Those Who Go by Night

by Andrew Gaddes

  “Your mistress is impressive, Hunydd,” Thomas answered. And a bit of a stroppy cow, he thought about adding, but didn’t. “And it seems that we are both strangers here, you and I. We shall have to look out for each other.”

  “You are not from Lincoln, Thomas?”

  Thomas made sure not to smile—it seemed that now she had it, Hunydd was determined to make full use of his name.

  “No, I am from Cumberland. It is in the North, on the borders of Scotland, though I left there as a child and I have rarely lived in the same place for long.”

  “You have traveled?”

  “Yes, across England and to Scotland, Wales, Ireland. Even France.”

  “France!” she exclaimed excitedly. “I should very much like to see France, Thomas. They say the pope lives in France, in a city where the streets are made of purest gold. Is it true?”

  “France is a very rich country, Hunydd. Far more so than England, and the Holy Father does indeed live there in a town called Avignon. I am sorry to tell you that the streets of Avignon are all cobbles and mud, just like everywhere else.”

  Hunydd looked disappointed.

  “But the great cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris is a wonder to behold. It has a giant window made up of a hundred panes of colored glass, as wide and tall as seven men, and all in the shape of a giant rose.”

  “Truly? It sounds wonderful. I should like to see that.”

  It was not likely Hunydd would ever see France, or many other places for that matter. If she traveled at all, it would be at someone else’s whim, likely only to the new household of her mistress when she married. She belonged to the estate. To leave of her own accord would make her a runaway, liable to be dragged back and punished.

  They rounded a bend in the path to find Cecily walking toward them. She wore a fine, cream-colored kirtle with a pale blue surcote over top, and was holding a wicker basket in the crook of her arm. On seeing Thomas, her face lit up and she approached him without hesitation.

  “Master Thomas. I had been hoping to see you again.” She clasped his hands in a surprisingly familiar way, having apparently undergone a shocking transformation of character from the last time he had seen her.

  A look from her mistress was enough to dismiss Hunydd, and like any good servant she melted away as if she had never been there.

  “I must apologize for my words when last we spoke. I fear that I might have offended you.”

  “Not at all, my lady!”

  That was a lie. Actually, she had offended him quite a bit. Thomas recalled very well how she had looked at him, as though he had just traipsed in from the field with the remnants of a cowpat all over his shoes. That said, he rather liked the new Cecily, and he fell in step with her as she strolled between the rows of herbs.

  “I find you intriguing, Thomas. My father will only say that you are close to Bishop Henry, and resolutely refuses to answer any more questions about you.” She laughed. It was a light, bubbly laugh, full of genuine humor. “You are a complete mystery to me, though I confess I tried every artifice at my disposal to tease some information out of the old man. I even tried to steal away the bishop’s letter of introduction, but my father was on to me and had already locked it away. He knows me too well.”

  Thomas was surprised by the admission. He had not expected such candor, nor such interest, and smiled in response. “Perhaps there is little else worth knowing about me.”

  Cecily tilted her head and regarded him with an amused eye. “Oh, I very much doubt that.”

  They walked a few paces in silence before she spoke again.

  “So, you are in the Bishop of Lincoln’s service?”

  “I help him from time to time,” replied Thomas. “I would not go so far as to say I serve him. Our bond is of an unusual nature.”

  Cecily waited a moment and, when no further information appeared to be forthcoming, decided on a different tack.

  “You do not sound like you are from Lincoln. You are not from hereabouts?”

  “No, though I have lived near Lincoln these last few years. Lincoln is as much home to me as anywhere else.”

  Cecily looked at him expectantly, only to be disappointed a second time.

  “I saw you arrive today. You ride well.” He smiled at the compliment. “And you speak well. You are no farmer. Yet you do not wear a war belt, and you choose to dress as a simple yeoman. I wonder what it is you do for the bishop?”

