There was gratitude in her tone. Looking around and seeing no one else about, Eleanor guessed the reason. Solitude was often a traitorous fellow, eager enough to open Heart's gate to the cruel assault of Sorrow.
"Please come away from the sun. The season may be spring, but the light can be harsh." The woman gestured toward the door of the house. "I have but modest fare to offer you…"
"Brother Thomas praised your ale, mistress," the prioress replied.
"Your monk is kind and a man of austere tastes, my lady."
The two women studied each other for a moment, and when their expressions had shown satisfaction in what each had concluded about the other, they turned toward the dwelling.
At least Bernard had told the truth about one thing, Eleanor concluded as she stepped over the threshold. Wulfstan had spent whatever coin he might have earned from lawless men on items that would benefit his family, not on luxuries. Many squawking chickens were outside, and a hairy goat had greeted her with impudent gaze, one green weed drooping from the side of its mouth. The house was quite large, with three windows, but inside she saw little difference between this place and the home of any other poor man.
As Drifa poured amber liquid into a crudely carved wooden cup, Eleanor noted the freshly laid rushes on the earthen floor as well as the absence of clutter. Whatever his faults, Wulfstan had won himself a diligent wife and one who seemed to have loved him.
"You have been blessed with a large family," Eleanor said conversationally after expressing appreciation for the sharp-tasting but refreshing ale.
"Most of our children have lived and flourished." The widow fell silent.
"Your eldest works most diligently at whatever the priory requires."
"When my husband told Prioress Ida that Sayer could offer many skills for the wages of one man, she was pleased to hire him."
A woman of modest speech and much caution, Eleanor noted. Like many wives who have little time for chatter, Drifa's restraint was sired by thrift, not fear as had been true of her sister, Jhone.
"To have such a talented son must have given you and your husband much joy."
The widow nodded.
"I have heard that the son resembled his father in many ways." Eleanor laughed to give her words a lighter meaning. "The two must have been very close."
The widow leaned back against a pillar.
"Yet I believe they quarreled just before your husband died?"
"The whole village seems to have heard the story, my lady."
"What heavy grief that must bring you."
The sharp intake of breath might have been a sigh or a sob.
Eleanor reached out a comforting hand. "Each of us has sons, mistress. Although you got yours from your husband, God gave me mine. In our Order, a prioress may suffer as the Virgin did when she saw her child dying on the cross, yet strive to see the purpose beyond the misery of mortal flesh. Although I endured no physical pain in the bearing, God commands me to love all men under my rule as if they were truly sons of my body. With that love, I suffer as much as any mother when they fall ill or sin. You and I have some sorrows in common."
Sayer's mother said nothing.
"Please sit beside me," Eleanor said, her voice dropping into a soothing tone, "and let me offer solace as one woman to another. Are men and boys not foolish in their heated words over things that are fleeting? I, too, have grieved deeply when my monks rage on and on about some petty matter. As you yourself have done, I bear the blame when they strive one against another until their humors cool, and peace comes slowly. Thus I understand how deeply you mourn over this bitter quarrel."
Hot tears burst from Drifa's eyes and rolled down her cheeks in a flood. As she slid down onto the bench, Eleanor gently embraced her. The woman's sobs could have not been more despairing if she had just seen her child tumble into Hell's flaming maw. Stirred by the bleakness of Drifa's suffering, Eleanor herself began to weep. For an unmeasured time in that smoke-stained room, the two women clung together, finding a small amount of succor from worldly pain.
At last Eleanor whispered: "Take comfort. In death our souls lose mortal blindness and learn a more godly compassion. Your husband is wiser now and has surely pardoned your son's errors."
Drifa drew back, her red-rimmed eyes still haunted with inconsolable despair. "I pray that he has, my lady, for he claimed the lad was the Devil's spawn."
"Surely not for leading willing monks into the arms of tavern wenches? Your son repented of that, and Prioress Ida had punished the men who strayed. The wall was repaired. All that was in the past."
