Justice for the Damned

by Priscilla Royal

  Thomas studied the rushes under his feet for a long moment. “Aye, but I could not discuss anything with him. When he joined me, he was drunk and soon passed out.”

  “I wonder if he is working today, Brother. You would know best about this, but do you think the effects of last night’s bright joys might make him eager to speak to a tonsured man on this day after?”

  Anne laughed. “Surely he would welcome any excuse to avoid hammering.”

  “I doubt he will admit adultery with the vintner’s wife, or perhaps he might, but this story from Mistress Jhone is the only hint so far that there was some possible quarrel connected with Wulfstan,” Eleanor said. “Sayer might say something that casts light on this matter.”

  “The man was not on the library roof when I passed by earlier.” Thomas took some time replacing his untouched wine cup back on the table. “Shall I return to seek him there?”

  “I think it is safe enough. It is daytime, and there should be monks enough around. Do not press too hard for information, however, but, if you learn anything of note, we can pass it on to the sheriff when he sees fit to return from his hunt.” Eleanor shifted in her chair. “One other question. Your merchant. What was his name?”

  “Master Bernard. He is a glover.”

  Eleanor’s eyes widened. “Indeed! You thought him an honest man?”

  “No less than most in trade.”

  Eleanor glanced over at Anne to see her reaction to this remark. Before the nun had taken vows, she and her husband had owned an apothecary. Her expression was benign.

  “He was very generous in sharing his wine and giving me coin for prayer...” Thomas stopped and put his hand to his mouth. “Forgive me, my lady, but I failed to mention one thing I did notice about the merchant. When he jested about his grudge against the priory, I sensed no true rancor but did hear some grief in his words. Perhaps I was mistaken…”

  “You are quite right in your observation, Brother. Young Alys, although she is to be Master Herbert’s wife, wants to marry this glover and has said she will take vows rather than go against her heart. According to her, Master Bernard loves her well in return, but Mistress Jhone claims he is both improvident and greedy.”

  Thomas snorted. “Both men may be beset with the sin of greed, my lady, but, of the two, I did not like what I saw in Master Herbert. He may be well-favored, but he struck me as a cunning man. The glover?” The monk shrugged. “He is a dreamer, for cert, but I might pick Master Glover to be the more trustworthy.”

  “I have not met Master Bernard but did meet Master Herbert on my way to the woolmonger’s house. My own impression of the vintner is quite different from yours, but I did not speak with him long.”

  “My encounter was brief as well,” Thomas conceded. “There was something else that I may not have mentioned before. When I asked Mistress Jhone and the vintner if Wulfstan had enemies, the widow suggested there might be something relevant that had happened of late. Master Herbert quickly hushed her and refused to let me speak further with her.”

  “A kindness, I think, to a woman who was among those who discovered Wulfstan’s headless corpse and is a widow recently bereaved of her husband.”

  “Shall I pursue the reason with her now, my lady?”

  “I will do that for I have cause to return to her house. I suspect that she may have meant the seduction of Mistress Eda by Sayer. That would explain why the vintner did not want her to speak of it. Surely he would not wish the story repeated in public.”

  Thomas did not look pleased.

  “You do not like the wine merchant, Brother. Surely the reason is founded in more than his trade?”

  “I cannot say for sure, my lady. There are some that do good amongst their fellows.” He smiled at Anne. “Others reek of avarice. There is a sour smell about this vintner.”

  “I would never disregard your opinion and will think more on it. Nor have I met the glover so cannot judge whether Mistress Jhone is correct in her judgement of him. Should I meet Master Herbert again, I will keep your words in mind.”

  “I see one more troubling aspect to this murder,” Anne said. “The phantom remains accused of the act, and all witnesses have claimed the apparition is one of two women: Queen Elfrida or Mistress Eda. Few women have the strength to do what was done to that corpse. Yet how could a man be mistaken as a woman’s ghost?”

