“Spirits seen are more likely Satan’s imps dressed up as mortals to fool us than truly tortured souls of the dead,” Eleanor finished. “Although you taught me to seek out mortals more than imps when evil has been done.”
“And I have not changed my mind. Mortal and flawed as we are, we see what we expect to see and in the guise we most fear. In using our frailties against us, Satan is a most clever creature.” Beatrice’s anger gave way to a merrier laugh. “Nor have I forgotten what I taught you, dearest one! I am not yet so aged that my memory has begun to drift into that tranquil land many find before death.”
“Were I even to suggest such a thing, my father would come roaring to your defense all the way from Wales!”
“He and I have always butted heads like goats, but that is how we show our love for each other. As for our haunting, I do suspect the ghost is made less of spirit than flesh, but, if the acts were intended as a jest, the game has turned cruel. Those who work hard in the priory fields now fear to take the shorter path to the village along the river and return home even wearier. Honest men should not be made to suffer so.”
“Then you must dispel these rumors and the growing fear.” Eleanor smiled at her aunt with fond expectation.
The novice mistress looked heavenward and gave an immense sigh. “I would, but I have no time to devote to this pagan nonsense. With Prioress Ida gone, I must continue with my old duties, plus hers, and a few other tasks as well. The spring planting season is full upon us…”
Eleanor blinked. “Might the prior take this matter in hand?”
“He could, if he were not such a fool and inclined to believe in ghosts himself.” Beatrice folded her hands and placed them in her lap. Still gazing at the ceiling, her features slowly formed into what one might call a study in perplexity.
Anne and Eleanor looked at each other in silence. The sub-infirmarian raised one questioning eyebrow at her friend.
“If you will allow it, Aunt, I might look into this matter for you,” Eleanor said, her voice showing an enthusiasm that had been much lacking of late.
The novice mistress waved one hand in a dismissive gesture. “You are too weak.”
Eleanor’s face turned scarlet. “I am not…”
Anne laid a hand on her friend’s sleeve. “Might I make a suggestion? You could conserve your strength but still help.”
The aunt continued to look upward as if in deep thought, then replied with a measured hesitation. “How so, Sister?”
“Accompanying us was Brother Thomas, a brave and clever man who has been of great service to your family as well as Tyndal in matters of justice. Might Prioress Eleanor set him to the task of finding the source of these apparitions?”
Eleanor paled. “I would rather not…”
“Ah!” Beatrice brightened. “A most original idea! My noble brother was uncharacteristically fulsome in his praise of your monk as I recall.” Her lips twitched and her eyebrows rose. “I, too, found your Brother Thomas quite memorable.” The novice mistress’ expression could only be described as appreciative. “A man with hair the color of Satan’s own fire and a body so muscular that Sir Lancelot would be jealous? I would guess he might be bored with no better company than our aging and placid monks on the other side of the priory. Perchance he would welcome a bit of innocent adventure outside the walls, searching for a jester who must have strayed from court?” She clapped her hands with a merry vigor. “Set him to the task, child, and report to me on his success. Or failure. I do think you could help me so much in this matter without exhausting yourself. Meanwhile, I can see to the planting of our herb garden...” Her voice trailed off as she gazed with affectionate delight at her niece.
Eleanor bowed her head. Although the gesture spoke of respect to her aunt, it succeeded in hiding her troubled expression.
“It is a task that should be started soon,” the novice mistress declared, rising with evident stiffness from the table. “Now, I fear, I must go to our infirmarian for something to give me some ease. I am an old woman whose joints ache more than I would wish, and I need something to help me sleep.”
“It shall be done.” Eleanor rose as well, kissed her aunt, and watched in silence as she limped away.
Suddenly, Anne leapt up and turned to Eleanor. “I might have a remedy for your aunt…”
“Go to her then.” Eleanor gestured toward the disappearing nun. “Quickly!”
