Belladonna at Belstone (9781471126345)

by Jecks, Michael

  ‘Educated? Oh, yes. I could read to you from any book in the convent, or add up any of the figures on any of the account rolls. Not many here can do so well as me. I think I even made Margherita nervous.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Oh, when I went too near, she’d cover up her accounts before she’d talk to me, as though she was hiding them in case she’d made a mistake. The last treasurer often messed things up. In fact, Margherita had to correct many of the older account rolls when she took on the job.’

  ‘I’ve heard so much about money here,’ Simon mused. ‘It seems the most important thing in the life of this convent.’

  ‘Of course it is. Without money the place would collapse. Haven’t you heard about Polsloe? Bishop Stapledon himself has had to order them to keep better control of their accounts, keeping records of what the bailiffs and reeves bring in, and making sure that everything is noted down. That’s the only way to prevent the lazy buggers thieving all the convent’s money.’

  ‘You don’t have a very high regard for the men,’ Simon observed with a smile.

  She didn’t return it. In a cold voice, she said, ‘When you sell your body to a man you lose respect for him. You soon learn that one man is much like another when his tunic is lifted and his hose are down.’

  Simon cleared his throat with swift embarrassment, but she grinned and widened her eyes at him. ‘Mind, I’d be happy to keep an open mind with you, Bailiff.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Outside the church, Luke stood trying to keep a calm demeanour while the painful thudding of his heart threatened to burst his chest asunder. That poisonous old bitch! She had no right to rail at him for his misbehaviour, not after giving birth to Rose. Luke knew all about Rose, oh yes. Who didn’t inside this damned convent? At least he’d never fathered a child on a nun; his sins were trifling compared to hers.

  But her threat had struck home with a terrifying accuracy. It had only been a short time before that he had been thinking about his good fortune in knowing the right cleric to bribe in Exeter, but if the prioress was to go over his head to Walter Stapledon, the Bishop of Exeter, then Luke could be dragged from this place in a moment. And knowing Stapledon, that was just what the pompous bastard would do. He would remember his message to Bertrand and demand that Luke be shoved away, far away.

  Luke’s one consolation was that the place had lost much of its attraction now. With the communicating door locked there was going to be little opportunity for meeting Agnes or any of the other girls.

  Wincing, Luke pushed himself away from the church wall upon which he had been leaning and headed for the frater. From the look of the sky he had another hour before he had to preside over Sext, High Mass and None. Plenty of time for a jug of wine. He fetched a large jug and pot and sat on a bench in the doorway. The snow had all but gone in the cloister, and while the air was chilly, Luke hardly noticed it.

  It was blasted irritating, he thought, throwing his head back to polish off the first cup. Sombrely he refilled it. Knowing he would be evicted from this pleasant and convenient job was almost enough to make him weep with rage. There were other novices whose virtues he had hardly had an opportunity to study. The only ones he had really got close to were Moll, Katerine, and Agnes. And only Agnes had fulfilled his needs.

  No, it wasn’t right that he should be thrown from the place. He would have to find a way to escape the sentence – but how?

  At that moment he saw the suffragan bishop return through the alley into the cloister, accompanied by a hang-dog figure whom Luke was surprised to recognise as Elias. Paul appeared to be waiting for them, and Luke saw Bertrand beckon the canon imperiously.

  Intrigued, Luke knocked back his third pot and stretched his legs out, watching the three men through narrowed eyes. Bertrand issued instructions and waved off the two others like a herder shooing his geese before turning and making his way to the frater. He wore the smile of a man who had achieved something and anticipated a reward before too long.

  Luke reviewed all he had heard of the suffragan. Bertrand was vain, self-opinionated, and very ambitious. He longed for an opportunity of advancement – everyone knew that – and yet was stuck here in Stapledon’s see. Given the right prompting, Luke felt sure that Bertrand could be a useful ally in his defence, and he smiled politely up at the suffragan bishop, waving at the seat next to him and filling his own cup, he offered it to Bertrand.

