“Surely there are shrines closer to home, Pilgrim. Why Canterbury?”
“Blood,” the man stuttered. “My penance involves blood.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow.
“I am not fleeing the hangman.”
Had the man been telling the complete truth, he would not be squirming like a boy trying to hide a stolen pastry behind his back. On the other hand, Thomas doubted he was escaping execution or was even the elusive Imbert. The monk smelled fear issuing from the man but no malice. Watching him twitch, Thomas doubted this alleged pilgrim had enough composure to hide his identity and pretend to be a clerk sent by Davoir.
But he is from Picardy, the monk thought. Davoir was from Anjou. The priest came from a noble family, and this pilgrim was not of great worldly rank, although his body suggested he was not accustomed to hunger or to hard labor. There was no cause to see a link between priest and pilgrim. Surely this man had not traveled all the way from Picardy to kill a clerk.
Reluctantly, Thomas concluded that the pilgrim must be trying to pilfer medicines, hoping to sell nostrums on the road to Canterbury to those who did not object to some earthly help while waiting for the miracle of healing from the sainted Becket.
The monk gestured for the man to sit on a nearby bench.
Dutifully, the pilgrim obeyed.
“Explain more fully what you are doing here.”
“I am in pain. My ankle needs to be rewrapped. I know something of herbs, and all the lay brothers are busy. I came here to find the remedy myself.”
Thomas asked him to raise the foot so he could exam it, then he undid the binding. Not only were the herbs fresh, the ankle was not discolored with bruising. There was no sign of any swelling to suggest a recent injury. No wonder the lay brother had been skeptical of the tale told about a sprain.
He looked up at the man. “This foot?” He pressed his thumb against the ankle bone.
The man cried out.
Thomas knew he had not caused any pain but became more firmly convinced that this man was just a thief while the prey he sought was a murderer. “I will treat you,” he said but refused to apologize for the pain he had supposedly produced.
As he went over to the shelf that held a small basket of arnica, he asked, “Do you sleep on the straw mat near the chapel?”
“That I do,” the pilgrim replied. His tone was hesitant.
Thomas mentioned a night. “Did you happen to see a hooded man leave this hut and go through the hospital with something in his hand?” He turned around.
The man’s expression suggested genuine surprise—with a hint of relief. He took time to consider the question. “I was asked before, Brother, and swore I had not. But you just said that he was carrying something, and that makes me think I did see a man, although he may not be the one you seek.” He looked sheepish as if embarrassed by the poor excuse for the sudden recollection. “He was of medium height, as are most men, I fear. Nor did I see his face. He had a hood and kept his head down, and I thought he held something against his chest. He seemed to be in a great hurry. I remember him only because a man called out to him to stop and bring succor to his dying cousin, but this hooded creature did not even slow his pace, nor did he call for a lay brother.” He drew a deep breath and frowned. “I thought that odd, so grabbed my crutch and went to seek a man of God myself.”
Thomas waited, then asked, “You did not see where the hooded man went or hear his voice?”
“Neither, Brother. That is all I know.”
Thomas tried to decide if he believed the pilgrim or suspected he had been the man he was seeking. Either the guilty man or an innocent one could have mentioned these details.
Yet this pilgrim had been upset enough to seek a lay brother for the dying man after the hooded figure so callously rushed by. And, he suddenly remembered, this matched the story told by the cousin of the one whose soul was facing God. No matter what this pilgrim’s real crimes might be, he did not strike Thomas as an especially cunning man. He wasn’t even good at telling a plausible lie. Twisted ankle indeed!
After a brief pause, the monk concluded that this man from Picardy could not be Brother Imbert. He thanked him for his help and finished wrapping the ankle, then gave him his crutch.
As Thomas stood there hoping he had not made a mistake in judging the man innocent of murder, he blinked at what he just noticed. Was he wrong or had this pilgrim gone several steps out of the hut, hobbling on the wrong foot?
Chapter Twenty-six
Renaud struggled to keep up with Father Etienne, wishing the priest would slow his pace. His head ached from the blow, and his shoulder hurt where it was bruised by his fall.
Indeed, the clerk felt more wretched than he ever had in his life. If only his master would turn, smile lovingly, and say something kind. That was all he truly longed for.
“Father!”
Davoir spun around and frowned as if his pondering over the shades of meaning in a significant theological problem had been rudely interrupted.
Renaud stared. Did his master not recognize him? Might he have forgotten he was beside him?
The priest blinked, his eyes slowly focusing on his clerk. “Ah.” His lips twitched upward. “Yes?”
A thin-lipped gesture for sure, but it warmed the clerk’s heart and eased a bit of his pain. This pause also let Renaud catch his breath.
“Your plan for the protection of our quarters addressed the problem,” the priest said, a statement related to nothing he had said since leaving the hospital. His expression also suggested the comment was less a compliment than a problem requiring analysis.
Renaud humbly bowed his head, but his heart beat faster with a stirring of pride.
“Your suggestion was wiser than the Captain’s. I fear he is a godless man.”
