Changeling (23 page)

‘It feels like a sin,’ she said quietly. ‘To show the wounds of Our Lord and to wake so troubled, after dreams of running and screaming . . .’

‘You thought it was the drug belladonna that made you dream?’

‘Ishraq thought it so. She thought that many of the nuns were taking the drug. Ishraq never ate in the refectory, she ate with the servants, and she never had the dreams. None of the servants were having dreams. Only the sisters who ate the refectory bread were affected. When Sister Augusta died so suddenly Ishraq thought that her heart had ceased to beat under the influence of the drug; she knew that if you have too much it kills you. We decided to open her belly to look for the berries.’

Brother Peter shaded his eyes with his hands, as if he could still see the two of them, bloodied to the elbow, about their terrible work.

‘It was a very great sin to touch the body,’ Luca prompted her. ‘It is a crime as well as a sin to touch a corpse.’

‘Not to Ishraq.’ She defended her friend. ‘She is not of our faith, she does not believe in the resurrection of the body. To her it was no greater sin than examining an animal. You can accuse her of nothing but of practising the craft of medicine.’

‘It was a great sin for you,’ he persisted. ‘And surely unbearable? How could you – a young lady – do such a thing?’

She bowed her head. ‘For me it was a sin. But I thought it had to be done, and I would not leave Ishraq to do it alone. I thought I should be . . .’ She paused. ‘I thought I should be courageous. I am the Lady Lucretili. I thought I should be as brave as the name I bear. And at least we saw the berries in her belly, dark specks of the dried berries.’ She put her hand into the pocket of her gown and brought out a couple of flecks of dark hard berries like peppercorns. ‘We found these. This is proof of what we were doing, and what we found.’

Luca hesitated. ‘You took these from the dead woman’s belly?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘It had to be done,’ she said. ‘How else could we prove to you that the nuns were being fed belladonna berries?’

Gingerly, Luca took them, and quickly passed them over to Brother Peter. ‘Did you know the Lady Almoner was working with your brother?’

She nodded, sadly. ‘I knew there was something between them, but I never asked. I should have demanded the truth – I always felt that she . . .’ She broke off. ‘I didn’t know, I saw nothing for sure. But I sensed that they were . . .’

‘Were what?’

‘Could they possibly have been lovers?’ she asked, very low. ‘Is it possible? Or is it my jealous imagining? And my envy of her beauty?’

‘Why would you say such a thing? Of the Lady Almoner?’

She shrugged. ‘I sometimes think things, or see things, or almost smell things, that are not very clear, or not apparent to others . . . in this case it was as if she belonged to him, as if she was . . . his shirt.’

‘His shirt?’ Luca repeated.

Again she shook her head as if to shake away a vision. ‘As if his scent was upon her. I can’t explain better than that.’

‘Do you have the Sight?’ Brother Peter interrupted, staring at her over the top of his quill.

‘No.’ She shook her head in rapid denial. ‘No, nothing like that. Nothing so certain, nothing so clear. I would not attend to it if I did have, I don’t set myself up as some kind of seer. I have a sense of things, that is all.’

‘But you sensed that she was his woman?’

She nodded. ‘But I had no evidence, nothing I could accuse her of. It was just like a whisper, like the silk of her petticoat.’

A rumbling cough from the doorway reminded the men that it was Freize who had first noted the silk petticoat.

‘It’s hardly a crime to wear a silk petticoat,’ Brother Peter said irritably.

‘It was a suggestion,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘That she was not what she seemed, that the abbey under her command was not as it seemed. Not as it should be. But . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I was new to the life, and she seemed in charge of everything. I did not question her and I did not challenge her rule of the abbey at first. I should have done so. I should have sent for an inquirer at once.’

‘How did you get out of the cellar beneath the gatehouse?’ Brother Peter suddenly changed the course of questioning, hoping to throw her. ‘How did you get out and escape when there were handcuffs and leg-cuffs and the cellar was dug into solid stone?’

