“He provided fish from the ponds for meals.”
Sister Anne looked surprised. “He was a fine fisherman then! Did he use nets or a line?” This might explain why he was at the fishponds. Either he was fishing or he knew cats might come there for food. Yet she could not see how it explained why he was killed.
Janeta shrugged.
“Did he learn the skill from his father or did someone teach him here?” She wasn’t sure the answer would reveal anything of value, but she was trying to be both subtle and probing while she was able to at least briefly question the maid.
“Father Pasche taught him.”
Now that was interesting, the sub-infirmarian thought. Might it explain the priest’s odd reaction to the boy’s death? “Then Brother Martin did not grow up near a river or lake?”
Again, the maid shrugged.
She could not be less forthcoming if she were a rock, Anne thought with mild impatience. “Boys love to fish,” she said, ignoring the sharp pain in her heart at the memory of her dead son proudly presenting her with a fish he had caught, albeit with much assistance from his father. “He must have enjoyed the lessons with Father Pasche.”
Janeta looked at the nun with a flash of anger. “He was no boy, and he learned because it was his duty to do so.”
Anne blinked at the unexpectedly sharp retort. “To a woman of my age,” she said, “many men seem like boys, even when they have married and have sons of their own. I did not mean that he had not taken on a man’s responsibilities in his vocation.”
Nodding abruptly, the maid lowered her head. “I repeat only what Father Pasche said in my hearing,” she muttered. “I should not have told you. It was said to my mistress, not me.”
“I do not fault you,” Anne said. The maid showed an admirable loyalty to the former prioress, she thought, then doggedly pursued her questions. She had managed to pry one bit of information from the woman. “So Brother Martin did not like fishing but considered it one of his many duties in serving his community and God.”
“He liked to fish. I meant that Father Pasche never called him a boy.”
“If the priest loved to fish and taught the skill to the young man, he must have been fond of Brother Martin.”
“Why ask these questions of me?” Janeta suddenly shook her fists like a frustrated and angry child. Her face, however, was an unhealthy white. “I do not know the answers. I am not of this Order. I am a servant who tries only to obey the orders given to my by my mistress or Prioress Emelyne!”
Anne put a calming hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I meant no ill, Janeta. My sin was idle curiosity and nothing more. It is a weakness, especially among women, and I shall seek penance for it.”
The maid nodded, lowered her head once again, and fell into her usual silence.
As she had several times before, Sister Anne wondered if the woman was ill. Certainly, she often looked pale, or even green, and had seemed to suffer from nausea. But if she suffered this way just before her courses began, why did she not seek aid from Sister Richolda?
Then the sub-infirmarian began to study Janeta with a more thorough healer’s eye, and a thought crossed her mind.
Might the woman be pregnant?
Chapter Thirty
The meeting with Sister Anne had been brief, and Brother Thomas watched the two women walk back to the preceptory.
He did not want to return to his cell, nor did he have any desire to kneel at the altar. The day was too beautiful and surely there was prayer enough in finding joy in God’s creation.
Hesitating a moment, he turned to the path that led to the fishponds. He did not intend to reexamine the site where Brother Martin had died, but he needed time to think over what Sister Anne had just said about the priest and the lad.
Since Janeta had been there, the nun’s news had been carefully phrased to express sorrow that the fish meals might be fewer now that the man who caught them was dead, although his fellow fisherman, Father Pasche, remained. She had turned to the maid and remarked that the man who had trained the lay brother would be hard-pressed to make up for the catch the two of them were able to bring to the monastic tables.
Janeta had said nothing while studying the ground with her accustomed intensity.
As he walked along the path, casually passing his hand through the tall grass, he wondered what the relationship was between Father Pasche and Brother Martin. He was equally curious about Brother Damian, a man who seemed calculated and hard of heart yet had wept over the lad’s corpse. Although Brother Martin owned the innocent mien of a young boy and the soft features of a woman, Thomas had observed enough of him to conclude that, while he might have been inexperienced, he was not an utter child.
Did either or both of these men lust after him? Were they rivals for his affections? Did this explain the priest’s hesitancy to look at the corpse? Was jealousy cause for murder, making the link between this and Mistress Hursel’s death nonexistent?
The sound of a snapping twig made Thomas spin around. “Who is there?” he called out.
The soft breeze ruffled the tall grass like a woman running fingers through her hair. The air smelled of fresh sweetness. Only the buzzing of insects and birdsong answered him.
But Thomas was uneasy. Someone was watching him, but he saw no direct evidence. A person might hide in the grass, he thought, but he had seen no one follow him. It would be a long way from the compound of the religious for a man to crawl on his belly. He decided he was being foolish, walked on, and continued his musing.
Were he to guess, based on very little proof, he would conclude that the commander and priest both loved the youth, but he doubted either allowed himself to acknowledge overt lust for the lay brother. There may have been a rivalry between them for his allegiance, however. As Thomas knew, the boundary between the desire to bond lovingly and the passion to own, or even the line between love and lust, could be fragile or ill-defined. These were questions that he and Durant had debated on the few occasions they now met.
