfstan. Brother Infirmarian and several lay brothers heard Herbert confess to his wife’s killing. Prioress Ida may even count it a blessing that you frightened vow-breaking monks back into their solitary beds.”

  “My father…”

  “…was killed because Herbert grew greedy and tried to steal the Psalter without paying for your help.”

  “The librarian’s death…”

  “…is on your conscience. His soul needs your prayers. I repeat: those are not your most troubling sins.”

  “For all my sins, monk, name my punishment.”

  “Marry, take on a man’s responsibilities, and find joy in that.”

  Sayer drew back his hand. “Did you find your own answer in God’s arms, Brother?”

  Thomas closed his eyes and turned away.

  Chapter Forty

  The grave was little marked. The dirt once mounded over the pit had sunk, leaving only a small rise in the earth, but new growth sprouted there with a particular vigor.

  In contrast to the lime green of young grass, the dress of the kneeling woolmonger’s widow was dark as a night without stars. Her fingers curled like claws as she covered her face. Yet when she uncovered her somber eyes and looked up at the bright heavens, her face was not as aged as it had seemed only a few days ago. Her features now held a hint of youth and even a certain beauty.

  Drifa helped her sister rise, but Mistress Jhone gently shook her hand away and stood motionless, quite careless that her robe was stained with sodden earth. A soft cry escaped her lips as she looked down at the little grave, and she stretched forth an open hand as if longing to grasp something only she could see. Weeping, she pulled her arm back against her breast and shuddered. Then she let her sister take her into her arms where she sobbed with all the force of pent-up grief.

  “Eda is at peace, mistress. God has rendered justice,” Eleanor said, her voice as soft as the breeze against their faces.

  “She will be reburied in holy ground?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “She is no longer in Hell?”

  “I doubt she ever was,” Eleanor replied. “The Prince of Darkness may have blinded the crowner and his jury with ignorance and hardened hearts, but God would have known the truth.”

  Drifa wiped Jhone’s cheeks with an elder sister’s love. A smudge of dirt remained under one eye, but tears quickly washed it away.

  “I came here every day to pray,” the woolmonger’s widow whispered.

  Her sister took her hand and pressed it.

  “Most would not have done so, mistress. This is the burial ground of condemned souls. Many fear the contagion of their wickedness,” the prioress said.

  “I knew she was innocent, my lady. We had been like kin from the day we could first walk. I owed her a friend’s steadfastness,” the woman replied with simple, unwavering belief.

  Eleanor glanced at the uneven ground surrounding them and so many graves of the damned. The silence of this unholy place made her shiver, yet she caught herself wondering how many more innocents were buried here, condemned by men but never by God.

  Mistress Drifa kissed Jhone on the cheek and once again pulled her sister into the comfort of her arms.

  In silence, the prioress watched the two sisters and smiled at the tenderness between such resolute women. Would she herself have been able to show such bravery, kneeling on this cursed earth and persevering in the belief that a friend was innocent when a community might well rebuke her? Would she, like Drifa, continue to see goodness in a son who kissed the Devil’s hand? The actions of these two had raised questions that she knew she would ponder long after her return to Tyndal.

  “My lady, I have much to thank you for,” Jhone suddenly cried out, throwing herself on her knees before the Prioress of Tyndal.

  Eleanor gasped. “You have no need…”

  “I have another favor to beg.”

  “Ask it but do not kneel to me.” Eleanor raised the woolmonger’s widow to her feet.

  “My sins have been grievous ones! Like my husband, I was blinded by Master Herbert’s well-crafted cloak of wealth, but God has now torn that pall from my eyes. My daughter shall marry her glover, a man I might have found worthy enough had it not been…”

  Although Jhone turned her face away, Eleanor saw anger flash in her eyes. Was the cause her husband’s inability to see Herbert’s true nature or her own unthinking complicity in a decision that would have forced her beloved daughter into the arms of a murderer?

  “And you shall have grandchildren to make your life most joyous,” the prioress quickly said. The image of plump children racing around their grandmother, graced with Alys’ loving determination and Bernard’s gentle nature and pink cheeks, was a sweet one.

  “I want to end my days in the priory.”

  “Only Prioress Ida has the authority to grant that plea!”

  “But she would listen to you!”

  “Seek instead the counsel of Sister Beatrice, a woman far wiser than I and one whose voice the prioress of Amesbury respects.”

  “As you will, my lady, but there is no reason to doubt my longing to leave the world. I owe God a long penance. I married for lust and fell into a cruel bondage with a husband who had always been an angry man. He beat me when I smiled at the butcher or did not cook his meat the way he liked it. When he struck me so hard that I lost the one son he gave me, he took to drink. As a good wife must, I turned my head away from his growing iniquity and honored my vows of obedience until his death. As a good wife still, I pray daily for his soul, but it will take many years before I can forgive his wickedness toward the innocent even if God does so.”