Luca frowned at the harshness of his tone, but Brother Peter just waited for the answer, his pen poised. ‘It’s the major charge,’ he remarked quietly to Luca. ‘It’s the only evidence of witchcraft. The work of the slave is the work of a heretic, she is not under the command of the Church. The attack on the body is the other woman’s work also – we might think of it as evil but the heretic is not under our jurisdiction. The Lady Abbess has committed no crime, but her escape is suspicious. Her escape looks like witchcraft. She has to explain it.’

‘How did you get out?’ Luca asked her. ‘Think carefully before you reply.’

She hesitated. ‘You make me afraid,’ she said. ‘Afraid to speak.’

‘You should be afraid,’ Luca warned her. ‘If you got out of the handcuffs and the cellar by magical means or with the assistance of the Devil then you will face a charge of witchcraft for that alone. I can acquit you of tampering with the dead woman, but I would have to charge you with invoking the Devil to aid your escape.’

She drew a breath. ‘I can’t tell you,’ she started. ‘I can’t tell you anything that makes sense.’

Brother Peter’s pen was poised over the page. ‘You had better think of something; this is the one remaining charge against you. Getting out of the manacles and through the walls is witchcraft. Only witches can walk through walls.’

There was a terrible silence as Isolde looked down at her hands and the men waited for her answer.

‘What did you do?’ Luca said quietly.

She shook her head. ‘Truly, I don’t know.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was a mystery.’

‘Was it witchcraft?’ Brother Peter asked.

There was a long painful silence.

‘I let her out,’ Freize suddenly volunteered, stepping into the room from his post at the door.

Brother Peter rounded on him. ‘You! Why?’

‘Mercy,’ Freize said shortly. ‘Justice. It was obvious they had done nothing. It wasn’t them panning for gold and swishing around in silk petticoats. That brother of hers would have burned her the moment he got his hands on her, the Lady Almoner had the pyres built ready. I waited till you were all busy in the yard, deciding what should be done, then I slipped down to the cell, released them, helped them up the ladder, got them into the stable yard on horses, and sent them on their way.’

‘You freed my suspects?’ Luca asked him, disbelievingly.

‘Little lord.’ Freize spread his hands apologetically. ‘You were going to burn two innocent women, caught up in the excitement of the moment. Would you have listened to me? No. For I am well-known as a fool. Would you have listened to them? No. For the Lady Almoner had turned your head and this lady’s brother was quick and ready with a torch. I knew you would thank me in the end, and here we are, with you thanking me.’

‘I don’t thank you!’ Luca exclaimed, angry beyond measure. ‘I should dismiss you from my service and charge you with interfering with a papal inquiry!’

‘Then the lady will thank me,’ Freize said cheerfully. ‘And if she doesn’t, maybe the pretty slave will.’

‘She’s not my slave,’ Isolde said, quite at a loss. ‘And you will find that she never thanks anyone. Especially a man.’

‘Perhaps she will come to value me,’ Freize said with dignity. ‘When she knows me better.’

‘She will never know you better for you are about to be dismissed,’ Luca said furiously.

‘Seems harsh,’ Freize said, glancing at Brother Peter. ‘Wouldn’t you say? Given that it was me that stopped us from burning two innocent women, and then saved all five of us from the brigands. Not to mention gaining some valuable horses?’

‘You interfered with the course of my inquiry and released my prisoners,’ Luca insisted. ‘What can I do but dismiss you and send you back to the monastery in disgrace?’

‘For your own good,’ Freize explained. ‘And theirs. Saving you all from yourselves.’

Luca turned to Brother Peter.

‘But why did you fasten up the handcuffs after you had released them?’ Brother Peter asked.

Freize paused. ‘For confusion,’ he said gravely. ‘To cause more confusion.’

Isolde, despite her anxiety, choked back a laugh. ‘You have certainly caused that,’ she said. A small smile exchanged between them made Luca suddenly frown.

‘And do you swear you did this?’ he asked tightly. ‘However ridiculous you are?’

