Ah, but had he not struggled well in their silent wrestling match in the courtyard? God may have given him up to be the Devil’s plaything, but he had won the fight, despite his weariness, even when she had summoned the naked apparition of his wife.
“A woman’s body is but a supper for worms,” he had roared at the hellish phantom of his wife. “Even yours,” he had howled as tears of longing fell from his burning eyes. It was then that the fiendish creature had stepped back, and his wife’s spirit had vanished.
Memory of that conflict now melted into a haze of pain. He yearned to weep, but he had no more tears to shed. Although he had triumphed over Satan’s forces, his exaltation was short-lived, and a profound sadness darkened his heart.
He knew that the vision of his wife, with her yearning look and out-stretched arms, was only the Devil’s painted fantasy. Yet he had hungered to hold her body against his, to join with her in loving passion just one more time. That had been denied him. Despite her ghostly touch, his body had remained cold, his manhood as dead as the woman he had loved.
Twisting with impotent longing, he cursed. For stealing that little comfort from him, he would never forgive that demon, the one who dared call herself the prioress of Tyndal.
Chapter Fourteen
Thomas and Ralf walked along the row of small, screened rooms just behind the dormitory beds in the hospital. The only sound, besides the moans of the suffering and the whispering of the lay brothers, was the soft crunching of their leather shoes on dried and scattered herbs.
“I owe you an apology,” Ralf said at last. “I meant nothing by my harsh-spoken questions. Surely you know that.”
That I did not, Thomas thought, then replied with greater composure than he felt. “I did not think you were accusing me of murder, Ralf, or of lying for that matter.” He had imagined just that, of course, but the crowner need not know why this thought had leapt to mind.
The two men continued on without speaking until a scream from a man nearby startled them. The force of another’s most mortal agony chased Thomas’ own fears aside, and he realized there was something else that had troubled him about the crowner’s remarks, something perhaps more important than his prison memories. He laid a hand on his friend’s sleeve.
“May I be frank with you, Ralf?”
“We are both honest men, monk. There is no need for evasion.”
“When you asked if I was returning to the hospital to hear a confession, whose did you think I came to hear, and what did you think it would be? Was it a woman’s? A particular woman? I knew from your tone that you did not mean any confession I might hear as a priest.”
Ralf turned his head away as if he had been struck.
“Anyone who has said that the relationship between Sister Anne and me is less than chaste is a fool,” Thomas said. “If there is sin in respect and friendship, we are guilty of it, but only of that.” Looking around, he dropped his voice. “As we both well know, the only man Sister Anne has ever loved was the one she called husband. That has not changed, my friend.”
Ralf’s weather-roughened face turned an uneven red. “Truly, I have never thought otherwise,” he replied, his hoarseness betraying swallowed tears. “When you told me you had come to the hospital to see her, the arrow of jealousy did strike my heart. I quickly plucked it out and know full well that there is nothing untoward between you.” He cleared his throat. “As you might guess from what I have just told you, I have loved this woman since before her marriage. Only you and she know this, monk, for I have long hidden my feelings.”
Thomas struck his friend’s shoulder with affection. “Your secret is safe, Ralf.” He did not believe, however, that the crowner’s love for the sub-infirmarian was as unknown as Ralf thought it was.
“Nor do I doubt that you honor your vows, Thomas, although I confess I have never understood what called you to the religious life. You do seem a most unusual monk.”
“Do you think Brother Andrew’s calling strange as well?”
“He was a soldier. I understand his vocation.” He studied the monk. “Have you ever been in battle, Thomas?”
“Nay.”
“But you have bedded women.”
Thomas nodded.
“Then you will understand when I tell you that war is like a skillful whore. Some return to her again and again until they die in her arms, exhausted with sated longing. Others may ride her with joy for a few hours, only to flee her embraces to save their souls. No man, however, ever rises from her bed without some mark to show he has lain with her. I see the mark on your porter. I’m sure he sees the same on me.”