In the case of Brother Martin’s murder, had the rivalry, no matter how tense, been enough for one man to kill the beloved? He thought it more likely that one of the rivals would have killed the other if passions rose that high. And yet…
Something that did not belong in the grass moved.
Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas spied a spot of dark color. That is not an animal, he thought.
Keeping his eyes down as if deep in thought, he stood very still and waited.
A man sneezed.
Twice.
Thomas gave up the pretense and waded into the grass. “Why have you been following me, Father Pasche?” he said, staring down at the priest.
***
The two men sat together in a small area off the narrow path where the grass was beaten down. If they were not exactly friendly, they were at least courteous.
The priest rubbed at his nose and scowled. “The ponds stink of rot.”
“You have not answered my question, Father.”
“Who is spying on whom?” Pasche snarled. “Why can you not just leave us in peace?”
“Because I smell something more rotten than pond weeds here, and the more you avoid my questions, the closer to me the stench grows.”
“The Devil is mocking you. There is nothing amiss here.” The priest reached out to smooth the grass around him.
“Mistress Hursel’s death. Let us begin there.”
“A woman whom no one mourns! Why trouble yourself over that? None of us killed her, yet none of us condemns the person who did.”
“Not one of you is guilty?” Thomas was incredulous. “Yet Prioress Amicia was convicted of the crime on evidence that any man of reason would ridicule.”
Father Pasche swallowed and looked like he longed for a large cup of wine.
“I know she refused to defend herself, but she also
did not confess to the crime. I have now learned she is dying.” Thomas reached over and gripped his companion’s shoulder. “Was she like the ram that conveniently appeared to Abraham and took his son’s place as the burnt offering? Whose place did she take? Or was she merely the useful sacrifice?”
Shaking himself loose from the monk’s grasp, Pasche hid his face in his hands and whimpered.
“I concede that her refusal to defend herself is puzzling,” Thomas said, “but did it not occur to you that she might have had grounds to do this strange thing, yet did not kill the woman?”
“Brother Damian has finally confirmed that Sister Amicia killed her husband, my brother, and a man with whom our commander fought in Outremer. As I recently said to you, a woman who kills her lord husband is capable of the foulest crimes.”
Thomas sat back in shock. “You said there were only rumors, even though you wondered if the tales were true. But there were no charges brought, and thus she is deemed to be innocent. What evidence does Brother Damian have that now convinces you she was guilty of killing her husband? And why did he never tell you this a long time ago?”
“Mistress Hursel was the source. She did not witness the actual deed but saw enough to reasonably conclude what had happened. Later, she told Brother Damian.” He looked away, clearly unwilling to answer the second question posed by the monk.
Brother Thomas was not convinced by a witness who did not see but reasonably concluded. “And you both have cause to say Mistress Hursel was a credible witness? Convince me, Father. I see only a woman who may have wished to tell vile tales of a mistress who had dismissed her from service.”
Now the man was squirming. “Yes, she carried tales, Brother! The woman was vicious, loved to ruin or humiliate as many as she could, and...” His expression seemed to beg for understanding. “…asked for coin to remain silent.”
Thomas tried to remain calm. The news that Amicia might actually have killed her husband bothered him more than he cared to admit. The butcher’s widow was despicable, but she could have come to see Prioress Amicia that day with the intent to threaten her with exposure, or perhaps to suggest how a whispered hint might ruin the prioress’ reputation if Mistress Hursel were not given the full charity she demanded for silence.
The other thought that troubled him was a practical one. If Amicia had killed her husband, it was when she was younger and stronger, but the deed would still have required more force than most women had to kill a crusader knight. Maybe Satan had given her strength enough then, and then later on, to kill Mistress Hursel.
Questions about Amicia’s innocence began to besiege his mind like an army led by the legendary Salah al-Din. If the butcher’s widow threatened to tell her tale about Amicia’s husband’s death to the Prior of England, might Amicia have feared a penalty that would cause her family loss of honor? Did the woman have children who would suffer? Yet any conviction for murder brought shame. Why fear the earlier one, now that she was vowed to God and under Church authority, when the consequences of killing Mistress Hursel were just as onerous?
Thomas stopped the roaring conflict in his mind by settling on a simple question. “Did she do something to you, Father?”
“It seems she did, Brother, although she never came to me for money, and I never learned exactly what my crime was. Yet I did suffer for it.”
Thomas asked him to explain.
“As we all are, I am a wicked man, but my sins are regularly acknowledged, confessed, and I have done penance. So I was surprised one day when my brother came to me and demanded I tell him the great sin his wife had committed, one which I had failed to tell him.”
Thomas nodded encouragement when the priest hesitated.
“I said truthfully that I knew of no such thing. But he was drunk, as he often was, and said that Mistress Hursel had told him that his wife had confided her foul sin to me. He demanded to know all the details she had revealed, even if it was in confession. Fool that I was, I did not tell him that she had never confessed to me as her priest. Instead, I reminded him that confessions were for God’s ears only. He pulled aside my hair and pointed to my ear. Then he held me down and sliced off a large portion. Since the sin first came to my ear before it ever went to God, he announced, it deserved death for being tainted with wickedness. Had I not screamed, I fear he would have done more than this.” He exposed his mutilated ear.