‘I do,’ Freize said.

Luca turned to Brother Peter. ‘This vindicates them from the charge of witchcraft.’

‘The report has gone,’ Brother Peter ruled thoughtfully. ‘We said that the captives were missing, accused of witchcraft, but that their accusers were definitely guilty. The matter is closed unless you want to reopen it. We don’t have to report that we met them again. It is not our job to arrest them if we have no evidence of witchcraft. We’re not holding an inquiry now. Our inquiry is closed.’

‘Sleeping dogs,’ Freize volunteered.

Luca rounded on him. ‘What in hell do you mean now?’

‘Better let them lie. That’s what people say. Let sleeping dogs lie. Your inquiry is completed, everyone is happy. We’re off on some other damn fool mission. And the two women who were wrongly accused are free as little birds of the air. Why make trouble?’

Luca was about to argue, but then he paused. He turned towards Isolde. After one powerful blue gaze that she had shot at Freize when he had confessed to releasing them, she had returned to studying her hands held in her lap.

‘Is it true that Freize released you? He let you go? As he says?’

She nodded.

‘Why did you not say so at once?’

‘I didn’t want to get him into trouble.’

Luca sighed. It was unlikely, but if Freize was holding to his confession and Isolde would offer no other explanation, then he could not see what more he should do. ‘Who is going to believe this?’

‘Better this, than you trying to tell everyone that we melted through leg-cuffs and handcuffs,’ she pointed out. ‘Who would believe that?’

Luca glanced at Brother Peter. ‘Will you write that we are satisfied that our servant released them, exceeding his duties but believing that he was doing the right thing? And that now we are clear that there was no witchcraft? And they are free to go?’

Brother Peter was wearing his most dour look. ‘If you instruct me so to do,’ he said pedantically. ‘I think there is more to it than your servant stepping out of his place. But since he always steps out of his place and since you always allow it, and since you seem determined that these women shall go free, I can write this.’

‘You will clear my name?’ Isolde pressed.

‘I will not accuse you of escaping by witchcraft,’ Brother Peter specified. ‘That’s all I am prepared to do. I don’t know that you are innocent of everything; but as no woman is innocent since the sin of Eve, I am prepared to agree that there is no evidence and no charge to set against you for now.’

‘It’s good enough,’ Luca ruled. ‘Anyway,’ he turned to Isolde, ‘what are you going to do now?’

She sighed. ‘I have been puzzled as to what I should do. But I think I will go to the son of my father’s friend, a man who was his constant companion on crusade, my godfather, I can trust him and he has a reputation for being a tenacious fighter. I will ask him to clear my name, and to ride with me against my brother. It seems he did all of this to steal my inheritance from me, to kill me. So I will take his inheritance from him. I shall take back what is mine.’

‘There is more than you know,’ Luca told her. ‘It is worse than you know. He had commanded the Lady Almoner to set the nuns to pan for gold in the stream in your woods.’

She looked puzzled. ‘Gold?’

‘It’s probably why your brother was determined to drive you out of the abbey. There may be a fortune in gold in the hills, draining out into the stream in dust.’

‘They were panning for gold?’

He nodded. ‘He was using the Lady Almoner to steal gold from your abbey lands. Now she is dead and you have run away, the abbey and the lands and the gold are all his.’

He saw her jaw harden. ‘He has won my home, my inheritance, and a fortune as well?’

Luca nodded. ‘He left the Lady Almoner to her death and rode away.’

She turned on Brother Peter. ‘But you didn’t charge
him
! You didn’t pursue
him
for all the sins since Adam! Though I am responsible for everything done by Eve?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘He committed no crime that we saw at the time. Now he pans for his own gold on his own land.’

‘I will hold him to account. I will return and take back my lands. I am no longer bound by obedience to my father’s will when my brother is such a bad guardian of our family honour. I will drive him out as he drove me away. I will go to my godfather’s son and get help.’

‘Was your godfather a man of substance? Your brother has his own castle and a small army to command.’