How often had she heard that, Eleanor wondered, and yet this was from the lips of an Englishman. “Tell your tale, and truthfully, but know that I shall make my own judgments.”
Thomas noted the sweat on the merchant’s forehead. Then he wiped it from his own. Lambard must have smelled Death’s corpse breath as strongly as he.
Lambard cleared his throat. “If Eluned trusted you, then I must as well.”
Eleanor now sat, folded her hands in her lap, and waited.
“Abbot Gerald is right in one part of this sad tale. The ghost, who haunts our village, is indeed Hywel.”
Sister Anne gasped and then pressed a hand over her mouth.
“He is not a phantom, however. He is a living man.”
Eleanor’s face was a study in calm and patience.
“What happened the day of the hanging, my lady, might be counted a manifestation of God’s mercy. Despite the roars of approval when Hywel was marched to the gallows, few of us, in our hearts, could believe that the man we had grown up with, a man whose wife helped other wives bear children, and one whose word could always be trusted, was guilty of leading a band of marauders to kill soldiers in their sleep. Yes, he was a Welshman, but King Edward has loyal Welshmen fighting in his army. Hywel could have left the village after his wife died to join Dafydd. He did not. That supports his loyalty to our king, or so I believed and still do.” He looked around at the monastics. “In any case, what happened at the gallows was most certainly a miracle. There can be no other explanation.”
“Hywel survived the hanging?” Sister Anne looked doubtful.
“Two hangings,” Lambard replied. “Bardolph pulled him up first, and, while the stonemason was thrashing for breath, he hauled up the second condemned man, a common murderer. It took two men to do the latter for the man was grossly fat. After a short time, the beam broke under the weight. The two felons fell to the ground. Bardolph declared Hywel dead, announcing that his bowels had loosened and his bladder had voided. The other man was alive, screamed for a reprieve, and claimed the breaking of the beam meant God wished for clemency to be granted.”
“Which Bardolph denied?” Eleanor tilted her head with a mildly curious look.
“He turned to the sheriff’s brother and representative for a verdict. Rainold said that the hanging must be completed for the second felon and that Hywel’s dead body must be hoisted up again as well. So, after the beam was finally replaced, the live felon was hanged again, and then Hywel’s corpse briefly raised, until Bardolph declared the first man dead.”
“Was his judgment on that accepted or distrusted?” The prioress looked at her sub-infirmarian, but Sister Anne seemed lost in thought.
“Rainold merely glanced at the fat man’s corpse, nodded, and passed on to Hywel’s. Bardolph pointed out additional proof of death on the stonemason’s body: the protruding and blackened tongue as well as blood around the neck and in the mouth. Indicating satisfaction, the sheriff’s brother let Hywel’s brothers take the corpse away. Bardolph was offered the clothes, as is often a hangman’s due. Perhaps he had lost all desire for them after hanging a dead man, but he refused. The second felon had no family here. I think some soldiers removed that body, and may God have mercy on their souls for what they might have done with it. As I have heard the tale, the dead man had raped and killed the wife of one of the men.”
Eleanor’s gray eyes grew dark, but she said nothing.
“Were you a witness to the hanging?” Sister Anne asked.
“I have no love of public executions. My servant went and told me in detail what had happened.”
The sub-infirmarian glanced at her prioress, then asked, “Could Bardolph have deliberately failed to hang Hywel long enough for him to strangle?”
“If he had done so, he would have been hanged on his own gallows, Sister. The law demands that to keep hangmen honest and immune to bribes. Hywel wasn’t hanged long the second time, however.”
“Why was Rainold not satisfied he was dead the first time?” Sister Anne still looked perplexed.
“I cannot explain why Rainold demanded that Hywel’s dead body be hanged again. My servant said he did not indicate he questioned the verdict of death. But the crowd cheered the decision. Perhaps that was the sole cause. Rainold often chooses to do the popular thing when he acts on his brother’s behalf.”
