by Vicki Grove
All the wares she’d brought were now sold, ruined, or stolen. She bought what she could with the paltry coin she’d made from her two meager sales stuffed that and her emptied pack into one light pack, and gladly left the green. Good riddance of it, as all had been mischance in her market dealings this day. Thaddeus could tell her what she needed to know of Jim, and without market gossip muddying the news just as surely as those horsemen had so muddied the market green.
She was surprised to find Thaddeus already standing where they’d agreed to meet at the beach, since she herself had arrived some early. He stood facing the wide water, and something about the set of his shoulders made Rhiannon reluctant to disturb him. He was clearly involved in thinking his thoughts, and the holy brothers’ thoughts were always deep, surely never simple. Or indeed, he might be praying.
While she stood hesitating, Thaddeus bent and picked up a rock, then skimmed it hard across the water so it jumped four, five, six times.
“Thaddeus!” she called at that sign, and ran to join him.
He turned to her, but the stricken expression upon his face made her come to a halt while still some yards away. Her heart felt turned to ice.
“Has . . . something happened to Jim?” she whispered. Things could go horribly awry in sanctuary, as they sometimes did in gaol. Suicides, or escapes that ended bloodily.
Thaddeus dropped his head without making her an answer, then bent to take another rock. And when he threw this one, he hurled it so viciously it ricocheted hard several times against the cold sea before finally sinking within the waters.
He was angry, then. Rhia could not have been more shocked if he’d turned to a lizard or a dog. She’d not thought anger could find any corner in him, so mild did he seem. But there it was—in the white of his face, the blaze of his eyes, and in the ferocity with which he’d fight the very sea with his small stones.
David he’d become, but against what Goliath did he rage so fierce?
Then Thaddeus suddenly reached and grabbed her by the hand. He began running, and with her free arm she hefted her pack more securely then held her skirt above her ankles and struggled to keep up. He veered from the sand, where folk walked and idled the time in conversation, and sped across the rough rocks, right toward the wilderness. He then veered into the narrow passageway where the bluff met the water, a place too rough for common use, ventured into only by pirates who would hide from other folk.
The boulders here were slick with sea brine. The path was a ledge of tumbled rock where, Granna claimed, mermen and mermaids basked in the light of each full moon.
Finally, when no trace of Woethersly or the castle or the quay was visible behind them, Thaddeus slowed and let go her hand. She dropped to her knees, out of breath and dizzy with the run. He bent with his hands on his own knees, winded as well.
Presently, he got his breath back enough to wheeze out, “I beg you forgive me, Rhia, but I had to put Woethersly at my back! I could not breathe in its surrounds.” He sat down hard, put his chin into his hands, and stared at the sea. “I am sorry to have brought you along so roughly,” he murmured. “What a fool you must think me.”
Rhia murmured, “Well, you didn’t rush to deny my foolishness earlier today, so I think neither shall I deny yours now.”
She smiled and he looked at her and smiled back. But his smile was forced and lasted only a moment. He looked down and rubbed at a paint stain upon his palm.
“We’re fools both, then,” he murmured. “Yet to be a fool may indeed be the wise course in a topsy-turvy world like ours is become of late. These days princes think they can buy heaven and priests sell the truth as fast and cheap as two-day-old fish.”
She was shocked at the bitterness of his words when he was never bitter. “What on earth are you talking about, Thaddeus?”
He stared out at the endless chop, still rubbing his palm. When he finally spoke, his voice was so hollow and flat that she almost wished his earlier bright anger would return.
“Jim’s sold his life to the local priest, Rhiannon. I’ve heard it with my own ears, just this past hour.”
Chapter 16
“Sold . . . his life? Oh, Thaddeus, whatever can you mean by such a thing?”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then turned to her.
“I was a fly upon the wall, unnoticed as I painted high up in the west corner of the nave this afternoon,” he began. “The scaffolding was still in place from the recent plastering, you see, and I thought I’d climb up, test my colors, and maybe, if the plaster seemed set enough, start a bit of rough sketching upon it with my brush.