“Sister,” Anne called out, running after the elder nun. “We have found something at Tyndal that has proven successful…”
When the two tall nuns were far enough from Eleanor to speak without being overheard, Sister Anne asked, “Do you think she is strong enough to handle this matter?”
Beatrice nodded. “My niece has ever been one to gain strength from a challenge. Did you not see pink return to her cheeks and a sparkle to her eyes? She even ate more than has been her wont. This task may be just the medicine she needs, and it is an easy enough one with your Brother Thomas doing the work of investigating. If I had thought otherwise, I would not have whined so about my trifling duties and aged joints. Now return before she suspects we are conspiring!”
But when Anne reentered the room and Eleanor greeted her with one eyebrow arched, the sub-infirmarian of Tyndal knew full well that she and the novice mistress had utterly failed to deceive.
Chapter Four
With that supple grace common to youth, sixteen-year-old Alys spun on the heel of her soft leather shoe and marched precisely five steps away from her mother. “I cannot accept this, and I shall not.” Despite her resolute tone, her eyes were moist when she turned to face the woman she loved but longed to disobey.
The tumult in the daughter’s heart was lost on her mother. Mistress Jhone, widow of a local woolmonger, was glowering instead at a round young man standing nearby.
Bernard, a maker of gloves, shifted uneasily and lowered his very pink face.
Turning her glare from him, Jhone now cast the full force of her disapproval upon her daughter. “A child’s duty is to obey her parent: honor thy father and thy mother. I did not create that law. It comes from God Himself!” Although the mother’s face was wan, her robe of rough brown russet suggested that her widowhood was recent and a disobedient daughter was not the sole reason for her pallor.
The young man stepped closer to the wall, glanced upward, and squeezed his eyes shut as if in rapt concentration. Although the glover could have been praying for protection against possible flying objects, he might have been thanking God as well, for the two women seemed to have quickly forgotten his presence.
“A duty in which you must be quite conversant, Mother,” replied Alys. Her voice projected a determined gentleness, but the clenched fist she pressed to her breast hinted that her meaning was less than docile. “Sadly my grandparents died before my birth, but I must assume, from your certainty in this, that you did marry as your parents demanded.” She breathed in deeply as if taking in courage, then asked: “Can you claim to have been happy in your obedience?”
Bernard nervously cleared his throat. If he meant to remind them that another was in the room, someone who should not hear this quarrel, his effort was wasted.
“You choose to remember your father only when he was…” Jhone closed her eyes and sucked in her lips if willing some unwelcome thought away. “Your father may have been ill-tempered from time to time.” Her voice quivered. “The strain of running a successful business is hard on a man.” This, she spoke with firmness.
Alys gave her a look that was both disbelieving and disdainful.
“Yet he was a worthy man, provided well for us, and loved you as much as I, even though you have now willfully decided to forget that.” The mother’s mouth trembled with suppressed emotion, and she absently brushed one thin hand over her abdomen. “Cruel daughter that you are, I am still grateful that God allowed at least one of the children your father gave me to live.”
With sympathetic courtesy Bernard
nodded, a gesture that the elder woman noted and acknowledged with a distracted smile.
Alys was also now gazing on the glover, but her look was not disinterested. Instead, it had a particular warmth to it, the meaning of which did not much please Jhone.
The widow loudly cleared her throat.
“Well and good, Mother, if that is what you believe,” the daughter said, tearing her eyes away from the young glover with evident regret. “A child does owe obedience to her parent, but surely our obligation to God ranks higher? If you will not allow me to marry as my heart wishes, please permit me to join this Order of Fontevraud. Although I am sure Master Herbert is a most honorable man, I regretfully find marriage with him somewhat less than agreeable. I would rather leave the world and spend my life praying for your soul—and that of my father.” The girl folded her arms. A soldier could not have had a straighter back.
“Surely there is a third way…” The young man reached out as if pleading for at least one of the women to listen.
Alys waved at him to remain silent. “I would not be the first in the family to ask this, Mother. You have told me that your parents were willing to let your elder sister take holy vows instead of entering a marriage she did not want.” Certain that she had presented an unassailable argument, she smiled with satisfaction.
