Belladonna at Belstone aktm-8

by Michael Jecks

  It was that which led to her incarceration here. She would not have come to Belstone, except the only man whom Paul could find for her who possessed the right attributes was Master Gerald, a burgess in Exeter: a gross, fat man, with pendulous jaws and slack mouth, piggy eyes, and perpetually sweating brow. Master Gerald was certainly rich, but he was repulsive as well. The thought of his drooling mouth approaching her in their marital bed was repellent, and Constance had instantly spoken to the local priest, declaring her intention of joining a cloister.

  That was over nine years ago, when she had been already old, at almost two-and-twenty. In truth she could say that she had never had any difficulty with her vows. She had made them in good faith, and intended to stick to them. When she came to the convent, she was a virgin and believed that she could keep to the claustral life. Celibacy was a small price to pay for the escape from Master Gerald, and as for poverty and obedience – well, poverty was her lot now that she was cut off from her family, and obedience was a feature of everyone’s daily existence. We all obeyed someone else, a lord, a king, an abbot – or a husband.

  And then everything changed again – for she had met Elias.

  Constance was tending to her tiny herb garden out at the western edge of the cloister, behind the lay sisters’ dorter, and picking leaves for a poultice when she had cut her thumb on her little sharp knife. She had been down at the southernmost corner of the garden, where the wall dividing the canonical side from the nunnery was a simple metal fence with iron bars to separate men and women without leaving all the nuns’ plants in the shade. As Constance stood, staring at her bloodied finger with dismay, Elias had appeared in the grille, and from that moment Constance had known love.

  She felt the prioress’s arm about her shoulder, and drank again. Lady Elizabeth was a kind woman, Constance knew, though sometimes her advice was not useful.

  Lady Elizabeth sat at her desk and gazed sympathetically at the weeping nun.

  “I wondered why you did not attend Matins,“ she said softly. ”But I see you wouldn’t have been able to concentrate. Well and good. It is better that you should come to sing praises to Christ with a happy heart, not one which is downcast.“

  “My… my Lady,” Constance stammered. “I have broken my vows.“

  “You have made love with a canon?”

  Constance stared up at the prioress. “You knew?”

  “My dear, I know much of what goes on here, but it did not require great intuition to guess what you meant. It was a sin, but you could hardly have broken the oath of poverty without my knowing, and as for obedience, I have always found you most straightforward. What else could it be, then? Now, you are not the first to have done this. Are you with child?”

  Feeling her face redden, Constance turned away in her shame.

  “That is a pity, my dear – a child can be an embarrassment, and it is difficult to conceal something that can grow so large. Still, there are ways of keeping such matters quiet.”

  “But it’s not the point! What of my promise to God?”

  “He has many problems to look at, and I fear your lapse is only one of many, even among nuns. He has other, more serious issues to occupy Him.”

  “But what about Moll? I killed her!”

  Elias walked into the frater just as the bishop hurried out, and Elias had to stand back as Bertrand shoved past, rude in his urgency. He left Elias standing at the doorway staring after him with surprise as the suffragan darted back along the cloister towards the church. When Elias peered into the frater, he saw Baldwin and Simon, both looking bitterly angry, and Godfrey sitting opposite them with an expression of resentment marring his normally pleasant features. Hugh sat close to his master, looking sulky.

  Although he had no wish to be questioned by the knight or the bailiff, Elias was thirsty, and he also wondered whether he could learn anything useful about the investigation. He walked in and collected himself a jug of ale before wandering as if idly to a bench nearby. This early in the morning the frater was nearly empty. Elias sat as close as he could without looking conspicuous; he was at the next table with Jonathan, a man whom Elias usually tried to avoid, but today he had little choice if he wished to hear what the men were saying.

  At first he could hear little, and what he did hear made no sense to him.

  Baldwin: “What do you think, Godfrey?”