"Wicked though that had been, it was not the reason my husband said our son was cursed." The widow rubbed the corners of her eyes dry with the tips of two fingers. Her cheeks still shone with dampness.
"What was the cause?"
Drifa covered her face.
The prioress' touch on the widow's arm was gentle. "There is no sin Sayer could have committed that God would not wash clean. We mortals are so quick to condemn, but God is perfect love." Eleanor chanced a smile. "And I do think He grants the Queen of Heaven, a mother herself, the right to bless other mothers with some of that perfection, don't you?"
Drifa dropped her hands and looked at Eleanor in amazement, before her eyes softened with hope. "My son may have seen twenty summers, but he is still a boy, my lady. Satan has made merry with him for cert, but he is not wicked. I told Wulfstan that Sayer need only marry and earn a man's status to return to more godly ways. I thought my husband had agreed but he only hid his anger!"
"Boys do foolish things.
The mother began to cough, her face turning scarlet as she tried to catch her breath. "Wulfstan came home in a rage one night," she gasped. "He had seen Sayer near the river. Another man was swyving him like a whore."
Speechless with shock, Eleanor could only nod.
"That night I calmed him, but soon after he and Sayer got drunk at the inn. The following morning, my husband confessed that he had told our son he would geld him if he ever did such a thing again. My son had shouted that he would kill him first."
As the prioress prayed for words to soothe this woman, she begged God for an understanding she herself lacked. She was not so unworldly as to think some young monk at Tyndal might not suffer the same weakness, but she knew of none. If presented with such a man, would she face him with a mother's love like Drifa, or would she curse him as Wulfstan had Sayer?
Her thoughts raced on. Sodomy was a most unnatural vice, one akin to murder, or so the Church taught. If Sayer was guilty of this sin, might he be equally capable of killing his own father?
Eleanor took a deep breath. There was one powerful argument against this conclusion. Sister Beatrice was not a woman to suffer evil, or be deceived by it, and she had shown much tolerance for the man. Did she not know that Sayer was a sodomite? What if she did? Her head spun with bewilderment.
God must have given her tongue comforting words despite her own swirling confusion. Eleanor could not remember what she had said to Drifa, but the widow's gaze had shone with weary peace when they parted.
As she turned her steps back to the priory, Eleanor knew she would spend much time tonight on her knees, begging for understanding from the Queen of Heaven.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The smell of sizzling fat made Thomas' stomach growl. As his growing hunger began to temper the anguish he had felt in the garden, he found himself amazed at the resilience of a man's belly. God would surely punish him for his blasphemous insolence in time. Of that, he had no doubts. Meanwhile, he accepted the gift of a hot, dripping pastry from a tradesman. The first bite of that pie was a joy.
The weather for this market day was fine, a balm to the spirit, and the bounty in the stalls was a miracle to behold. To his left was a mound of purple and white carrots just picked from the garden. Fresh yellow onions, causing less torture to sensitive stomachs than those stored over winter, lay next to cream-colored turnips. Although the steam of hot fruit tarts spread a most appe
aling scent of spice mixed with sweet, Thomas' hunger was now satisfied.
Something brushed by his leg, and he glanced down to see a lean, red cat in pursuit of something small and gray. The sight reminded Thomas that he had his own prey to hunt, a man who had sent two souls to earlier deaths and greater torture than they deserved. Even though he did not have the slightest idea where to start looking, he felt spurred to the task. If he resolved these murders with speed, God might even grant him a little mercy for his own wickedness.
As he pushed his way through the crowd, a thought burst into his mind, the memory of something he had ignored at the time and since forgotten. When his spy master told him of his assignment regarding the Psalter theft, the man mentioned that the Church had received warning about the danger to the manuscript. Now Thomas asked himself who had raised this hue and cry. Was the detail significant?
