Thomas was pleased. Adelard’s troubled reaction to the news that Pope Gregory himself rejected the mythical condemnations against those of Jewish faith spoke well of the youth. “What do you recall of the attack?”
“Nothing!”
The response was too swift and the young man’s nervous pitch suggested he was hiding something despite his oath. The monk waited, but Adelard offered nothing more. Very well, Thomas said to himself, if he refuses to answer an easy question, I shall ask harder ones. “What happened to the silver cross you always wear?”
Adelard paled and began to tremble.
This time Thomas showed no pity. “Lest your soul burn in Hell, keep your word and tell the truth.”
“I lost it the day of the riot. My father saw it was missing and berated me, but I have neither found it nor heard that anyone else did.”
Thomas saw nothing in the youth’s demeanor to suggest he was lying. Although inclined to believe him, the monk knew that made the problem of why the cross was found near Gwydo’s body all the more confusing. “When did you first notice it was gone?”
“After the riot, I left the village for the seclusion of the forest. Your words to the men of Tyndal village distressed my soul. When I returned later, my father saw that I no longer wore it. I have since searched for it diligently but to no avail.” Tears collected in the corners of his eyes.
“Where did you go in the forest?” This news did not bode well for the youth’s innocence.
“Please, Brother! I would answer your questions, but my spirit is tortured. Out of compassion for this great sinner, will you first ease my pain?” The tears now flowed like a deluge.
The answer to the question of location was crucial to determining if the youth had been near where the body of Gwydo had been found, but Thomas’ role as priest demanded precedence. “Is it confession you wish?”
“I need understanding first,” Adelard whispered. “Then I may better cleanse my soul of all its foulness. And I swear to undertake whatever penance you require.”
“Ask your questions freely for I never condemn any seeker of truth.” As much as he longed to continue the pursuit of information, he knew he must honor a soul’s hunger before all else. If he gave the comfort he swore he would offer, he was also more likely to get the youth’s cooperation. That thought brought him the patience required to continue.
“We are commanded to obey and honor our parents, yet we are expected to leave them to follow our Lord. I do not understand the contradiction.”
Since he was a bastard and his own mother had died too early in his life, Thomas had never considered this question in any depth. Clearing his throat to give himself time to think, he still failed to come up with a satisfactory reply. “What has caused you to be troubled by this?”
“In the matter of the Jews, my father taught me to hate them. Yet you say both popes and saints require mercy and tolerance.”
“I have already quoted the substance of those commands. Although we may grieve that their conversion is slow, we may not give in to intolerance. According to the teachings of Saint Paul, who was himself an Israelite, Israel shall be saved only when all Gentiles are converted.” Must he repeat his entire sermon to the rioters? Thomas tried not to show his annoyance.
Adelard’s forehead wrinkled in thought.
“Perhaps your father was not aware of these words,” Thomas said.
“The priest who taught him believed otherwise.”
Raising an eyebrow, Thomas was struck again with a suspicion he had had earlier. “Did your father once hope to take vows himself?”
“He had learned some Latin, but his father was a poor man and did not have the means to buy him a position in a monastery.” Adelard rubbed moisture from his cheeks. “Nor could he banish lust,” he said, “and thus married my mother, but she was a woman of deep faith who turned to prayer and celibacy after bearing my youngest brother.”
“Does your own longing to take vows come from your father’s heart or from your own?” Thomas was not sure where this was leading, but at least he might be able answer whether Adelard should become a novice. This young man had the choice of staying in the world and practicing an honorable trade. If the passion for God was borrowed, he ought to remain a baker. Maybe he could be encouraged to contribute to the keep of those who, like his father, were unable to pay for a place in God’s house…
Adelard tilted his head, and then winced for the gesture caused him pain. “It was always my father’s greatest wish, one that I would not deny him, but I have come to long for it myself.”
Thomas was not so sure, but he was finally ready to answer the youth’s uncertainty about obedience. “Then you are learning the answer to your initial question, my son,” he said. “We must honor our parents, a true commandment, but the seeking for truth must come from our own hearts. Sometimes that means finding wisdom they lack.”
“Please explain, Brother.”
“As an example, I shall speak of the matter regarding the Jews. Remember that God forbade the worship of other gods? To take hate into your heart, when He has ordered it to be the house of love, is to worship Satan. The Prince of Darkness is the deity of hate.” Thomas took a deep breath and hoped he had made sense.
The baker’s son looked at him with amazement.
“But I do not mean to disparage all your father has taught you, for he must have sought the truth himself as a youth.” Thomas remembered the large, ruddy-faced man with tiny eyes and had difficulty imagining this man at all inclined to introspection. As he looked at the eager-faced Adelard, he wondered if the lad took after his mother. “How did he prepare you for the calling he longed for you to have?”
“He wanted me to hate the world and to see it as the cesspool of wickedness.”