  Eleanor looked over at Drifa. Wulfstan’s widow was weeping.

  “Yet I, too, committed great wickedness when I tried to force Alys into a marriage with a malevolent man. My husband may have been fooled by the vintner’s fine show of competence and prosperity, but I bear fault enough myself. In my youth, I failed to heed my parents. When I saw Alys set her heart on the glover, I feared she was as blinded by lust as I had been once
. Although she, unlike I, chose a good man, I did not note the differences and was determined that she follow the path I had refused.” Jhone’s face darkened with grim determination. “Like Moses, I should not cross the Jordan and taint the future of my child and the innocence of her children with my knowledge of wicked ways.”

  “Mortals do evil things, mistress. It is our nature. Your mistake was born of reasonable fear, but there was no cruelty in your heart. Seek penance and remain in the world where Alys and her babes can bring you joy. Help your sister with her fatherless children. You can bring all these young ones the wisdom learned from your errors so that they may avoid the same faults.”

  “I fear that the Devil has not let me go,” she whispered, “and I would only lead the innocent to calamity as I almost did my daughter. Nor would I burden Bernard with my care. He has proven himself a worthy man, and, despite my cruel words to him, I believe he would be forgiving and generous to me. It would be kinder if I did not accept a place at his table. Nay, after paying my dowry to the Order, the remaining wealth and the business must go to him and my Alys’ children.”

  “There are other good men in the world…”

  “I have no wish to remarry. Although the Church says I may without sin, I could not bring myself to bed with another man.”

  Eleanor glanced at Drifa, asking for confirmation of what she had just heard.

  The woman nodded and gazed back at her sister. The tears that flowed down her cheeks glittered with both sadness and love.

  “On Judgement Day,” Jhone now continued, “I will seek my husband. May God grant that I am able to give him my hand in forgiveness. With God’s mercy, I pray he will have learned the horror of his sins. We should stand side by side at God’s throne while we wait for His verdict on our various transgressions. For the remainder of my days on this earth, I would find chastity, obedience, and poverty easy vows to take, although I would beg to be granted one wish.”

  “And that is?”

  “Until I die, I would like to come each day and pray beside the new grave of Eda, that her time in Purgatory may be short. She was as virtuous as any mortal can be.”

  As Eleanor drew Jhone into a comforting embrace, the harsh silence in the lonely graveyard of damned souls softened as if hope had entered the gate.

  ***

  On the edge of the graveyard, standing alongside Sister Anne and Brother Thomas, Beatrice watched her niece take the woolmonger’s widow into her arms. She might not have heard what each had said to the other, but the novice mistress could read the words writ on faces well enough. After all, she herself had been a wife and mother, then a widow, before she became a nun.

  As she watched Eleanor comfort Mistress Jhone, Beatrice pressed a hand to her breast to hold in the joy flooding her heart. Such pride in her niece might be sinful, but she suspected God forgave more quickly in instances like this.

  After Eleanor had ridden back to Tyndal, she promised to confess. There would be time enough then to deal with her mortal failings. Beatrice knew she would face the parting with a stern will, after which she would escape to the cloister gardens where she could weep without restraint. Life was such a fragile thing, she said to herself, looking down at the wrinkled skin on the back of her hand. She might never see her beloved Eleanor again.

  A few rude tears stung the corners of her eyes, and she angrily wiped them away, willing her mind from such indulgent imaginings. Instead, she concentrated on a butterfly hovering nearby, its delicate wings vibrant with orange, black, and white markings. Quickly it fluttered off, landing on a yellow flower some distance away. In its beauty, Beatrice found comfort. There was, after all, much to be grateful for in this moment.

  Master Herbert had been buried in the dark earth, his broken body now food for worms. Few had come to watch as dirt was cast on his bones. No one had grieved. The village and priory were content, believing that justice had been carried out. The vintner’s soul, befouled with his murderous and most grievous sins, was facing God’s wrath, while the soul of his innocent wife had been snatched from the Devil’s claws.

  Beatrice knew she would add Eda’s soul to her own prayers. After all, the priory had erred along with the crowner in deciding the woman’s body must be placed in ground filled with noxious weeds and the rot of unrepentant corpses. We should have known better, she thought, and must bear the greater guilt. After all, such blindness was more heinous when committed by those who had vowed to serve a perfect Lord.