"I should have had the wits to inquire," the monk muttered, stepping back to avoid a rumbling cart filled with precariously stacked barrels. "But I would have been told if the fact mattered to the quest." Men might be fair sport for the priest, but surely that thin-lipped creature considered the Psalter too valuable to deliberately hide crucial information. In any case, Thomas had not asked, numbed as he was by grief over the news of his father's death.
Important or not to this undertaking, the identity of the informant was provoking his curiosity. Might it be Sister Beatrice? That would not surprise him, and, considering her inquisitive study of him earlier, he thought she suspected more about him than she chose to reveal.
He waited until a woman with two overfilled baskets passed by, several children with lesser burdens in tow.
Since the spy master seemed to view women as beings formed from a mere rib only to serve Adam's sons, the priest might have judged her involvement not worth the noting. A poor decision, Thomas thought. With pleasure he imagined the expression on the man's face should he ever try matching wits with the formidable novice mistress.
"Watch your step!" a voice cried out.
Thomas looked down.
A legless man sat on a cart just in front of him. The man's hollow cheeks spoke eloquently of starvation.
Thomas found a coin meant for tongue-loosening ale, dropped it into the man's hand, and walked on, forcing his thoughts back to the question. If Sister Beatrice had been the one to alert some bishop that the Amesbury Psalter might be stolen, would she not assume that someone would be sent to investigate? But if she knew that, why had she not said anything?
Perhaps she had been ordered to remain silent to prevent alerting the thief. He, too, had been forbidden to speak to anyone about his role here. Nonetheless, she might well have guessed that he was the one. Why else would she have set him on this task of finding the ghost, allowing a monk she did not know to visit the inn and wander about the town like some clerk?
A loud crash made him jump. To his right, a butcher was cutting meat while a spotted bitch with engorged teats danced and whined at his feet. The fellow tossed the creature a bloody bit, and she raced away with her treasure.
Thomas shook his head. Had the novice mistress said anything about her suspicions to Prioress Eleanor? Although he might have preferred that, he doubted Sister Beatrice would have broken a vowed silence even to a loved relative. She seemed as much a woman of strong principles as her niece.
If Sister Beatrice knew about the threat to the Psalter, then someone must have told her. Was the source a man or woman, religious or townsman? How did this person find out? Thomas cursed that his bound silence prevented him from asking her the identity and that her own vow would stop her from answering even if he did.
As he paused to let men driving sheep go by, he looked over the passing flock and discovered that his wanderings had led him back to the inn. He gritted his teeth, trying to banish his dismay.
The source of the tale was most likely a secular man, seated inside that inn and listening to gossip and plots. Both women and monastics were less likely to hear rumors about thievery. As he had already confirmed, men interrupted their conversations to jest at monks in an inn. Serving wenches were an equal distraction and cause for lewd remarks. Only a secular man, and a local one at that, could remain unnoticed while men spoke together of secret things. Although he was unsure how he would find the man out, he knew he had little choice but to try.
Thomas crossed the road to the inn door.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Eleanor halted. As they walked through the market stalls, she had glanced behind and caught the wistful expressions on the faces of her two young attendants. How thoughtless she had been! They were probably hungry.
"Oh, I do remember the delicious fish taken from the river while I was growing up at this priory," she said. "That man over there has pies made from them. Shall we honor God's bounty and eat one?"
When the eyes of her attendants brightened, Prioress Eleanor gestured to the merchant, who brought them a sampling of his wares. He might have given the food as a gift to the benefit of his soul, but Tyndal's leader gave him both blessing and coin.
While her youthful religious chewed with undisguised pleasure, Eleanor turned her attention to the surrounding crowds. Not far to her right, she recognized Bernard and Alys, standing in front of his display of gloves. They were holding hands and gazing at each other with undisguised rapture.
Hearing a shout redolent with outrage, the prioress turned to see a scarlet-faced Jhone elbowing a path through to the pair, their moment of delight now ended.
"How dare you, sir?" the mother exclaimed. "And you, strumpet! Did I not forbid you to come near this man?"
