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 t
he 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 nieces 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?"
"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 que
rulous 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.
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