  Yet these sad events had brought forth some happiness. Besides the release of Eda’s soul to God’s hand, Alys and her Bernard would be married with Mistress Jhone’s blessing as they had long wished. The bridegroom would surely take over the wool business, promoting one of the more talented workmen to manage it, while he continued to design his beautiful gloves.

  Beatrice smiled as she thought about Alys and Bernard. The girl might be willful, but she was possessed of both intelligence and a caring heart. In fact, her spirited insistence that she be allowed to marry a man of her own choice reminded the novice mistress of the days she herself had spent persuading a father that the young knight she had fancied was an acceptable match. Although Master Bernard might not be quite prepared to be ruled by his wife, any more than her own adored husband had been, the novice mistress suspected the glover’s love would teach him just as quickly when it was wise to surrender his will. If God granted them no more trials than any other mortal, Beatrice believed the pair would prosper, growing old together in the glow and warmth that love can bring in later years.

  Beatrice sighed, a sharp regret stabbing at her heart. Although she rarely looked at her past with remorse, she did grieve over her husband’s death. He had left her fine sons, and he had died as he would have wanted in a soldier’s armor, but her woman’s soul resented that he had gone to God far from her arms and without a last kiss. At least she had had joy of him while he lived, and for that love she would always thank God.

  Love? Ah, what a glorious but foolish thing it was, the novice mistress thought, turning her eyes toward a certain young monk nearby. Brother Thomas was a handsome man for cert, and she understood quite well why her niece had fallen in love with him. Were I in the first heat of my youth, she decided, I might well have done so myself.

  Not that Eleanor had yet confided this passion to her, but she had seen the blushes, the averted eyes, and the gaze that shone with adoration when the monk’s back was turned. It was a fever she had hoped her niece might be spared, but God seemed to give these burdens to those He deemed most precious.

  Several in the Church believed that those who did not twist and groan with Job’s afflictions could never be found worthy of Heaven. Indeed, suffering did infuse some with God’s more absolute understanding. Others, however, it infected with bitterness, jealousy, and the longing to make happier souls suffer as well. She might hate that her niece was enduring this pain, but she knew Eleanor was not one to grow petty with her affliction.

  My dear one is no longer a child, she reminded herself, but that cannot stop me from worrying about her. Although she had full confidence that Eleanor was sincere in her vows, she wondered whether this handsome monk felt quite the same about his.

  When Sayer had come that night to warn her that the Amesbury Psalter might be stolen, she had alerted Prioress Ida, who relayed the message on to Church authorities. They had promised to protect the holy object and even capture the thief, but no one had come until Brother Thomas arrived with a marked enthusiasm to investigate ghosts. Her niece might have voiced the thought that there could be a link between spirit and theft, but the red-haired monk had concurred with remarkable speed.

  She caught herself smiling at this monk who was staring at the earth beneath his feet like a scholar lost in thoughtful debate about the nature of the world. All she had heard from Sister Anne and her own brother suggested he was an honorable man, although one around whom some mystery drifted.

  Had his mother been of low birth
, seized in the dark staircase of a castle or in the open fields? Or was she a beloved concubine of some rank? In either case, Beatrice knew he must have been sufficiently cherished by a high ranking father, one who could demand placement of an intelligent but bastard son where the boy might rise by the strength of his wits.

  Had Thomas come to the cowl with any calling? What ambitions did he now hold, and what would he be willing to do to gain them? To whom might he be bound? Which man’s advancement would prove beneficial to his own?

  As she looked back across the cemetery of the damned and watched Eleanor walk toward her with Jhone by her side, Beatrice knew she had a duty to perform on behalf of a dead sister-in-law, one who had never seen this beautiful daughter mature into such an incomparable young woman. In addition, she owed it to her own heart that had so joyfully taken on a mother’s role.

  Thus the novice mistress of Amesbury Priory resolved to learn more about this Thomas of Tyndal, a man with the power to destroy the creature she loved most in the world.

  Author’s Notes

  Amesbury Priory did exist. This prominent daughter house of the French Order of Fontevraud was located within a few miles of Stonehenge and next to Amesbury village itself on the River Avon. Prioress Ida was the actual leader when my fictional Eleanor came to visit her equally fictitious aunt. Almost nothing is known about Ida, especially whether she had a pet of any ilk.

  By 1272, the priory was old by all standards, and the land on which it rested was an even more ancient spiritual site. There is some archaeological evidence, based on the discovery of a nearby burial presumed to be Christian, that a religious community might have been there in the fourth century C.E., and some claim that Queen Guinevere retreated to a nunnery of similar name in sorrowful penance for her sins. Whether or not that story, later made famous by Malory, is deemed pure legend, a synod was held in a Saxon church located on the grounds under the auspices of Archbishop Dunstan in the reign of King Edgar the Peaceful.