The Nun's Tale: An Owen Archer Mystery

by Candace Robb

  How wrong he was, but how dull she would sound if she told him her true thoughts. ‘There, you see? We are agreed without further argument.’

  Edmund shrugged.

  *

  Brother Oswald greeted the threesome with news of the Reverend Mother’s long night with Dame Joanna. ‘Not, praise God, as before. This time it was a bloodless wakening, a whispered chant of “Evil, evil, evil”. The Reverend Mother apologises that she is not here to greet you, but she required sleep.’

  ‘Who now sits with Dame Joanna?’ Lucie asked.

  ‘Dame Prudentia. And Brother Wulfstan has been within for a short while. You will find him there.’

  Owen folded himself onto a bench outside the door to wait.

  Lucie knocked. Prudentia opened the door and cheered up at the sight of the apothecary. ‘God be with you, Mistress Wilton. Our poor Joanna has just now wakened and Brother Wulfstan has coaxed her to drink some broth. She will be ready for you soon, thanks be to the Lord.’ She spoke in a loud whisper, with much glancing back at the old monk sitting in the chair by Joanna’s bedside. ‘I had worried that she was given far too much sedative last night ever to waken this day, but Brother Wulfstan assures me that the tisane is mild.’

  Brother Wulfstan turned round, saw that it was Lucie, and rose, giving a blessing in greeting. Lucie motioned him over to her, introduced Edmund in a hushed voice. ‘How is Joanna? Do we waste our time trying to speak with her today?’

  The morning sun shone on Wulfstan’s face, lighting up the white stubble where the razor met the myriad wrinkles ever more visible on his face. His eyes were kindly. ‘It is a good day for her, strange to say. At least I believe I have had the first clear speech with her this morning. She asked me whether God understands that we can be mistaken in those we love, and whether God would accept her repentance for deeds done unwittingly for the Evil One.’

  Lucie glanced over at Joanna, who lay back against the pillows, eyes closed. ‘The Evil One?’

  Wulfstan nodded. ‘May God lead you to the truth, Lucie.’ He blessed Lucie and Edmund, then touched Prudentia’s arm. ‘Come. Let us leave them to their work.’

  There were two chairs by the bed, one on either side, the far one by the window, the near one by the small table that held the spirit lamp and Joanna’s medicines. Lucie motioned to Edmund to sit in the far chair, so that Joanna could clearly see him in the daylight. He crossed the foot of the bed without Joanna’s notice. Lucie sat down and called Joanna’s name.

  The green eyes flickered open. ‘Mistress Wilton.’ Joanna looked beyond Lucie. ‘The captain has not returned with more terrible tidings?’ Her voice was hoarse, but rose above a whisper today. Lucie helped Joanna to watered wine.

  ‘I have brought you a different visitor today. He has come a long way to speak with you. I hope you will be kind to him.’

  Joanna frowned, reached with her stubby fingers for the Magdalene medal. ‘Where?’

  Lucie nodded towards the other side of the bed. Joanna turned her head, frowned, then her eyes opened wide. ‘Sweet Mary in Heaven!’

  Edmund, looking solemn, gave Joanna a little bow. ‘Joanna. Or is it Dame Joanna again?’

  ‘Would that anything could be as it was.’ Joanna’s eyes shimmered with tears. ‘Have you come to bury me again?’

  Edmund earnestly reached out to her, ‘Faith, I never wanted any part of that pretending.’

  Joanna shrank from him, turned back to Lucie. ‘He must leave,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Why?’ Lucie asked. ‘He befriended you once.’

  ‘No!’ Joanna spoke now in a loud whisper, stretching her right hand across the covers to Lucie. ‘None of them befriended me. They lied. They stole my soul.’

  Lucie put her hand in Joanna’s, but resisted when Joanna tried to pull her uncomfortably close. ‘No one took your soul, Joanna. You lie here before me alive, with your immortal soul still to answer for.’

  Joanna shook her head in an exaggerated manner, like a spoiled child. ‘No. I have no soul. No longer.’

  ‘Joanna, please tell me where Stefan is,’ Edmund implored. ‘Then I shall leave you in peace.’

  Joanna turned to him, suddenly smiling. ‘Leave me in peace? Truly, sweet knight, what peace might I have?’

  Edmund hesitated, frowning in puzzlement over Joanna’s shifting mood.

  Joanna clutched the medal, bowed her head to it.

  Edmund reached for her, touched the mantle.

  Joanna pulled it away from him. ‘Do you understand what you touch?’

  Edmund smiled engagingly. ‘’Tis the very mantle I gave you when we were on the road to Scarborough.’