Thomas raised an eyebrow as he wondered if the younger brother did so to cast the sheriff in a more favorable light or to do so for himself. As far as Thomas was concerned, the latter was the more likely conclusion.
“Your servant returned with an excellent memory of the execution,” the prioress said.
Lambard paled, then nodded.
Remembering the cold demeanor of the servant when he first came to this house, Thomas briefly wondered if Lambard had once lusted after Hywel. Out of jealousy, had his servant gone, not only for the satisfaction of seeing the stonemason dead, but to convey all the grisly details of the death to the spice merchant?
“How came you to offer a place to wash the corpse?” Whatever her thoughts, Eleanor’s tone was flat.
“When Hywel was condemned, Eluned came to me and asked if I might allow his brothers to use a hut I own behind my house to wash his body and prepare it for burial. For the kindness that Hywel had often shown me, I agreed. But it was after they brought his dead body there, the miracle occurred. Eluned ran to me, begging me to follow her to the hut. I found that the corpse was breathing freely. Hywel even moved a leg.”
“How could he have survived?” Anne murmured as if to herself.
“God’s mercy, Sister. That is the only explanation,” Lambard replied. “Eluned told me she had been in the process of bending a penny over his corpse to invoke a saint’s mercy when she heard him moan. In shock, she looked down and discovered his eyes were blinking at her.” Still in awe, Lambard fell silent.
The prioress gestured for him to continue.
“We all agreed to say nothing to anyone else about this out of fear that the sheriff might conclude, as his brother had done, that Hywel must be hanged yet another time. In truth, I may be wicked beyond redemption and a vile sinner, but I am convinced God meant Hywel to live.”
“Few mortals are beyond redemption,” Eleanor said, “but your conclusion about God’s mercy has merit.”
“We did not dare call on a local healer, for we knew we must keep this miracle secret, but I have herbs and some knowledge of their use in cures. I tended him, as did Eluned when she could leave her mistress. It took many days for Hywel to recover enough to speak. On the fourth day, he was able to swallow a little meat, not just soup. As he gained strength, Eluned and I decided that we must hide him elsewhere until he could escape. My hut was not safe enough.”
“His brothers?”
“Gone to Wales, I think. Eluned told them to flee when Hywel seemed to recover. I did hear her tell them, if Hywel lived, she would find some way to get him out of the village safely. I assume she and they agreed to a location where the three brothers could reunite. I swear I do not know where, nor did I ask.”
“So you chose to hide him in the crypt where the abbots were buried?”
Lambard nodded.
Eleanor smiled. “A clever spot, I confess. Abbot Gerald seems in fine health, thus unlikely to need a tomb, and I assume the vault has few if any visitors.”
“There is always an empty coffin for the next abbot, my lady. Hywel hid there until Eluned came with food. If he thought anyone else was coming to the crypt, he pulled the lid over him to make it look like the coffin was sealed. Since he was a stonemason, he was strong enough to raise the lid from inside and kept it slightly ajar with a flat stone.”
And thus he hid from us when we searched, Eleanor thought. In the dim light, the small space between lid and coffin would not have been noticed by Brother Thomas.
“She cared for all hi
s needs, dangerous though that was.”
“Because she loves him,” Eleanor said.
Lambard hesitated, then nodded.
Love him she must, to hide all evidence of his presence at the possible cost of her own life. Should she be caught thieving as well as hiding a condemned man, she might well be hanged herself. “Yet she made one mistake,” she added. “We found proof that someone was being fed in the crypt.”
“She feared you suspected something when she noticed you had followed her. In order to make her excuse for being at the church more believable, she did not wait to take the containers away after Hywel ate. It was a mistake.”
“Then Father Payn and Bardolph did see Hywel.” This was the first time Thomas had spoken.
