“That is where Eda is buried. It matters not that some believe she is the ghost that haunts this byway. The two were childhood friends and loved each other like sisters.”
“When she spoke of her to me, she did not mention that she came to visit her grave.”
“Her husband disapproved.”
Eleanor raised an eyebrow. “I did not think she ever dared to go against his wishes.”
“She has not always been as compliant as she would have others believe.”
“How so?”
“She may bewail her sister’s marriage to the base-born Wulfstan, reproaching Drifa for her itching lust and opposition to their parents’ wiser choice of spouse, yet Jhone herself married after her maidenhead was breached and to a man her parents did not like. As many do, she forgets her own sins and condemns others for a like foolishness, while claiming a virtue she does not have.”
“The woolmonger got her with child?”
“She bore a daughter, one that died at birth. Her new husband fell into a rage, claiming the child’s sex was God’s punishment for their sins. He longed for a son, but she only gave him girls. All but Alys failed to thrive. I do think he had always been a wrathful man, but his beatings grew more numerous after each failure to prove his seed strong enough for boys. One night he struck her until she miscarried the very lad he wanted. After that, she could not conceive. He lost himself in drink.”
“I now understand why the mother refuses to let her daughter marry the man she wants. The widow’s own choice was a tragic one, and she must fear that the girl will make the same mistake.”
“She does. Yet she adores her Alys and, for all her faults, Mistress Jhone is not a cruel woman. I think her heart wishes she could let her daughter marry the glover.”
Eleanor looked back across the Avon. The woolmonger’s widow still knelt in the grass near her friend’s unclean grave.
Falling into quiet thought, she and her aunt continued on their way down the path that now twisted away from the river and nearer to the priory walls.
“What do you know of this Sayer?” Eleanor asked, breaking the silence.
“A scamp like his father was in his youth, but I find no real evil in him.” Beatrice’s smile was affectionate.
“Mistress Jhone says her husband believed Wulfstan’s son may have seduced the vintner’s wife. Out of guilt for the sin committed and not from the pain of her illness, she killed herself.”
Beatrice raised one eyebrow. “I would not put much credence in the word of a man who was often so drunk he could not walk the short distance home and passed out where the night soil was tossed.”
“Moreover, she said her husband thought the roofer deliberately displayed his nakedness to foster carnal longings in the loins of chaste nuns.”
“My dear, I was too long in the world to pretend I do not notice a handsome man, but, if Sayer strips for his work, he does so only on the monks’ side of the priory. On the rare occasions that anything needs repair in the nuns’ cloister, he willingly bundles himself so modestly that I fear he will sweat himself sick on summer days.”
Eleanor laughed.
“As for seeing Eda with Sayer, I wonder who told Master Woolmonger that tale? I myself do not believe it.”
“Alys hotly denies that her cousin would do such a thing and says her mother’s friend was an honest woman. Maybe she knows the source of the story. I shall ask.”
“Do not think I am easily deceived about Sayer. He is no innocent. After Prioress Ida hired him, a monk admitted that the roofer had arranged a tryst for him with the local whore at the village inn.”
“I thought Prioress Ida had put a stop to this?”
“She told Sayer that she would not allow him to continue working for us if he abused her kindness by leading our monks into sin. She said he was shamed by her discovery and even willingly told her where the breach in the wall was, although Brother Jerome had already taken her to the place.”
“A break which she caused to be repaired. Do you believe he was truly repentant or has he continued this wicked business?”
“The vow of chastity is renewed in our priory, but I would not swear to that of others. Our innkeeper claims he himself has never bothered with the morals of monks. Those who travel and come to his establishment have dry throats, he says, and he serves them ale or sells them meat for their stomachs. What other needs they might fulfill is none of his affair, although he claims he does not sell women. I have reason to know he lies.” Beatrice shook her head. “Did the lad not suggest to Brother Thomas that pleasures could be found at the inn for monks who were but visiting? Fortunately, I gather your monk succumbed only to wine and not to the women who served it.”
Eleanor’s face grew hot with color. “Sister Anne gave him some remedy for his head, I believe. He slept in the grass not far from the priory gate,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “Yet you tolerate Sayer despite all of this?”
“I am fond of young men, having married one many years ago and borne him two sons. Aye, despite his rakish ways, I like Sayer. Although Satan holds his soul in his hand at times, he is a caring man who longs to do the virtuous thing but does not always succeed. In many ways, he is still a boy, unmarried and unsettled in his life. His father may have been querulous on occasion but he was a good man in sum, and I see much of Wulfstan in his son. A worthy wife will do much to take Sayer from his wayward path. ”
“If Satan does control him, why do you not believe he might have seduced the vintner’s wife?”
“Although he leads others into carnal sins, I have never heard any rumor that Sayer himself is unchaste with women.” Beatrice chuckled. “I know his mother. No son of hers would dare take a girl’s maidenhead unless he brought her to the church steps as Wulfstan did with Drifa.”
“Perhaps Brother Thomas will hear more about this tale of adultery and ask Sayer about it when he sees him.” She looked up at her aunt and grinned. “Or his mother, whom he may also visit this day.”
