Belladonna at Belstone (9781471126345)

by Jecks, Michael

  ‘Quite,’ said Peter. ‘So could you go and look into it?’

  ‘Me? But I have no jurisdiction,’ Baldwin protested with surprise.

  ‘Of course not! This matter falls under the Canon Law, but you have experience, and you may be able to assist the good bishop,’ said Peter.

  ‘Surely you would do better to seek the aid of a coroner.’

  ‘Sir Baldwin, this matter is utterly confidential,’ Peter said with emphasis.

  Baldwin nodded and grinned his understanding. The King’s man in Exeter was a hard-drinking, whoring fool, to Baldwin’s mind. Coroners were among the most corrupt of all the King’s officers, for they had much work to see to and received no pay – other than what they could extort from felons prepared to pay for their release.

  ‘No, we need someone on whom we can rely not only to advise Bishop Stapledon’s man, but who shall also be discreet,’ Peter said.

  ‘Well, the Warden’s Bailiff, then. Simon Puttock does at least have some secular authority in Dartmoor.’

  ‘I have already sent a message asking him to meet you there,’ Peter smiled. ‘He will be at the inn at the road to Belstone, the one at the foot of the cleave.’

  Baldwin remembered it. A small tavern at the bottom of the Belstone Valley, near a mill, where the Taw River rushed constantly. The memory did nothing to allay his concerns and he considered the proposal doubtfully. Admittedly there was little enough to do at his manor; his official duties would not be seriously affected, were he to ignore them for a week or two, and this affair had captured his interest, but . . . ‘I hardly think the prioress would be happy to have a complete stranger, someone who is neither priest nor monk, arrive to perform such an enquiry, especially bearing in mind the serious nature of the accusation against her.’

  ‘She should be glad to have anyone in whom she can place her trust,’ said Bertrand shortly. ‘The woman struck me as being open to accusations of almost every possible impropriety.’ He mused a moment, brow wrinkled. ‘Take this as an example, Sir Baldwin. I raise it only as an indication of her behaviour, you understand: this prioress has permitted the church roof and that of the dormitory to fall so far into disrepair that both have holes in them. Apparently they were leaking noticeably last autumn, and yet now, months later, the choir of the church is open to the elements and nuns can’t sleep in parts of their dorter.’

  ‘I have heard of other places where similar difficulties have arisen,’ Baldwin pointed out with rising irritation. That Bertrand’s words were true Baldwin did not doubt, but Baldwin wondered about his motivation. There were priests who would be pleased to harry a convent to destruction if it would enhance their political status within the Church, and this Bertrand looked very like one of that sort. After all, there were many religious establishments whose basic fabric was so ancient and worn that the obedientiaries were unable to repair them. Perhaps it was less common in Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries, for such places attracted wealth, but a poor place like Belstone wouldn’t be able to seduce rich patrons so easily.

  ‘There are some which have unfortunately suffered from damage, yes,’ Bertrand allowed, but then he fixed Baldwin with a glittering eye. ‘But in how many of these cases have the relevant treasurers accused their prioress of lascivious and lustful disregard, because the money she should have used to fix the roof was put to another use?’

  ‘I assume often. There are many conflicting demands on a—’

  ‘I know that perfectly well, Sir Baldwin,’ Bertrand said sharply, ‘but I saw how much wealth was being brought to the priory while I was there. I saw the money given to the treasurer by the bailiff of the priory’s lands at Iddesleigh – it was a tidy sum. And the allegation is that instead of paying for a roof, the prioress had given it to her new vicar, a man whom she sees regularly, alone, and at night!’

  Constance reached the infirmary where she worked and had to blink to keep the tears at bay when she saw Moll’s empty bed, the palliasse rolled up neatly on top of the rope mattress, just as she had left it.

  Her head hurt. She was unused to so much strong wine before Vespers, and now she felt slightly confused. It was odd to be drunk at this time of day, before Terce, but kind of Denise to take pity on her and sit for so long, listening to her tale of misery. Not that she could tell Denise all.

