“Say you repent!” Thomas pleaded.
Panting with weakening breath, the old woman whispered, “Of those deaths, I can’t. God said I needn’t wait longer. I was dying. He let me have justice.”
The killings were wrong. Of course he knew that, but his heart ached with both sorrow and understanding. She had been spat upon by the very men who had once used her as a girl no older than their daughters. Then she lost the one thing that gave her joy and was mocked when those who had killed him walked free. If she had heard God’s voice in Satan’s seductive words, how many others might not have done the same? But the deed was still against God’s commandments and Tibia must repent. He begged God to show him how to persuade her, for he would not let Satan have this soul.
Then it came to him, a cruel thing to tell her but something that might force Tibia to see the error of flawed mortals rendering vengeance. She had adored her son and that love had brought some redemption, despite the harshness of her life. This news might grieve her deeply enough to provoke remorse.
“Did you know that Ivetta was with child when you killed her?” he said, bending to whisper into her ear.
“Didn’t know!” Tibia convulsed with fresh agony. “I deserve Hell.”
“Nay! Your son begs you to cleanse your soul. God does. I do.”
Another spasm hit her. “Give me comfort and pity. I die!” She rolled her eyes in the direction of the embankment. “Of the four, I poisoned three. I saved Hob. He begged forgiveness. Left wood at my door in winter. He could live. God said.”
Thomas glanced up at the man standing in silence above, his arms casually folded as he gazed down at them. The dog looked intently at Ralf who stood but a foot away. Did the crowner think the younger blacksmith had killed Tibia? Had the man done so?
“Did Hob push…?”
“Dog. Scared me. Fell.” Her lips drew back, exposing her gums, and her eyes began to roll back. “An accident,” she mumbled.
With her soul struggling to depart a body it had long hated, Thomas knew he had no more time for questioning or argument. He must cleanse her of sins. “I bring the comfort of forgiveness. Just say repent,” he beseeched.
For a long moment, the only sounds were the rattling whisper of Tibia’s fading life and the bubbling of the nearby stream. Then she murmured something so softly that Thomas had to press his ear near her lips to hear.
“God’ll grant mercy if due. Punishment, too. I’m ready.”
“Then you do repent,” the monk decided and quickly repeated the ritual of absolution.
With a harsh scream, she reached out to him, her eyes turned white and blind with death. “God’s terrible face! Take my hand! Oh, sweetest son, hold me! I can’t bear this…”
Thomas raised her hand to his lips and tenderly kissed the gnarled fingers.
The herb woman convulsed once and slipped into silence.
Tibia was dead.
Chapter Forty-Two
The monk released her hand, pressed his eyes shut, and begged God to take pity on her. Would He take her final words as sufficient repentance and deflect her soul from Hell? Thomas believed she understood the nature of her sin but he had grown fond of her and his heart might be untrustworthy as a result. Certainly her spirit had cause enough to rejoice when it tore away from that body. Hadn’t she suffered too much pain and a life with too little happiness? Wouldn’t God feel compassion…?
The rattle of small rocks tumbling against his feet brought him sharply back to earthly matters.
Ralf skidded to a stop and knelt beside him.
Thomas nodded at the body. “With two corpses to carry into the village, we will now need more men.” His voice echoed in his head with an odd hollowness, as if his thoughts and tongue were separated by much distance.
“She died quickly then?” Ralf looked hopefully at his friend.
“She confessed first.”
“To the killing of all three?”
“Aye. Signy is innocent,” Thomas snapped, answering what he assumed to be the crowner’s primary concern, but his face grew hot with swift regret. He had not meant to speak so harshly. After attending the dying, he often found himself impatient with the living, their concerns flat and pallid in the face of death. As a former soldier, however, Ralf might well understand and forgive his abruptness. To temper his words, he added, “Tibia did kill them for their part in murdering her boy, as our prioress suspected.”
“Did she die quickly, monk?” Ralf shifted his weight in the gravel.
“Soon enough. Within minutes, Crowner.” Thomas expression turned quizzical.
“You asked if I hoped to hang her. The law would have demanded that I put her neck in a noose, but she’d have died long before any trial, in misery, with foul water, hard bread, and rats for company. This was a better death for an old woman. Murderer though she was, I find no fault with that. Her soul will pay the price.”
“She was dying already and may have stayed alive only for her revenge.”
The crowner looked at the tree looming above, its dark branches stretched out like the arms of a condemned man praying on his scaffold. “Yet I find it strange that she did not return home along an easy path? Why fight her way through that brush to this place after poisoning Will? This was where her son died.” He twisted around and stared up at Hob still standing on the edge of the embankment. “I wonder if she was to meet someone here?”
The blacksmith did not move. His dog whimpered softly.
“Perhaps it was the Devil. Some claim she was a witch. She might have traded her soul to the Prince of Darkness for that of her son and come here to make the exchange,” Thomas murmured as he went back to studying the body, his forehead furrowed with dark thought. “Yet Satan does little in the brightness of God’s day…”
Suddenly, the monk reached out and pulled over a small but damply stained bag from where it lay under the dead woman’s hip. “If this holds what I suspect, she may have done with life. Perhaps she wanted her soul to depart the world under that tree where her son had been hanged?”