  Godfrey, peevishly: “Me? Why do you persist in asking me? The good bishop has decided upon his actions. He’s wrong, though. My Lady Elizabeth is…”

  Baldwin: “You know about Watton. Almost anyone in a double convent like this will have heard of the story. Could it have happened here?”

  Godfrey, dismissively: “Oh, rumours! If you listen to half the gossip that circulates around a nunnery, you’ll believe that the Devil invented them for his own amusement.”

  Baldwin: “Has the same crime been committed here?”

  Godfrey: “Leave me alone, Sir Knight. I don’t know anything about this Watton.”

  It was at this point that Jonathan nudged Elias. “I think that knight has got a shrewd idea what’s been going on here. You should watch yourself, Elias, eh?”

  Elias could have hit him. The canon sat with a suggestive leer on his face, nodding knowingly when he saw his bolt strike the mark. Instead, Elias stared over the other man’s shoulder and spoke softly from the corner of his mouth. “You think so, Jonathan? If I were under any danger, it would be as nothing compared to what would happen to you if I were to tell our Lady the Prioress whom you have been trying to tup.”

  Jonathan’s face changed. “Come, there’s no need for that. I only made a comment in jest, Elias.”

  “So did I. Don’t make me have to repeat it in seriousness, will you?”

  Jonathan gave him a fawning smile and moved further along the bench, leaving Elias fuming. He knew his behaviour was wrong, against the teachings of St Benedict, and ran utterly against the Rule designed for their convent; he was guilty of failing in two of his oaths – he had been neither obedient nor celibate – and still worse, he had tempted a nun to fail in her own oaths.

  Yet that wasn’t the worst of it, he reminded himself. Far worse even than that was the fact that he was planning to remove Constance from the convent, leading her into the crime of apostasy.

  “Watton!” Godfrey exclaimed. “You keep referring to it. I know nothing of the place.”

  “Then allow me to inform you,” Baldwin said steadily.

  Simon cast a look at Hugh. His servant was staring away, plainly bored by the conversation, and Simon could well understand why. Baldwin appeared to be talking about something that had no relevance.

  “Watton,” the knight said, “was a small convent far from here, but it was not dissimilar to St Mary’s. It was Gilbertine, I think, which means it was a double convent, with the two cloisters, just like this one.”

  Godfrey sipped from his pot and refilled it carelessly, Simon thought, as though slopping the drink over the table was proof that he was hardly paying heed to Baldwin’s words.

  “But in this little place there was a great sin committed,” Baldwin continued. “Because in Watton it was discovered that a nun had been dallying with a monk, and the nuns were deeply shocked; more so still when they found that the girl concerned was now with child. Of course this sort of thing is common enough, isn’t it, Godfrey? We know how it can happen, but at Watton, the nuns took an extreme view. They condemned the girl and the man. They forced her to cut off his… let’s just say that he was gelded by her. And then the nuns locked her away in a cell. In chains. She was allowed to give birth to her child, I think, and the baby was brought up in the monastery, but the mother was never released.”

  “An interesting story, Sir Baldwin. But hardly relevant to our…”

  “What I always wondered, after I heard that tale, was how had the two managed to meet?” Baldwin said, peering into his cup. “If they were in a double convent, then there would have been great controls over who could
cross between the cloisters, wouldn’t there? Like there are here.”

  “Of course. No one is permitted to go to the nuns’ area unless…”

  Baldwin interrupted him once more. “Unless they have a good reason to. Like, for example, a doctor, a specialist in the arts of surgery.”

  Godfrey avoided his eye. His hands were shaking slightly, like a man suffering from too much wine the night before, and his face was red. “I don’t think I understand you,” he managed after a few moments.

  “I think you do, Godfrey,” Baldwin said quietly. “I think some of your colleagues have enjoyed visits over to the nunnery. Perhaps you yourself have made the trip occasionally, eh?”

  Godfrey set his cup down and made as if to rise.

  Baldwin grabbed his wrist. “Godfrey, the girl is dead.”