  Thomas could not help but feel a tad aggrieved. He was wearing the best cotte he had in his baggage and had put on a clean tunic, fresh woolen hose, and smart riding boots before coming to see her. Admittedly he had never followed fashion, but he had hoped to make a slightly better impression this time around. Despite his attire, however, it seemed that Cecily now believed him to be of good stock. He wondered whether she would retrench from him if he declared it to be untrue? Though in all honesty he could not. Instead, he congratulated himself on maintaining a stoic silence and offered her a noncommittal answer.

  “I have always liked horses, Lady Cecily, and I had hoped not to be going to war. Besides, now your father has gifted me land, I dare say I shall have to farm it. As for the bishop, from time to time he asks me to act on his behalf or to investigate certain matters of a sensitive nature that come to his attention. I do what he asks, if it suits me. I have no fixed position in his house.”

  Cecily laughed heartily, tilting back her head, drawing attention, whether consciously or no, to the creamy skin of her throat and the swell of her bosom.

  “You are teasing me now. But I shall know more. I shan’t be denied.”

  They both turned at the sound of the Dominican’s heavy sandaled feet crunching on the gravel path.

  “You would do well to inquire more deeply, Lady Cecily,” he declared in his wheezy voice. “It is always best for a lady to know the character of a man whose company she keeps.”

  The Dominican walked up to them and leaned over on his staff, grasping it in both bony hands, close enough for Thomas to smell a lingering dampness on his robes from the earlier drizzle; that, and an unpleasant hint of sweat.

  “I see you are gathering autumn flowers for your posies and your potpourri,” he said, spying Cecily’s basket. “You young ladies do like to surround yourselves with pleasant fragrances. I myself find that I have little use for flowers, though I naturally delight in all God’s gifts.”

  He peered into the basket and sifted through its contents with his fingers.

  “And what do we have here? I see Aster. Michaelmas daisies you might call them—a common wildflower. I am surprised to find it in your garden. And here is red yarrow, another wildflower, unfortunately past their best this time of year. You should have gathered these weeks ago, my dear.”

  He continued prodding at her collection.

  “And what is this?” He plucked one of the flowers out of her basket and held it up to the light. “The anemone. You might call it a windflower. What a peculiar choice for a young lady. They have almost no fragrance, you know. If you wish to collect flowers for your bowls of potpourri, might I suggest choosing from the last of the roses over there? They will have a nice enough scent. And certainly you would want some of the lavender.”

  He gave Cecily a crooked smile. “Or perhaps you are just collecting those flowers you find to be pretty? Young women do incline toward such impractical pursuits. Ah well, as I told you before, I do not attempt to account for the tastes of young ladies.”

  The Dominican straightened himself up, having finally satisfied his curiosity, and looked around. “Unfortunately, all gardens in this country become ragged come autumn, and there is a distinct want of variety. So very little to choose from. I suppose you do have a decent enough herb garden here, though,” he added grudgingly. “That would be of far more interest to me anyway.”

  Cecily ignored the insults, intended or not, and responded pleasantly: “Yes, it was my mother’s herb garden. She spent many hours here.”

  “Your mothe
r? How strange. Perhaps she thought to use some of the herbs for cooking?”

  “Some she did,” acknowledged Cecily. “Others she cultivated for their medicinal value. She was an avid herbalist, and the garden was her passion before it was mine.”

  The Dominican cocked a surprised eyebrow. “Indeed? I had no idea that you had an interest in medicine. It seems every village these days boasts some old hag who claims to know something of physic. Such women often do more harm than good and would as soon rub shit over you as decoct a proper tincture or balm.”

  He chuckled to himself, pleased with his own joke and not particularly bothered whether it amused or offended anyone else.

  “Medicine is an unusual pursuit for a young lady of good breeding, however. I trust that you at least have received proper training, my dear?”

  “Yes. I have received guidance from Brother Eustace at the priory. Perhaps you know him?”

  The Dominican nodded approvingly. “A learned enough man and decent at his craft. I had a little poke around in his stores when first I arrived and found them to be quite well stocked. You could do worse, I suppose. The fact he can spare time from his work to teach you is a trifle troubling, however. I hope you do not distract him from his real duties.”