"I wanted to look at his gloves, Mother. That is guiltless enough. Even you admit that his work is of the best quality."
"He had no need to fondle your hand. He had no reason to look upon you with such undisguised lust…"
"Mistress, I was but taking her hand to measure it for a glove. As for any intent to dishonor, I am blameless!"
Eleanor noticed the slight bulge in the man's robe. Innocence may have dwelt in the glover's gaze, but elsewhere the virtue had departed.
The spell cast by romantic imaginings shattered, Alys tossed her head in fury at the slur on her virtue. In doing so, she caught sight of the prioress standing near. "My lady!" she cried out.
Bernard and Jhone spun around.
"I did not see you," the widow said, covering her eyes as if hiding what a prioress might read in them. "I beg pardon for any offense!"
"As there was none, there is no need."
"Then please excuse us, my lady," she mumbled, her face a mix of conflicting hues. "I have errands to attend with this daughter of mine."
Eleanor nodded and gave her blessing.
Jhone grasped her daughter's arm with a firmness that demanded obedience and aimed her child away from the booth. Although Alys might have been reluctant to obey and surely felt the defiance of thwarted passion, she wisely did not cast even one backward glance at her beloved.
"A tryst?" Eleanor asked, turning to Bernard.
Embarrassment colored the glover's cheeks. "Alys and I try to meet whenever possible, but her mother is so clever at discovering our evasions that we rarely have more than a moment together. How she is able to read our thoughts remains a wonder to us."
"You both know that Alys is to marry Master Herbert." Although she had her suspicions about the glover, Eleanor found herself in sympathy with the young lovers. Whatever the truth about Bernard, she still did not want to encourage behavior that could easily lead to less chaste conduct than holding hands.
"Alys has not given her consent, although I fear she must do so soon.
"Can you refute the reasons behind her mother's choice?"
"My heart denies her logic, my lady. If her mother only knew what Alys and I feel for each other…" His eyes filled with tears. "My dearest one and I could do so much together to gain the wealth the vintner now has. Mistress Jhone claims I am nothing more than an impractical boy with no prospects, b
ut my glove designs are gaining favor amongst those who can pay for carefully crafted work. Alys has an eye for what her mother should recognize as the more practical elements of business. We know our union would be blessed."
"If Alys does not marry as her mother wishes, has she not expressed a desire for the cloistered life?"
Bernard shook his head angrily. "In truth she told me that she would take holy vows only to avoid wedding a man she does not love." As soon as he had said the words, the glover realized he had just denied his beloved one escape from a hateful marriage by admitting she had no calling to the religious life. He groaned and slapped his hand against his forehead.
As the young man slumped against the table of his stall, his eyes turning dark with despair, Eleanor's heart softened. "Are you able to prove that your profits have increased, that your reasonable prospects make you a match equal to the vintner even if your current state does not?"
Bernard's expression conveyed utter defeat. "I cannot easily counter the wish of a dead husband, my lady."
If that was true, then this man had no pressing reason to chance the theft and sale of the Psalter, unless he had pressing bills. "Is it that," she asked, her voice gentle, "or hold you such debt…"
"All merchants owe something, but my father taught me prudence in business and thrift in habits."
He has not taken offense at my prying, Eleanor noted, then changed the direction of her questions. "I cannot understand why Alys' father and the vintner were so eager for this marriage," she said. "Although Master Woolmonger would have wanted a wealthy tradesman for Alys, I do not see the gain for Master Vintner. He has wealth enough, and wool would be a new trade for him. Wasn't he deeply wronged by Mistress Jhone's kin? I am as surprised that the woolmonger dared to suggest the union as I am by the vintner's willingness to accept it."
"Like a foul odor, that tale drifts through the village!" The glover frowned. "I myself overheard Master Herbert tell the story to Alys' father one night at the inn. Others must have as well for I would never have repeated something like that. Mistress Eda was an honorable woman and her husband most assuredly mistaken. I never gave credence to the accusation."
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