  The bishop took it gladly. His buttocks and thighs ached after sitting so long in that cramped position, and the strong red wine smelled wonderfully good. ‘It is most kind of you, my friend,’ he said, dropping down on the bench. ‘Ah yes, very good! I have been in need of this!’

  ‘You’ve been inspecting the grounds?’

  Bertrand glanced at his innocent, enquiring expression over the rim of his pot. ‘I have been investigating a couple of things. Taking a careful look around.’

  ‘Terrible about the two girls,’ Luke said sorrowfully. ‘One can only imagine how the good Bishop, my Lord Walter Stapledon will respond.’

  ‘He’ll respond with extreme anger, as any good priest should.’

  ‘Why of course! And yet, he’d not want the village gossips to get wind, would he?’ Luke said. ‘While the prioress still holds sway she must be supported. Even if it means finding scapegoats.’

  ‘There will be no scapegoats. Only the guilty will be punished,’ Bertrand growled. ‘Where did you hear such a rumour?’

  ‘Oh, her Ladyship wouldn’t confide in me, I assure you,’ said Luke off-handedly.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Let’s just say that she and I have often had our disagreements.’

  Bertrand refilled his pot and gazed at Luke contemplatively. ‘I have the impression that many wouldn’t mourn her passing if she were to be moved to a new convent.’

  ‘Here? My God, I should think not!’ Luke exclaimed. ‘She brings shame upon us all.’

  ‘Shame? Because of her laxity, you mean?’

  ‘Her moral laxity, yes.’ Luke could feel Bertrand’s excitement, and was delighted that he had hooked the suffragan and pulled him in so well. Although he had no idea of the notion which had formed in Bertrand’s mind earlier that morning when Paul had told him of the planned escape, the eagerness in Bertrand’s voice when Luke dropped comments against the prioress spoke volumes.

  ‘You’re talking in riddles, man! What moral laxity are you going on about?’

  ‘Why I thought you knew, Bishop. Her daughter. The whore in the vill’s tavern down at the bottom of the valley.’

  Bertrand gaped, and only absent-mindedly muttered his thanks when Luke refreshed his pot.

  ‘Her daughter; a whore!’ he breathed.

  It was perfect. Delicious. Wonderful!

  As Bertrand stood to seek the fire in the frater, he not only grinned, but in an ebullient mood, patted Luke’s shoulder as he passed and then actually paused and invited the young man to join him in another jug of wine.

  Simon waved his hand towards the cloister. ‘But why do you ply your trade here? Surely it can only lead to shame – especially in front of the women you used to live among.’

  She shrugged unconcernedly. ‘Look – it’s too late to worry about that now. When I was trying to get back at my mother, I started coming here, offering myself to all the canons and lay brothers. It seemed funny at the time; there she was, sitting in her great chair in one side of the cloister, and here I was in this side.’ There was no humour in Rose’s voice. She had slumped, as if flaked out after a long walk. ‘But this last time, the night you arrived, it was different. I had decided to help my mother.’

  ‘Why?’

  She looked at him. ‘Like I said, I heard you talking about her in the tavern when you were on your way here, and listening to that priest with you, it was like listening to a man gloating over a young virgin’s body. He was repulsive, and whether he believed the letter sent to him or not, he wanted to believe it. He really wanted Mother to be guilty
. I didn’t understand then, but I do now.

  ‘My mother is not hugely religious, Bailiff. She’s a good woman in her own way, but if it hadn’t been for her husband dying early and her dislike of the men put forward to her as replacements, she’d have wed again, from what she said. But she does have two loves: the priory, and me. And in that order, too, I think. The priory is still her first love.’

  Simon looked up at the ceiling of the smithy. For a change the roof appeared to be whole, although patched, but when he glanced about him at the walls, he saw the damp patches from which the plaster was falling.

  Following his gaze, Rose giggled. ‘Yeah, it hardly looks as if she cares much, does it? But she does. The place is only suffering because of lack of money; it needs a lot to stop the rot. That’s what Mother is trying to do; just keep St Mary’s ticking over until she can get the money she needs.’

