He looked like a man facing an eternity in Hell.
“I must forgive the insult to me, because my vows require it, but I am not obliged to forget the wound you inflicted on a good woman.” The prioress glared at him. “Even assuming she had been raped, surely you know that she would never marry you until she knew she would not quicken with Kenelm’s foul seed. And if proof of virginity is truly required, should she ever be willing to let you take her to the church door, Sister Anne will provide it.” She threw up her hands in disgust. “What were you thinking, Ralf! Or were you thinking at all?”
“God has cursed me with lack of wit,” he groaned. “It is not the first time I have spoken so rudely.”
“Indeed, it is not,” the prioress snapped. “This time you shall pay dearly for it.”
Silence fell between them, then Eleanor walked to him and lightly put her hand on his arm. “Aye, you have stabbed her to the heart. Whether or not the blow is fatal we cannot yet know, nor dare we take the time now to consider a possible remedy. For Gytha’s sake as well, the murder must be solved first.” Retreating to a proper distance, the prioress asked: “Do you think it possible that Gytha killed Kenelm even in the defense of her honor?”
“Nay,” he said without hesitation and swallowed the remaining wine. “Nor, as you told me, does Sister Anne.”
“Neither do I.” She pointed to the jug.
He hesitated.
She smiled and poured again. “Someone cut his throat. I did not mention that detail to Gytha. She claims that she only hit him with a rock and that must have killed him. There is no reason for her to hide another wound when she has already confessed to the murder.”
He agreed, then sipped with moderation.
“As we discussed before you were summoned to the riot, there was blood in the ground above the mill. According to Sister Anne, a man bleeds only before death.”
“That means that someone discovered Kenelm still alive, dragged him to the mill, slit his throat, and threw the body in.”
“Or perhaps found him after he dragged himself inside the gate and then cut the man’s throat. That is probably a minor difference, so I say we are in agreement. Unfortunately, we have only Gytha’s confession about striking the man. Unless we find the true killer, suspicion will continue to cloak her.” She raised a hand to stop him from speaking. “Even if she is found innocent because of the circumstances, Ralf, some will always condemn her for the violence unless another is hanged for the murder.”
“That cur, Adelard, will never shut his mouth about it,” the crowner growled.
“As Gytha’s tale points out, there is one more element in this vile tale that must be resolved.” Eleanor’s expression was grim. “Brother Thomas is seeking Brother Gwydo now. When he brings him to me, I will ask why he was outside the priory, how he discovered Gytha, if he saw Kenelm or anyone else, and what he did after her took her to the mill gate.”
“Do you think the lay brother killed Kenelm?”
“I cannot conclude anything before I question him, Ralf.”
“And you must do so without me.”
“He is under my leadership and the Church’s rule.”
The crowner bowed his head. “I know you will share with me whatever you discover, my lady.” He took a deep breath. “As for Mistress Gytha and the wrong I have done unto her…”
“When this other crime has been solved, Ralf, I shall do all I can to bridge the chasm between you. It is a wide one,” she said, then shook her head. “But differences can often be resolved and loving hearts bonded more firmly with the wisdom learned in the struggle. Pray, as shall I, that this may be true for you both.”
20
Frowning, the young lay brother leaned on his hoe. “Nay, I have not seen Brother Gwydo since yesterday.”
Thomas was now worried. “Did you speak with him then?”
“I told him what I knew about the riot in the village. Did you not hear the shouting?”
“I was there,” the monk replied. “How did you learn of it?”
“I pulled myself up on the mill gate and asked a passerby on the road.” The youth flushed. “On the vows I have taken, Brother, I swear I was only a hand’s breadth outside the wall.” But curiosity still sparkled in his eyes. “What more have you learned?” the youth whispered. “Were the Jews killed?”
“No.” Thomas had neither the time nor the inclination to give details. “How did Brother Gwydo respond?”
The lay brother looked sufficiently chastened. “He was unhappy, saying that this violence was a wicked thing. When I asked why he was so troubled by it, he said nothing more but left and walked back toward his bees.” The lay brother shook his head. “Why would he have said that? Hadn’t he gone on pilgrimage to Outremer to recover Jerusalem from the infidels? Are Jews not infidels?”
Thomas was even less eager to repeat his sermon to the villagers on the rights of the king’s people than he was to trade tales. He had to find Gwydo. “I will send for you later and explain the Church’s position on those of Jewish faith.”
The man’s expression suggested less than enthusiastic anticipation.
Leaving the lay brother to his struggles with the garden weeds, Thomas strode down the path that led to the mill. Where had Gwydo gone?
He had already searched the priory. The man was not in the dormitory, nor had he fallen ill and gone to the hospital. Only Brother John was in the chapel, a man who constantly begged God to pardon frailties he could never forgive himself.
Reaching the mill pond, Thomas slid down the embankment and found a full pottery jug left in the water. He pulled himself back up to the path and walked toward the skeps. As the buzzing grew louder, he looked around. No one was tending the bees.
“What do I even know about the man?” Thomas asked himself as he left the clearing. Had Gwydo been married, and did he have children? Where was he from, and what was his parentage? He did have a singing voice the seraphim would envy, and Thomas felt at ease with him.
