“Since you have already examined the body, my lady, what specifically do you wish me to look for?”
Eleanor turned so quickly he almost trod on her.
“I did not mean…”
Eleanor was pleased that he looked abashed as he stumbled backward. At least there was little aggression to fear in the man. One prone to violence would have looked angry to be placed so suddenly at disadvantage.
She smiled with pleasure at her impromptu trick and at his flustered reaction, then nodded acceptance of the apology.
The boyish grin he gave in return was not only ingenuous but also calculated, Eleanor decided. The look did not extend to his expressionless eyes. Nonetheless, unwanted warmth rushed once again to her face. She quickly turned away from him and walked in determined silence to the nuns’ gate, unlocked it with her own key, and led the two others into the cloister garth. As they reached the fountain where Sister Anne guarded the body, Eleanor finally stopped and turned to Thomas.
“Your opinion and observations, brother, would be both welcome and useful. Indeed Sister Anne and I did examine the body quite thoroughly. However, if the crowner is like most, he would more likely listen to the details and take them more seriously from you than from us. The world outside our small Order is unaccustomed to open female command and for me to assert this unusual authority as head of Tyndal might so unsettle him that he could be distracted from a timely pursuit of justice. I understand he has never had occasion to visit here before. I trust we will never have to invite him to our priory again. Therefore, in the interest of a clear-eyed, efficient hunt for the person who did this horrible thing to our brother, I think the issue of who runs Tyndal may remain a moot one.”
“If I may be so blunt, my lady, you show rare judgement for…”
“A woman?”
“For any child born of sin.”
Clever man with words you are, Eleanor thought and could not help smiling at him. She might fear Thomas and the unwelcome feelings and confusion he caused her, but she did like his quick wit.
Chapter Nine
Thomas retched. The sight of Brother Rupert’s mutilated corpse had turned his stomach despite his brave words to the contrary. If he’d been alone in the garth, he probably would have instantly vomited the good wine he had just enjoyed, but he would never show such weakness before women. Now that he was by himself, he could throw up in peace. Bracing against the stone wall, he retched again into the tall grass.
Still sweating, he shook his head. How two women could have examined that body with apparent composure and thoroughness was beyond his understanding. He at least had seen death in some of its uglier forms; neither stabbings nor poisonings were pretty, but to castrate a man like that?
“What horrible thing could an old priest have done to warrant such treatment? And who could have defiled him so?” He spat. Such desecration of manhood was usually reserved for the most hated of men. Traitors to a king came first to mind, although there was Abelard who’d been gelded as well as that unfortunate lover of a nun at Watton Priory.
After some dry heaving, nothing was left in his stomach. Thomas kicked up some dirt and tore some of the dry grass to cover his leavings, then locked the door to the nuns’ quarters and headed down the gravel path to the monks’ lodgings. At the nave of the church, he stopped and looked up at the granite and slate building. Moss streaked the shadowed stone and blackened what might once have been colored light gray. The windows over the high altar were narrow and dingy, and something brown was growing from the corners and joinings which must further inhibit light from illuminating the inside of the church.
“What cold and soggy land have I been sent to?” he asked himself. A sudden chill shook Thomas in the afternoon sun. Damp and mold permeated all. Everything reeked of gradual but inevitable decay. A black mood descended on him, and the manner of Brother Rupert’s death seemed in keeping with the ambiance of the place.
Just as his thoughts grew grim, he looked around, then smiled in spite of his sad temper at the incongruity he had just observed. Women might run Fontevraud houses but they still lived to the north of the church, the side that symbolized benightedness, while the very monks they ruled lived on the south, the side of enlightenment. What did his new prioress think of that? Had she even noticed it? He shook his head. A more apt question would be whether there was much of anything she hadn’t observed.
A single cloud scudded across the sun, briefly darkening the day with its shadow. Thomas watched as more clouds followed the first, dark bottomed and close to the earth. Rain was coming, he decided, as he felt the air turn slightly damp against his skin. He turned away from the nave and walked on.