  ‘From Sir Rodney.’

  ‘That’s right. Sir Rodney is prepared to give her the cash.’

  ‘In exchange for looking after his bones and one girl whom he or his family can nominate: this Agnes. What do you know of her?’

  ‘A bit stiff. Not the sort who’d speak to me, although she is little better than me herself, from what I hear.’

  Simon listened attentively as she spoke of Agnes and the rumours of her affair with Luke. When she had finished, he screwed up his face doubtfully. ‘You think so? It’s so easy for gossip to be spread about people for no reason.’

  ‘No reason?’ Rose asked, and her laughter rose to the rafters. ‘Oh, Bailiff, think carefully! There’s one woman here who can tell a man’s proclivities – and that’s me! I know which men need a woman, for they use my services! I know which ones desire me but daren’t indulge themselves for fear of God’s retribution; some are pederasts, for they watch me with faces like those of men drinking vinegar; and there are some who watch me with interest, who admire my body, but who never offer me money – those, Bailiff, are the men who already enjoy their own women and have no need of a paid substitute.’

  ‘There is more than one, then?’

  ‘Only two,’ she said with decision. ‘Luke and Elias, who is servicing Constance, the infirmarer.’

  Simon blew out his cheeks. ‘Constance? With Elias?’

  ‘I only mention the pair as an example, but yes.’

  ‘Where? Do you mean to tell me nuns and novices bring men up to the dorter?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Rose laughed. ‘But all the girls know places to go. For example there’s a room behind the frater: when it’s dark the girls use it; it has hay for a bed, and the roof doesn’t leak, which makes it unique.’ She threw a glance of sneering contempt at the holes above her.

  ‘How does all this help me?’ Simon grumbled, getting up and scuffing his feet through the dirt on the floor. ‘At every advance I find another block – and now Baldwin’s got a broken head. I’m no use at this type of enquiry.’ He slammed his fist into his open left palm. ‘What can I do? The first poor girl died although no one seems to have any idea why, and now Katerine is dead as well, although she appears to have had little in common with Moll.’

  ‘Moll was religious, and Katerine wanted power,’ agreed Rose calmly. ‘But let me tell you something both did have in common: both Moll and Katerine knew secrets. Katerine spent her time seeking out pieces of news or gossip, and was not above using it to her own advantage, dropping hints in someone’s ear to make sure that she got what she wanted. Moll was not so enthusiastic about finding people’s hidden stories, but she was determined when she thought something might have an impact on the convent. She would dig or spy until she found the facts, and then she was like Katerine: she went to the one she thought was responsible, and she let them know what she knew. She didn’t do it for her own benefit like Katerine, she did it for the nunnery, but the people she blackmailed probably felt the same about it.’

  ‘Whom did she threaten?’

  ‘Apart from me, you mean?’ Rose smiled sadly. ‘Because both did try to threaten me. Katerine told me she’d inform my mother about my whoring, unless I paid money for her silence; only a few days later Moll took me aside and spoke to me very seriously in the gardens, trying to persuade me to leave or stop my whoring with the canons. She said that it would damage the convent and I should desist. Desist! I remember her words so well.’

  ‘Who would have told her?’

  ‘Moll? Well, novices chatter amongst themselves just like any other girls. I had refused to pay Katerine, so I expect she was happy to spread the story of my sins.’

  ‘You disliked them?’

  ‘Not really. I just thought they were fools. Neither of them realised that I had no interest in them. Their threats were meaningless. They needed someone who would be worried that their storytelling could get back to the wrong person. Maybe when you have found the man or woman who was threatened by those two girls, you’ll have your killer.’

  For the rest of the day Simon got nowhere. He spoke to many of the nuns and canons, but the solution to the mystery evaded him.

  He strolled about the canons’ cloister during Sext, High Mass, and None. Afterwards, the canons erupted from the church, chattering excitedly and speculating about the death of Katerine. Many held to the view that she had slipped, and that her fall was neither murder nor suicide, but simply an awful accident.