That last thought gave him pause.
He rarely let down his guard with others. Oh, a few to be sure, but they shared his feeling of not quite fitting into the world as most did. Prior Andrew, for instance, had fought on the wrong side of the de Montfort rebellion. Sister Anne had followed her beloved husband to the priory, despite having no longing for the cloister herself. Never did he have cause to doubt Gwydo’s sincere faith and calling, but he had sensed a profound sorrow hiding deep in the man’s soul, a feeling he himself understood well.
He continued through the mill gate and walked into the road. For want of a better destination in his hunt, he decided to visit the place known as the hut of Ivetta the Whore, where he had spent almost a year as a hermit.
The sea breeze was soft and carried a welcoming coolness to the land. Had yesterday not brought a village near riot and a family close to death, the world might have been as sweet and innocent as it was only a day after God finished creating it.
Thomas shook his head. This illusion was surely the Devil’s mockery. A man’s throat had been slit, and the stench of hatred was still in the air. Slipping into the forest, he stepped over a rotting log and found the short-cut to the hut.
He had not walked far before he saw where someone might have tripped and tumbled down the embankment. Kneeling on the ground, he found a root pulled up, the earth still damp where it had been buried, and the surrounding vegetation flattened or broken. He bent over the edge and concluded that the distance to the stream was not far. There were many rocks and some tree trunks that could break any fall but which also might break an arm or injure a head.
Was Gwydo lying wounded and helpless below? He eased himself down to the water’s edge.
A brief search of the area revealed neither lay brother nor anything else of note. Thomas sighed with frustration a
nd climbed back up.
He loved this forest, a place apart where he had often mused without interruption in his days as a hermit. Of course it held danger as well. There were often rumors of lawless men, although he had never seen them, and near the stream below he had once found a body. Here too, Gytha and the lay brother had been seen by Adelard.
Of course he was certain that the prioress’ maid was innocent of any intentional sin. As for Gwydo’s reasons for being outside the priory, blameless or culpable, Thomas worried that his ignorance of the man’s past kept him from grasping what the lay brother’s true involvement was.
The first question to consider was whether or not Adelard was correct in believing he had seen the lay brother and Gytha coupling. Had the current situation been less dire, the monk would have laughed at the absurdity of the allegation. After all, he had known the prioress’ maid from the time she was just past childhood.
A woman vowed to God could not be more chaste. It was common enough for young village women to lie with lovers, often bearing large bellies to the church door as an additional witness to the joyful union, but Gytha had not done so. Her fondness for the crowner and his little daughter was well known, but Ralf had never tried to take advantage of that either, despite loving her in return. All of Tyndal knew how he felt. Some had even wagered on when he might finally ask her to marry him.
Why, then, would she lie with Gwydo?
Or had he raped her?
He entered the small clearing where the hut stood and paused for a moment, feeling a twinge of sadness. Prioress Eleanor had taken permanent possession of this small bit of land for the priory and ordered it tended until another monk begged for a hermit’s retreat. Thomas wondered if she was thinking of Brother John, who was steadily withdrawing from the mortal world.
In the meantime, he was pleased that his old vegetable garden was still being cultivated and the hut kept in good repair by a man in Tostig’s employ. He took a deep breath, taking the opportunity to draw in some of the peace he still found here. Then he sat on the wooden bench he had built and pulled his mind back to Gwydo.
Was the man likely to have raped any woman, let alone the prioress’ maid?
Although Thomas never claimed his opinions were infallible, he strongly doubted the former soldier had done so. One of the reasons he was comfortable in the company of this lay brother was the man’s profound gentleness. Gwydo may have been a soldier, and surely killed men in battle, but he had often said that war had given him a calling for peace. Clenching his fist with the agony of memory, Thomas was quite aware that rape was a violent act. Whatever Gwydo had done in battle, he had come to Tyndal seeking tranquility. Such a man was unlikely to defile a virgin.
If none of this occurred, had Adelard lied or simply misinterpreted what he had seen? The young man had faults enough, but he had shown willingness to listen yesterday, despite his initial enthusiasm for killing the family in the stables. That suggested there was a seed of compassion in the man’s heart, or at least a crack in his otherwise rigidly defined canon of sins. Thus it seemed more likely to Thomas that Adelard had misjudged what he saw.
But that was as far as he could reason, the monk decided. He did not have enough facts. All he was going on was intuition, a woman’s weakness from which he frequently suffered. “Yet I have not often been failed by it,” he muttered, feeling uncomfortable and obliged to defend himself despite being alone.
Rising from the bench, he chose to visit the pond below the hut where he had once enjoyed a daily swim in summer. Perhaps, Thomas decided with little hope, he would find Gwydo snoring on the bank.
When he reached the path leading downward, he suddenly stopped.
Something was not right. He sniffed the air.
Animals often died, and perhaps that was the sweet rot of death he smelled, but the odor was pungent. He stepped cautiously into the immediate undergrowth and began to pull aside bushes and jab into piles of fallen debris.