“Surely the prioress has recognized what a strong adversary she has in Brother Simeon,” Thomas muttered. “Now there is a man who shows very traditional views on whether it is Adam or Eve who should rule. He would have no doubts that men were the more capable sex and that women should be guided by them.”
How did such a man ever become a member of this religious order, founded in seeming defiance of established wisdom? Thomas shook his head. Perhaps he had arrived as a child and been more willing in his youth to obey a woman’s command. If so, he had clearly changed in the passing years. Thomas had seen how little the now forceful monk cared for the equally forceful new prioress. “Without question, there will be a struggle for supremacy between the two. Perhaps I should not wager on which will win,” he said into the dank wind.
And what were his own feelings about Prioress Eleanor and her authority over him? Thomas wasn’t sure. In his father’s court, women had seemed peripheral to the lives of the men he had watched, but he had never thought they were either unneeded or unappreciated.
When he was a little boy, women had looked after him, although he had little memory of his wet nurse. A flash of warmth, a bit of color, perhaps. Thomas did not remember if she had died or been sent away, but he did remember his father’s cook who had taken him on afterward, a soft-fleshed, jolly woman who smelled of good things to eat which she freely gave him along with just the right number of hugs.
After her death when he was thirteen, he no longer attached himself to any woman and kept them all in the background of his life, like the men he sought to imitate. As a boy, he had always given due courtesy to each of his father’s wives and had grieved deeply, albeit privately, at the death of the one who had been especially kind. Various maidservants and ladies had ruffled his soft hair, planted kisses on his downy cheeks, then stepped back to look at him differently when his voice dropped and his shoulders broadened.
In truth, he had given little thought to women for most of his life. He had shared the favors of many with Giles, enjoying the joint couplings more than those he’d had alone. The lusty joustings had been pleasant for the most part, rather akin to scratching a slightly unreachable itch.
Thomas chuckled. “For cert, this prioress will not stand in any man’s background, at least not for long.” Nor, he suspected, would she dutifully scratch any man’s itch. She might be young and small of stature, but when she stood over him, watching as he examined the body of the old priest, he knew he had rarely met men tested in battle who exuded such iron control.
Despite the mettle he saw behind a soft woman’s form, her smile was warm and her deep laugh suggested more earthiness than he would have expected in a virgin with a religious vocation. Of course he had heard stories of nuns who had lost the fight to remain chaste, not that he had known many nuns, virtuous or otherwise. Neither he nor Giles had had any interest in bedding a nun, no matter how willing she might be, when there were women enough outside the Church to satisfy them. The daughters of Eve who dedicated themselves to God might be holier than monks, according to the Church, because of their greater battle with unquenched lust, but neither he nor Giles had wanted to risk the future comfort of their souls by testing any nun’s vows.
Thomas kicked at the stones in the path. Whether Prioress Eleanor of
Wynethorpe was a struggling or willing virgin was really of no interest to him. There was nothing about her that had stirred his manhood. Had Giles been here, perhaps he would have indulged in and enjoyed some speculation, but without him…
Thomas stopped. In the quickly growing shadows of the late summer’s afternoon, something caught his eye near the sacristy door. He quickly knelt and reached into the high yellow grass and leathery weeds. Lost in the tangle was a small, roughly hewn wooden crucifix attached to a thin leather strap. He pulled the object toward him and into the light. The strap was broken, and it felt stiff when he grasped it. Both the wood and strap were darkly stained.
As he quickly parted the grass around where he had found the cross, he thought the ground looked darker in spots. Could the marks on the ground and the stains be dried blood, he wondered? He quickly slipped the crucifix and strap into his sleeve. Something to look at later or give to…
“Brother?”
The voice startled Thomas. He stumbled as he rose, spun around, and then stared into the green eyes of a tall, wiry, but well-muscled monk standing behind him.