A fine speech from a man better known for a rough manner and even rougher language, Thomas thought, with surprised admiration.
As if he had just read the monk’s mind, Ralf grinned. “That was childish babble. What I mean is that I understand why a former soldier is here, and I respect Brother Andrew for his choice. What I do not comprehend is why a lusty young man like you should have taken to the monkish life.”
Thomas fell silent, choosing his words with care. “Perhaps, Crowner, a worldly life and war are both wily whores, seducing men with pretty promises of adventure and excitement. Each does mark any man that lies with her.” Thomas hesitated, looking steadily into the crowner’s eyes. “Some the whore kills. Some escape. Many she drives to the edge of madness, robbing them of all happiness with her cruelty. Among these are men who seek the monastery. Others may fall over that cliff, their souls breaking on the rocks where they remain, convulsing until they die.”
Ralf said nothing, then nodded.
For a moment, the two men looked at each other, agreeing without words to ask nothing further: the one having no desire to speak more about his feelings for a now-encloistered woman; the other not wishing to explain his love for another man.
Of course the crowner was right to be suspicious of his calling, Thomas thought with some bitterness. Had he not been caught in the act of sodomy and thrown into prison, his body tortured, his spirit broken by suggestions that an influential man of God wanted to burn him at the stake, he would not be here. That no man had yet been burned in England as a sodomite was irrelevant. Supporters of the punishment were growing in influence and favor. One day, Thomas believed, someone would burn; he had had no reason to think it would not be him.
Thinking back on the horror of his prison time, he wondered if he had finally retreated from madness or if he was still at the brink. When he first arrived at Tyndal, he knew that he wavered on the edge. With night’s darkness came the demons. Some bore the guise of his jailer who had raped him. Some were but voices, the worst being that of Giles, mocking his love. Now he did sleep most nights, but all life had fled his loins. Mad or not, he might as well be a monk. Aye, the edge of the cliff was still visible, but he did think he had stepped back.
“You are deep in thought?” Ralf’s voice broke through the musing.
Grateful to be dragged from his bleak memories, Thomas grinned. “A rare enough thing, you’d say. Still, I fear that others may suspect that there is something unchaste in my friendship with Sister Anne. I would not be the cause of any shame for she is a most honorable lady.”
“Nay, Thomas. Her honor is safe. Not once have I heard ill rumors about either of you. Were they even started, Prioress Eleanor would put a firm stop to them for she trusts and respects you both. As do we all.”
After her cold reception, Thomas was no longer sure that his prioress either trusted or respected him. He shook his head.
“You do not believe me?” Ralf put his hand on the monk’s shoulder and looked at him for a long time.
“I do, Crowner…”
“I have good sources from inside Tyndal, Thomas. To prove that, I will tell you that I know about your cleverness in the matter at Wynethorpe Castle last winter.”
“Then you have an unreliable resource, Ralf. My part was modest. A man must find something to do, stuck on the Welsh border
in the middle of a snowstorm. Having a murder to solve might have kept my blood from freezing, but it was our prioress who led us to the truth, not I.”
“Careful what you say about my source, monk! Tostig is not one to cross, and his source is his sister. He believed everything Gytha told him. So do I, for she is a most honest woman.”
Thomas laughed. “If Tostig and his sister told you those tales, I would not say otherwise, although I might suggest that they were too generous...”
“A spy could not have better informants.”
Thomas winced at the reference. “Let us go to the chapel and view your rotting corpse.”
Ralf stopped near the entrance to the chapel and winked at his friend. “After the effort of caring for your brother, this murder may prove as much a potion for you as the one in Wales.”
“Then let us go in, Ralf,” Thomas said with a laugh, then looked around his friend into the chapel. “Sister Anne awaits.”
***
When she heard the two men enter, the sub-infirmarian covered the dead man, then turned around and smiled at the crowner. “How thoughtful to bring a corpse, just fresh from his killing, to greet our brother on his return,” she said.