It did not take him long to find the body.
Just a few feet from the path, Gwydo lay on his back, bulging eyes empty of meaning, lips stretched in a silent scream, and hands clenched against his neck. The lay brother had been strangled with a cord that still bit into the flesh under his chin.
Thomas knelt, bent to the corpse’s ear, and whispered the ritual of forgiveness.
In a beam of sunlight, just a short distance away, something glittered and caught the monk’s attention. When he took it into his hand, he realized the object was a cross. It was one made of silver.
There was no question about what the discovery meant. The last time he had seen this, it was hanging around Adelard’s own neck.
21
Sister Anne laid her hand on the head of the new corpse. Her touch was as gentle as a mother’s on her son. “Garroted. From the state of rigor, signs of decay, and the last time anyone saw him, I assume the killing was probably done on the same day as the riot.”
“Why did he have to be killed?” Eleanor gripped her hands tightly against her waist as if fearing she might raise a fist in anger to the heavens. “He came to our priory seeking peace. We failed him.”
“He left the protection of our walls, my lady,” Thomas said, his voice soft.
“That alone was a small enough failing, one I might have forgiven quickly if the cause for disobedience owned a higher virtue.” She closed her eyes. “We do not know if his act was based in good or ill, but I grieve that he died without the consolation of faith.”
“I pray his soul was still hovering over his corpse for I absolved him of his sins,” Thomas said. “I knew little of his past life, but he was gentle enough in his current one. No man ought to face God’s judgment without the chance to shed any mortal failings.”
“There is no question that he shall be buried with the respect due any of our religious.” The prioress turned to Ralf. “What are your thoughts on this latest death?”
The crowner swallowed as if his throat was too dry for speech.
Eleanor attempted to soften her sharply asked question with a smile. Ralf might be a rough man, often insensitive and rude, but he longed for justice as much as she. His keen wits were needed here. For this reason, more than any demand of faith, she must be kinder, despite her hot anger over what he had done to Gytha.
“Perhaps we should begin with the premise that Master Jacob might have killed Kenelm,” he said tentatively.
“Yet he is innocent of this murder since our brother was probably killed yesterday when the village was howling for ben Asser’s own death,” Eleanor replied. “Would you agree?”
The crowner nodded. “After the riot ended, I was questioning him when his wife began her birth pains. While Brother Thomas left to seek help, I remained and am a witness to the man’s presence at the inn.”
“I stayed with Master Jacob while Mistress Belia suffered her travail,” the monk said.
“And Brother Beorn will be able to confirm whether the adoring new father has left the stable since.” Eleanor looked at Brother Thomas. “You can speak with him soon enough about that.”
“Before we continue, I must add a detail about this murder that may eliminate some suspects,” Anne said, pointing to the neck of the corpse. “Brother Gwydo was a strong man, albeit of average height.” She glanced briefly at Ralf. “Most women would be too short and not powerful enough to do this.”
Eleanor turned to Anne. “Which would eliminate any woman of, shall we say, Gytha’s approximate height and strength. I believe she is similar to most women in the village?”
“Indeed.”
Eleanor was sorry she had directed that minor lash of her tongue at the crowner and looked at him with evident regret.
The crowner stared at his feet. “Yet I must ask if a woman could have strangled Brother Gwydo if he had been kneeling?”
“He did not die willingly,” Sister Anne said. “Two of his fingers were deeply cut where he tried to loosen the thin band around his throat. I found no earth stains on his robes that would suggest he was kneeling. Anything is possible, but I believe it most likely that a man did this.”
Eleanor gestured to the crowner to let her whisper in his ear. “It was not Gytha,” she murmured. “She was with Sister Anne during and after the birth of Master Jacob’s son. Before that, she was in my company and returned from the village with our nun.”
Ralf straightened. “You have convinced me, Annie.”
“Very well, then. First, we have the murder of Kenelm, which might have been committed by Master Jacob.” Eleanor nodded to the crowner. “That one might even have been committed by a woman, although the deeply slashed throat and other details make such a conclusion less likely. Second, we have Brother Gwydo’s murder, which could not have been done by Master Jacob and probably not by a woman. And our lay brother would not have strangled himself any more than Kenelm would have slit his own throat.”
“Unless we have two murderers, we have gone from too many suspects to none,” Ralf said. “Both Brother Gwydo and Kenelm were strangers here. No one knows anything about Kenelm’s past, a matter still worth more questioning. As for the lay brother, you knew most about him, my lady. We must find out why he left the priory.”
“His home was once Cambridge,” Eleanor said.
Ralf was surprised. “Jacob ben Asser and his family traveled from that city as well.”
“Many live there,” Eleanor replied, but she paused a moment. “Did he suggest he knew either our lay brother or Kenelm?”
“He did not, nor is there anything to suggest Kenelm was from Cambridge or knew the Jewish family from the past. His taunts did not indicate a dislike beyond the family’s faith. As for Brother Gwydo, we should ask Master Jacob if they knew one another.” Ralf gestured at the corpse. “But ben Asser could not have killed this man. I am not sure we would learn much even if the two did know each other in Cambridge.”
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