From inside the bag, Thomas drew forth two small pottery bottles: one intact; one cracked and leaking. “I fear I am right. For once, I grieve to be so,” he murmured.
“What is this?” The crowner took the undamaged bottle and uncorked it, sniffing at the opening with caution.
“Don’t drink that unless you are in need of profound sleep,” Thomas’ smile was thin with bitterness.
“Poison?” Ralf’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Not in moderation.” The monk shook his head. “A very effective draught for easing pain and bringing sleep that was brought to our priory, when it was still a Benedictine house, by an old crusader. On his way to join the monks at Shrewsbury, he fell ill, and in gratitude for his care here, he gave the infirmarian some poppy seeds for the garden. Their usefulness was forgotten until Sister Anne recognized the plant and remembered how her father had prepared and used this draught.”
“Two bottles?” Ralf gave the monk a questioning look as he gestured at the broken one.
“Sufficient to fall into death’s sleep,” Thomas replied. “There I take full blame. She asked me about the dangers of the draught, and I must have explained enough for her to conclude the dosage needed to die. When I found her without pain, or so she claimed, she begged me to leave the bottle each time, saying she feared the agony would return after I had gone. These two, it seems, she set aside for this sinister purpose.”
“Can you be sure we do not have another poisoner?”
“Sister Anne makes the potion only when there is a need and allows no one else to do so. These are priory jars. If you seek another killer, then you have found him in me.”
The crowner jumped to his feet and tossed the intact bottle into the stream. It shattered, staining the rocks before the water washed the potion away.
Thomas watched, his face devoid of expression.
“What of him?” Ralf asked, gesturing at the figure still sta
nding on the edge of the bank.
“She said he had naught to do with her death.”
“An accident?”
“When the dog ran out of the forest, he startled her. She must have been standing there at the brink and fallen backward.”
Ralf hesitated, his expression suggesting some internal quarrel with himself. At last, he nodded and then pushed himself upright. “Hob!”
The blacksmith let his arms drop to his sides but did not speak.
“Find Cuthbert, will you? We need more men to carry these bodies back to the village.”
The man turned and walked off. Behind him, his dog followed, tail wagging.
“Will you stay with her body, Brother, until the men come?”
Thomas nodded.
As he watched Ralf pull himself back up the embankment with deliberate slowness, he realized that the crowner was allowing Hob to get far enough away to understand that no one was following to arrest him for murder.
***
Did the forest ever quite grow silent, Thomas asked himself, as he sat back on his heels and waited. From the safety of trees, birds warned each other that an ominous creature was still in their midst. Insects were less cautious. He swatted at a few brazen enough to land on his face and hands. Even the leaves made noise brushing one against another in the sea breeze. Nay, the woods were not quiet at all-unlike the forsaken shell of Man.
Thomas looked at the motionless corpse and bent over to close the gaping mouth. Tibia’s expression was calm, her face smoother now that the pain of age and anger was gone. Sinner she most certainly was, but whose fault was it that she had felt justified in poisoning those who had murdered her son?
Was it Sister Juliana’s advice? Surely the guidance to seek silence in order to plainly hear God’s voice had been much the same as the anchoress had given him and others. These words may have been innocent enough, but might Tibia have heard another voice and interpreted that to mean that God would both actively encourage her take matters into her own hands and forgive her for doing so? Surely her spirit had mistaken the seductive lilt of Satan’s voice for God’s and heard only what she longed to hear. Her heart had been bitter enough to be easily wooed by the Devil.
Thomas stared up into the bright sky. He blinked with confusion and felt a slight shiver of fear. There were other conclusions. Dare he imagine that God would use her as an instrument of justice against the three when mortal sinners had failed to render it? Was it not heresy to think that God might have demanded their deaths without any opportunity for confession? What if God knew that none, except Hob, had ever felt the slightest anguish over what they had done? If they did not, could they have been truly penitent even though they spoke the right words? Surely God could not be so easily fooled.
Terror filled him. Was it a sin to wonder about such things! He was a priest. Had he not granted Tibia absolution when many reasonable men would have doubted the sincerity of her regret? Had he been present at their deaths, would he not have given the same consolation to Martin, Ivetta, and Will? His heart began to answer but he silenced that untrustworthy voice. Wasn’t he already cursed enough?
What of his own part in this cruel tale? Why had he not realized the danger of leaving her these potions? She was not the first to commit self-murder when pain of body or soul grew too great. Had God blinded him or had he blinded himself to what she might do with the extra bottle? At least she did not use the draughts-but she might have done so and that would have made him a companion in murder.
Closing his eyes, he suddenly felt as if Tibia’s soul were still hovering like a mother longing to give comfort to her orphaned child. “I shall pray for you,” he whispered. “God may have used you as a hand of vengeance for a brutal killing. I should not question that. Sinner you most certainly were, as am I, but perhaps He did speak to you. If He has now forgiven and taken your soul into His comforting arms, would you intercede on my behalf? Please ask if He will finally pardon me and answer my pleas for understanding.”