Ralf stepped back as if she had slapped him. “Annie, this was not of my planning!”
“Nor did I think so. Peace, Ralf, I was but jesting.”
The crowner was quite stricken into silence.
“Yet a corpse there is,” Thomas said to Anne, “and Ralf may have brought me to see it, but it is your opinion he hopes to get. I fear I might not remember the man even if we did pass on the road.”
As he watched her looking at the crowner in silence, Thomas saw a strange look race across her eyes and wondered if he had been wrong in what he had said to Ralf. He was certain that Anne had loved her former husband, as she did the welfare of her soul, and had seen proof enough that she still did. Nonetheless, there was something between Anne and Ralf, something more than what lay between a woman, who was kind, and a lover she had rejected. Perhaps she had loved him once? Not that it would make any difference. Thomas had no doubt that Sister Anne was now quite firmly wedded to the religious life.
“He should hear from both of us, Brother,” she said, her voice soft with whatever memories had just come to her. “As we learned last winter at Wynethorpe, your observations are most thorough.”
With that, Anne beckoned them to come closer and view the corpse.
***
On a trestle table lay the body, hidden by a rough cloth. Despite the chill, an over-sweet stench thickened the air.
As the men came forward, Anne carefully folded back the cloth that had been placed over the face of the murdered man. She could not have been gentler if the man had been sleeping.
When Thomas looked down at the gray face of the corpse, mortal time slowed like the heartbeat of the dying. The man might be dead, he thought, but he would have sworn that the widened eyes of the corpse were turning, turning to stare at him.
He blinked.
The man’s mouth twisted into a snaggle-toothed grin, and the tip of his tongue seemed to flick in and out with lewd suggestiveness.
Thomas gasped and staggered back.
“By all that is holy,” Ralf cried out, reaching for his friend. “What is wrong?”
Ralf’s words sounded as hollow as speech heard from the depths of a pond. Thomas’ head began to spin, his legs lost all feeling, and he knew he was slowly sinking into an ever-growing hole. “God help me!” he whispered as velvet darkness slipped over him and he lost consciousness.
Chapter Fifteen
Thomas awoke to find himself lying on the ground while Sister Anne held a foul-smelling concoction under his nose. He sneezed.
“He’s alive!” Ralf exclaimed, dropping the monk’s head with a thud.
Had Thomas felt better, he might have laughed.
“Sit up slowly.” Anne nodded at the crowner for help.
May this be the last day so full of lies, Thomas thought, as Ralf lifted him back on his feet. “I fear my faintness must have come from hunger, nothing more,” he explained with some truthfulness. “Since the sun rose, I have traveled far but had nothing to eat except a bite of bread given to me by a pilgrim on the way to Norwich.” He gently shook off the crowner’s arm. “As I promised, I will look upon that corpse.”
“Can that not wait…” Anne began, but seeing the expression on the crowner’s face, she fell silent.
Thomas walked with the careful step of a weakened man back to where the corpse lay. He most certainly did not want to see that face again yet knew he must force himself to the task. Surely he had only imagined what had gripped his heart with chill horror and caused him to faint from the sight?
With his back to Anne and Ralf, Thomas closed his eyes tightly. His heart pounded loudly in his ears, but as he pried his eyes open and stared down on the corpse, a sigh of relief escaped his lips.
The man was not his former jailer. Fighting his old terror, he studied the man with care. Although the head shape and mouth were much the same, the body was too short. He picked up one of the hands and examined the fingers. These stubby things were nothing like the long claws that had squeezed and scratched at his genitals. Even knowing that this man was not his rapist, the similarity was not vague enough. The gorge rose in Thomas’ throat, and he quickly looked away.
“Do you recognize the man?” The crowner was watching him most carefully.
Anne slapped Ralf’s arm. “Enough! Our brother has just regained his senses and is still weak. Let him take his time. Perhaps he is not as ready or eager as you are to deal with rotting bodies, no matter how important you think they are.”
