“Surely he must have relented. You were his son.”
“You are a sweet boy to say so,” he said, his lips and chin trembling. “No, he beat me when I got home. Called my brothers in to watch while he tied me to a bench and whipped my bare buttocks until the blood ran down my legs. Just like a woman’s courses, I remember him saying.” Then Simeon closed his eyes, his head dropped, and he slid across the table. The receiver and sub-prior of Tyndal had just passed out.
Thomas sat looking at the monk for a long time. He glanced down at his hand, which the receiver held like an overgrown child would his parent’s or a lover would his beloved’s, then gazed at the gold cup that Simeon still clutched. Perhaps this man was guilty of diverting some priory income to pay for these visible symbols of his competence in managing Tyndal. Surely no man of logic and reason would blame him for that. An ill-judged act it most assuredly was but no greater sin than men of higher authority in the Church had committed. If gold cups were the reason for the vague accusations of impropriety, luxuries that would enhance the standing of the priory amongst honored guests as much as they signified the competence of the receiver, Simeon would have little to fear. A jealous, petty monk was probably the source of the letter. As soon as he identified him, Thomas would be through with this assignment.
He felt a stab of pity as he looked at the receiver. How humiliated this proud man would be if he knew anyone had seen him in this drunken state, a small pool of drool from his open mouth puddling near his cheek. Thomas, however, would not mock him for it. He had grieved for the story he had just heard. As distant as his own father had been, he had been far kinder to his by-blow than Simeon’s was to the issue of a lawful wife. No wonder the receiver held on to his well-earned authority over the priory with such ferocity. No wonder he hated the woman who threatened to take it from him, despite her right in the doing. And, Thomas thought, looking down at the drunkenly snoring monk, no wonder he was taking solace in fine wines.
Very gently he removed the monk’s large hand from his and slipped out of the room.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“What if you fall, my lady?” Gytha said, “and no one came by. The stones of the cloister are uneven. If you are further injured, I would have failed you.”
Anne had just left for the hospital with firm instructions to her prioress to stay off the foot for the remainder of the day, instructions which both she and Eleanor knew would be ignored as soon as the sub-infirmarian was out of sight. As Eleanor stood with her weight on her sound foot and looked down the steep stairs from her chambers to the cloister, however, she had to concede that both Gytha and Anne were right.
“Very well, then. Help me down the stairs, but bring that sturdy branch I brought back from the forest. It will give me support on level ground, and I will let you watch me for a bit so you can see for yourself that I am able to walk safely on my own.”
So the young girl, who was slightly taller already than her mistress, agreed and the two walked with cautious, slow steps down the stairs. At the bottom, Eleanor braced herself against the wall and rested. Gytha put her hands on her hips, watching with an worried expression.
“Tostig bred a fine beast, my child. Your brother is a man of many talents,” Eleanor said, trying to switch the subject away from herself.
Gytha glowed with pleasure.
“You are proud of him.”
“He is a good man, my lady. When our parents…well, he has been father and mother both to me.”
“Not married?”
“Not yet. He wants to regain some land and wealth first.”
“Regain?”
Gytha blushed. “I’m sorry. I should have…”
“Honesty, child. You promised me honesty.” Eleanor smiled.
“Our family were thegns to Harold before…”
“And lost your lands to those who followed William, but it has been a long time since then, Gytha. Your family has surely had opportunity to prove your worth and advance your interests with men who are now your neighbors, not your enemies?”
Gytha was silent, her head bowed and her face turned away from the prioress.
“What is it? What are you trying to say?”
“You will not be angry, my lady?”
“If honesty angers, it is not true anger but rather confusion over what is truth. I would not punish you for my failure to understand something when no spite was intended. I promise to think about whatever you have to say.”
“My lady, I am an ignorant person and my words will be ill-chosen, but I would never intend malice or insult against you, nor would Tostig. I will try to explain as best I can what my brother’s thoughts are. Please do not condemn him for my inadequate expression of them.”
Eleanor nodded.
Gytha gestured toward the land beyond the priory. “You may see neighbors out there, and for sure they are to you, perhaps even kin, but my kin are a conquered folk. We may speak your language, but we speak it with an accent. It is not our tongue. And we have learned your customs, but, no matter how hard we try, we will never quite look, sound, or act like you. Your barons look at me and do not see the daughter of a thegn, worthy of marriage to one of their sons, but a lowly creature, unsuited to anything but service to their ladies or labor for their fields. Yet we once held all this land and had honor in our king’s eyes, more perhaps than a Norman baron has in King Henry’s. Now we have little land and little honor with this king. We work land for others that once belonged to us. My brother makes ale and cheese, and breeds donkeys. For this our new lords respect him, but no Norman will trust Tostig with land. Should Tostig have land, he might think himself the equal to a Norman. There can never be two lords over one land, my brother says.”
“Surely enough time has passed to forget which family has been here longer and to whom our kin owed allegiance so long ago? A good man is a good man whether he be Norman or English.”
“Nay, my lady. One man sees goodness in another only if there is trust; and trust can only exist between equals, my brother says. My family is not on equal footing with yours. We hold none of you in fiefdom. Again, I believe these to be my brother’s words.”