  “An excellent question and one to which I have no answer,” Eleanor replied. “Even though I dismiss the idea of ghosts, something has been troubling the priory. Might a human murderer hide his deed behind the form of a damned soul, casting all suspicion on a creature which cannot be brought to mortal judgement, and thus escape justice?”

  “Master Herbert,” Thomas said, almost under his breath.

  “I doubt it. Would you not agree that he would be more likely to kill Sayer, not the father, if the son had seduced his wife? And why would he eagerly arrange a marriage with the cousin? When he spoke of Alys and her mother, he expressed great devotion. That is not the way of a man who has been wronged by a family.”

  “I agree, my lady.” Thomas’ voice suggested regret.

  “We need so much more information. I shall return to talk with Mistress Jhone and her daughter. The house is near enough not to tax my strength. In the meantime, I think you should seek out our lusty roofer.”

  Thomas flushed. “If he is not to be found, do you have another task?”

  “A visit to Wulfstan’s widow, Mistress Drifa. As a member of this Order, if not of this community, Sister Beatrice would want you to bring her comfort. Perhaps this widow will be the one to help untangle the dark knot.”

  “And what of Master Bernard?” Anne asked.

  “Brother Thomas might have reason to meet with him again, although another visit to the inn is not wise, especially at night.” Eleanor smiled at the monk with sympathy. “My aunt can find reason to send you out on market day.”

  “I will do as you ask most willingly,” Thomas said.

  “And I pray we learn the truth soon.” Eleanor shivered as if some unseen thing had just stroked an icy finger on the back of her neck. “I fear that Satan is not yet done here.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Thomas chose to visit Wulfstan’s widow first. He was purposely delaying any further contact with the son but, with God’s grace, hoped he might learn enough without having to talk to Sayer at all. At the priory gate, he asked the porter for directions to Drifa’s dwelling, explaining that he had been sent by Sister Beatrice to offer comfort.

  The place was easy enough to find. Thomas knew what to expect of a home where a husband had been a laborer in the priory fields and one son a bit more skilled. As a consequence, he was surprised to see a house larger than he imagined with a flock of many healthy chickens, watched over by a large and bright-eyed cock with his leg tethered to a stake, in the front of a round poultry hut.

  A woman’s voice, raised with mild maternal irritation, caught his attention, and he followed the sound around a corner to a freshly tilled garden. It was with much relief that he did not see Sayer amongst the busily working brood, whom he assumed must be the younger siblings.

  “Mistress?” Thomas asked with gentle courtesy. “I pray I have not come at a time inconvenient for you.”

  The woman he addressed was jabbing a sharpened stick into the ground while a lad of about thirteen summers followed, carefully dropping and covering seeds.

  A spring crop of peas, Thomas concluded.

  She turned around and smiled. Lean, with nut-brown hair and an impish tilt to her head, she much resembled the elder son she had borne. Although her skin was roughened from exposure to sun, wind, and most likely her years in this world, the widow’s hazel eyes were bright with affable curiosity.

  “You are most welcome, Brother. A visit from the priory is never amiss.” She cast an affectionate look on the lad beside her. “Finish this work. You know how well enough if you set your mind to it. And
keep your sisters at their tasks while I offer this holy monk some ale.”

  From the expression on the boy’s face, Thomas had no doubt that she would be obeyed—and out of love, not fear.

  As the monk followed her through the open door into the dim and smoky house, he noted how alike, yet how dissimilar, Mistress Jhone and her sister were. Their height, coloring, and head shape might be the same, but there all resemblance ceased. Jhone’s eyes were dull. Wulfstan’s widow had a sparkle yet in hers. Both may have lost the support of husbands, he thought, but Drifa lacked the scars that marked the face of the woolmonger’s widow. Hard though this woman’s life may have been, Thomas doubted she would have thought her sister’s possessions worth the price.

  “I come to offer consolation on the death of your husband.”