  “Not at all. I rather think that I help him. I also learned a little from the castle physician when I visited Lady de Ross at Belvoir.”

  Justus scowled. “I had the misfortune to meet the fellow on my way here. He seemed to me a wholly ignorant man and displayed an alarming want of medical knowledge. He had none of Galen’s works to hand, and I could not get him engaged at all in a discussion of the beneficial use of emetics. I might add that I found his Latin to be wanting and his Greek almost nonexistent.”

  Thomas was amazed at how much the Dominican had determined from that single encounter. He suspected Friar Justus formed opinions quickly, and he struck Thomas as an intractable and unforgiving sort. It must have been an uncomfortable interview for the poor physician.

  Justus was still droning on. “I despair of Lady de Ross receiving any proper medical care from that quarter—well, anything more than a simple bloodletting that any barber surgeon might undertake. I myself studied at Salerno. Perhaps you have heard of it? I believe it to be widely accepted as the world’s foremost medical school. I am not sure where your quack studied. Frankly, I have my doubts as to whether he studied at all. You may be the more learned of the two, my dear.”

  He huffed out another wheezy laugh.

  “I have certainly tried to better myself through study,” Cecily replied, cutting short his laughter. “I have copies of Sister Hildegard’s work, including her Physika.”

  “How singular! You are full of surprises.”

  “I am not overly fond of Galen,” Cecily added, “and tend to prefer Sister Hildegard’s simpler remedies.”

  “Indeed? The foremost medical mind of our times, second only to Hippocrates himself, and you find Galen to be unreliable, do you?”

  “I do not accede to some of his teachings,” she replied hesitantly.

  “Such as?”

  “Such as his suggestion that a woman cannot conceive unless she derives pleasure from the act of intercourse.” Thomas coughed and the friar’s eyebrows soared. “That perceived wisdom has served to excuse the rape of many an unfortunate woman. If she does not conceive, then she is considered to have suffered but little harm. If she does, she is merely another temptress who willingly—no eagerly—consented to the act.”

  Cecily seemed not to notice the Dominican’s darkening visage. Or perhaps she did and simply did not care. Her own face had hardened, and her eyes glinted with malice.

  “Nor for that matter do I believe women’s wombs are cold, requiring the constant warming of a man’s seed. Or that we wander about desperate for a man to spill inside us lest our wombs atrophy and decay. I find that to be just another convenient excuse to blame men’s passions on my kind.”

  This shocking statement was followed by an awkward silence. Cecily blinked, recollecting herself, realizing that she may have said a little too much.

  When he finally spoke, Justus’s tone was cool and deliberate. “Some of the things you say, young lady, are disturbing, and not only contrary to Galen’s teachings but to the wisdom of several of the Church’s leading lights. I shall choose to attribute your words to youth, and at another time, when I have dealt with our more pressing concerns, I shall speak with your father and offer to educate you more thoroughly before I leave. To make sure that you have a better understanding of the things of which you speak and of the consequence of espousing certain ill-considered thoughts.”

  Thomas suspected that the intended education the friar had in mind might well involve the vigorous use of a switch.

  Justus gave Cecily one final look and shrugged, dismissing the conversation. “It so happens that I am a bit of an herbalist myself, you know.”

  He turned about slowly, surveying the garden.

  “And I find some of the plants here to be of a surprising nature. That plant over there, for instance, with the distinctive violet, almost blue, hooded flowers. That is aconite. I think you locals charmingly call it monk’s hood. It is quite poisonous. Even to the touch. A small amount will upset the stomach. In larger quantities it is deadly and will stop the heart. And there,” he gestured to a large, dense green shrub with spiky leaves that Thomas knew to be the yew. “That shrub, its leaves, its fruit—all are poisonous. And there, arum maculatum, called cuckoopint or any number of other revolting names relating it to a part of the male anatomy. Its berries will soon ripen and can surely cause the throat to swell and even choke a man to death.