“At first I was alone and glad to be, but then I heard conversation below. I looked down through the ribs of the scaffold and saw the vicar walking down the aisle, speaking with a man sent from the earl. I knew the man as such because he wore the earl’s livery, beribboned here and there in mourning black. I might have called down to alert those two of my presence, but I guess I was hesitant because I thought the vicar would be angry, seeing me perched where I was without his prior knowledge or permission. And soon enough it would no longer have been wise to call out, as I’d heard too much.
“Rhiannon, the earl’s man had come with gold for the vicar to give to Jim’s daughter after Jim’s death! They said it out clear enough. ‘I’ve brought what the poor wretch has asked as the cost of his full confession, ’ the earl’s man said, pouring out coin into his own hand. The vicar leaned to count it, then nodded, saying, ‘God will be pleased. The daughter will have it at the father’s burial.’ Then, as the vicar stood waiting for the earl’s man to repouch the coin and to hand him the pouch, he added, ‘And by the way, my son, I must correct you. This is not the cost of his confession, as his guilt was clear and the confession a mere formality. This is merely alms given in Christian charity to the convicted man’s orphaned daughter. God will note the earl’s largesse in this matter.’ The vicar then took the pouched coin from the other and tucked it into his sleeve.”
Thaddeus looked harder at Rhia, his hands out before him. “You see, don’t you, Rhia, that your vicar has surely bribed Jim into confession with the promise of this money for his daughter and grandson?”
She nodded, tapping her chin with the cross Mam had given her. “Jim was already broken of spirit when he was arrested, and I doubt he’d bother to defend himself much,” she murmured, figuring as she went. “Everyone knows the manor court practically never finds a prisoner innocent when the vicar’s ordeal of laid hands has pointed to guilt. If the vicar came to the gaol yesterday morn to offer ‘charity’ for Jim’s daughter, Jim would know that the offer would stand only upon his confession, as nothing can be given to the family of those dying unconfessed. He’d probably figure he had nothing to lose by confessing and suddenly would have much to gain.”
She looked quizzically at Thaddeus. “Granna saw a robed brother knocking upon the church door in her firewatch yestermorn. Does that bear on this thing at all?”
Thaddeus looked some sheepish. “I left a robe behind in the gaol when I visited Jim the evening before the vicar’s visit to him. I’d heard that Guy sometimes lets a condemned murderer slip to sanctuary, and I hoped that if the manor court found Jim guilty, Guy would let Jim robe himself to better reach the church door unhindered.” He covered his eyes with his hands and added, “Little did I think the need for it would arise the very next morning! I’d hoped for the delay a scheduled trial would provide so’s we could somehow prove Jim innocent, but with this ill-gained confession, he will have the forty days of sanctuary and then his fate’s sealed, with no trial or possible reprieve.”
The young monk shuddered and looked again to the choppy waters, clenching and unclenching the muscles of his jaws. For her part, Rhiannon was tapping her chin with that cross again, trying to work out in her head some pattern to the earl’s recent unpredictable doings.
“The earl first gives coin to have the church here made grand, which I guess is to the good,” she mused. “Thou
gh it displaces peasants such as Jim, which is to the ill. He also endows your outpost monastery, which is good. But he has a band of lepers brought to the woods he owns, which I’d say is ill, since he appears to care not one fig what happens to them now they’ve come. And here’s this new and . . . and hideous gesture that the earl thinks God should find praiseworthy. Thaddeus, it’s as though the earl would please God, but has no sense at all about it. He flails like a fish thrown upon the beach.”
