Justice for the Damned (17 page)

"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 querulous 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.

"She
hired a villager, fearing that another weak monk might wish to preserve some
way over the wall."

"Who
was it?"

"Wulfstan,
although he must have had help. The task was too quickly done to be finished by
one man."

Eleanor
frowned and turned to her aunt. "Please tell me what you think this is and
if there are more like it. I cannot reach but believe there might be
some..." She pointed toward two places higher up.

Beatrice
ran her hand over the mortar, looked up, and touched another place, then
another. "Were I younger and more agile, I might easily climb to the top
here for these indentations in the mortar are sufficiently deep while the
stones protrude enough for toeholds, methinks."

"I
feared as much." The prioress walked slowly along the wall for several
yards as she studied the mortar for like flaws.

Her
aunt did the same in the opposite direction.

At
last they turned to face each other, their expressions somber with growing
uneasiness.

"We
will check the other side of the wall as well," Beatrice said, "but I
suspect I know what we will find."

Eleanor
looked back to the spot where Wulfstan had died. "Might Wulfstan or one of
the men working with him have been paid to leave this path into the priory?"

"I
hope I have not been fooled by a fair pretense of honesty, yet I feel certain
that Wulfstan was innocent of this."

"We
must ask who worked on the repair with him." She touched the wall again.
"I dread even to say this, but might he have seen someone who came over
this wall, a man who so feared discovery that he killed Wulfstan?"

Beatrice
looked back at the rising stonework. "Who in the priory could possibly
have been that crazed with fear? The errant monks have been punished, but not
cruelly. Their own souls suffered more than their bodies. Even if one monk had
a mistress in the village.. .nay, the prior knew well enough to ask and none of
the men confessed to that."

"Or
else someone was in the priory who should not have been and did not wish to be seen
coming from it. As you taught me, walls were never intended to keep us
encloistered but to keep the world from disturbing our prayers. This wall may
have failed in its purpose and, worse, Wulfstan might have been the unwitting
instrument of his own death."

Chapter
Twenty

"Brother
Thomas! What a pleasant surprise to see you again. Did you find lodging at the
priory?" Bernard clapped his well-clad hands together in apparent pleasure
at such an unexpected meeting.

In
the brightness of day, the merchant appeared younger than he had in the dimmer
light of an inn at eventide. The man's round cheeks wore the pink of youth, and
his blond beard looked as soft as a lady's gloves. Although the expression in
his eyes still had that sharp watchfulness of an older man, the sparkle of
boyish enthusiasm was well mixed in. No wrinkles yet bothered his brow, and he
had very white teeth. Thomas probed one of his own that felt a bit
uncomfortable.

"I
did," the monk replied, "and they have found use for me already. I
have just returned from the house of Wulfstan's widow."

Bernard
bowed his head with respectful solemnity.

"She
is much grieved that her son and husband failed to make peace after their
quarrel. It was a most troubling thing between the two." If Drifa would
not tell him the details, perhaps this glover would. Thomas felt the bite of
hope.

"Sons
and fathers do argue," Bernard acknowledged. "Even my honored sire
lost his temper with me from time to time, and he was slow to wrath." He
hesitated as if considering his next words. "Nonetheless, I never said I
wanted to kill him. My heart always knew he was right, and my mother, God bless
her sweet soul, would have roasted me before the Devil got me if I had not
obeyed him." A grin caught him up. "I think I feared her anger more
than my father's!"

Even
without wine, the fellow was talkative, Thomas noted happily. He continued.
"I was dismayed to hear that Sayer had done so. Do you know the man? I
wondered if he was a rebellious son or simply an imprudent one."

Bernard's
smile faded quickly. "This is a small village, Brother. We all
know
each
other, but I would not claim that Sayer and I are well acquainted. I cannot
give you an answer to that question."

Thomas
hoped his expression did not betray his surprise. Not only was he sure that
Sayer and this man had been in close conversation at the inn door, but he
wondered how the glover could not know the cousin of his beloved Alys.
"Did you perchance overhear the argument at the inn?" he asked.
"If I knew more about the quarrel, I might give greater comfort to
Mistress Drifa, or even offer soothing counsel to her son."

Bernard
frowned in thought.

Is
he trying to remember the night, Thomas wondered, or is he making up some lie?

"I
had just walked in. It would have been difficult not to hear the fight between
the men. They bellowed like bulls and swung fists at each other like drunken
bears."

"Over
what?"

A
shadow passed over the young man's face. "Wulfstan's widow is a good
woman, and I would not spread stories to add to her sorrow."

"I
do not seek gossip for idle reason. Mistress Drifa feared many heard the nature
of their hot words and she is shamed. Of course, her son's arrangement with the
innkeeper..."

The
glover looked around to make sure no one stood close by, then bent to speak
more privately into the monk's ear. "If you know that, I will not offend
by confirming that Wulfstan liked not some of the things his son did to gain
coin. Sayer was paid fairly by the priory for his work there, but many in the
village knew that he had, at one time, arranged worldly pleasures for monks who
climbed the priory walls." He straightened. "I repeat that only to
point out the merit of Sayer's repentance. The man had not led monks into sin
of late, and we all believed that he had reformed. His father might not have
been so convinced."