Thomas was horrified. “He was violent when drunk?”
“As brothers, we were as different as chalk and cheese. I chose God as my liege lord. More than most dutiful knights, he reveled in war. He was always prone to violence. Drunk, he could wade through an army of infidels, real or imagined, with his bare fists and leave them screaming for their mothers.”
“Did he tell you what this secret was?”
“No. Two of his men heard my cries and rescued me. One of them told me later, as a physician staunched my bleeding, that they often rescued men from his wrath.”
“And when he became sober?”
“He mocked me and said that, as a man of God, I should not get into fights. His jest sounds crueler than it was. I was sure he did not recall what had happened. I left within the hour that day for the commandery and returned only once thereafter to see him buried.” Pasche tried to smile. “As you see, Brother, I have no reason to want to kill Mistress Hursel, for I never learned what I was supposed to know yet did not. As for revenge over this ear, I could argue that I am a priest and have rejected such sins. That, you might not believe. But it was my brother who injured me, not Mistress Hursel, and I was here when he died.”
“Other than Prioress Amicia, is there anyone else here who had cause to kill Mistress Hursel? Did the woman know some secret about Brother Damian or Prioress Emelyne which they did not want anyone to know?”
Pasche shook his head. “Not that I am aware. The only one who had grounds to kill Mistress Hursel was Prioress Amicia if the tale that she had murdered her husband was true.”
Thomas mulled this over. There seemed to be no proof that Amicia had killed her husband. Mistress Hursel did not even claim to have witnessed it. Subtle hints can be just as damning, he thought, but I still find no reason to think the former prioress is guilty of both deaths.
Unless, of course, Mistress Hursel had come to tell her that she now had evidence that Amicia had killed her husband. Or, he thought, had she committed this other unknown crime for which this priest had almost lost his ear? Or had Amicia’s husband misunderstood something Mistress Hursel told him because he was drunk at the time?
Once again, he opted to ask a question to stop the horde of doubts plaguing him. “Who killed Brother Martin?”
The priest stared at him. “You did lie to Brother Damian. He said you had.”
“Would you trust a man who had set two spies on you?”
Blushing, Pasche turned away.
“Brother Martin was the other.”
Pasche sat back, his eyes wide. “It was you! You killed the youth for what he was doing!”
“How could I? I was either waiting for Brother Martin to take me to the preceptory or I was with you when he died. Lest you think I might have slipped away to commit the crime before you arrived to accompany me, I believe you will find at least one lay brother was in my company.”
“Then I do not know. Surely you are wrong about Brother Martin’s death.”
“It is difficult to ignore a smashed skull.”
Bending his head, Pasche began to weep softly.
“Why did you avoid the corpse, Father? You knew your duty to shrive him.”
Now he began to sob. “He was such a sweet boy,” he gasped.
Thomas waited.
Taking a deep breath, Pasche rubbed at his eyes. “When he first came to us, he had no vocation, wept piteously, and longed to return to his family. I taught him to catch fish in the ponds for our suppers. He found joy in that
and clung to me like a father.” Again his cheeks turned pink. “He was an innocent, but I feared the Devil and knew that men often fall into great sin with each other when womanish emotions chase away our manly reason. So I grew stern and turned away from him, hoping he would seek God, not me, for strength.” The priest looked sad but forced a smile. “Of late he had fallen more in love with God. I often witnessed him on his knees for hours in prayer.”
“Why avoid his dead body?”
“I feared the Devil had again draped his soul in melancholy, and he had committed self-murder.” The priest hiccupped a sob.
And you feared it was your fault, Thomas thought. “Brother Martin was murdered. We know the crime was not committed by Sister Amicia, by you, or by me. Was it Brother Damian?”
“Never!” Father Pasche leapt up in horror. “Go back to your own priory and leave us in peace! The death of Mistress Hursel was a blessing from God. You must have misread the injury to Brother Martin’s skull.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Maybe God is punishing us for our sins, but none of us killed either person.” With that, the priest stumbled and pushed his way out of the grass and fled down the path in the direction of the commandery.
Thomas did not follow. Left alone with the soft wind and gentle songs of God’s creatures, Thomas knew he now had even less reason to do as the priest had begged.
The relationships of three people here were tangled. Prioress Amicia had been married to Father Pasche’s brother, and that brother had been a comrade-in-arms to Brother Damian. If Mistress Hursel had served in the household of Amicia and her husband, and learned secrets no one wanted revealed, it was likely she knew something about Brother Damian as well.
So far, the monk thought with less conviction than he would like, I am beginning to conclude that the commander is the one most likely to have killed both the butcher’s widow and the young lay brother. But how could the man have done so?
Thomas rubbed at his eyes in frustration. How would he be able to find evidence that Brother Damian was in the priory when the butcher’s widow was killed or was with Brother Martin at the right time?
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