Thaddeus nodded. “These are strange times, Rhiannon,” he said quietly. “Since the White Ship went down last November, many gentlefolk who are normally too well fed and comfortable to worry one whit about the Great Hereafter have suddenly developed extreme concern for the condition of their souls. At Glastonbury we saw constant evidence of this newfound and oft misthought piety last winter. Noble parties would arrive at our gates daily, demanding that God immediately forgive their sins as they’d taken the time and expense to make such a pilgrimage. Or many nights a band of gentry would awake the abbot from his sleep, ordering him to tell them where they could join a quick Crusade to the Holy Lands, as they knew for a certain fact God forgave Crusaders of all sin. When the royal ship carrying Prince William and his party went down so suddenly last winter, I believe the elders of those young gentry, lords and ladies throughout the realm, were shocked into awareness of their own bleak chances for eternal survival. And exactly as you say, they now flail like grounded fish. Most would buy heaven, as the buying of lands and people is what they understand. Others excel at warfare, which explains their preference for bloody Crusading. Few indeed comprehend compassion as being heaven’s true route, as that trait is not useful when acquiring a knightly portion of manors and titles. In fact, most rulers think it a trait of fools.”
They were both silent for a moment, then Rhiannon murmured, “All this jives with something mentioned by one of Granna’s friends today. She said Jim’s daughter, Beornia, will profit from Jim’s confession as she’ll inherit if he hangs confessed. It rings true that, as you’ve said, Beornia is the true reason for Jim’s false confession, now there’s inheritance involved. But do you think she knows of the earl’s coin she’ll have? She called Jim dimwit, though she said not whether she believed he’d murdered. Did she mean dimwit for murdering, or dimwit for confessing to a crime he did not do?”
Thaddeus sounded miserable as he said, “I doubt if she knows the twisted schemes that have led to her father’s dilemma. And even if she did know Jim had been bribed to confess, I doubt she could reverse what the vicar has set upon simply by renouncing a claim to Jim’s inheritance. Vicar Pecksley will have his hanging, though I still know not who is being protected by it. I only know the coin the earl’s given as a gesture to God can only have been needed so that a murderer may walk free.”
Rhiannon’s ears rang. “Thaddeus, has it really not occurred to you that the earl himself may indeed be the one being protected by Lord Claredemont and the vicar?”
Thaddeus looked quickly over at her. Was he puzzled, or thinking a similar thing?
She shrugged, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know what I meant by that. Truly, I don’t. I’m just angry at the earl’s false piety in bringing the lepers to the bluff, as it’s caused Mam a fine dilemma. And the earl’s son and his cronies lately ride like demons through the woods and the town, careless of all. But I suppose they don’t exactly sin with their brash ways when all’s said and done.”
Thaddeus smiled, but his smile held no mirth. “Their brash ways. So might have said those who watched the dockside revels before the White Ship set sail last November. Youth will have its fun, those fond watchers surely thought, those parents and sisters and doting aunts.”
“I’ve never really heard what happened,” Rhiannon whispered, her exhaustion instantly gone. A grand curiosity had just perked her like a week’s dose of Mam’s most potent tonic. “I merely know that the prince and others drowned when that ill-constructed ship hit a rock coming back to England from the wars in Francia.”
Everyone knew that much, but until now, Rhia’d not met anyone who might know more—an aristocrat, that is. She held her breath, though she wouldn’t hound Thaddeus for details, as his day had already been so fraught. Unusual restraint, for Rhia.
“You say the White Ship was ill-constructed, Rhia, but you’ve got that wrong,” Thaddeus said quietly. “It was the most worthy of all ships, newly fitted out, and offered by its proud captain for the king’s transport back from Francia after his great victory there last winter. King Henry thanked the captain and then gave over the sleek ship to his son William, who’d fought valiantly at his side, though barely seventeen. William invited one hundred forty young knights and some young ladies of the highest rank to sail back to England in victory with him aboard the fine White Ship. Those privileged youth danced in the moonlight and made merry with many casks of wine before they finally boarded. It’s said a group of priests traveled from Rouen to bless the ship, but were thrown into the water by the laughing crowd. All were in high spirits at the midnight of their departure, dressed in brilliant mantles of festive color, as for a grand occasion. The other vessels of Henry’s fleet had long since departed, and as William’s party sped through the dark waves, the prince laughingly cajoled the fifty strong oarsmen to row faster and faster so they might overtake the slower craft of their elders.”
He stopped. Rhiannon swallowed. “And they . . . wrecked?” she asked.