  “May she rest in peace. I know nothing about that. I did everything in my power to save the poor child,” the brother said in a low voice.

  “And what of her soul, Godfrey? Did you do all you could to save that as well?”

  Suddenly exhausted, Godfrey dropped back down into his seat. “I didn’t touch her. Never! I only opened her vein that one time.”

  “How is it done normally?” Baldwin said, his tone cold and relentless. “You tell the young nun or novice that she need not fear, that making love with a priest is no rejection of her vows to God. Is that not how it’s done? And then, of course, the priest gives absolution. He can confess her, so she need not even look to another man for forgiveness, which could be embarrassing. No, she can gain that from the man who serviced her.”

  “It’s not like that!” Godfrey said, and now at last he looked up. He held Baldwin’s gaze a moment, then his eyes dropped again. “It’s not like that,” he repeated, and glanced over the room. Luckily the place was almost deserted, with most of the canons having gone about their duties, some to study, others to work. He didn’t see Elias, who sat behind him. “Sir Baldwin, I shall tell you all I know, but you must trust me when I say that I am innocent.”

  “Tell us what you know.”

  “I know that the connecting door between the cloisters is rarely locked. Men can cross from one to the other as often as they wish. I have to visit the infirmary regularly enough when Constance needs assistance. But I also go to talk to ladies whom I know.“

  Baldwin nodded, but his face showed no compassion or sympathy. He had been a monk himself, and once he had taken the vows, he had never broken them. To him, an oath was itself sacred, and he knew perfectly well that breaking one of them meant breaking his own solemn word. If a man could do that, he was capable of anything. “What of the dead girl?”

  “Moll? She never knew of my visits.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Easy, Sir Baldwin!” Godfrey gave a sheepish smile. “When she knew of any such affairs, she would instantly break with the nun concerned, and try to persuade her to alter her evil ways!”

  “You mean that your ”friends“ never had such a conversation, so Moll never saw them with you. Would you say that Moll was a very religious young woman?”

  “How should I know?” Godfrey said, taking a drink from his pot. “It’s hard to tell with these young novices. Some of them look ever heavenwards, others are always concentrating on the world here, professing their purity as a means to acquire power. When they’re playing that game, it’s hard to see what they’re really like,” he added gloomily. “I mean, they don’t react like real women. Look at that appalling woman, the treasurer. I wouldn’t trust Sister Margherita further than I could throw her. She’s determined to win power, and God Himself knows what she’ll do with it.”

  “But Moll never gave you the impression that she was not honourable and devout?”

  “She never gave me cause to doubt her sincerity, no. Others, maybe, but not her.”

  “Who did?”

  “That little Agnes. She’s been put here by Sir Rodney as the first of the women he claims the right to install here, because of his generous donation towards the Lady Chapel, but she is hardly chaste, from what I’ve seen. Perhaps that’s why Sir Rodney decided to have her imprisoned here.”

  “You have seen her misbehaving with a canon?”

  Godfrey gave him a twisted grin. “I appear to be talking more than usual, Sir Baldwin. Perhaps I have seen her, perhaps I haven’t – but I seem to recall the good suffragan telling you that you should consider packing your things. So why should I tell you any more?” He stood. “I shall leave you. If you want to know anything else, find another informer.”

  Elias watched him go with waves of relief washing over him. For an instant he had thought Godfrey would give Constance away. It was fortunate that this knight was about to leave: his questions were approaching the truth. However, as a secular man, Sir Baldwin was potentially dangerous. What if he told others?

  Elias chewed his lip as he considered the unpalatable results of Baldwin’s letting slip rumours of what was happening within the convent.

  Lady Elizabeth squatted before the weeping infirmarer and used the end of her sleeve to wipe away her tears. “Constance, don’t trouble yourself in this way. What do you mean, you killed her?”

  “It’s true, my Lady,” Constance said, and the tears flooded down her cheeks as she stared hopelessly at her prioress. “I gave her dwale so that she wouldn’t hear me or see me with my lover. I killed her as surely as if I’d stabbed her – I poisoned her.”