Unable to resist, Beatrice reached for her niece’s hand and squeezed it gently. “I am so glad you came back to us, my child. I have missed your company so very much!”
In happy silence, the two women continued to stroll along the river bank.
Suddenly, Eleanor pointed to a spot at the edge of the Avon. “Was it here that Wulfstan’s body was found?”
Beatrice shaded her eyes against the strengthening sun and looked around. “I think this is the place, although my aged memory may be failing me. Brother Infirmarian described the place so.”
“Aged indeed!” Eleanor’s expression glowed with both love and humor as she bent over and parted the weeds with one hand. “Ah, here are marks in the mud. Someone slid just there and here they trampled the reeds. Unless Wulfstan was killed by several men, this must have been where his body was found.” She looked up and followed her aunt’s gaze. “Is that where the wall was broken?” Eleanor wended her way through the knee-high weeds in the direction of the stone fence.
“Aye,” the novice mistress replied, following along.
The Prioress of Tyndal folded her arms as she studied the masonry. The silence was broken only by the harsh cry of a nearby crow.
“Did Prioress Ida have this done by the monks or did she hire the work done?” Eleanor ran her fingers over the mortar.
“She hired a villager, fearing that another weak monk might wish to preserve some way over the wall.”
“Who was it?”
“Wulfstan, although he must have had help. The task was too quickly done to be finished by one man.”
Eleanor frowned and turned to her aunt. “Please tell me what you think this is and if there are more like it. I cannot reach but believe there might be some…” She pointed toward two places higher up.
Beatrice ran her hand over the mortar, looked up, and touched another place, then another. “Were I younger and more agile, I might easily climb to the top here for these ind
entations in the mortar are sufficiently deep while the stones protrude enough for toeholds, methinks.”
“I feared as much.” The prioress walked slowly along the wall for several yards as she studied the mortar for like flaws.
Her aunt did the same in the opposite direction.
At last they turned to face each other, their expressions somber with growing uneasiness.
“We will check the other side of the wall as well,” Beatrice said, “but I suspect I know what we will find.”
Eleanor looked back to the spot where Wulfstan had died. “Might Wulfstan or one of the men working with him have been paid to leave this path into the priory?”
“I hope I have not been fooled by a fair pretense of honesty, yet I feel certain that Wulfstan was innocent of this.”
“We must ask who worked on the repair with him.” She touched the wall again. “I dread even to say this, but might he have seen someone who came over this wall, a man who so feared discovery that he killed Wulfstan?”
Beatrice looked back at the rising stonework. “Who in the priory could possibly have been that crazed with fear? The errant monks have been punished, but not cruelly. Their own souls suffered more than their bodies. Even if one monk had a mistress in the village…nay, the prior knew well enough to ask and none of the men confessed to that.”
“Or else someone was in the priory who should not have been and did not wish to be seen coming from it. As you taught me, walls were never intended to keep us encloistered but to keep the world from disturbing our prayers. This wall may have failed in its purpose and, worse, Wulfstan might have been the unwitting instrument of his own death.”
Chapter Twenty
“Brother Thomas! What a pleasant surprise to see you again. Did you find lodging at the priory?” Bernard clapped his well-clad hands together in apparent pleasure at such an unexpected meeting.
In the brightness of day, the merchant appeared younger than he had in the dimmer light of an inn at eventide. The man’s round cheeks wore the pink of youth, and his blond beard looked as soft as a lady’s gloves. Although the expression in his eyes still had that sharp watchfulness of an older man, the sparkle of boyish enthusiasm was well mixed in. No wrinkles yet bothered his brow, and he had very white teeth. Thomas probed one of his own that felt a bit uncomfortable.
“I did,” the monk replied, “and they have found use for me already. I have just returned from the house of Wulfstan’s widow.”
Bernard bowed his head with respectful solemnity.
“She is much grieved that her son and husband failed to make peace after their quarrel. It was a most troubling thing between the two.” If Drifa would not tell him the details, perhaps this glover would. Thomas felt the bite of hope.
“Sons and fathers do argue,” Bernard acknowledged. “Even my honored sire lost his temper with me from time to time, and he was slow to wrath.” He hesitated as if considering his next words. “Nonetheless, I never said I wanted to kill him. My heart always knew he was right, and my mother, God bless her sweet soul, would have roasted me before the Devil got me if I had not obeyed him.” A grin caught him up. “I think I feared her anger more than my father’s!”
Even without wine, the fellow was talkative, Thomas noted happily. He continued. “I was dismayed to hear that Sayer had done so. Do you know the man? I wondered if he was a rebellious son or simply an imprudent one.”
Bernard’s smile faded quickly. “This is a small village, Brother. We all know each other, but I would not claim that Sayer and I are well acquainted. I cannot give you an answer to that question.”
Thomas hoped his expression did not betray his surprise. Not only was he sure that Sayer and this man had been in close conversation at the inn door, but he wondered how the glover could not know the cousin of his beloved Alys. “Did you perchance overhear the argument at the inn?” he asked. “If I knew more about the quarrel, I might give greater comfort to Mistress Drifa, or even offer soothing counsel to her son.”