Jhone’s eyes widened with horror. “Need I remind you, however, that my sister never took those vows but instead wed Wulfstan, a man of whom they most heartily disapproved? Had they been stricter, she would have vowed herself to a successful merchant and led a comfortable life instead of what she has suffered!” Her eyes glazed briefly, and she spoke the next words with a sweet but pleading tone. “Is it so wrong to want you settled into a prosperous marriage? May I not look forward to grandchildren? These wishes are not sins.”
“I would agree, but only if I become Bernard’s wife.” Alys’ face flushed as she looked back at her beloved whose face quickly matched her rosy color. “Why do you object to our marriage? We adore each other so.”
Jhone’s pale face turned a rough and angry red. “This is a matter for private discussion!” she growled, staring at the glover as if he had just walked in on this conversation unbidden.
Master Bernard bowed with nervous grace. “I will take my leave most willingly…”
“Nay, you shall not!” Alys barked, then beamed at him with love. She turned to her mother. “I can think of no reason why he and I should not marry. Since he has asked most courteously for my hand, he has the right to hear from you in plain speech why his suit is unacceptable and Master Herbert’s so persuasive.”
“Later might be best. I can return when…” Bernard edged toward the door.
Jhone’s back stiffened. Although her lips twisted into a chill smile, disdain burned hot in her dark-rimmed eyes. “My disobedient daughter may have chosen to forget that it was her father’s last wish that she marry Master Herbert, but I have not. Of course I must follow my dead husband’s direction. Surely you can understand my obligation as a proper wife in this matter, Master Bernard?”
The glover nodded quickly, then glanced at Alys with silent apology.
She turned her head away as if he had just denounced her.
“Were my husband still alive, Master Glover, he might have explained that your youth and failure to show great success in your own trade were strong arguments against your suit. My dead husband’s wool venture was profitable, and my daughter’s husband must not only assume this undertaking but build on it. Neither you nor Master Herbert is knowledgeable about wool. That is true, but my husband left a trusted man to help run the business until a sound tradesman can take over the management of it and learn what is needed. This requires a man who has proven he knows how to manage a profitable enterprise. You clearly lack this experience. Master Herbert, on the other hand, has proven his skills in his vintner trade.”
“So say you! Bernard is not poor. He has just begun in the business his father left him, but you can see how prosperous he looks.” Alys gestured at her plump beloved as if arguing the benefits of buying a fat sheep. As her eyes focused on the man himself, her expression softened with love. “Modest in dress, but…” She blushed.
“This boy makes gloves!” Jhone shouted with evident exasperation. “Master Herbert is a wine merchant with vineyards in Gascony. He has gained respect amongst merchants beyond our shores and could improve on what your father began with the contacts he has made.” She waved at the young man as if he were so insubstantial that her gesture would make him disappear.
“What is wrong with gloves?” Alys protested.
“May I explain…” Bernard began.
“Fa!” Jhone spat, doggedly pursuing her argument with this daughter who remained so illogically enamored of something other than a secure living. “A glover and his family will starve the first time crops turn black from drought and no one can buy such pretty trifles. Wine and wool are things we all must have. Not only does Master Herbert have the more secure business and better connections, he is of more mature years.” She put her hands on her hips. “Must I remind you that he provided well for the wants and fancies of a prior wife?”
“We can all drink beer and wear homespun cloth if bad times come.” The girl’s voice dripped with contempt. “I would rather a man whose hands are as soft as his gloves than one with horny, old paws. Marry him yourself, mother, if you like him all that well!”
Jhone leapt forward and slapped her daughter, then stared with horror at the red mark her fingers had left on her only child’s cheek.
Bernard put his hand behind him against the wall and moved toward the door. Quickly he looked over his shoulder. The door was shut. He closed his eyes.