The young monk shrugged. “The rock was there beneath the waves. Going so fast with a drunken crew, they hit it hard and square. All aboard are said to be drowned.”
Rhiannon crossed herself. “But . . . who told of it, if all died?”
“A stowaway butcher from Francia survived to swim to land. They say he’d snuck aboard the ship to collect a bill owed him by one of the revelers aboard. He told of the prince’s attempt to save his half-sister’s life. Prince William, it seems, was quickly taken by his bodyguards to the small cockboat that was pulled behind, and he would have been rowed safely to land had he not, upon hearing Adela’s screams, ordered the rower to return to the sinking ship. There, so many jumped into his lifeboat that it was swamped, and he perished with the rest.”
Rhiannon had stopped listening—indeed, had stopped hearing altogether. She sat as one turned to stone. She hardly drew breath.
Thaddeus took her arm. “Rhiannon?” Alarmed, he shook her. “Rhia!”
She looked at him. “Not Adela,” she breathed. “Prince William’s sister was never called Adela.”
Thaddeus nodded. “Adela, Countess of Perche.” He leaned around to search her face. “Rhiannon, you’ve lost your color. Have a care upon the rocks, and let’s hasten to get you something to eat before you start for home. Here, let me help you stand.”
But Rhia got herself to her feet, swaying a bit. “It waxes late,” she said shortly, adjusting her pack. “I must start up the trail right now, Thaddeus.”
She snatched her skirt to her knees and well nigh ran back along the slimed rocks of the narrow beach, and not until she’d reached the place where the bluff trail merged from the sand and started its steep climb upward did she turn around to bid Thaddeus a courteous farewell.
He was behind her some paces, looking confused, as well he might. She was some sorry for that, but she’d have to confuse him more. There was no help for it.
“The butcher, Thaddeus?” she called to him. “The one who swam to shore and told the story? Do you . . . know what he looks like? I mean, might he be young and well-formed, with slender bearing and a certain pirate-like elegance?”
“I heard he was barrel-chested, bald, and of some fifty years,” Thaddeus called back.
“And he the only survivor? Are they so sure of that? That he was the only?”
Thaddeus was growing used to Rhia’s mode of thinking, which seemed some helter-skelter, but honestly was only so in the way of a spider’s webweave. Her thoughts came from all directions but would eventually yield a pattern—most�
�times, at least.
“Of such a thing there can be no certainty, Rhiannon, can there?” he said gently, walking closer. “Bodies have washed up weekly ever since it happened, all of them in tatters of fine raiment and with jeweled bones where ringed fingers once were. Mothers watched the beach for their lost children for days and days after the catastrophe, and watch these late days for their children’s corpses. None swam ashore to arms yearning for embrace. None walked ashore seeking home. All that came ashore were brought in the icy arms of the merciless waves, and so it’s said there were no survivors save the butcher, and that’s the best end that can be given it. Five months have now passed. There needs must be an end, you know? False hope is surely much heavier to bear in the long run than lost hope.”
Rhiannon dropped her head. “Yes. Those grieving mothers must go on, even if their comfort is chilly. There must be an end to it, as you’ve said.”
Thaddeus cleared his throat. “Uhm, Rhiannon? I . . . would now ask a large favor of you. But before I do, will you stay right here? I’ll be back in but a moment.”
Without waiting for answer he turned and ran along the beach to the place where several drifted logs made a tangled heap. He knelt in the sand and reached into that snarl, then, with a jerk, he pulled forth a damp woolen bundle. He carried that sand-shrouded pack in both arms as he ran back to where Rhiannon waited, puzzled.
“Rhia, I’ve decided I can’t go back to your vicar’s church right now,” he told her in a rush. “I can’t chance meeting him, looking him in the eye. Instead, I’m going on retreat for some days, or longer if needs be. That is, until my mind clears and God gives me grace to see the situation more clearly.”
She swallowed. “Your brother monks would let you . . . do that? Just ... leave?”
And what of Jim? His situation wouldn’t wait for Thaddeus’s mind to clear!