  ‘You?’ Joanna looked shocked. ‘Never!’ She sat bolt upright, wrapping the mantle more tightly round her. To Lucie she said, ‘You see? Pernicious liars. We must not trust them. We can neither sleep nor turn our heads. They must die. What else is there for it?’ She turned back to Edmund, who was looking alarmed. ‘The Blessed Virgin Mary draped it round my shoulders when my soul was taken away. I was very cold.’

  Edmund crossed himself. ‘God forgive me, I did say it was Our Lady’s. You were so frightened and cold. I wished to comfort you.’

  ‘And now you try to trick me and take it from me. You have heard about the miracles the mantle has performed and you covet it.’

  ‘’Tis not Our Lady’s mantle, Joanna,’ Edmund cried. ‘I had it from a weaver in Beverley.’

  Joanna hunched her shoulders and drew up her knees. With both hands she held the Magdalene medal up to her forehead.

  Lucie understood Edmund’s frustration. ‘We must be patient.’ She smoothed Joanna’s hair. ‘All Edmund wishes to know is where Stefan is, Joanna. He is missing.’

  Joanna peered up at Lucie. ‘Stefan was evil. So was Longford.’

  Lucie could see that Joanna used her to avoid speaking to Edmund. Lucie moved the spirit lamp so that it would light up Joanna’s face, and then stood. ‘I shall leave you two to speak.’ She moved to the chair by the door, far from them, in the shadow.

  Joanna lay still for a time, then turned to see whether Edmund was still there. When she saw him waiting patiently, she laughed at him. ‘I know you. Steadfast Edmund.’

  ‘Steadfast is Stefan’s virtue, not mine.’

  ‘Was a time I thought so. But when Hugh told me …’ Joanna leaned towards Edmund with a solemn expression, as if about to reveal something of great import. ‘You see, Edmund, he told me everything.’

  Edmund shifted on the stool, looking uneasy. ‘Hugh? What did he tell you?’

  Joanna wagged her finger at him. ‘Everything.’

  ‘What is everything?’

  ‘Stefan meant to use me and then discard me.’ Joanna lay back against the pillows, covered her eyes with her hands for a moment, then dropped her hands at her sides as if exhausted.

  ‘That had been our plan, I confess, but Stefan changed his mind. You know that. You left Scarborough with him. He would not have left with you if he still meant to discard you.’

  ‘And why not? We went down to the sea to watch the ships depart. Sebastian’s ships. We often did that. And now. Now Stefan will ever and anon watch the ships go sailing off …’ Joanna held the Magdalene medal up to Edmund. ‘Do you remember this? See this?’ She held up the side depicting Mary Magdalene standing with Christ before His tomb; she pointed to the inscription. Edmund frowned at it. Joanna laughed. ‘You cannot read. Of course. Neither could Stefan. But he understood what it said. Noli me tangere. He knew that phrase full well.’

  Edmund looked honestly confused. ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘ “Touch me not.” Christ said that to her. She had given everything for Him and He said that to her.’ Joanna’s tone was neither amused nor angry, but rather indignant. ‘Mary Magdalene had found His tomb empty. Mine is not – did you know?’

  Edmund leaned towards her, bringing his face so close to hers that she could not turn away. ‘Where is Stefan?’ he asked, pronouncing each word
distinctly.

  ‘He destroyed my love,’ Joanna cried, her voice breaking. ‘And then I could not touch him.’

  Edmund sat back a little. ‘Stefan?’

  Joanna studied the medal with sad eyes. ‘Stefan was not steadfast.’

  ‘He loves you, Joanna.’

  ‘Noli me tangere,’ Joanna whispered, holding the medal to her face.

  Suddenly Edmund rose, grabbed the medal and yanked. ‘So help you truth and God, you shall answer me!’ The chain broke.

  Joanna screamed and lunged at him, raking his face with her fingernails.

  Edmund grabbed Joanna’s shoulders and shook her. ‘Tell me!’

  Lucie ran to them. Owen burst through the door, saw the two locked together and Lucie’s dangerous proximity and quickly pulled Edmund away. Joanna lunged for them. ‘Brother Oswald!’ Owen shouted.

  The hospitaller, who hovered in the doorway, rushed over and grabbed Joanna’s hands, pressed her back against the pillows.

  Owen, still holding Edmund by the shoulders, noticed the bloody streaks on his face. ‘What in God’s name, Edmund?’

  Edmund stared at Owen for a moment, unseeing. He touched his face, brought away a blood-speckled hand, looked down at the medal in his other hand. He sank down in the chair. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ he whispered, dropping the medal and covering his face with his hands.