Tears streamed out of Alys’ eyes, and she fell to her knees in front of her mother. “I beg your forgiveness! Can we not make peace in this matter? I want to be your most dutiful daughter, but I yearn just as much to become Bernard’s wife.”
Jhone clutched her hands tightly under her breasts, a gesture that might have suggested grace and dignity if the knuckles on her fingers had not been quite so white. “You must obey me, child.”
Alys shook her head as she rose to her feet.
The mother now turned a beseeching gaze on the young man. “And you, Master Bernard? Surely you understand my obligation in this matter. Will you not show charity and support this poor widow by withdrawing your plea? I have no quarrel with you other than this unwise suit.”
His eyes shifted away from hers.
“If you hesitate to do this,” she continued softly, “I beg that you ask yourself if you would not make the same decision as I must for a much beloved daughter.”
“We would not demand such a terrible sacrifice from any child of ours!” Alys cried out before Bernard could reply.
Jhone stamped her foot in outrage. “You shall marry Master Herbert!”
“Before you drag me to his bed, I will enter Amesbury Priory as a novice!” Alys pounded her fist on a nearby chair.
As the two women glared at each other with equal obstinacy, the now forgotten Bernard, maker of soft gloves, leaned against the hard wall and silently prayed for peace.
Chapter Five
Wulfstan was an angry man. Had he been less so, he might have felt pain as he stomped along the path to the river, jolting his aging joints as his feet pounded the earth with the force of his just resentment.
“I did see the ghost,” he muttered. When he reported this earlier in the day, Sister Beatrice should have listened with both courtesy and respect. Had he not proven to her over the years that he was a reliable man? Instead, her frowning silence had proclaimed her utter disbelief.
Wulfstan snorted. How dare the nun so casually dismiss what he had seen? He was no woman, prone to irrational fantasies and likely to faint if a shadow took on some writhing shape. He had, most certainly he had, seen the ghost.
He shivered. The evening was chill. Now he began to feel the pain in his knees
and shins as well. “Fa! This is the priory’s fault,” he growled, and spat on the damp earth.
Maybe that difficult wife of his would at least have a hot stew ready when he got home. Last night, after the fright the ghost had given him, as it would any mortal man, he had sought ease from her body; but his wife had pushed him off, whining that her courses had come and she would have none of his urges for at least six days.
Or so she claimed. Wulfstan shook his head, his mouth imitating a peevish look. “I will not be humiliated by bearing a red-haired child so the village can mock us for sinful intercourse,” he muttered in high-pitched imitation of his reluctant spouse.
Grumbling to himself, he remembered when she could not have enough of his urges, but after the birth of their sixth, she had found far too many excuses to deny him his rights as husband. Tonight he should demand his marriage debt. If he recalled correctly, and he was sure he did, her courses had come quite recently. She must have been lying last night. Women did that, or so his father had told him.
He shivered again but trudged on. From the sound of the Avon, he had reached the part of the path that passed close to the river bank. As he looked up, he could see a few specks of light from Amesbury Priory. Aye, he was getting closer to home. There had better be a warm hearth waiting for him, Wulfstan thought sullenly, or else he would administer a beating to someone for cert. He rubbed a hand under his dripping nose.
With sudden apprehension, he saw how near he was to the place he had seen the ghost. Quietly, he cursed the stubborn pride that had sent him back along this path where the spirit had appeared to him. Last night the phantom may have turned away from him, disappearing into the mist and rushes without causing him harm, but the memory of her black form made him uneasy. Perchance the first sighting had been but a warning. The second time, might she not carry him off to Hell?
Wulfstan quickened his step.
Without a doubt, monks had warm enough hearths, he said to himself, attempting with small success to turn his thoughts away from specters. Not much better than women, they were, groveling on their knees and weeping over their sins to God while others sweated on the land so they could eat. Yet that was not enough for some! He knew about those who had slipped through the hole in the wall to warm their little cocks in the dark chambers of whores. “No wonder Queen Elfrida has returned from Purgatory,” he muttered.
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