  “In ignorant hands these plants and several others I see about me can do great harm. All of this is all rather well known to the common herbalist. If you like, when we are both at leisure, I should be more than happy to discuss these things with you. I would hate for you to unwittingly poison some poor soul.”

  “I am sure Lady Cecily is careful in her preparations,” said Thomas, for some reason deciding this was the perfect time for him to leap to Cecily’s defense.

  Justus blinked in surprise and looked at him as though he had just broken wind loudly. The look Cecily gave Thomas was not much better. It seemed she preferred to fight her own battles and did not at all appreciate his interruption or the implication that she was in some way in need of his protection. Twice a failure then.

  “Thomas! Why I had almost forgotten that you were still here. I must say that I am pleased that Sir Mortimer appears to be taking these claims of heresy seriously, though I find it more than curious that he would ask you of all people to look into them.”

  “Why should that be curious?”

  “Well, your own father was a heretic, was he not?”

  The statement delivered in such a matter-of-fact manner struck Thomas like a blow to the body, and for a long time he stood dumbstruck, incapable of responding. Cecily was immediately intrigued, and her glance swung excitedly between the two of them. She could have made a discrete withdrawal, but it was not in her nature, and nothing could have tempted her away now. For his part the Dominican stood complacently, a look of smug satisfaction on his face, glorying in the effect of his words.

  “Yes, something about you troubled me from the first, Thomas. Why would De Bray bring someone all the way from Lincoln to investigate what he claims to be merely a murder? Surely such a thing would be more a matter for the sheriff and his own justice. Why not one of his own people? His bailiff or”—and he chuckled here—“even the constable? And then there was your name. Thomas Lester. There was something so very familiar about it. Naturally, once I discovered that you are a protégé of the Bishop of Lincoln, everything fell into place. It was as though a veil had been lifted from my eyes. I recalled that the Templar heretic Geoffroi de Leystre had a son named Thomas who had disappeared and was rumored to have been taken in by Henry Burghersh, your very own master.”

  The Dominican smiled,
this time with genuine humor. “Lester. De Leystre. It’s not a very convincing ruse, is it? I fully understand, of course. Had my own father been a heretic, I too would have been ashamed and might also have been tempted to hide my name, however poorly.”

  Thomas had listened quietly, the blood slowly draining from his face, and when he did finally respond, it was through gritted teeth and with barely contained anger: “My father was no heretic.”

  “Do you say not? I was quite sure I had read his confession among the annals. I seem to recall that he admitted to all sorts of things. No, no, I am sure he was a confessed heretic. I would recount for you those things to which he confessed, but I hesitate to do so in the presence of a lady.”

  He nodded tersely in Cecily’s direction.

  “And as for your mother … let me think.” The Dominican tapped his lips with the tip of his right forefinger. “That was not so certain, as I recall. There were rumors that she was complicit in your father’s actions, that she too turned from Christ and chose to indulge in some of his, shall we say, more lurid activities. And at a minimum, she was certainly guilty of harboring a known heretic, a serious offense in and of itself. Regrettably, she died before we could interrogate her. Perhaps she was truly innocent and died of shame. Who could blame her?”

  Thomas was seething, his entire body tensed like a nocked bowstring. He felt a pressure on his forearm and looked down to see Cecily’s hand. Eloquent eyes conveyed a silent warning. He nodded his understanding and forced himself to take a deep, calming breath.

  Cecily was right. He was being goaded, and he must not rise to the bait. Besides, things could have been worse. The Dominican did not know as much as he thought he did. He did not know about Thomas’s wife. If he did, he would surely have mentioned her by now. There was a secret Thomas hoped he might take to the grave.

  “Imagine my surprise to find Thomas de Leystre helping us to root out heretics. Such irony. I do wonder, however, whether it might not be better for you to leave the matter in my hands. Some might think that you have, let us say, divided loyalties. There will always be that unfortunate suspicion attached to the son of a heretic, you know.” Justus moved his hands up and down in a mockery of balancing a set of scales. Qualis pater, talis filius. ‘As the father, so is the son,’ and all that.”