“Did you drop something, brother?” The voice was deep. The tone was not warm.
“A pebble in my shoe, is all.”
“Soft feet to go with a clerk’s soft hands then?”
“My history follows me, it seems.”
The man did not laugh. “Brother Simeon wants to see you in the prior’s chambers.” With a look as thorough as that of a butcher appraising a cow bought for slaughter, the monk turned and left Thomas alone in the path.
***
“Sit, Brother Thomas, and have some wine.”
Brother Simeon poured a berry-scented wine into a goblet set in front of Thomas. There was no sign of the prior, but the receiver seemed quite at ease alone in his superior’s chambers. And in using the gold cups.
Thomas watched the monk as he settled himself on the bench just opposite him. Of middle years, the man was large in every sense of the word and seemed more paternal than forbidding, or at least that was Thomas’ impression. And, he noted with gentle amusement, Simeon was vain. The receiver had let his light brown hair grow longer at one side so he could pull it over the top of his head and in front of his tonsure, which he wore further back from his forehead than most monks.
“So what did you see in the garden? What happened to our poor Brother Rupert? Did he die with a smile on his face after a frolic with a wayward nun?” Simeon winked, his laugh deep and hearty, his smile good-humored.
This man may be more aware of human frailty than the usual androgynous monk, Thomas thought, but I find no humor in what happened to the old man. Why does he take it so lightly? “There was little enough to see. The poor man was stabbed in the chest. Sister Anne felt something odd when she checked him for signs of life. Then she and the prioress looked further and they found the remnants of a knife buried deep in his heart. The hilt had been broken off and lost. Only the shaft was left in the poor man’s body.”
Simeon’s countenance darkened. “This all you have observed yourself? You are not just taking the word of the nuns?”
“Such was my observation after examining the corpse, my lord.”
Simeon sat back, smiling slightly, and studied Thomas for a long moment. “Perchance the knife was from the nuns’ kitchen and we still have some errant nun to bring before the Church courts?”
“The shaft was the breadth of a dagger and well made. I’d say a man’s weapon.”
“Breaking such a good knife would take more strength than a weak woman would possess. I’ll grant that.”
Having seen Sister Anne lift and move a man’s dead weight with ease, Thomas was not quite so sure that there weren’t women strong enough to have broken a good blade. In most cases, however, women did not possess such strength. He nodded.
“And the cutting?”
Thomas coughed and turned red. Simeon reached over and punched him sympathetically in the chest with a softly closed fist. “Of course, lad. Take your time.”
“He held his…. Well, in his hand, they were. We found no other knife.”
“Then he gelded himself. We had noticed that he was spending an unusual amount of time with Prioress Felicia before she died. Not that we thought either had actually broken their vows… I pity the poor man. The guilt over his lust for her must have been great. Perhaps he was in such pain that he fell on that knife and it broke. Like a Roman falling on his sword. There is no other knife, brother. He killed himself with the same. The hilt will come to light, no doubt. Probably trampled into the flowerbeds by those light-footed women. Prior Theobald is right, of course. This is not something for which we should have involved the crowner…”
“Beg pardon, Brother Receiver, but when I lifted his habit, I found there was blood around the wound in his chest but little where his privates…were. Sister Anne says that it is usual to have little bleeding when there is injury after death. She believes he was stabbed first and then castrated….”
Simeon waved his hand in a dismissive gesture reminiscent of the prior. “Ah, our worldly sister! She’s a very physical woman.” He wiggled his fingers in disgust. “I almost suspected she was his slayer until we realized he must have killed himself. Sister Anne’s a trial to us, I’m afraid. What did you think of her?”
Thomas hesitated. “Indeed, I have not had your long experience with her, but she did seem very…perhaps direct is the word?”
