The Proud Sinner

by Priscilla Royal

  The orisons he now offered God were short, but he concentrated on uttering each word with passion as if it were the last one he would ever voice. It mattered less to him what the words meant. They were sacred utterances. That was sufficient.

  Rising to his feet, he was pleased. He might have minor aches in his back, but his knees were unaffected by the joint disease. God obviously was pleased with him if He allowed him the mercy of praying without discomfort. As for his tender gums, they troubled him very little. He had never cared much about food and, for many years, had abstained from meat unless it was softened in stews.

  His servant had found him a chair and pillows for his chamber so he might read in comfort. Walking over to it, he sat with pleasurable anticipation. The book he wished to study was lying on the table next to a ewer of ale from the Tyndal’s own brewery. Although he preferred wine, he demanded that his soul be grateful for the simple gift which this remote priory had offered. Indeed, he found the drink palatable enough and poured some into a mazer to sip.

  Preparing himself to be worthy to read Matthew Paris’ Life of Saint Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, he closed his eyes and chased away all earthly thoughts, although ones involving his fellow abbots were harder to dismiss.

  It was unfortunate that three had died, although God must have wanted the deaths or they would not have happened. He had prayed hard for their survival, but God had chosen another path. “Thy will be done,” he whispered and acknowledged to Him that he accepted the deaths and would set aside any lingering sadness.

  After a moment of silence and a wordless prayer, Ancell slipped his hand under the volume and pulled it toward him.

  He felt a sharp pain in his hand and yanked it back.

  There was a brown spider on his hand, less than an inch in width with a marble-like pattern on the back. The bite was already turning an angry red.

  Ancell screamed and killed the creature with the slap of his other hand.

  Then he lost consciousness.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  When the monk told his prioress and Sister Anne that he was going to the inn to treat the young wife who had not yet healed, the sub-infirmarian suggested he take another woman with him. It was an unusual idea, but the logic was sound. He was forbidden to touch the wife, but, if needed, a woman could with his direction.

  To the surprise of all, Gracia volunteered, if no qualified lay sister was able to go. Although Prioress Eleanor hesitated, she gave the requisite permission. Sister Anne expressed gratitude for the girl’s offer. With the latest storm, many sick had come to the hospital, including children unable to breathe, and the sub-infirmarian decided the latter had more immediate need of her attendance than the young wife.

  Now Brother Thomas and Gracia were walking along the roadside to the inn, traveling in easy silence and carefully avoiding the dangerous frozen ruts disguised by snow.

  Thomas glanced at the young woman and wondered if he should take advantage of this time alone with the girl to encourage a confidence. He knew Gracia was distressed over the decision she must make about her future and considered what he should do or say. His anger with God having abated, he felt more able to offer counsel—if, indeed, Gracia even needed his advice.

  He chose to circle the problem.

  “This matter of the young wife may be troubling,” he said. “Are you sure you are comfortable helping?” As he looked down at Gracia, he tried to read her expression. Thomas prided himself on hiding his feelings, but he decided that the prioress’ maid might just be his superior in the craft.

  “I am, Brother. You explained she had lost her child. All I wish is to help ease her suffering. If I can also bring her a little solace, I shall be content.”

  “Then you most certainly shall succeed. At the priory, you have had ample opportunity to learn the many ways a soul can find consolation.” He kept his tone light to mute the implications of those words.

  Her expression was polite, but the look in her eyes suggested that he had not fooled her in the slightest. “I am grateful beyond measure for those lessons, Brother, but often wonder if I am worthy to be there. You know my past. I am not without grave sin.”

  “None of us is. God does not expect perfection, my child. He asks only that we strive to understand His intent within the words of His laws. For ourselves and others, we must practice compassion, forgiveness, and charity. The embrace of love is God’s way. Hate and anger are Satan’s.” Thomas realized he should probably take his own advice more than he did.

  Gracia slowed, face flushed, and stared at the white road ahead, framed by black trees with skeletal branches.

  “I know the sin you mean, child,” he whispered. “It was not your sin, for you did nothing willingly. The evil was committed against you.”

  “If so, Brother, I should long to avoid the company of men. Yet I do not fear all of Adam’s sons. Indeed some are most pleasing to me. Is that not a sign that I must have consented to the acts, even if I have denied it to you and in my heart?” Her words were barely audible.

  Thomas took a moment to consider his answer. Perhaps he had succeeded in healing some of the deep wound she had suffered from the rape, and for that he thanked God, but scars remained. Not all would agree with his complete exoneration of her, but his soul rebelled at the idea that a child should be blamed for an act of sexual violence just because she was Eve’s daughter.

  “The answer to your question is simple. You consented to nothing. A child is unformed and thus incapable of either an adult’s sins or responsibilities,” he said. “God wept over your pain. As for the nature of mortals, we are all sinners. Yet some strive more than others to virtue. If you do not hate the innocent along with the guilty, you have begun that long journey to righteous wisdom. Not all men are like the one who sinned against you.”

  “Have you ever hated mankind, Brother? Men or women?”