“I am grateful for your kindness, but I am recovered enough.” Thomas turned away from the body but caught hold of the table for balance. Hoping Ralf had believed his story of weakness, he now looked steadily at the crowner, willing himself to say what he must with the firmness of truth. “I do not believe I saw this man on the road.”
He failed. He had faltered in mid-sentence, his voice rising as the force of his old memories grabbed him by the throat. Had he heard this from another man, he would have suspected him of lying, or at least saying less than he knew. Ralf was no fool. He would hear it too. Thomas grimaced.
***
Ralf was deeply troubled. Before Sister Anne would discuss the dead man with him, she had insisted that he take Thomas safely back to the monks’ quarters. This he had been glad enough to do, but, as the two men walked out of the chapel, he glanced over at his friend. Thomas had fallen deep into one of his black silences.
Early in their acquaintance, Ralf had noticed that Thomas often suffered from fits of melancholia. These, according to Sister Anne, were caused by an imbalance of the humors. Still, humors became unbalanced for good reason. Even he knew that. What had caused this shift now?
He thought back on the day. Thomas had been cheerful enough when he had first seen him, jesting as was his wont whenever the two men were together. Of course, he had been upset with the news of the murder. So had Prioress Eleanor. Yet he had recovered from that and his spirits had risen until…until he had seen the corpse. Then he had fainted. Was there something about the dead man that had caused the monk’s humors to go out of balance?
The crowner continued to study the tall, broad-shouldered man walking quietly beside him. Not that he suspected Thomas of anything untoward, but Ralf was too experienced with the solving of crime not to question when something did not quite fit. Thomas’ vocation, to his mind, had never fit the man. Most men would have claimed, readily enough, that they had had a vision or a calling or had lost something of so much value on earth that they had retreated from the world. Thomas had never done any of these things, although his suggestion that both war and the secular life were alike might suggest the latter. In the past, there had been no reason to discover why Thomas had chosen a contemplative profession. Was there now?
The monk’s manner and speech were courtly enough to suggest high birth, although the crowner suspected his friend was a by-blow. Perhaps his father’s rank was too low to provide a clever son with more than this simple priesthood in the Order of Fontevraud? Ralf doubted that. There was a confidence about Thomas that made the crowner guess that the man was not just the son of a scullery maid, fathered by some minor knight. The sheriff, Satan take his soul, might know more of this Thomas of London. Were Ralf inclined to speak to said cursed brother, he could have asked him. He was not, however, so inclined.
Whatever Thomas’ past, the crowner reminded himself, the monk had a soldier’s proven courage. This was no delicate fellow who would faint from the stink of a drawn corpse. What was there about this particular one that had sent his friend’s humors into rebellion and caused him to call out in agony for God to save him as he fell into blackness? Ralf shook his head. Had his friend suffered some secret wound that only his confessor had seen, and, if so, had it been caused by this soldier of God? And why had he so carefully examined the dead man’s hands? Had he seen him on the road, his face would have been all he would have noted.
Ralf clenched his fist. Anger flooded his heart. A soldier had been butchered, a man who had gone to serve God in Outremer. He would find the foul killer of this brave man. On his oath, he would! And if Thomas knew…
A shout put an end to the crowner’s thoughts.
With no warning, a figure leapt out of the shadows.
Ralf reached for his sword.
Thomas grabbed the crowner’s hand, thus keeping him from drawing his weapon. “He means no harm,” he said, as the figure bowed and danced in front of them.
“We are well met, good fellows, are we not?” The swaying man hid his face behind his hands, then began to sing in a high-pitched voice. “A man whose fruit has been plucked.” The dancer cupped his genitals. “A servant of the law who cannot find justice.” His voice dropped as he danced in a circle in front of Ralf. “And a jester with no king to hear his jokes.” The dancer pulled one side of his mouth into a distorted grin as he shifted from foot to foot. “Alas, such lack!”
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