  She nodded, pulled a rough bench from against the wall, and gestured for the monk to sit. A mottled cat yowled protest at the disruption in his nap and skittered across the floor to the door, scattering straw as he ran.

  “I am called Drifa,” she said, disappearing behind a partition.

  Thomas looked around him. The three small windows and open door let in little light, but the footed pot over the fire, bubbling with a bean pottage, and lack of animal stench suggested a well-run household. Bastard son of an earl though he was, he had grown up with women of peasant birth. He was not surprised at what a woman could do with little enough to aid her.

  Hearing the clunk of an earthen jug as Drifa poured ale, he also realized that he expected her to cope with the death of her husband. Not all women of poor families faced these things with grim determination any more than did all widows of noblemen when their lords were killed and the enemy was at the gates, but this place showed the touch of one who, no matter what her sorrow, believed in the importance of feeding children, planting a garden, and milking that nearby lowing cow. Mistress Drifa was not one who would fall into a whining grief.

  Unlike her sister with her quivering meekness in the presence of the wine merchant? Maybe he was being unfair to Mistress Jhone. She might have deeply loved her husband and had worries enough to add lines to her face: a business to keep prosperous and a strong-willed daughter to marry off. Perhaps Mistress Drifa found more strength because she did not grieve as profoundly for her dead Wulfstan.

  The widow was standing in front of him, a wooden cup filled with cool ale. Her hand trembled briefly. When he accepted the drink with courteous thanks, she abruptly turned away and went to stir the pottage.

  “When you return to the priory, would you please tell Sister Beatrice that I am grateful for her kindness. She sent word that my husband may now be buried in sanctified ground and that she will pray for his soul.”

  “She wished to know if there was anything you might need…”

  “My eldest has employment there. A cooper has taken on my next, and the lad you saw outside has his father’s capable hand with the earth. As for my little girls, I may have a mother’s blindness, but I think they will be pretty enough to win the hearts of worthy men.” She gestured around the house. “As you see, I have sufficient land for a garden, keep chickens for eggs, and I own both a young cow and two goats for those who find their milk easier to digest. God has been merciful to me, Brother. My living children have health. My sons have wit enough to earn their own bread, and my daughters already show the cleverness needed to make excellent wives. When I am old, one of them will care for me.”

  “Yet the death of your husband…”

  “Shall I weep until blind, Brother, or curse God because Wulfstan died, a fate that must come to us all?” She stood and faced him, hands on hips.

  “Surely you grieve?”

  “Aye. I shall miss his snoring at night and his grumpiness in the morning.” Her lips curled into a trembling smile.

  Thomas remained silent.

  “Forgive me, Brother. I did not mean to speak with such discourtesy to one of your chaste vocation.” Drifa tapped one breast. “Seeing these sagging paps and his headless body, you may not understand how Wulfstan and I did burn for each other in our youth. I had almost carried Sayer to term when we married, and I suffered the agonies of Mother Eve on his birth. Yet we continued to couple without moderation, until lust burned out as must any raging fire. If a couple is fortunate, the ash remains warm. If they are not, it turns bitter as well as cold. My husband had his mortal failings, as do I, but we knew comfort in each other beyond the payment of the marriage debt. He will always have the heart he won when he was a smooth-skinned, handsome lad. I miss him and am grateful that I need not marry another to feed my family.”

  Thomas listened to the laughter and voices of the children outside. Considering the range of their ages, he concluded that the ashes in her marriage must have remained quite warm for some time.

  He looked back at the widow. Her blunt tongue was comforting. After all, his own mother had been a serving woman. When she had died, women like this had raised him. As a girl, Drifa may have longed for pretty speeches and love songs, as young women do, but there was little time for softness when babes came. Then work was hard, and earthly grief built a permanent hovel in the heart.

  “As you say, death must come to us all,” he said, proceeding with the same frankness she had shown, “but your husband’s soul was sent to God by some mortal hand. I cannot help but wonder what man could have hated him so much…”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Do not take common gossip to heart, Brother.”