“So you fear us still?”
“And you, us. There is a lack of trust, my lady.”
Eleanor nodded. What Gytha told her had saddened her. Perhaps she even disagreed with some of it, but she grieved that people innocent of any wrong should be afraid of someone like her or her kin.
“I can only say that I will think about what you have told me, Gytha, and pray for wisdom beyond myself. Until those prayers are answered, you must believe that I have no desire to hurt you or your family. I would earn your trust.”
With that, Eleanor hugged Gytha, who hugged her back with genuine affection; but, with her eyes closed and her arms around the Saxon girl, Eleanor remembered the disheveled forest man who ran from her a second time near Tostig’s house. She saw again the frown on Tostig’s face, and once again she wondered what lay behind his silence.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sister Matilda was leaning on her hoe and weeping softly. Eleanor watched her in silence from the cover of the bower, then lowered her head, ground her foot noisily into the pebbles of the path, and slowly walked into the sunlight.
“Ah, Sister Matilda!” she said, raising her head just as she approached the woman. “I am so glad to find you here.”
The nun had had time to wipe the tears from her face, but just barely. “I am at your service, my lady.” She curtsied.
“I see you have been working hard at the garden. Let us take some ease and talk awhile.” Eleanor gestured to a stone bench in the corner.
The nun dropped her hoe, picked it up with an awkward gesture, and rested the implement against a tree. It fell again. With a sigh, she left it lying in the dirt.
Not a tool with which Sister Matilda felt much comfort, Eleanor thought. “Tell me, sister, how you are progressing with the vegetables for this winter’s store?”
The poor nun put her hands to her cheeks, threw her head back, and began to wail piteously.
“Come, come! Nothing can be that bad.” Although Sister Matilda was clearly older than Eleanor, her cries were as piteous as those of a child suffering a bee sting. Eleanor reached out, took her hand, and stroked it soothingly.
“I have failed everyone!”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Look!” Sister Matilda gestured at the dusty garden. “The poor plants. I am so sinful I kill them. I mean only the best and I work hard, but I cannot make them grow. Sister Edith has tried to teach me, but I cannot learn. She says Satan has given me brown thumbs.” She raised the offending digits and stared hard at them. “I don’t see the change in color, but she has to be right. I must be so sinful I cannot see what Satan has done to my thumbs. I…”
“Hush! Let me see your hands.” Eleanor reached out for both hands.
The nun thrust them at her and turned her head as if afraid she’d see the Horned One sitting in her very palms, painting her thumbs as dark as the soil.
“Now pray with me, sister,” Eleanor said, holding the nun’s two hands gently in her own.
The two women lowered their heads.
“Were you able to pray?” Eleanor asked after she heard Sister Matilda’s breathing return to normal.
“Yes, my lady. After just a moment.”
“Then Satan has little hold on you. I think we can get rid of him quite easily.”
The expression on Sister Matilda’s face grew almost beatific with relief. “I will do anything, my lady. I will don a hair shirt and never take it off. I will care for lepers and wash each of their wounds. I will fast every other day for the rest of my life. I will…”
“Perhaps none of that will be needed. First I must ask why Prioress Felicia chose you to care for the priory gardens.”
“It was to punish my sinful pride.”
“What pride?”
“In the kitchen. I love to cook, you see. Even before my sister, Edith, and I came to Tyndal, we would slip away from our lessons when the servant fell asleep in the sun, I to the kitchen, she to the gardens. Neither of us could embroider an even stitch, but Edith could coax a plant to grow from anything and I seemed to have a talent to cook whatever she grew. When we were older, Inga, our cook, finally let me take charge of one dinner as I had been begging her to do. Our parents told her it was the finest she had ever prepared, but she said nothing about my efforts. They would have been angry that their daughter had done such menial work, but when we came here, Edith gave her talents to the priory gardens with joy. I took over the kitchen.”
“And did the plants grow for Sister Edith?”
“Oh, yes, my lady! Prioress Felicia said her harvests were more plentiful than they had ever been before.”
“And your meals?”
Sister Matilda lowered her eyes. “Prioress Felicia was kind and said her guests were always pleased. Our own fare is simple, but I heard no complaints.”
“Still, your prioress said you suffered from excess pride. Why?”
“I tried too hard to please, my lady. I had overheard someone say our woods had fine mushrooms.” She gestured toward the woods surrounding the stream. “I asked permission to look for some when our prioress was expecting important guests. It was granted and my pasties pleased right well.”
“That is not undue pride, surely?”
“No, but I went often after that. During the Lenten season I found that many of our recipes for meat dishes suited dried or fresh mushrooms quite as well.”
“Again, no sin.”
“It was, my lady, and I was given an unmistakable sign of it.”
Eleanor raised an eyebrow. “Do tell me.”
“One day after Chapter, when I was harvesting mushrooms near a ledge overlooking the stream, I suddenly heard piteous cries coming from the direction of the water. I ran to the edge but could see nothing. The cries, now only whimpers, seemed to be coming from within the earth itself. I was frightened and stepped back. As I did so, a wild, screaming demon burst forth from the earth just under the ledge. His eyes were wild, his arms flailed, his beard was black as smoke. I fled, my lady. I ran in terror back to the priory and told Prioress Felicia and Brother Rupert.”