  Lucie did not know whom to attend to first – Edmund, with his bleeding face, or Joanna, who sobbed hysterically. But Owen resolved Lucie’s dilemma by asking for a damp cloth. He knelt down and dabbed at Edmund’s scratches. Edmund submitted with embarrassed silence.

  ‘Shall I stay?’ Oswald asked. He had let go of Joanna but remained at the foot of the bed, watching her closely. ‘She is not yet calm.’

  ‘And she will not be for quite a time, I fear,’ Lucie said. ‘But I do not think we shall have any more violence. Perhaps if you wait in the corridor.’

  The hospitaller nodded and shuffled out.

  Lucie knelt to Joanna, pulled damp strands of hair from her tear-streaked face. Owen handed Lucie the Magdalene medal and she placed it in Joanna’s hand. Joanna clutched it to her heart. Her sobs subsided into hiccups. Lucie helped her to wine. ‘Lie there quietly for a while,’ Lucie whispered. Joanna nodded, lay back against the pillows. The bandage about her neck was bloodstained. Lucie unwrapped it, cleaned the wound, put a salve on it, wrapped it in a clean bandage.

  Owen leaned against the bedpost, looking down at Edmund, who dabbed his own face now. ‘We shall see to those scratches by and by. For pity’s sake, Edmund, what demon drove you to attack her?’

  ‘She teases me. She knows what has become of Stefan and she will not say.’ Edmund pressed the cloth to his hot face, then balled it in his fist. ‘But no. She means none of it. She is surely mad.’

  Owen poured a cup of wine; Edmund took it gratefully and drank it down.

  Joanna suddenly reached for Lucie’s arm. ‘We needed but the seal was all,’ she whispered, her eyes imploring. ‘Why should he be so cruel? Faith, they did not bury me. Not truly.’

  ‘Who, Joanna?’

  ‘Mother was right. She understood.’ Joanna glanced over at Edmund. ‘If Stefan loved me, why did he never offer marriage?’

  Edmund, who held a cloth to his stinging scratches, shook his head. ‘How could he, Joanna? What of his wife and children?’

  Joanna’s green eyes were heavy-lidded. The wine and her outburst on top of last night’s sedative were pulling her back down into sleep. ‘Wife and children? He never told me.’ She laughed weakly. ‘What a curse, to love so wrongly.’

  Lucie thanked God Joanna was too sleepy to react emotionally, but she wished to ask one more thing before the eyes closed. ‘You mentioned a seal, Joanna. Tell me about it.’

  Joanna sighed. ‘Such a pathetic thing, to waste so many arrows on a frail man.’ The eyes closed; the words slurred.

  ‘St Sebastian?’

  Joanna smiled sleepily. ‘The captain is not so frail.’ She touched Lucie’s arm. ‘Edmund the Steadfast asks after his friend, does he not?’

  Edmund rose, hopeful.

  ‘Yes,’ Lucie said, ‘he asks only that. Where is Stefan, Joanna?’

  ‘Adrift on the sea. Adieu, sweet Stefan.’ The fingers on Lucie’s arm went limp.

  When Edmund stepped into the sunlight, Lucie shook her head at the welts rising round his scratches. ‘We must take you to Brother Wulfstan. A night in the infirmary would do you no harm.’

  Edmund kept glancing back at the guest house. ‘Did you hear her? Stefan is dead.’

  ‘ “Adrift on the sea” might mean many things,’ Owen said. ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘It does not matter.’

  Owen and Lucie exchanged a look, nodded and headed Edmund to the infirmary.

  After the night office, Wulfstan stopped in the infirmary to check on Edmund. Henry had done an excellent job of applying the plaster to the scratches and Edmund appeared to sleep peacefully. Sleep was the best restorative. Since Edmund had shivered as the sun set, the result of his refusing food rather than a result of the scratches, Brother Henry had built a fire in a small brazier. The infirmary was now much cosier than Wulfstan’s cell. Begging God’s patience with his self-indulgences at his advanced age, Wulfstan pulled a chair near the brazier, settled down and fell asleep.

  He was awakened by Brother Oswald. The hospitaller shook Wulfstan’s shoulder and explained in a loud whisper, ‘The Reverend Mother asks you to attend her. Dame Joanna thrashes and cries out in her sleep. The Reverend Mother wishes to sedate her, but fears she might do harm.’

  ‘Where is Dame Prudentia?’ Wulfstan asked and yawned sleepily.

  ‘She is abed at the nunnery.’