Lambard started at the sound of the monk’s voice. “Another error, one that was mine. I thought it safe enough for Hywel to go to the abbey church that night, but I did not imagine that Father Payn would return from his mistress at the same time. Hywel told Eluned that the priest fell to the ground dead, presumably thinking that Hywel was a spirit returned from Hell to seek vengeance.”
“And Bardolph saw Hywel kneeling by the body,” Sister Anne added.
“Hywel had just confirmed the priest’s death, then saw the hangman and fled when Bardolph turned away for just a moment.”
“And the murders of the hangman and Sir William?” Eleanor carefully did not reveal her opinion on who had committed these.
“The lock to the vault is faulty, as you have discovered, but once the door is closed, no one can leave from inside the crypt. It can only be opened from without.” He looked at the now silent monk. “You can easily test it.”
“Eluned could have let him out,” Eleanor said.
“These murders happened at night. As I explained, Hywel could not have left the crypt without help. Since the hanging, the Lady Mary has insisted that Eluned sleep in her chambers. When her husband comes to share his wife’s bed, Eluned remains outside the door until he leaves.” He cleared his throat. “After he is gone, the Lady Mary requires mulled wine and her maid to return to sleep at the foot of her bed for the remainder of the night.”
The prioress pondered this, seemed to come to a conclusion, and said, “She also insisted you had proof that Hywel was innocent of the crime for which he was hanged.”
Lambard smiled. “That is the easiest, my lady. As you noted, the pair are in love. Eluned and Hywel had taken advantage of a rare opportunity to lie together that night when the raid against the English soldiers occurred. It would have been impossible for him to leave her arms, lead a band of raiders, and then return to the village by morning when others saw him at his work.”
“She might have lied to you,” Eleanor countered.
“It is not just her tale I am telling, my lady. That night, I…” He hesitated, swallowed, and continued. “Unable to sleep that night, I dressed and went out to walk. I saw them go into his house. The moon had just slipped toward morning. The raid, as the story was told at the trial, was already underway.”
“You said that Hywel had been kind to you. Perhaps you owe him a boon in return.” Eleanor’s suggestion that he could be lying hung in the air.
Lambard did not indicate that he resented her suspicion. “Hywel may have shown gentleness to me,” he said, “and thus I owed his corpse a place to be cleansed, but I have no reason to offer a false excuse for a man who commits such a crime against sleeping men. As God is my witness, I am a loyal subject of King Edward, and Hywel is innocent of the crime.”
“Yet you did not testify on his behalf at the trial,” Thomas said, “while Rainold came forth and confirmed that Hywel was the leader of the brigands. The sheriff’s brother even expressed some regret that he must do so. Why did you not speak up as an honest man would?” His words were sharply spoken.
“He testified first. Eluned and I knew that we would not be believed. If men must decide whether a sheriff’s brother tells the truth or a Welsh maid and a common merchant, whose testimony do you think they will choose?” Lambard looked at the monk with a sorrow that seemed much deeper than warranted.
Thomas glared in return. “The Lady Mary offered testimony that Hywel was innocent. Would that not allow you to speak?”
“And men smile when a highborn lady begs for mercy as she is wont to do. Lady Mary’s testimony was a simple declaration of his character. Hywel had been a good Christian, an honest stonemason, and a faithful husband to his English wife. She said nothing more than all men in the village had once believed before Hywel was arrested. She did not claim he had not committed the crime for which he was accused.”
Thomas felt the sweat coursing down his chest and back. Even if Lambard was innocent of any involvement in the murder of the soldiers, and what had happened that night at the inn would not be mentioned, the monk suspected that the merchant had still seduced him for some uncaring and calculated purpose. Had the reason been loneliness, Thomas could have forgiven him. Had it been lust, he could have as well. What he could not bear was someone making a mockery of his fragility and humiliating him.
“Why would Rainold lie?” Thomas knew there was more bitter anger in his question and only hoped Lambard did not detect the hurt behind it.
“You must ask him why he did, Brother. He may have cause, as men often do, when lying in bed with someone they should not.”
Thomas fell back into silence, his face pale.