  Her words brought both searing memory to his heart and bile into his throat. Thomas forced himself to dig far beneath his anger at God and the agony of his own rape in prison. Gracia had asked an important question. It was one that demanded a fair response.

  “I did hate. As mortals, we all suffer that weakness. It is part of our frail nature that we are inclined to sin in that way. But God believes his creatures have hearts capable of learning a better way. He only condemns those who willfully reject the harder road to love and choose instead the easier path of hate.”

  Gracia grew pensive, and the pair walked on in silence.

  Suddenly, she stopped. “How can there be love between a man and a woman without offending God? Lechery is a sin, is it not?”

  Thomas was at a loss for words as he gazed down at the young woman, her brow furrowed and eyes narrowed with bewilderment. How could he respond when he was still struggling with an answer for himself?

  Love between adults was a complicated thing, sometimes combined with lust, other times not. Didn’t he love Sister Anne and his prioress? Yet he had no wish to lie with either. He loved Ralf, but had no yearning to couple with him. From time to time, he had lusted for the bodies of other men, and the pain of denial had been a sharp but brief agony. His couplings with women had brought relief but never joy. Only twice in his life had he felt love and desire entwine. The first had almost killed him. The second?

  He clenched his fist and swore an oath that his love for Durant would not be destroyed like his love for Giles had been. All he wanted was that peace he found in the wine merchant’s arms before their mutual passion drove them apart. Surely there was a way….

  Gracia was looking at him, her eyes begging for an answer now.

  “Lechery is a thing that sparkles, delights, and quickly loses its glow, child. Love is a gift from God, enduring, a source of strength and of joy.” Was that enough? He feared it wasn’t for her any more than it was for him.

  “Then a man and a woman, who yearn to lie to
gether, cannot also love because the body’s passion is a sin.”

  “The two emotions can be felt together, although not always. But God allows desire to be satisfied in the marriage bed, and marriage is no sin.”

  “But to love without marriage?” She shook her head. “I am not sure what I mean, Brother. I do not mean those who couple together without God’s blessing. But surely lust kept solely in the heart is… I cannot explain myself at all. I am so confused.”

  “You are not alone. It may require a lifetime to understand the nature of love,” he said. “I pray daily for the patience to improve my understanding. All I do know is that God does not condemn those who struggle, doubt, and question…” He stopped, unable to find the right words. Indeed, he had never had them.

  Suddenly, Gracia looked down the road and pointed.

  Nute was running toward them. “Brother Thomas!” he shouted.

  The monk and Gracia hurried to meet him.

  “You must come quickly,” the lad gasped.

  “What has happened?” Thomas felt an unearthly fear. Had they all been wrong about the abbots’ illnesses? Was there a new plague in the land?

  “Just follow me, please. My mother begs you not to delay.”

  The trio rushed to the village inn.

  ***

  Signy was waiting for them at the door, her face pale with fear. “I’m grateful you were so close, Brother.”

  “This is the salve for the man with the rash. I do not know his name.” As he gave her the jar, his soul trembled.

  “He calls himself Ned.” Her voice shook. “I’ll pass it on to him, but I sent Nute because I fear for the young couple. The wife has collapsed. She is gravely ill!”

  Sensing that this condition might not be good for Gracia to see, Thomas told her to wait, then hurried to a room that Signy had created by surrounding an area with cloth for a rare privacy at an inn. Entering, he saw the husband kneeling by his wife’s straw pallet bed. The man wept bitterly as he held her hand.

  It took Thomas one look to know that the young woman was dying.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “My lord, my work would be finished sooner if you held your hand still.” The young hospital brother clenched his teeth to keep from uttering oaths he had vowed never to speak again and especially not in the presence of an abbot.

  Abbot Ancell glared at him in response. “Was the bite poisonous?”

  Sister Anne had been watching the treatment from a suitable distance. Noting the abbot’s pallor, she felt a brief twinge of sympathy. “It is,” she said, “but it will not be a mortal one. The common biting spider causes a red and painful swelling. This remedy will dull the soreness….”

  “It is not sore! It burns!” He pressed a hand to his chest. “And I have a pain here!”

  “That is a common symptom with this kind of spider bite, my lord.” Sister Anne struggled to ignore the undisguised delight on the lay brother’s face over the abbot’s mortal fear. “It shall pass soon.” But she caught herself hoping it would not pass too soon.

  Tying a piece of clean linen around the hand, the lay brother dropped the abbot’s hand. “I have finished,” he announced and swiftly fled from the apothecary.

  “But I have questions for him,” Ancell muttered as he pointed at the rapidly vanishing man.

  “Questions I may be able to answer with the help of God.” Anne modestly folded her hands and humbly bowed her head.

  “I would rather speak with Prior Andrew or even Brother Thomas.” The abbot stood up from the stool on which he had been sitting and walked to a spot as far from the nun as he could.

  “Brother Thomas is in the village, taking medicine to the sick. Prior Andrew is directing an urgently required repair of a leak in the monks’ dormitory roof.”

  “Then Prioress Eleanor must be summoned. You,” he pointed to her lest she be in any doubt over whom he meant, “must leave my presence. She must bring a proper attendant to protect our sacred vows. I shall be praying in the chapel.”