  Wulfstan rubbed his eyes. ‘In a moment. I shall come in a moment.’ He muttered to himself as he dashed water on his face and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

  He did not notice, as he hurried out after the hospitaller, that he had gained a second shadow.

  Joanna truly did thrash about. The scent of her sweat hung about the bed. And yet her eyes were closed, her motions those of one dreaming.

  ‘Can you calm her?’ Dame Isobel asked with an anxious wringing of the hands. ‘I fear she will hurt herself.’

  Wulfstan stood back from the bed, his hands tucked up his sleeves. He shook his head. ‘I do not like to give her more. Not until she wakens.’

  Dame Isobel moaned. ‘Sweet Jesu, what am I to do with her?’

  Wulfstan leaned over Joanna, touched her forehead with the back of his hand. ‘She is so warm.’

  Suddenly Joanna’s eyes opened. She placed her hand on Wulfstan’s and moved it down to her mouth, kissing the palm.

  Wulfstan tried to pull his hand away from the unseemly closeness, but Joanna tightened her grip. In her other hand she held the Magdalene medal.

  ‘Mary Magdalene is the patron saint of repentant sinners,’ Joanna said.

  ‘Indeed she is, Dame Joanna. May St Mary watch over you.’

  Joanna gripped his hand ever tighter, her eyes pleading. ‘I wish to confess to you, Brother Wulfstan.’

  ‘My child, I am but the infirmarian. Let me send for Abbot Campian.’

  ‘No! I cannot. I do not know him. You have been kind to me.’

  ‘He, too, is kind. And a just man, Dame Joanna. I fear –’

  She shook her head adamantly. ‘You must shrive me.’

  Blessed Mary and all the saints, how did she come to choose him? ‘Why now, child? Why have you left it so late?’

  ‘I cannot rest, Father. Now that I know my error. I cannot rest.’

  Brother Wulfstan turned to the Reverend Mother for assistance, but she waved him on from her seat near the door. ‘If it will bring her peaceful, healing sleep, Brother Wulfstan …’

  ‘God bless you for coming this night, Father,’ Joanna said, releasing his hand and making the sign of the cross. She folded her hands.

  The elderly monk, unwilling confessor, sa
t down beside her, blessing her.

  Joanna’s expression was that of an innocent child, hoping to escape punishment with a promise to behave. ‘If I confess, and if I am truly repentant, might I save myself from damnation?’

  Wulfstan did not like the sound of that. ‘What is the error of which you speak?’

  ‘I trusted in the Evil One. I did not know. Not until I heard how Will Longford died. I meant to take it to the grave with me. But if by speaking I may save myself from the eternal flames …’ Joanna pressed her hands to her mouth and began to weep.

  Wulfstan turned again to Isobel, but she sat with her head bowed, praying. The flame of her oil lamp flickered in the breeze coming from the door, slightly ajar.

  Outside the room, Wulfstan’s shadow crouched, as close to the door as he dared stay.

  Brother Wulfstan sighed, bowed his head, and prayed that God might help him through this. When he was finished, he blotted Joanna’s forehead with a scented cloth. ‘I shall hear your confession, Joanna. Tell me of this sin that terrifies you.’

  Joanna closed her eyes. ‘I have lived as the Magdalene.’

  Wulfstan lowered his eyes from the earnest, tear-streaked face.

  ‘I gave myself to Stefan because he was beautiful and kind. He lifted me from the grave. He took me to Scarborough. He promised to find my brother Hugh. I loved Stefan. Until he lied to me. And for that I –’ Joanna shook her head. ‘No. Not for that.’

  Wulfstan hoped that might be the extent of the confession. He raised his hand above Joanna’s head. ‘For your sins of the flesh, I absolve thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.’

  Joanna grabbed Wulfstan’s upraised hand. ‘No! That is the least of it. You must hear it all.’

  Wulfstan gently retrieved his hand, tucked it up his sleeve, bowed his head. ‘Continue, my child.’

  ‘He seemed to me everything best in God’s creation. Strong, brave, fair, free. I did not understand that he was evil. Even after he returned and told me he had buried Will Longford alive.’ Wulfstan raised his head sharply, amazed at what he heard. Joanna met his astonished eyes. She nodded. ‘Oh yes. He and his two men. Because I told him how frightened I had been in the grave. I woke. I woke and knew where I was. It was but a moment, but so horrible. No air. No light. My limbs were bound in the shroud to keep me rigid, like a corpse. Stefan said they lowered me in and the gravedigger shovelled some dirt over me before Jaro distracted him. But Stefan did not know I had awakened to feel the earth raining.’