“Immodest or ill-advised are better ones. Has an unwomanly arrogance about her, which you will learn from your work at the hospital. Her judgement is unsound and she will not listen to those wiser than she. A word of advice to you, brother. The infirmarian, Sister Christina, is a woman whose understanding of the spiritual roots of physical ill far surpasses that of Sister Anne.” Simeon snorted. “And I have good reason to know that, in certain respects, Sister Anne has never left the world.”
Thomas nodded. “She was appointed sub-infirmarian, I understand.”
“One of those mistakes made by our late prioress and condoned by Brother Rupert, blinded as we now know by lust. I would have set Sister Anne to cleaning pots in the kitchen to teach her humility. When I heard that she was the one to find our poor brother, I knew that any conclusions she came to would be questionable. That is why I took them so lightly, but now that you have examined the corpse, I feel more confidence, brother.” Simeon sighed and gave another dismissive wave. “But please amuse me. What outlandish explanation did our obstinate sister have, if he did not castrate himself?”
“Murder. She also noted that his robes had been changed after he died.”
Thomas expected Simeon to whoop with laughter. Instead he paled. “What?” the monk asked, his voice hoarse.
“You see, there was no tear in his cloak where the knife went into his chest, and little staining on the garment.”
“Surely she just didn’t see the tear or the blood. Sister Anne thinks she knows everything, but women haven’t a man’s ability to reason and observe. Perhaps I had better look myself…”
“I did, my lord, and with great care.” Thomas hesitated. “There was no tear. There was not the expected amount of blood on his robe.”
For a long time, Simeon looked at Thomas without speaking, his expression inscrutable. Then the receiver reached for his goblet and took a long, pensive sip of wine. “In truth, brother, then I believe we do have a murderer to find,” he said.
Chapter Ten
“Woman, get out of my light and get thyself away from my ears if you must moan so balefully! No man can think with such flapping around him.” Crowner Ralf swatted in the general direction of Sister Christina as if she were an annoying insect, then turned his broad back to her.
It was the day after the sad discovery of Brother Rupert’s mutilated corpse, and Christina had been interrupted by the arrival of the crowner while she was kneeling in the Chapel of Saint Mary Magdalene that lay on the cloister side of the nuns
’ choir. Except for Brother Rupert’s body, she, a servant of the spiritual King, was completely alone with this loud and abrupt retainer of the secular monarch. Her quiet prayers interrupted, she wrung her hands and continued to make piteous cries of uncertainty. She was not only alone in the chapel with this worldly man, she was quite sure such unchaperoned contact was forbidden. She was absolutely terrified by him.
Ignoring her distress, the local representative of King Henry’s justice bent over the body of the late Brother Rupert and resumed his careful examination while continuing to wave one hand absent-mindedly at the nun as if she were a pesky fly to keep at bay.
***
Eleanor stepped into the chapel, took one look at the young nun rocking from side to side in near hysteria, and called out: “You may go, sister. We will deal with the crowner.” Then she turned to Sister Ruth and asked in a low voice, “Was Sister Christina here when you let the crowner in?”
Ruth looked genuinely distressed. “Forgive me, my lady! In my rush to announce him and bring both Sister Anne and Brother Thomas to accompany you, I did not notice if anyone was here. If I may, I will escort her away.”
“Do. Please. She looks quite pale. Perhaps a sip of medicinal wine would be in order in view of her distress.”
“Immediately, my lady.” The elder nun stepped forward, took the arm of the trembling younger one and led her with speed and surprising gentleness toward the cloister walk. Whatever Eleanor may have thought of Sister Christina, this was one time she felt sorry for her. However severe Sister Ruth might be with Eleanor, the porteress was showing kindness to the terrified girl. That was worth remembering.
“I am Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal,” she announced to the man, who had not even turned to acknowledge her presence. An unkempt and careless man, she thought, as she glanced at the clothing he wore. It was in need of mending, and where mended it was badly done. His back was stained from sweat and other liquids of less well-defined origins. Here was a man with little time for fashion and even less for the good opinion of others, Eleanor decided with grim humor. Was he even sober?
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