“And he taught you this by…”
“By encouraging me to watch others sinning when they did not know I was observing them.”
Thomas bit his lip. He, too, had spied on others as a child to gain his father’s favor. Was he so different from this lad? As he looked at this callow youth, lying in pain, he knew there was a dissimilarity between them. There was unhappiness but little torment in Adelard’s eyes. Thomas had suffered the latter. Nonetheless, the young man required kindness.
“And how did you do this?” Perhaps the question might lead back to the issue of murder, while also allowing the young man to unburden himself of what weighed on him.
“At night, I followed men who lay with women not their wives.” Adelard looked sheepish. “And put my ear to the wall as they committed adultery. Later, my father would ask for details of the sins I had discovered.”
“Did he confront them with their sins?”
“Nay, Brother. He only wished to teach me the vile nature of men.”
“Was lust the only sin he hated?”
“He condemns all seven of the deadly vices and blames our inability to reclaim Jerusalem from the infidels as proof of our laxity and wickedness. When the Jews came here, and Mistress Signy gave them shelter, my father railed at the impiety of doing so.” Adelard frowned. “Then he grew even angrier when few would support him in condemning her.”
“Many have been the recipients of her charity,” the monk replied. Although she never shone a light on her virtue, few doubted the origin of the gifts placed at their doors when illness or death struck. “Continue.”
“My father then asked me to spy on the Jews, certain that I would discover heinous things,” the young man said. “If he could convey their wickedness to the village, he believed he could convince others that Mistress Signy was wrong in giving them shelter and that the Jews should be chased away from Tyndal.”
Thomas felt his face flush with anger and forced himself into silence lest he utter curses against Adelard’s father. However satisfying that might be, he knew that would onl
y make the son defend Oseberne. Then an odd thought struck him, one that cooled his temper and pricked at him to question further.
“You say that your father hated all the deadly sins,” the monk said, his tone calmer than he believed possible. “The Jews have long been reviled as money-lenders, the practice of usury being forbidden to Christians. Did he consider the wealth they acquired as a form of thievery?”
Adelard cried out, his eyes narrowed as if he suffered great pain.
“Is it your wound? I shall call Sister Anne.”
“It is my soul that cried out, Brother.”
“Then ease it, my son, and speak the reason.” His own heart was pounding. What was he about to learn?
Adelard turned to Thomas, his face pale. “God has revealed my wickedness to you. My father did find their prosperity intolerable. He said they had no right to steal from Christians and for that reason he swore to recover what he could.”
“And did he?” Thomas could not believe what he was hearing.
“When the travelers came to the inn, he ordered me to find where they hid their treasures. From what I told him, he planned the thefts.” Adelard stared at the monk as if Thomas’ face glowed like that of Moses returning with the Ten Commandments. “When I said that some had no more possessions than a beggar, he spat in contempt and claimed Satan had blinded me. There was no crime in taking worldly goods from any Jew, he said, for they had all stolen to serve the Devil.”
So this was how the baker had acquired his growing wealth. For once, Sister Ruth had been right to question the providence of the golden candlestick for the altar at Tyndal. Prior Andrew had told him of the proposed gift and said he did not doubt that the gift was godly, even though the sub-prioress had. At the time, Thomas chose to ignore the nun’s suspicions as well. Now he was ashamed and wondered who the true owner of that proposed gift had been.
As he listened to Adelard describe how his father had stolen the items, Thomas was surprised that Oseberne had been more clever than most. Many would have flaunted their new affluence, but Oseberne had revealed his increased wealth slowly, improving his ovens to produce better bread and suggesting that the finer product had greater appeal to merchants who came to market days from outside the village.
“How did your father sell the purloined objects?” the monk asked, when Adelard stopped to take breath.
“Some he sold to passing merchants in return for coin or plate. Others he had melted down.” Adelard correctly read the expression on the monk’s face. “No one from the village did this. He found a man willing to ask no questions as long as he received extra for his silence. After the Jews no longer traveled these roads, I did not see the man again.”
Then nothing could be returned to the rightful owners, with the possible exception of one gold candlestick. Thomas uttered an oath under his breath. “And you hoped that your father’s deeds might remain hidden from the crowner?”
Adelard nodded, his face gray with suffering.
“I fear that is not possible, my son.”
But as much as Thomas longed to pursue this, he knew he must call Sister Anne to tend the youth now while he took this new information to his prioress. “You sinned,” he said, “but it was done at the request of your father. Surely you see the evil of your deeds, but God is pleased when a heart repents. Be comforted. When you confess to me, your soul will be cleansed, although you may find the penance hard.”
The youth’s eyelids fluttered shut.
“For the present, you must sleep,” the monk whispered. “Sister Anne will come to change your dressing. I shall return later. We can talk further then.”
Adelard mumbled a reply but fell asleep.