“And they…?”
“They told me that I must have found a hidden pathway to the dark regions and had heard the cries of lost souls. Surely Satan knew I was coming to the forest, as I had so often done, and had sent one of his devils to drag me down to the fiery pit for my sin of pride. It was only God’s grace that saved me, they said, and forbade me ever to go to the woods again. Henceforth, I should work in the garden as penance.”
“And Sister Edith was to work in the kitchen?”
“She would not know a mushroom from a toadstool, my lady. She would never be in danger of stumbling over that hidden hole to Hell.”
Eleanor smiled at this little hint of pride still exposed in Sister Matilda. “Nor has she ever done so. But tell me, sister, do you remember anything else about the demon or where you found this secret path?”
“The demon came from the earth near the bend in the stream, just below the tree whose roots were exposed by the flood two winters ago. Of the demon, I remember little other than what I have said. He was dressed much like a man, but very ragged.” She hesitated. “Indeed, Satan does not provide for his minions quite as well as I had thought he would.”
“For cert,” Eleanor said, as she remembered the wild-haired man looking down at her as she stood by the cave entrance hidden with matting near the bend in the stream.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Thomas watched the nuns of Tyndal file out to chapter after Mass. Prioress Eleanor had not requested his attendance this morning, for which he was most grateful. He hated the inactivity of just sitting and trying to look stern over one more confession of petty vanity or inattention at prayer.
After Sister Anne had released him to normal activity, he had volunteered to work in the stables, a task he actually looked forward to. Keeping the stables clean was too much for the elder monks and had lately fallen to two younger lay brothers, but Thomas was fond of anything equine and had extended that feeling to the new donkey. He quickly proved that mucking out this stable was satisfying exercise for just one young man, yet not sufficiently absorbing that it cut into time needed to comfort the sick, hear confessions, and do whatever else was needed at the hospital. Much to their disgust, the two lay brothers had been quickly assigned to other duties where their diligence to the task assigned was more closely supervised.
The priory had always had a couple of horses, Brother Andrew told him. Recently the prioress’s donkey had been added, and only a few days after its arrival, a stall for a second donkey was being prepared. This beast had been purchased for whoever would accompany Prioress Eleanor on journeys abroad. Thomas smiled. The prioress was spreading humility over them all, albeit slowly and with gentleness. He liked that.
As long as he could stay active physically, Thomas was finding his work as a priest much more satisfying than he had originally thought, the hospital especially. Taking individual confessions from the nuns might be boring but had proven less onerous than he had feared. Most of the women at Tyndal suffered but minor sins. If only they knew what real sins were, he thought grimly. Theirs were but laughable ones, although serious enough to them, he supposed. For their sakes, he listened courteously and passed out due penance with a properly somber face.
Thomas walked into the sacristy and began to change into the worn and rough robe he used to muck out stables.
On occasion, however, he did hear rumblings of deeper ills in the confession booth. One skeletally thin young novice had wailed for an hour over her unconquerable lust for food and had begged him to let her whip herself in penance since vomiting had failed to purge gluttony from her. Thomas shuddered in horror at such an extreme reaction and had refused to allow her to punish herself so. At such times he wished he were a wiser prie
st and feared he knew nothing of a young woman’s tribulations. Instead, he had ordered her to talk to the nun in charge of novices who, he assumed, would be better able than he to cope with the problem.
And then there was Sister Ruth, who still felt rage toward the woman she believed stole the position of prioress from her. How naïve she was, he thought. Men made such decisions about who ruled whom. Sister Ruth must have spent most of her life with the foolishly simple if she thought any woman could attain priory leadership if the court of kings had other notions. Her reasoning was feeble indeed.
Thomas left the sacristy and looked out toward the sea. It was a clear day, although wispy clouds did drift high above him. The morning sun warmed the naked spot on the top of his head. Life here could be pleasant, he decided.
Although he was still inclined to believe that most women, like the elder sister, were incapable of sustained logic, he excepted both Prioress Eleanor and Sister Anne and did so with delight. He quite enjoyed discourse with such intelligent, competent creatures, and, he thought with a slight smile, he had always wanted to please women. Now that he no longer pleasured their bodies, he found it just as satisfying, if not more so, to pleasure their minds.
It was something he could not do with Sister Ruth, whose hatred of the new prioress was so unbalancing her humors that she seemed to find no pleasure in anything. Indeed, Prioress Eleanor’s recent decision to appoint her sub-prioress angered her even more. Nor did Brother Simeon help matters any with his remarks to the former porteress about the injustice she had suffered and with his praising of her superior abilities over those of the woman who had supplanted her at Tyndal. Satan had a fertile field in the older nun. Thomas had oft been tempted to suggest she scourge herself for her less than charitable thoughts. To order a nightly penitential whipping, however, would satisfy his own dislike of the woman more than it would help banish the Devil, so he had resisted. Not surprisingly, she had expressed no desire herself to perform such a penance.
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