  Simon was convinced that the girl had been struck down in the nuns’ choir, her head wrapped in rags from the aumbry, before she was carried to the roof and thrown off. Yet he had no idea who had a motive to do so.

  At the rear of the long line of canons, Simon saw the grimly forbidding features of Bertrand, and reminded himself that the suffragan had not been in the priory when Moll had died, so he was surely the last person to suspect. And yet Simon could not help but wonder about the man’s open disgust for the prioress. It was clear that Bertrand would be delighted to see her removed from office. And he would demand that she be replaced with Margherita, naturally – Simon had no doubts on that score.

  Simon knew he should tell the suffragan about Rose, but he had a strange reluctance to do so. God alone knew what Bertrand would do when he heard that the prioress’s spy within the canons’ cloister was her own daughter, and she a whore!

  No, Simon couldn’t see Bertrand yet. He turned away and walked to the church. It would be better to sit at Baldwin’s side up in the infirmary and consider all he had learned for a while in peace. But when he got to the connecting door, he found it was locked, and although he called, the sacrist was apparently elsewhere and didn’t hear his knocking. Reluctantly, Simon decided to find Bertrand after all.

  As Simon retraced his steps, making for the frater, he was forced to step over a small pile of dog’s excrement on the way. It appeared most odd to him that someone should have allowed a dog in here – but then he recalled mention of the prioress’s terrier, and curled his lip. A convent was no place for a pet.

  Only later would he realise the significance of the little pile.

  Simon found the suffragan sitting at his ease in the frater, leaning back against a wall, his good hand clasping a large pot, while about him canons twittered sycophantically like a group of women. To the bailiff’s embittered eye, they appeared more unmasculine than the nuns at the other side of the church. However, something in the gossiping made him hold back and stand near the door for a moment, listening.

  Jonathan was shaking his head in apparent wonder. ‘And you have discovered that this is true, Bishop?’

  ‘There can be no doubt,’ said Bertrand. He waved his bad hand airily. ‘The prioress’s management of the convent has been a disaster. You can see for yourselves how run down it is getting. We need a woman in charge who can protect the place. I think we shall need to have another election soon. The prioress must accept her fate and resign.’

  ‘What if she refuses to?’ asked Paul attentively.

  Bertrand bestowed upon him a smile of such approval that Simon almost walked from the room. ‘She
will have no choice, not now that you have helped me so well, Paul.’ He held up a hand in a declamatory fashion. ‘You may as well know, Brothers, that I have more information for you all. This very morning, I was with your colleague here, young Paul, and he showed me an astonishing sight. In a stable were concealed a pair of packs for a canon and a nun in order that they might run away from the cloister and commit apostasy. I know . . .’ he held up his hand for silence as the men began to ask questions, thrilled at his revelations. It gave him an immense sense of power.

  Bertrand felt as though he held all the men in this room in the palm of his hand. He looked at them, all gripping their pots or jugs as they drank in his words avidly.

  It gave him a faint pang to recall that the only confession he had got from Elias was false – he knew well enough that Elias had been at the grille when Katerine died, and no doubt the infirmarer would confirm that he had been with her when Moll died, but this was more important than a simple death. Bertrand was struggling to ensure the survival of the convent itself. To do that he was prepared to blackmail any of the canons in the room – aye, or see them thrashed, if it would help. Elias’s admission of his sins with Constance would surely hasten Lady Elizabeth’s removal.

  And that was the important thing – the removal of the woman who had led the convent to this pass. The souls of thousands depended upon the convent being cleansed! The two dead girls hardly mattered, not to Bertrand. Surely they were already in heaven.

  When a niggle of self-doubt caught at his conscience, he forced it from him. The fact that his actions would help his own promotion was merely a coincidence. Nothing more. He was acting selflessly for the good of St Mary’s.

  When the men were still, he continued. ‘I know that this is not a reflection upon all of you, but it does show how poorly Lady Elizabeth has looked after St Mary’s if one of your number can consider renouncing his oaths and leading a nun astray at the same time. And then there is the matter of the prioress’s daughter . . .’