  It was so hard. She had known that her weakness would lead to evil, but she had no idea how cruel the result could be. Yet now she was a murderer. All because of her very human frailty.

  There was a faint cough from the corner of the room, and Constance forced down her guilt, crossing the floor to where Joan sat. The old nun stared at the flames, but when she heard Constance she turned to her with a smile.

  ‘Ah, Constance – are you going to give me some more of your dwale? I think I may need some tonight. The pain is coming again.’

  ‘Of course, if it will help you.’

  ‘How’s Cecily?’

  ‘She’ll be fine. No need to worry,’ Constance said gently, pulling a woollen blanket over the older woman’s lap. ‘It’s cold out in the cloister today, isn’t it?’

  ‘For these old bones, eh?’ Joan grinned.

  Constance smiled down at her. The infirmarer found it easy to like Joan. She was a permanent fixture of the convent: rather wrinkled now, and white-haired, with peering, weak blue eyes. She was the first sister whom Constance had come to meet, and had always been kind and understanding. When Constance thought about what she’d done, and what she’d almost done to poor Joan, she could have broken down into tears again.

  Joan was speaking. ‘I’ll soon be gone anyway, and if the Lord decides to take me while I’m lying in my bed before I can rise for Nocturns, I’ll be happy enough.’

  The young infirmarer shot her a quick look. There was an understanding expression on Joan’s face, and Constance felt the pit of her stomach sink as if a lead weight had fallen upon it. ‘Before Nocturns?’ she managed to stammer.

  ‘Oh yes, dear. It would be such a good time to die. Why, when could be better? It’s peaceful, you don’t have to get up early the next morning and make the effort of going to church. No, instead you get taken up by Christ after a pleasant night’s sleep. Much better.’

  Constance tried to chat to her for a while longer, but all the time her mind was racing. It seemed so obvious the older woman was telling her that she knew.

  She couldn’t stand there with the fear filling her body, the certainty that Joan had seen what she had done. Apologising, Constance left the old woman and went to her partitioned chamber. It was sparsely furnished: only a bed and a chest, within which were her medicines. She dropped to her bed and covered her face in her hands.

  Guilt tore at her, although if she was honest, it wasn’t so much the guilt of the act that terrified her, it was the fear of being discovered. At least Joan could hold her tongue, Constance thought.

  She forced herself to set aside her morbid torpor and lifted the lid of her chest. Carefully she measured the ingredients of her dwale into a jug of wine.

  It wasn’t only for Joan, but for Cecily as well. Cecily was a notorious coward, and although Constance had tried to set and splint her wrist, it had proved impossible. The girl screamed and writhed uncontrollably, swinging her good fist at the novice helping Constance and using quite the foulest language the infirmarer had ever heard. Most of the nuns showed a stoic courage: they were content with a simple charm to grip and a leather strap to chew, but neither would suffice in this case. Constance had checked the makeshift dressing, but it clearly wasn’t working, and she knew she would need to reset the bones properly. For that the woman would have to be compliant, so Constance intended giving her a draught to make her peaceful.

  Dwale was ideal for this. It was a mixture that Constance made up specially, of belladonna, hemlock, henbane and syrup of poppy seed. It tasted foul, very bitter, but it would certainly put the lay sister to sleep. Shaking the mixture, Constance stood near the window and gazed out.


  From here she looked directly north, up towards the vill of Belstone, although it was concealed from view by a hill. Far beneath her, lay sisters worked in the dairy and out in the yard, hanging washing from lines. The wind was tearing at the clothes, pulling the lines taut as bowstrings, snatching clothes from the women’s baskets and whipping them over the mud if given an opportunity.

  Despite her worries, she smiled as one sister reached desperately for a shift as it was caught by a freak puff of wind and flapped dangerously near a pool of ordure. The hapless laundress tripped and pitched into the muck herself. She sat up and screamed to vent her rage and frustration, slapping at the hands of others who came, laughing, to help her up.