  “I would never do so, mistress,” Thomas carefully replied. “Yet might there not be some truth in the tales?”

  “The ghost has been blamed.” Her tone was artificially light as if she hoped he might believe this. Her look said that she herself most definitely did not.

  “A ghost with a man’s hand, I fear.” The ghost was clearly not the gossip he was supposed to have heard. Thomas prayed he would not have to ask what the stories were, for he suspected she might not tell him if he revealed his ignorance.

  Drifa’s shoulders sagged. “For all their differences, Sayer would never slay his father. Nor is my son capable of beheading any man in that heinous fashion.”

  Thomas felt his stomach clench. He controlled his voice with care as he continued. “I did not think the rumors true, yet I could only wonder why anyone would suggest he had.”

  Drifa waved one hand as if swatting a fly. Color returned to her face. “You were once a lad yourself, Brother. Do not all sons fight with their fathers when they reach a certain age? Sayer is a reliable lad and a hard worker, but he has his ways and Wulfstan had some quarrel with them. They cannot see how alike they are, equally stubborn and wild in their youth. Nonetheless, both are good men in their hearts.”

  Thomas blinked at her poignant use of the present tense but continued. “Their differences were well-known, of course.” A safe enough observation, he thought.

  The widow threw her hands up in a gesture of disgust. “Both had had more drink than was right for any man, and they were fools to fight at the inn. When I heard each one pissing outside the door that night as if he had hail in his bladder, I knew Satan had had his fun with them even before they staggered inside and passed out alongside the cow.” A flash of loving amusement passed over her face. “The next day, the innkeeper told me what had occurred. I was horrified and begged Sayer to make peace with his father, and a public one at that, for no son should ever threaten to kill his sire.”

  “Surely your son was right to be angry,” he continued, hoping his voice did not betray either his ignorance of what had happened or his discomfort with what she had just told him about the argument.

  Drifa offered the monk more ale. This time her hand was steady as she gave him the filled cup. “He is a boy still and unsettled in his ways. I reminded my husband that he had been engaged in enough questionable things himself as a youth, situations that put his life in danger although they brought enough coin to pay for this plot of land. Nor, I told him, had he changed until our
third child was born. Only then had he seen that working on priory land was a wiser way to earn the bread we ate and a path less likely to lead him to a hanging. He must show patience with Sayer, I said, since he himself had come so late to manhood.”

  Thomas decided he did not want to learn what Wulfstan had done since it was obviously against the king’s law. “Surely your husband must have seen that your son had done nothing that different from what he had in his own time.” Perhaps this question would lead her into further explanations?

  Drifa’s eyes widened and she exhaled, the act evoking relief rather than resignation.

  What had he said that was amiss? Silently, Thomas chastised himself. Hadn’t he but rephrased her own words?

  “You have the right of that,” she said quickly. “My greatest grief is that Sayer and his father did not make peace before my Wulfstan died. They would have, you know, but there was not enough time for two such stiff necks to bend. Not knowing what was to come, I laughed at how alike they were in that. Now I weep, for they did most truly love each other.”

  From the easy manner of Drifa’s last words, Thomas knew she was either lying or hiding some dark truth, but it mattered not which. The expression on the widow’s face told him that he would learn nothing more no matter what or how he asked.

  Chapter Nineteen

  With two silent monastics trailing a respectful distance behind them, Sister Beatrice and Prioress Eleanor walked along the path by the Avon.

  The novice mistress stopped, put her hand on her niece’s shoulder, and bent her head toward the opposite bank of the river.

  Following the direction of the gesture, Eleanor saw Mistress Jhone approach that muddy and weed-infested burial ground reserved for corpses whose souls had been damned by God.

  “She visits every day,” Beatrice said to her niece.

  The widow walked to the far edge of the graveyard, fell to her knees, and covered her eyes.

  “Why?”