The Twice-Hanged Man

by Priscilla Royal

  As he did, the prioress noticed the wide, dark mark around his massive neck where the noose had scarred his throat. And, too, the stonemason had impressive shoulders. Such a man would be hard to hang.

  “Eluned has said that she told my tale to you. I would not blame you if you doubted both her word and mine. Yet I swear on the breath of the God we all worship and must face in judgment that I have never committed any act of treason against King Edward, nor will I ever do so.”

  “You think he was wrong to engage in this war against your kin.” Eleanor knew her tone was brusque with suspicion.

  “Have you never wished that war and bloodshed had never occurred? A man can wish that, yet know that blame is cast on one side as much as the other. I am a stonemason, my lady, a man unskilled with either sword or bow. I use a knife only to eat or, if need be, prepare a carcass for my meal.”

  She tried not to be influenced by the pleasing lilt of his accent or his eloquence. The latter was a quality her father had often noted in many of Hywel’s countrymen, whatever their rank. “Your brothers? Are they equally innocent? If you return to Wales to be with them, might they not change your mind and persuade you to take up arms against the king?”

  Eluned took in a gasping breath.

  He reached out and touched the maid’s arm. “An honest question that deserves a truthful answer, my lady. I cannot swear that they might not march with Dafydd or Llewellyn, for they believe the Welsh have been betrayed and cruelly treated. As for the murder of the sleeping men, they have given me their God-witnessed oaths that they were not there. Men must fight face to face, in their opinion. If they are forthright in their dangerous opinions about the justice of fighting for honorable treatment, and deny they murdered defenseless men, I think there is reason to conclude they tell the truth about both. My brothers and I share a horror over what happened that night to the soldiers.”

  “If not you or your brothers, who led the band?”

  “I cannot say, my lady. Living here, we have heard rumors of many such raids by groups of men. The war may have ceased between princes, as Archbishop Pecham tries to bring peace, but the Welsh people remain angry here in the south.”

  Eleanor knew he was right. Had her brother not warned her and Robert to leave their manor because of this?

  Yet the crime still angered her. Did the Welsh not tend to attack defenseless soldiers? Was there any difference between men killed by arrows shot from a heavy forest, as the Welsh often did, and sleeping men slaughtered with no chance to defend themselves?

  However, her brother had told her that the English knew the Welsh fought from the cover of trees, and King Edward had taken precautions by cutting down the forests on both sides of the common paths in the north so arrows could do no damage to an army marching in the middle.

  Somewhat reluctantly, she decided that there was a difference between a battle stratagem, against which an army might defend itself, and a wanton atrocity that men could not.

  But she was not finished with her questions for the stonemason. “Will you follow your brothers to war?”

  Again, Hywel looked at Eluned. Even in the harsh shadows, his smile was soft with love. “Eluned and I have already told each other that we are wed in the eyes of God, and my wife believes she has already quickened with our first child.” He looked back at the prioress. “As a Christian, I give you my word that I will not fight against King Edward and shall do my best to keep my brothers from doing so. I have given the same oath to Eluned.” He looked at Eleanor with such intensity she could almost feel it. “And if that is not sufficient, then I think you will agree that a man twice hanged, whom God must have saved for some purpose, or simply out of mercy, does not risk a third hanging if he is wise.”

  “I believe Hywel was saved by a saint, my lady,” Eluned murmured. “As he was led to the gallows, I prayed for a merciful intervention.”

  The prioress nodded and decided, with some amusement, that the saint might well have been a Welsh one.

  Men might not think her conclusion valid, Eleanor thought, but she was convinced the stonemason was honorable. Then she looked at Eluned. “When we spoke earlier, you said you would be here solely to assure Hywel of our good intentions, yet there is clearly more to your continued presence. You may be with child and have vowed marriage to a man going to Wales tonight. I think you plan to accompany him, do you not?”

  The maid nodded.

  “That was not part of our understanding.”

  “Forgive me, my lady. I am not abandoning the Lady Mary. As reward for my loyal service, she has released me to marry the father of my child.” Eluned’s voice betrayed her discomfort.

  Eleanor caught the vague phrasing. “Does she know Hywel is alive?”

  “Before you came to the house with your brother and his men to arrest Sir Rainold, she told me she had conceived and begged a favor that I was happy to grant. I told her that I, too, was with child and wished to leave her service to marry the father. She willingly agreed to grant me my freedom to do so and even gave me a fat purse of silver as a gift. I did not mention the name of the father, nor did she ask.”

  The boon asked was no mystery to Prioress Eleanor. Eluned was expected to confirm that there was no time when Rainold could have lain with the Lady Mary. In fact, as she now recalled, there was one night when Eluned had not been with her mistress but with Hywel.

  “The night of the raid, where was Sir William?” Her question was gently asked.

  Eluned paused, then said, “He heard rumors of a marauding band of Welshman on the border, my lady. He gathered his men and went to find them. Sadly, he found the dead Englishmen, but the raiders had fled.”