  Constance walked slowly back to the chest, intending to go through her bottles and see which draughts needed renewing, but soon she had to set aside her vessels. She felt oh, so lonely, as she went through it all again.

  Moll was dead. She was unable to spread any more of her malicious tales now. She had been a malign little person. Nasty, vicious – cruel. And all concealed beneath that sweet, submissive exterior. It was here, in Constance’s own room, that Moll had come and spoken about the man she had seen. The one who had walked up the steps to this level, as if he was coming to visit a nun. Constance had laughed it off, saying that Moll had dreamed it all, although Moll very definitely asserted that she was awake and had seen the man very clearly. Then she had winked, saying she knew where he was going. And she hoped the nun involved would confess her sin in the chapterhouse, before the whole choir. It had made Constance sick to see her sitting there so smugly.

  Feeling the tears rising, Constance rubbed at her face with the sleeve of her dress, and gazed up at the window once more her vision blurred as she was overcome by the enormity of what she had done.

  Jeanne was supervising the cleaning of Baldwin’s wardrobe when she heard her husband’s horse pounding along the track towards the house. She was relieved, because it was already close to dusk, and she was anxious about him riding so far on treacherous roads.

  Not that she’d had time to indulge herself in fears about her husband. Edgar was in many ways an almost perfect servant, but in some matters of hygiene she thought him hidebound. It had been quite a shock to her when, after only a short time in the hall, she had discovered the first fleas on her body. She could see that Baldwin himself was repelled by the creatures, and yet Edgar appeared to be almost untroubled by them, convinced that his traps – trenchers of bread smeared with glue, with a lighted candle sitting atop – were all that was necessary. He asserted that the fleas were attracted to the trenchers by the light, and then got stuck and died.

  It was an interesting concept. On present experience, it was also utterly ineffective.

  Only the previous week Jeanne had set up her own defences, just as she had learned in Bordeaux. The bedchamber had three large sheets laid on the floor which had remained there for six days, on which any fleas must fall upon leaving Baldwin’s clothing, her own, or their bed. These she had today ordered to be folded and carried out to the shed where the cider was made, and here the sheets had been placed in the great press. Next she had taken out all of Baldwin’s tunics and set them inside as well, with the bedlinen on top of the lot, before closing the press and ordering that it should be tightly squeezed.

  The servants, especially Edgar, had all looked askance at this curious demand, but complied with gusto when bribed with the offer of ale. Jeanne, not being particularly trusting with servants whom she did not know well, stood by and ensured that the men compressed the clothes to the utmost of their strength, and while they strained and swore, she explained to Edgar that fleas needed light and space to move. After being imprisoned in this manner the fleas would die. It was obvious that Baldwin’s servant thought this was all moonshine and that he was going to be hard-pressed to keep her humoured, from the condescending smile he gave her.

  But Jeanne ignored his patronising attitude. It was enough for her that she knew her methods would succeed. In time Edgar would come to have faith in her. Jeanne refused to allow herself to get despondent.

  Here she was, a woman of some thirty summers, already once widowed, yet with no children, and she was having to start her life again. This was her fourth beginning: first when she was born, second after her orphanage when her uncle in Bordeaux took her in, the third when she wed Ralph of Liddinstone, and last of all this new start with Baldwin. Each time she had been forced to learn new ways, submit to new rules, satisfy new needs. It was fortunate her own wants were so few. All she craved was the love of a husband who could respect her intelligence. Lady Jeanne was not a woman to be imprisoned in a manor like a feeble-minded courtesan.

  And Jeanne would not bow to the will of her husband’s servant. Edgar would have to learn to accede to her commands with alacrity. He would not browbeat her.

  He heard Baldwin’s approach at the same time as she, and was about to hurry back to the hall to welcome him when Jeanne told him to go to the buttery to fetch warmed wine and bring it to the hall. Then she walked in herself to wait for Baldwin.