Tears began to run down his cheeks, and he rubbed his face dry with his sleeve. A light breeze brushed against him as he stood. Suddenly he began to shake with horror at the next thought that came to him.
“An accident?” he murmured. “You said your death was…That was the verdict in your son’s death. Did Hob kill you after all?” he asked. Looking around as if expecting to see the herb woman alive and standing close by, he continued, “If so, why did you protect him? Did you think God used him to punish you for following His direction? Or did Satan direct Hob’s hand while God did nothing but stand by and watch?”
“Answer me!” he shouted, all tolerance for uncertainty at an end. But the only sound he heard was the twittering, rustling, and humming from the woods.
Raising his fists, his body tensed with outrage. He shut his eyes and willed himself into the silence Sister Juliana had promised would open his soul to God’s voice.
No words came. God most certainly did not speak.
Instead, Thomas found himself pondering two new questions.
Should he, like Sister Juliana, abandon the world completely and seek a hermitage? By hiding in the forest away from all men, he would never have to face his human demons again, as he did in Amesbury, and might find the strength to fight those imps who came to him in dreams. Even his spymaster might leave him alone then, for no priest would ever dare to pull a hermit from his holy cave.
Or should he stay in Tyndal Priory, working with Sister Anne in the hospital until his prioress demanded otherwise? Since his arrival here, he had begun to think that Prioress Eleanor might well be one of those avenging angels sent by God to wage war on evil men. And had he not fallen to his knees just the other day, breaking his previous oath to his spymaster, and sworn to obey her in all things henceforth? At the time, he had done so without thinking. Had God inspired him?
Opening his eyes, Thomas groaned. “I am still confused.” Indeed, he meant no complaint in that statement, only resignation. God may not have spoken to him from the stream or the rocks, but an odd kind of peace had been bestowed. Instead of answers, he had been granted questions. Only two, in fact, and for that he feared he should be grateful. Would his torments be eased once he had answered them, or were these only the beginning in a series of troubling queries?
Now hearing men’s voices in the distance, he knew his time by old Tibia’s side was almost over. If her soul still hovered nearby, perhaps with a lingering regret for the loss of earthly things or even some fondness for a man she sometimes called son, he had best dismiss it.
“Go in peace,” he whispered. “If you were acting on God’s behalf, you need no mortal blessing. If He did not make you into His avenging angel, I have given you absolution. Wherever your soul may go now, I beg you to pray for me as you did your murdered boy. I shall miss you.”
Then he bent down and kissed old Tibia’s cool cheek, took hold of her hand for the last time, and wept like a son who had just seen his mother die.
Chapter Forty-Three
A few days later, in the tiny cell of the anchoress, Juliana, two women knelt together in front of the small, plain altar and prayed silently. When they had done, each opened her eyes and turned to the other. Neither spoke, nor did either doubt the other had finished her talk with God. Their smiles suggested a mutual understanding that words were sometimes mortal things, best left unspoken owing to their imperfection.
Prioress Eleanor opened her arms and embraced the anchoress. “Am I forgiven?”
“Am I?” came the reply.
“It is up to God to decide the severity of each of our sins. Yet He is merciful.”
“Mine led to murder.”
“As did mine.”
Eleanor rose, then helped the anchoress to her feet, and the two went to the small opening in the wall that provided entry for light from the world. Eleanor pushed aside the curtain and peeked out. “The earth still sings with joy, and the sun brings warmth to all creatures,” she said. “Despite men’s sin
s, God’s handiwork finds ways to rejoice overall.”
“My heart believes that is God’s message of hope, my lady.”
While the birds turned their babble of voices into a unique but strangely appealing polyphony, the two women fell silent and enjoyed those gifts of creation.
Eleanor turned at last to Juliana. “When I told my aunt in Amesbury that I wanted to take my final vows in our Order of Fontevraud, she asked whether I longed only for the sequestered life of prayer. Being yet a child, I must have answered with predictable eagerness, although I have no memory of my exact words. She put her hands on my shoulders, pushed me to my knees, and said, ‘You must pray daily that God gives you the strength to do whatever He requires.’ I have had cause of late to remember her advice and regret that I have failed, until now, to follow it.”
“I do not understand.”
“The nuns and monks of Tyndal, with some few exceptions, spend their days praying for souls in need. Had I stayed in Amesbury Priory with my aunt, I might have remained like them, but God had other trials for me and inspired King Henry to appoint me leader of Tyndal.”
“Your friends and family rejoiced at the honor given,” Juliana replied with a rare smile.
“As prioress, I must deal with worldly matters and even more worldly men. If our house does not prosper, our religious will lose the roof that shelters them, the altar before which they pray, and the food that gives them strength. In guaranteeing wealth and prominence enough to provide all this, I know I serve God’s purpose well.”
The anchoress nodded agreement.
“Nonetheless, my duties bring temptations, and I was led away from righteousness by concern with worldly reputation. Fearful of men’s censure, because I allowed you to welcome tortured souls at night, I stopped my ears to the words of warning you wished to speak. Had I listened, I might have prevented the blacksmith’s death.” She knelt and bowed her head. “I have begged God to pardon all my sins in this matter. He demands that I humbly seek your forgiveness as well.”
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