“Why else would he have suggested bringing armed men to stand on holy ground?” the clerk murmured, head still lowered. It was a gesture often used by Jean, he recalled. Although he had not meant to imitate the dead youth, Renaud found it so easy to slip into Jean’s habits. Surely this was an omen that he was meant to take the favored one’s place in his master’s heart. He stole a glance over his shoulder to make sure the dead clerk’s spirit was not hovering.
“Although the man was correct on one point. God blesses the swords of those who fight the Infidel.”
Renaud blinked. Did the priest mean he saw some virtue in the captain? How should he respond to this? He raised his eyes to look at Father Etienne and reassured himself that his wits must be agile enough to keep up with his master’s unexpected twists and turns of thought. Jean’s always were. “Without doubt,” he replied.
“Without doubt?” Davoir’s eyes narrowed.
The clerk began to sweat. Why was the priest testing him now of all times? He had just suffered a blow to his head by one of the damned. He felt dizzy. “Dare one say otherwise about those who seek to recover Jerusalem?” That was a good response, he thought.
“And if those pilgrims turn their swords against other Christians? Does God also bless that deed?”
Burning sweat from his forehead dripped into his eyes. “Perhaps the Christians have been wicked and deserve the attack.” He was stammering, and he hated himself for it. Jean would have presented his opinion in a confident tone.
Davoir laughed, his tone mocking. “Poor reasoning. I had hoped to hear better from you after your solution to the guard problem.” He sighed. “But, having considered that apparent spark of competence more thoroughly, I can see that your plan held the same flaws as the rest of your work.”
Renaud began to tremble. He wanted to shout that he was still weak from his injuries. The priest ought not to press him so hard on these difficult questions. But he did not cry out or beg for mercy. Instead, he stood like a child, gaze bound to the earth and hands folded. Although the tears sliding down his cheeks were caused
by sweat in his eyes, not sorrow, he felt humiliated as he always did when Father Etienne chided him. At least Jean was not there to witness this.
Or was he? Renaud had not told the priest that he believed the dead clerk had attacked him for sending his spirit to Hell. Maybe Jean, reeking of burnt souls, had come to Father Etienne in a dream and told him of Renaud’s sin. He longed to look over his shoulder again but did not, lest the priest ask him why.
“You chose to take the darkest hours to patrol alone instead of assigning more clerks to do so. I would have praised your judgement if you had taken a daylight tour by yourself when there was less danger of attack. At night, the Devil brings all his minions with him, and the fellowship of more clerks, chanting prayers as they circled the quarters, would have kept the Evil One at bay.”
The clerk wanted to blame the guard captain who had suggested he take the night watch alone. But Renaud had still accepted the plan although he could now see the faulty logic of his choice. Why had he listened to that soldier? Maybe the captain was not just weak of faith but a servant of evil. His ugly, scarred face suggested that for there was no beauty unless God was present. Yes, he had been duped, but it was not something he could confess or he would suffer even greater admonishment from Father Etienne.
“Jean would not have made that mistake.”
This was too much! Renaud whimpered like a mongrel facing a wild boar.
“Stop whining!”
“Yes, master,” the youth mumbled.
“Jean made errors too, but he never acted like a witless babe when shown his mistakes.” Davoir waved his hand in disgust at the clerk and strode away.
Renaud ran after him. He wanted to shout that the priest’s beloved clerk had been no saint. He had gotten drunk, admittedly with Renaud’s help, and had behaved like a feckless girl over the attentions of one of the guards on the way from the coast. But he knew Davoir would not care. When he once told the priest about seeing Jean commit a secret sin, Davoir had scolded him for tattling and said that his favored clerk had already come to him for penance. Even when Jean sinned, he always did the right thing in the priest’s mind.
“Father!” Renaud fell to his knees.
“What is it?” Davoir turned around and glared with repugnance at the squirming clerk.
“Have I not served you well and dutifully?”
Father Etienne folded his arms and stared at the miserable youth. “You meant well with the planned defense, and I grieve that you were injured in that duty. Yes, Renaud, you do the best you can to serve me, although you rarely do anything ably.”
Reaching out his hands in supplication, the clerk did not even know what more he wanted from his master, but these words of little comfort bore into his ears like hot iron from the smith’s fire. He heard screams, as if from a tortured man, but those sounds came from inside his own head.
“Despite your ambition, you can never hope to replace Jean. Indeed, that is something even you must have known would be unreasonable.”
Jean! Jean! It was always Jean. Even with his soul in Hell, he was keeping Renaud out of favor. The clerk’s heart beat painfully against his chest.
“You are incompetent. You always have been, lad. For your father’s sake, I wished it otherwise. He was a good and loyal steward to my father, and so I kept you by my side longer than I ought. Your Latin is abysmal. Your debate lacks force of logic. I cannot read your writing, nor can the other clerks.”
“You will keep me with you, surely!” Renaud crawled on his knees, grabbed the priest’s robe, and pressed his face against the man’s feet.
Davoir pulled himself free and stepped back. “Get up! This display is unseemly!”
“You will keep me with you!” Renaud wailed.
“On your feet, lad,” the priest replied with unexpected gentleness. “I will not cast you aside without finding a place for you that is suited to your skills. You have chosen to serve God, and that is what He wishes most from us.” Then he turned his back and briskly walked down the path to the quarters.