  When Baldwin entered, she was by the fire, and as soon as he crossed the threshold, Jeanne stepped forward to welcome him, leading him to his favourite chair by the hearth. It creaked as he sat on it. It was ancient, and the worms had got into it. She cast it a dubious look. It sounded as if it might give way at any time.

  Edgar appeared and filled pots for Baldwin and his wife.

  Baldwin drank slowly, deep in thought. Jeanne thought he looked like a man with an unpleasant duty to perform, and she was concerned what the priest might have said to worry him so much.

  At last he held out his cup to Edgar, set it refilled on the floor by his side, and threw his wife a smile of gratitude. ‘Thank you for not badgering me as soon as I arrived. You have that wonderful gift of knowing when words are unwelcome, my love, and a perfect peacefulness about you that makes it a pleasure to return. I am sorry to have been so uncommunicative, but the ride was not long enough to consider all the details.’

  ‘There is some difficulty at Crediton?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Not there, no. It is another ecclesiastical institution. I am afraid I shall have to leave home tomorrow for a few days.’

  She looked at him enquiringly, but he only grinned. Jeanne knew that sometimes her man could be called from their home and forced to travel abroad on business, but she was surprised that he would say nothing of the nature of his mission. Still, she reflected, it would give her time to get the manor into order. Jeanne was not concerned about being left alone, although she would miss her husband.

  As he stood and made to leave the hall, she asked where he must go; he said apologetically: ‘I am sorry, Jeanne, but I have been sworn to secrecy.’

  With that he left the room, leaving Jeanne sitting surprised, but as she stared at the doorway, a smile spread slowly over her face.

  While he was gone, she could execute her own plans.

  Chapter Four

  Looking out through the doorway from the frater, Margherita, like Constance, saw the lay sister fall in the muck. Although she couldn’t help but smile, she was shocked to hear the girl swear. There was no excuse for blasphemy. The treasurer noted which girl it was. She would be punished later.

  Margherita liked the view from here. She could see the whole of the courtyard behind the cloisters looking north, and that meant she could observe almost all of the activities of the lay sisters. Her only regret was that she couldn’t keep an eye on the men in the southern cloister, but that would be unthinkable, of course.

  Not that all the women were so scrupulous. Margherita knew that some of the nuns were better informed about the male body than they should be. She had heard men here in the cloister. That was why she walked about the place at night, to find out who the men were, and who the women were who dared invite them in.

  At least that slut Rose wasn’t a novice any more. The girl had been a source of shame to the whole place. Good riddance
to her.

  Margherita recalled that it was from here that she had seen Moll walking about the garden in earnest discussion with Rose. As soon as a nun had appeared, both girls quickly separated, but Margherita saw them return to each other’s side when the nun had hurried past.

  A girl who was prepared to consort with Rose was not the sort to take up the veil; that was what Margherita believed, and she would defy anyone who tried to persuade her otherwise. Before that Moll had shown some promise, indeed she had given every appearance of piety; a rare attribute in most modern girls. But that was no excuse for going about with the likes of Rose. Someone like Joan was much better company for a young girl; she had experienced all the doubts, suspicions and fears that a young nun was likely to come across. Whatever happened, Joan had to be better than a common whore.

  Margherita set her pot on a table and made her way to the cloister. She herself needed no confidante. She could understand why other nuns might like sharing information, and even made use of their garrulity every now and again, but she was content with herself as sole custodian of her private thoughts. Her sisters were simply useful for disseminating the little snippets she occasionally wished to let slip. She smiled to herself as she sat at her desk, then sighed and gave the papers before her a small frown. It was hard to sit here when the sun shone, when the birds were singing in the orchard and the whole world appeared to be waking from the long, slow sleep of winter, but she must show her dedication and settle down to the accounts.

  Resignedly she picked up her quill, a small reed, dipping it in her ink, staring gloomily at the long columns. Running her finger down one of them, she came to the money brought in by the beadle: only a few pennies were recorded. With secret satisfaction, she recalled the heavy leather purse which the man had given her. That was safe in her personal chest now.