As Thomas looked at him, he knew he must still resolve the question of why the silver cross had been found near Brother Gwydo’s body. Turning to leave, he wondered how different this youth was from the hate-filled man who had fathered him. Maybe Adelard had killed Brother Gwydo, but he truly doubted it. Whatever the youth’s faults, and he owned virtue enough, Thomas also felt some hope that he might choose a kinder life than Oseberne had.
“Sometimes,” he murmured as he walked down the path to seek Prioress Eleanor, “I would like to believe that Man can be good.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Eleanor listened as both Ralf and Thomas conveyed what they had learned. She sat quite still in her audience chair, but her gray eyes shifted restlessly between the two men.
The monk turned to Ralf. “Do you see any cause to doubt Master Jacob’s tale about Brother Gwydo? The story of their boyhood friendship could be confirmed, were you to question their old companions in Cambridge.”
“I think he was telling the truth,” Ralf said. “The man seems honest. After I left the house, I met Tostig on the way. He told me that he believed his prisoner to be a good man and that Master Jacob feared more for his family’s safety than his own. In my experience, a guilty man worries most about his own neck.”
“Or he may have decided he will hang simply because he is a Jew.” Thomas knew he had spoken with a sharper tone than intended. “Knowing there is no hope for himself, the man may well fear for those he loves.” Nor were these words any softer.
“Surely you do not think I would hang a man for murder just because he was not a good Christian?” The crowner’s tone was curt. “If so, most men would find ropes around their necks, and I might be nervous of my own.”
“I did not mean to offend. You have never sought the easy road to justice, Crowner, but others have,” the monk replied. “From what little I have seen of Master Jacob, I am inclined to agree with you and Tostig. Whatever his faith, he speaks and behaves like any upright man.”
Ralf looked ready to argue further, but Eleanor raised her hand. “We have no doubt of you, but your prisoner does not know your reputation for diligence in these matters. During the reign of King Richard, the sheriff of Yorkshire was complicit in the massacre of the Jews in York. That is but one example of the failure of the king’s law, and our current king has recently demonstrated an inclination to retreat further from the protection traditionally promised his people. Do you not think the Jewish community has seen the same thing and grown fearful for their safety in this realm?”
Deflating, the crowner nodded.
“Therefore, let us turn our wits to better purpose and consider the new information and possibilities. You have both spoken of several. Shall we not set them against the facts and consider where that might take us?” There was a hint of impatience in Eleanor’s voice. “Brother Gwydo was strangled and most certainly did not murder himself. His death after that of Kenelm suggests he was not the guard’s slayer, but I think it likely he saw something he ought not to have witnessed.”
“He might have aided another in Kenelm’s death.” Ralf looked uncomfortable.
“Even if he did, someone killed him as well. There is at least one killer who remains free, although reason suggests there is only one.” Eleanor looked at both monk and crowner.
They nodded although Thomas’ expression remained troubled.
“I also believe Mistress Gytha’s tale.” Eleanor’s tone remained even, although she watched Ralf carefully. “She could not have slit Kenelm’s throat, nor easily dragged him from the road to the priory millstream. Would you agree, Crowner?”
“She is a most honorable woman.” He glanced away.
Eleanor raised an eyebrow but continued. “According to her, our lay brother found her unconscious in the forest and, when sense returned, he took her back to the priory grounds. She did not see Kenelm lying in the road where she left him. This suggests that the guard had already been taken to the mill pond. Although we might argue that our lay brother committed the crime before he found Gytha, I find other details strongly rebut that conclusion.” She waited for a moment.
Neither man had any comment.
“I can confirm that he hated violence, an opinion he expressed in our conversations before Kenelm’s death and the arrival of this Jewish family. Such a man is unlikely to kill another for no reason,” Thomas said.
“Might he have seen the attempted rape, become enraged, and sought to punish Kenelm?” Ralf opened his hand in a gesture that begged forbearance. “I ask only for the sake of discussion.”
Thomas shook his head. “By dragging him into priory land, slitting his throat, and dropping him into the mill pond? Such violation of our land would be blasphemy for a man vowed to God’s service. If he had responded out of anger as you suggest, would it not make more sense to drag the body into the forest?”
“You have argued well,” Ralf replied.
“I confess that I cannot believe he would have killed a man at all, but, considering his fresh vows, I think he would have confessed it and thrown himself on the mercy of our prioress if he had.” Thomas looked hopefully at her.
“I agree, Brother,” Eleanor said. “When he begged to take vows, Prior Andrew and I examined him. Now I see we may have erred in failing to pose the questions we would have asked a man whose survival was not deemed a miracle, but he presented himself as humbled by the mercy God had shown in healing him. And, although he understood the war in Outremer was sanctioned by the Pope, he had seen too much bloodshed. We found his longing for a monk’s life quite credible.”
“I cannot argue with your reasons but that still leaves us with the question of why anyone would pollute God’s earth with a murdered man’s blood?” Ralf hit his palm with a fist in frustration. “I can think of no one.”
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