Renaud scrabbled to his feet and stared at the man who had the power to lift him into prominence or dash him into oblivion. He wiped his hand across his dusty cheek and under his dripping nose. He knew the kind of service Father Etienne would find for a discarded clerk. The last one got a small parish that could barely feed and clothe him while he preached to whores and beggars. Davoir might believe God would find this suitable, but Renaud did not.
As he trailed behind his master along a path that felt like the road to his own Golgotha, Renaud no longer suffered grief, nor had his misery been replaced by anger.
His heart had turned to ice.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Eleanor sat in the cloister garth and closed her eyes.
Bees hummed love songs to the flowers. A gentle breeze caressed her cheek. In the distance, a seagull called out its pride in the successful hunt for food. Even the autumn sun gave what vigor it had left to warm her.
This peace should have cheered and strengthened. Instead, like a prisoner granted one final glance of the bright world, she felt the heaviness of despondency.
“Oh, you are a foolish creature,” she muttered aloud.
“May I help, my lady?”
The prioress had forgotten that Gracia was so close. She had brought her maid along so the child might have a few moments for simple play, something the girl rarely had time to do.
I have burdened her too much with tasks involving this murder, Eleanor thought. Yet she noticed that Gracia was delighted with those challenges and even suggested clever ways she could do more. This was not a girl happiest when clutching her cloth poppet, the prioress decided, and now she wondered if the education offered at Tyndal Priory could match the quality of the child’s wits.
Yet there was a problem.
As the descendant of one who had served and entertained Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine and Queen of England, the prioress was not inclined to let a woman’s ability to learn go fallow. But, intelligent as Gracia was, the girl’s family still belonged to the lowest rank of free men. How should Eleanor best teach her maid while also preparing her for the place she would have to take in the world outside Tyndal Priory?
Her former maid, Gytha, had come from a line of Anglo-Saxon thegns, even though Norman rule had reduced that family’s position to breeders of donkeys and brewers of ale. Before the marriage to Ralf, Eleanor knew Gytha would marry at least a merchant. Gracia had little hope of such a high union.
I need guidance, the prioress thought, and she resolved to write Sister Beatrice, her aunt at Amesbury, to seek advice.
“It is nothing momentous, my child,” Eleanor said. “I had just forgotten to look at an entry in another accounting roll that would answer a question I had.”
Gracia nodded, but her deep set blue eyes shifted color to gray.
Eleanor had learned to identify this as a sign that the maid recognized a lie. It was a trait that troubled some but not her. She reached out a hand and touched the girl’s thin shoulder with affection. If she were to win Gracia’s complete trust, she must not utter even innocuous falsehoods.
“Very well, but my complaint truly meant nothing,” she said gently. “I was pondering a dilemma that requires more patience and understanding than I am wont to own.” Then the prioress clapped her hands together with amusement. “I shall tell you a secret. Reaching womanhood does not mean we have learned all we need to know of life, but we often believe we have, then rue our ignorance. It is a common failing.”
As Gracia carefully memorized this bit of wisdom, her eyes regained their color of a bright spring sky.
Standing, Eleanor took the child by the hand and proceeded along the path, pointing out various plants, giving their names, and an interesting detail about each.
Gracia touched them all and repeated the name, adding her observations on color and
form.
What a truly clever girl she is, the prioress thought with pleasure. “Are you happy here, my child?”
“Yes, my lady!”
“You have done well in this matter of Sister Anne and Father Etienne. I am proud of you.”
The girl blushed.
“You have been my eyes and ears and blunted my impatience with the restrictions placed on me. Were it not for your efforts, I would have little hope.”
“You have Brother Thomas and Crowner Ralf,” the maid replied with honest modesty.
“Brother Thomas can do little more than I, and our crowner serves the king’s justice, which does not rule here. He is limited in what he can do to seek the truth. You have helped where they and I cannot.”
Gracia turned pale and fiercely grasped the prioress’ hand. “You will not be sent from here, will you?” Her voice was so soft it was almost inaudible.
“There is no reason for that to happen. I am innocent of all accusations as is Sister Anne. Once the intent behind these vile charges and crimes is revealed, Father Etienne can declare us blameless, go back to Anjou, and Sister Anne may return to her hospital.”
Squeezing the child’s hand, she realized that she had not reassured Gracia as she should have. The girl had been present when Davoir accused Eleanor of breaking her vows, yet Gracia had remained steadfast in her loyalty despite fearing she would lose the home she had just found. The prioress wished she had immediately told her maid that the child’s world would not be upended again.
“I must confess something.” Gracia looked up but did not let go of Eleanor’s hand.
“And what is that?”
“I have not liked this priest from the moment he arrived.”
Neither had Eleanor, but she hid her concurrence and encouraged Gracia to explain.
“When he spoke to you and Prior Andrew, after you had first greeted him, his manner reminded me of the men who walked past me when I was begging at the inn in Walsingham. Not all were so cruel that they would push me to the side with a boot, but some wished they had not been faced with a child who sat begging. The sight was unpleasant, yet they had no solution for my need, and thus passed by, pretending they had not seen me.”
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