  If Sir William was absent that night, as the maid just confirmed, and Eluned and Hywel had been together as Lambard testified, then Rainold and his sister-in-law had had the opportunity to commit adultery.

  With grudging admiration, Eleanor finally conceded that the Lady Mary had utterly fooled her into thinking she was a frivolous woman of little wit. Instead, she turned out to be immensely clever. And if Hywel could not have raided the English camp because he was with Eluned, then Rainold could not have witnessed the attack because he was with the Lady Mary.

  As for adultery, she strongly suspected that Sir William, had he lived, would have accepted the miracle and rejoiced in his child. Rainold would not have dared to speak up for he was as dependent on his brother as the Lady Mary was on her husband. The sin of that one night, therefore, was up to the widow to repent and for God to forgive.

  Eluned was still waiting for Eleanor to say something.

  The prioress did not need to ask anything more. She had made her decision.

  “Lambard has provided one horse and some provisions,” she said to the pair. “They will have to serve you both, but you have time to travel safely and far enough before dawn. I cannot guarantee you will reach your family,” she said to the stonemason, “but at least we have arranged a safe beginning.”

  The two wept and begged her blessing, a gift she swiftly granted. Then they swore they would pray for her for the rest of their days on Earth.

  And I for you, the prioress thought, and urged them not to tarry longer.

  Brother Thomas took the pair out a narrow back gate to the waiting horse.

  Eleanor stayed where she was until she heard the sound of hoofbeats. Whatever misgivings she still felt, and loyal though she was to King Edward, her relief that the pair had escaped outweighed everything.

  When Brother Thomas returned, he found her kneeling before the altar.

  After a brief hesitation, he lowered himself to his knees and prayed beside her.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  When enough time had passed that Hywel and Eluned must have been well on their way, and dawn had begun its daily struggle to bring God’s light back to the Earth, Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas returned along the p
ath to the lodge. Only the joyful paeans of awakening birds broke the silence that surrounded them.

  They often experienced a companionable and mutual quietness that was characteristic of the deep bond they had formed over their many years of working together. This time, however, Eleanor felt a tension between them that was as unsettling as it was unusual.

  She knew the man walking beside her was fatigued, as was she, but his weariness seemed more acute, as if it had bored into his soul. Glancing at him with circumspection, she could actually feel the pain he was suffering, an agony so deep and vast she could see neither a beginning nor an end to it.

  Although her heart longed to comfort him, there was nothing she could say. The right balm to heal his wounds and wisdom for him to follow were beyond any words known to her.

  When her hunger to lie with him had burned like hellfire for years, she continued to have faith that God had all the answers but found He revealed them with excruciating slowness. Now she was again faced with decisions for which she possessed no competency and feared His solutions would come to her with even greater sluggishness.

  She shut her eyes and briefly became lost in her own Gethsemane. She begged that this burden be taken from her, yet she knew it would not. Opening her eyes, Eleanor grew determined to face what she must with as much courage as she could.

  Rainold might have been a murderer, a rank creature who remained unrepentant until the morning he was hanged, but she believed he had spoken the truth twice in his failed attempt to avoid justice. Even the Prince of Darkness was known to do so, albeit more rarely than hens were found to own teeth.

  After much thought, Eleanor had no doubt about what had occurred the one night neither Eluned nor Sir William was in the house. Whether Rainold seduced her or she him, the Lady Mary had surely lain with her brother-in-law, hoping to beget the heir her husband could not give her. It probably happened only that one time. The act may not have given the lady more joy than lying with her husband, but it had filled her womb, whether with the son she longed for or even a living child was up to God. Eleanor could never prove the details, but she had finally concluded that none of it was her concern. God didn’t need her help in the matter.

  As for the tale of what had happened between Lambard and Brother Thomas in that narrow alley, Eleanor was equally convinced that Rainold had not lied about what he had seen. As she again fought back scalding, bitter tears, Prioress Eleanor knew that her monk had committed an act of sodomy.

  When faced with the accusation, she had chosen to lie about what he had told her the morning after. At the time, she believed she had done so solely because she was outraged over Rainold’s attempt to blackmail her. Once the moment of heated anger had passed, she had to confess to herself that she did it mostly out of the profound love she bore Brother Thomas.

  It was clear to her now that he had been about to confess his sin when he was interrupted by the messenger. Had she encouraged him, he might still have spoken about it in private later, but she did not do so and said he must confess, not to her, but only to a priest.

  Of course, she had been correct to say that, but just in part. A priest, not a woman, could hear confessions and order the proper penance. Yet Brother Thomas had the obligation to tell her, as his prioress, of any grave transgressions. She had denied him the chance, not just because of the problem with a ghost, but because she could not bear to hear that he had lain, as she then feared, with a woman.

  Now, she wished she had not been so blinded by jealousy and then hidden the real reason for her willful ignorance by arguing that the dispatch of elusive phantoms took priority over his confession. Breaking his vow of chastity by lying with a woman required a hard penance. Doing so by committing sodomy with another man could mean far worse.