“And who might that be?” Eleanor smiled and seemed in no doubt about the answer.
“The Lady Mary,” he whispered, “but I cannot offer proof. Since Eluned has shown I can trust you, I will say that it is she who says that may be the case. She has been unswervingly loyal to her mistress. The only reason she told me is that we have been friends since childhood, and I would never speak of it unless she approved. I think it best if you ask her for the details.”
Eleanor nodded, rose, and thanked the merchant for his testimony.
He bowed his head, then begged a blessing from her but not from her monk.
Confused, she glanced at Thomas.
His eyes remained lowered.
She gave the requested gift.
Lambard accompanied them to the shop entrance. He stood in the open door for a long time, watching the trio walk away. Tears flowed, and he did nothing to stop them as he looked at the departing monk.
Thomas did not look back.
Chapter Thirty-Five
When the trio arrived back at the lodge, Brother Thomas and Sister Anne both saw that familiar look on their prioress’ face and knew she needed time by herself. Each told her where they would be and then slipped away.
Eleanor turned her back on the lodge and walked toward the forest edge just below the hill crest.
Although chapel prayer was both her duty and comfort, there were times when she sought another place for contemplation, one devoid of all mortal men. At her priory, she often walked in the gardens, after the lay brothers and sisters had finished their work, or else the cloister garth. On occasion, she shut the door to her private chambers and sat with her cat in her lap, a creature to whom she talked and even imagined understood her words. Silence was not obligatory. Arthur, the cat, purred. Birds sang, and the wind rattled anything loose. What she did not want was the sound of other people.
In the beginning, when she first realized that God required a different kind of obedience from her than He did most religious, she discovered that need to escape the children of Adam and Eve. They distracted her from fresh thinking and kept her from giving form to her wordless thoughts. As the years passed, she became confident that God saw no sin in her chosen methods of reflection or He would have expressed displeasure early on.
She did not wander deep into the forest but soon chose a fallen tree trunk on which to sit. The bark was damp and rough, but she did not mind. Her back to the lodge, she took in a deep breath and shut her
eyes.
Some might call birdsong raucous or even undisciplined. Others might complain that the touch of a soft breeze on the cheek was wickedly erotic. To the Prioress of Tyndal, none of that was true. These were small gifts of perfection that God gave the world, gifts offered for delight and utterly devoid of sin. Only in the children of Adam and Eve was there the possibility of evil.
And which of the flawed mortals in this village was the most likely to be Satan’s minion?
First of all, she thought, we have the dead: Father Payn, Bardolph, and Sir William. All were assumed to be victims of an angry soul belonging to the condemned man, Hywel, released from Hell to wreak vengeance on those who wronged him.
Yet through some miracle, Hywel seemed to have survived, not just one hanging but two.
Although she had not seen the man, she was willing to assume he lived. She was even willing to accept, for the moment, that he was not the killer of the three men. If not, then someone else must want everyone to think he was.
Each of the dead men died in a way that was symbolic of a wrathful spirit’s vengeance. Father Payn, a man who showed heartlessness by denying a condemned man’s final confession, died when his heart failed from the shock of seeing a ghost. Bardolph, his hangman, was found dangling from his own gallows. And Sir William, who had accepted the judgment of Hywel’s guilt and condemned him, was found with his head chopped off. Since the head was the seat of both soul and reason, the murderer had rendered the sternest revenge on the sheriff.
It was a clever tale, meant to distract all from seeing the truth.
But with Hywel still alive, and Lambard’s tale believed, then Father Payn died a natural death as Sister Anne was convinced he had. Perhaps it was the sight of a man he thought was dead that killed the priest. Sister Anne had told her that the heart often suggests its willingness to end its work before it actually does and will seek any reason to do so in its own time. Father Payn might have died from the exertion of running back to the abbey after visiting his mistress, even if he had not seen what he assumed was a ghost.
The Twice-Hanged Man Page 18