Bernard frowned in thought.
Is he trying to remember the night, Thomas wondered, or is he making up some lie?
“I had just walked in. It would have been difficult not to hear the fight between the men. They bellowed like bulls and swung fists at each other like drunken bears.”
“Over what?”
A shadow passed over the young man’s face. “Wulfstan’s widow is a good woman, and I would not spread stories to add to her sorrow.”
“I do not seek gossip for idle reason. Mistress Drifa feared many heard the nature of their hot words and she is shamed. Of course, her son’s arrangement with the innkeeper...”
The glover looked around to make sure no one stood close by, then bent to speak more privately into the monk’s ear. “If you know that, I will not offend by confirming that Wulfstan liked not some of the things his son did to gain coin. Sayer was paid fairly by the priory for his work there, but many in the village knew that he had, at one time, arranged worldly pleasures for monks who climbed the priory walls.” He straightened. “I repeat that only to point out the merit of Sayer’s repentance. The man had not led monks into sin of late, and we all believed that he had reformed. His father might not have been so convinced.”
That easy reply was but a simple rephrasing of the knowledge I suggested I have, Thomas thought. The man does not evade direct answers with much skill, but how am I failing to get the information I need? “Surely the father was not so virtuous himself?” he said, trying another path.
“I see the old tales are still about! My father claimed that Wulfstan was well rewarded for letting certain local men know when a fat mercantile purse would be riding through Amesbury, the owner of which he also made sure enjoyed much ale before departing the inn.”
“How dare Wulfstan condemn his son so cruelly then when he had committed crimes himself? Sayer might have laughed at him for his belated discovery of virtue, but I find it hard to imagine he would have threatened to kill him for it.”
“Sadly, I cannot give details of their quarrel. I came too late, and the insults they were throwing at each other might be said by any two men in a heated argument.”
“Have you heard from anyone else…?”
Bernard stiffened. “I did not listen to idle talk, nor did I ask questions. As I told you last night, Brother, I am a man without a wife who goes to the inn, not to trade tales of others, but for a decent meal, enjoyed in some solitude, at reasonable cost.”
“I did not mean to suggest otherwise, but I am a stranger here in Amesbury and long to bring peace to both Mistress Drifa and her son. For that reason, I hoped you could educate me on the character of both father and son. For instance, if I knew that Sayer was just a foolish youth who would never actually kill his father…” Thomas looked at the glover with an expression he hoped brought meek supplication to mind.
Bernard’s eyes still expressed wariness. “Murderer? That is a harsh accusation. Sayer is a maker of mischief and has played boy’s games too long, but I do not think his failure to take on a man’s duties and estate proves him to be a brutal creature.”
Thomas said nothing, praying his silence would encourage the glover to say more. For once, the garrulous merchant was thrifty in speech. “I thank you for telling me what you have, Master Bernard,” he said at last.
The two bowed in courtesy, and, as Thomas watched the glover walk away, he groaned in frustration. He was still failing to discover the identity of the ghost, and he was getting nowhere in his mission of finding a manuscript thief.
Or was he? Questions buzzed in his mind like irritating flies, but his attempts to capture their significance failed. Why would a roofer want to learn so much about the Psalter? Was the argument between Wulfstan and his son just a drunken quarrel? Why did he sense that Drifa was lying, and what lay behind the meeting he had witnessed between Bernard and Sayer?
Thomas rubbed at his temples and wondered if his blindness was caused
more by his lack of wit or by his contradictory feelings about the man around whom all these questions seemed to revolve.
Chapter Twenty-One
Surely he had seen a light in that window, Brother Baeda thought as he hurried up the stone stairs to the library. Even though the light had now vanished, he felt obliged to make sure nothing untoward had occurred. He would not have bothered to check, but two nights ago some young novices had slipped in and poured ink on one of Brother Jerome’s parchments.
“The brother is such a querulous fellow and so sensitive about his talent with color and design,” he muttered. No doubt of that. Jerome did rank his own work more highly than was warranted, his efforts falling far from noteworthy quality, but that did not excuse the lads for what they had done. Just because the monk had unfairly accused them of impure thoughts, after they joked about his drawing of Eve entwined with the snake in Eden, was no reason for them to damage any work done for a holy purpose.
An irreverent chuckle escaped the brother’s lips, and he immediately prayed to be forgiven. The snake’s tail was most unfortunately placed as he remembered it, and he should have said something to Jerome at the time. Knowing that the monk would roar in fury at the very suggestion of creative incompetence had stopped him, however, so perhaps he ought to have taken some blame for what had happened the other night.
The boys had been quite properly reprimanded for the damage and assigned the penance of scrubbing the stones in the warming room, but might that have been mitigated if he had come to their defense? Now he wondered if they had resented the duty and returned to tweak Jerome’s rather pointed nose one more time.
He swung open the library door. His eyes were accustomed to the dark, and he saw no boyish shadows in the room.
Quickly, he walked over to where Jerome worked. All tools had been put away and no undone manuscript left out. Apparently, the monk had not yet started anything after the novices had ruined what he had been toiling over for days. He raised a hand to his mouth, suppressing another laugh. That tail!
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