  Lady Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it. The woman before her clearly believed what she had said, and although Elizabeth herself didn’t, she should give Constance an opportunity to explain why she was so convinced of her guilt. Elizabeth returned to her desk, and nodded seriously. “Go on.”

  Constance closed her eyes and allowed her head to fall at an angle. She took a shuddering breath, then, “My Lady, I mixed dwale for Cecily, the lay sister, because she had broken her wrist and would not otherwise sleep. I gave her a strong helping. The infusion of poppy seed acts as a good soporific, and… and I wanted to ensure that Joan and Moll were peaceful as well.” She looked up at the silent prioress. “I did it so that I could enjoy my lover alone, without fear of discovery by one of my patients.“

  “Especially Moll, I imagine,” Elizabeth smiled tightly.

  “Especially her, yes,” Constance agreed dolefully. “She always stuck her nose… Well, you know. Anyway, I gave all three a generous draught. Cecily drank hers down and was soon asleep. Joan is old and reacts quickly to dwale: I saw the drug overcome her almost immediately. I watched Moll drink a little of hers and left the rest of the jug at her side. It was not long before my lover arrived and we went to my chamber.”

  “I see,” said the prioress. “And this was some time before Nocturns?”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  “Would you have heard someone entering?”

  “Margherita tried to,” Constance said. “I heard her and pushed her from the room, she made so much noise.”

  “She woke Joan or…”

  Constance shook her head. “All three were still asleep. I had given them enough dwale to sleep through anything.”

  The prioress gave a fleeting frown. “The door to the infirmary opens very quietly, doesn’t it? Why should Margherita have made so much noise?”

  “It was almost as if she wanted to make sure everyone could hear her.”

  Now she thought about it, Lady Elizabeth herself could recall having been woken by something. At the time she had assumed it was Princess, feeling poorly and wanting to join her mistress in the bed.

  Lady Elizabeth fixed Constance with a firm stare. “And the man was?”

  Constance covered her face with her hands in a moment’s indecision, before meeting her prioress’s stern expression. “My Lady, I cannot tell you that. I can answer for my guilt, but I cannot take another’s decision for him. How can I accuse him without redoubling my guilt? If I speak of him, I force you to judge him. Better that he should have the op
portunity of admitting his guilt before his confessor. It must be enough for you to know that I was there, I committed this sin, and I am to pay the price for my stupidity and… and lust.”

  Lady Elizabeth was about to speak when her door opened, and the red face of Bertrand, breathless after climbing the stairs two at a time, appeared. “Lady Elizabeth, I would have a word with you,” he began.

  For the second time in twenty-four hours the cloister rang to the bellow of a raised voice, but this time the astonished nuns and canons heard the distinct, precise enunciation of their own prioress.

  “Who do you think you are, to thrust yourself in upon the confessional? Do you dare to assume the right to interrupt a nun in solemn declaration? Remove yourself this instant!”

  Bertrand had expected an apologetic, slightly anxious woman, a prioress anticipating removal prior to the installation of her replacement. To be met with this icy blast of rage was almost physically blinding. He blinked and took a step backwards. Rallying his forces, he managed to point out, “But you cannot take confession. You’re no priest, you’re a woman.”

  “Be silent!” Lady Elizabeth stormed, rising from behind her desk. “How dare you question my rights in my priory. Get out of here before I have the canons remove you from the whole of the precinct and bar you from ever returning. And be assured that if you force me to take this action, I will immediately write to my Lord, the Bishop of Exeter, and demand that you be advised never to come here again. Now be gone!”

  The man licked his lips, glanced swiftly from the prioress to the nun then back again. Lady Elizabeth appeared to have grown to fill the room. Her unblinking stare was appallingly compelling. It was hard not to meet it. And once he had, he was mesmerised by her sheer fury. He wavered, but only for a moment, then withdrew, quietly closing the door behind him.