  Sodomy of this nature was a sin the Church had always especially abhorred, but the majority of past Church leaders used to order only a lifetime of fasting as penance. In recent years, however, influential men had grown louder in their demands that sodomites be burned at the stake as a foretaste of Hell. Outside England, these executions were becoming more common.

  Eleanor bit her lip and did not stop until she tasted blood. Perhaps her monk had engaged in this sin only because he had drunk too much and was not fully aware of what was happening until it was too late. The transgression might never be repeated. Perhaps Brother Thomas had fled before he and Lambard had consummated the act. If so, was it not a lesser offense, or was she merely blinding herself to the gravity of the act? These were arguments she had repeated to herself far too many times already and still failed to settle.

  She truly thought that burning men at the stake for having sex with other men would become the new position of the Church. Yet she still believed in God’s mercy. How could He want a man, who had done so much good in His name, tied to a stake, set on fire, and left to scream until his soul fell into Satan’s arms? Had Brother Thomas no chance for penance, absolution, and the right to continue his good works, especially if his sin had only happened once?

  “My lady?”

  Eleanor had been so lost in thought that she did not realize they were back at the lodge. She blinked to chase away any disloyal tears, raised her head, and smiled at the monk she both loved and admired.

  “I beg leave to finish my prayers alone in the chapel,” he said, his voice rough with weariness.

  She granted his wish and watched him walk away.

  She ached to heal him of his pain. She might not have completely vanquished her desire to couple with him, nor chased away all jealousy, but her love over time had grown far more complex than lust. The thought that he might not always be by her side in all their endeavors to serve God was unbearable. She clenched her fists until her nails bit into the flesh. She could not, would not, let Brother Thomas die.

  She looked back at the village, allowing herself a moment of angry resentment. Lambard may have been a loyal friend and a kind man in this matter of Hywel and Eluned, but Eleanor would never forgive him if he caused the downfall of the man she needed by her side so much.

  Forcing these thoughts away, the Prioress of Tyndal spun around and marched into the lodge, called for a servant, and sent him off to summon Abbot Gerald.

  The abbot would be relieved that his malign and destructive spirit, one that had so upset the village, had been sent back to Hell.

  Hers had just arrived to take residence in her soul.

  * * *

  “Are you certain?” Abbot Gerald sounded very worried.

  “I am,” the prioress replied, and then noticed that he had something in his hand.

  “We heard no sounds of the conflict.”

  “The battles between man and phantom may not reach distant mortal ears, but the noise is deafening to those involved. I can assure you that the roars of the damned soul, as it fought with Brother Thomas, were a taste of what we shall hear at the End of Days.”

  “And you, a woman…”

  “In such hours, the Queen of Heaven drapes her mantle over those of us who must stand in her stead for justice on Earth, Abbot. Only afterward did I feel my mortal weakness.” At least that was not a total lie. Were I forced to confront such a trial, she thought, the Mother of God would be my comfort and protection.

  “We, and I especially, are much in your debt,” he said. “You have done what none of us could.”

  “It is God we must always thank,” she replied. “It is He who gives us the wisdom we need to find the answers to our just prayers.”

  He bowed his head in respectful agreement, then loudly cleared his throat.

  “I see you have brought your treatise back, Abbot,” Eleanor said, disguising her sigh of relief that the subject had changed from haunting to ambition. “I assume you have refined it and that this is a copy, not the original. I would not want to take your only one, lest some ill befall it.”

  His eyes widened, and then he g
rinned. “You will take this and make sure your brother hands it to the king?”

  She gestured for calm. “Do not raise your hopes too high. I can promise little enough.”

  He nodded with grave solemnity, but the blaze of hope that caused his face to glow did not diminish.

  “Take your time now, if you will, to give me a summary of your arguments. I shall read it myself, with the assistance of Brother Thomas, and I shall urge my brother to hand it to the king. What I cannot promise is that the king will accept it or even read it.”

  “But surely if I came to urge him…”

  “He is in the midst of a war, Abbot. You have a far better chance of being heard if the manuscript appears without your special pleading.”

  Dejected, he leaned against the wall.

  For a moment, Eleanor feared he was about to weep. “As you and I are aware, it is our duty to God to be far more effective at passionate prayer and service to Him than we ever could be at urging a plan of worldly concerns in the halls of kings.”

  Standing straighter, Abbot Gerald forced a resigned look. “You have promised me more than others have,” he said. “Do not think I am ungrateful.”

  “Then please explain your proposals to me now. Of special interest to our king, I suspect, are your suggestions on governing the Welsh once they have been defeated.”

  As the abbot puffed his chest out with bright eagerness, Eleanor first called for wine to ease his throat as he argued for his positions and then settled on a nearby bench. This will mean many hours to remain patient, she thought, but I am resolved to listen.

  After all the tragedies that had just occurred, and the sorrows she knew must yet be faced, Eleanor welcomed this comparatively brief time of peace and a chance to exercise kindness. When the will of princes and the greed of men turned the world around to violence, she knew such moments would be rare and ought to be cherished.