  Sister Anne left to send a messenger to the leader of Tyndal Priory. Having been married in the secular world, she was experienced in the many joys of the marriage bed. The idea of any woman being tempted to sin with Abbot Ancell required more imagination than even her wicked soul possessed.

  ***

  Prioress Eleanor was used to dealing with the difficult and told the young messenger that she would attend to the abbot immediately. No matter what opinion she held of Abbot Ancell, or any of the other abbots for that matter, she honored courtesy and always considered diplomacy to be the most successful approach in the majority of situations. Thus she lowered her veil over her face and arrived in the chapel with a nun and one of the hospital lay brothers in tow.

  The abbot was kneeling in prayer while tenderly cradling his bitten hand.

  Eleanor waited until the man decided he would notice the sound of her arrival and finish his orisons. The delay, as she knew, was a calculated display of the abbot’s power and status.

  “We have been lied to,” he said, rising to his feet and glancing with satisfaction at the man standing near the door and the nun by her side.

  “Please explain what you mean, my lord.” The prioress was impressive in her calm.

  “Brother Thomas, the crowner, and even a lay brother have assured us that you had taken adequate measures to protect us. Yet this has just happened!” He carefully waved his bandaged hand.

  “A spider bite,” she replied.

  “A plot,” he retorted.

  “That was done by a common spider. We have seen others inside during winter.”

  “It was deliberately hidden in my book,” Ancell said, emphasizing each word. “Three noble abbots have died, and one is fighting to keep his soul out of Death’s hand. Now I have been attacked. What other conclusion could anyone endowed with reason make?”

  Opting not to explain the difficulty of hiding a spider under a book with the assumption that it would wait until a particular time and the targeted hand was nigh, Eleanor bowed her head. “I have sworn to keep you all safe,” she said. “Have you some suggestions for improving the protection since you have suffered this bite?”

  He glared at her, although her tone had not suggested any sarcasm. “Godly men must be assigned to protect our quarters. Our food and drink must be tasted by your lay brothers before it is served to us.”

  The kitchen brothers had already been ordered to test the food with a cage of mice, but she wondered why any abbot, of more mature years and surely longing for Heaven, would demand a young man sacrifice his own life so the elder might remain even longer in the sinful world. As for godly men, she was curious if he had a special definition, since all in the priory were as vowed to God’s service as were the abbots.

  “You have no response? Has God silenced your woman’s tongue?”

  “Our priory is small, especially compared to your abbey,” she said, “and lacks the number of men needed to guard your chambers. Perhaps your servants could do this.” She saw that he was about to protest and quickly added, “Our lay brothers could not possibly be as devoted to you as the men you trusted enough to bring on this journey.” She carefully omitted any specific mention of having tasters for the meals.

  He shut his mouth, and his expression suggested he was willing to consider this option. “Very well,” he said at last. “Our servants shall do this, but their other duties cannot be left undone. Your religious will have to perform some of their tasks.”

  Eleanor agreed that linens would be changed and washed by her people as well as any cleaning of the rooms. All, she said, would be done under the watchful eye of the abbots’ servants so no more errant spiders could be hidden.

  Having established that the abbot had no further demands, Eleanor departed with courtesy and walked back to her chambers, taking the long way around through the sno
w-softened cemetery. The sharp air and numbing cold beneath her feet distracted her from her anger.

  Glancing at a rounded grave with no markings that lay just outside the sanctified ground, she brought to mind the story of the man whose corpse lay there.

  Murder was a grave sin for any mortal but especially for this man who had sworn himself to God’s service. So which one, of those remaining alive in this party of brother abbots, was also committing the heinous sin that had caused God to brand Cain?

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Prioress Eleanor noticed that Gracia had been especially quiet since her return from the village with Brother Thomas, but the young woman claimed the events there had not troubled her beyond a very human grief. After a short while, she asked permission to visit Eda in the anchorage later in the day, a request Eleanor most readily granted.

  If her maid wished to seek counsel from the anchoress or her friend, the prioress willed herself to be content. She would have preferred that Gracia seek her advice, but, depending on what the young woman wanted to discuss, she knew that she might not be the wisest one to give it.

  As Thomas led Crowner Ralf and Sister Anne into her audience chamber, Eleanor glanced at Gracia who was already heating the wine with a poker from the fire. Even if the young woman was troubled, she still thought first of the comfort of others without being asked. Once again, the prioress prayed that the girl would stay at Tyndal while acknowledging that her desire was selfish as well as pure. At least God was used to the flawed mix of emotions from her, and she silently expressed gratitude for His patience.

  “The abbots are restive,” Ralf said after taking a cup of mulled wine. His nose was red from the bite of the outside air.

  “Abbot Ancell is convinced the spider that bit him was planted under his book to poison him.” Sister Anne briefly smiled.

  “And you, Brother? What cheerful news have you to bring us?” Eleanor meant to lighten the mood but then remembered what he and Gracia had found at the inn. Begging God for forgiveness, she deeply repented her frivolous tone.