Ethel’s eyes filled with tears. “I want to go to the priory, to be with you and the sisters,” she whispered. “I’m old enough to work. Take me.”
My throat tightened; I couldn’t speak. I glanced at Catherine Westerly, who’d heard everything.
“Yes, the children hate me,” she said flatly, and straightened her shoulders. “They blame me for the neglect of their mother the last year of her life. But I shall do my duty and care for them the best I know how. Perhaps, in time, they will come to like me.”
Geoffrey turned to me: “Come, we’ll talk outside.”
I kissed the girls good-bye one more time and followed Geoffrey out the door.
“I can’t let the children be raised by a harlot—it’s a crime,” I whispered to him, brokenly, as we walked down the steps.
“Working for a bawd may be a sin, but it’s not a crime,” he said. “Those brothels are licensed. In fact, I’ve heard tell the Bishop of Winchester is the landlord for most of the Southwark brothels.”
Stephen Gardiner owned
the land that brothels were built on? I put that from my mind. Unthinkable.
“What of the children’s souls?” I demanded. “They require moral guidance, not just food and a bed.”
We were outside the house. Sister Agatha was right: it was late. We hadn’t much time to get back to the priory.
Geoffrey said, “She appears to be penitent and desire a new life. Westerly must love her very much to make her his wife and risk so much on her behalf.”
I shuddered. “
Love
her? How could he love such a person? His poor dead wife, Lettice, the mother of his children, was a kind woman, a good Christian.”
Geoffrey looked up at the second floor of the house, as if he expected to see the faces of the Westerly children. No one looked back. “We can’t always help whom we love,” he said in a strange voice.
Sister Agatha shouted from the wagon. “What are you waiting for? We must get back to the priory, Sister.”
“Yes, let’s depart, Sister Joanna,” Geoffrey said, and steered me to the wagon. “My horse is in town, near the market. Why don’t you take me there, and then I’ll escort you? I should have a word with your prioress about what we’ve learned.”
Sister Agatha said, “Couldn’t you walk to the market?”
Her rudeness surprised me. “Sister, we should not begrudge this.” I turned to Geoffrey. “Please, come with us.”
It was an uncomfortable ride to the market, with Sister Agatha puffed up with disapproval. As soon as Geoffrey leaped out of the wagon to mount his own horse, I leaned over to ask, “Why are you angry with Geoffrey Scovill? He has assisted us today.”
“Sister Joanna, there is a certain familiarity between the two of you that, as your novice mistress, I must correct you on,” she said, in her most pompous and scolding tone. “When you converse with him, it appears that you are well acquainted with each other, though I don’t see how that’s possible. It is most certainly inappropriate.”
I could feel my cheeks redden. “Yes, Sister Agatha,” I said, as meekly as I could manage.
We rode the rest of the way to Dartford Priory in silence, Geoffrey trotting ahead. The sun had never appeared that day. It was the kind of damp November
afternoon in which the gray gradually darkens until all trace of light is finally extinguished. I don’t know if it was the grimness of the day, or my nervousness about being late to the priory, but I didn’t feel as much joy as I’d expected over obtaining proof that Brother Edmund was innocent. The discovery that a woman may have killed Lord Chester with such vicious fury unsettled me.
A bleak dusk gripped the countryside as John turned the wagon into the lane leading to Dartford Priory. When we rounded the curve, I saw a ball of orange light glowing in the distance. It made me uneasy; I couldn’t imagine its cause. Two torches burning at our gatehouse wouldn’t illuminate the grounds like that.
Geoffrey kicked the sides of his horse and galloped the rest of the way—he would arrive well ahead of us.
Once we’d neared the gatehouse, I could see a bonfire freshly lit in front of the priory, with two of our servants tending it. Prioress Joan, Brother Richard, and Gregory clustered around three men I did not know. Geoffrey had leaped off his horse to talk to them.
Sister Agatha said, “This can’t possibly be because of us, can it?”
“No, the sun just set a few moments ago,” I said.
We rumbled through the gatehouse arch. As soon as the wagon came to a halt, I scrambled out the back and ran toward Geoffrey.
He turned away from the others to speak to me.
“Did you tell Prioress Joan what the children said?” I asked.
“Not yet,” he said, running his hands through his hair.
“But she must know that a woman’s voice was heard, that it was a woman that night.”
“It’s already known,” Geoffrey said.
“But . . . but . . . how?” I stammered.
“The priory received word from these men that today Lady Chester threw herself out the window of her manor. She left a note asking for forgiveness for her crime. It would appear that she killed her own husband and now she’s killed herself.”
35
A
t
my mother’s insistence, I had a tutor when I was young who schooled me in mathematics as well as Greek, Latin, literature, and philosophy. He was an excellent teacher, and I mourned when we could no longer find the money to pay him and he left Stafford Castle. I learned from him how to do complicated sums, and I remember well the feeling of solving one, of hearing a click in my mind as everything fell into place. I heard that same click when Geoffrey Scovill told me that Lady Chester had killed her husband.
And yet, a moment later, a new uneasiness formed. Lord Chester had been a vile husband; I did not doubt that. His behavior toward her at the requiem feast had been execrable. It was hard to believe she’d slept through a murder in the next room. But I’d heard the screams of Lady Chester that morning and seen her stumble down the passageway, blind with panic and horror after the body had been found. Was she such a good play actress? And what of the reliquary—how had she obtained it from the church? This revelation answered some questions, but it created new ones.
Geoffrey had returned to the bonfire. “Prioress, this is very important,” he said loudly. “Did any member of the house leave the priory this afternoon, besides Sister Agatha and Sister Joanna?”
“No,” the prioress said.
“Are you sure?” He turned to the porter.
“I was in the front part of the priory all afternoon, Master Scovill,” Gregory said. “The cloister door was kept locked the whole time, and no one but the prioress went in and out.”
Geoffrey nodded, and hurried to his horse.
“Wait.” I ran to him, but he was already mounted and shaking the reins. “You harbor doubts?”
“Not of Lady Chester taking
her own life,” he said. “Her servants saw her standing in the window and then leap out. The letter left in her room was definitive.”
“But there’s something,” I insisted. “Tell me.”
The bonfire reflecting in Geoffrey’s eyes lent him a strange visage. “I’ve never been certain that Lord Chester was murdered solely because of what occurred at the feast.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember what he himself said that night: ‘I
know
you have secrets. No one knows better than I do about the secrets of Dartford Priory.’ ”
I shuddered; it was so odd to hear the words of Lord Chester, words I’d repeated to myself, come from Geoffrey’s lips. “You think that he was killed because of the secrets he knew?” I asked.
He straightened his jerkin. “At present, my theories are not important. I must be off to Rochester. The coroner and justice of the peace must be told of Lady Chester’s suicide immediately.”
“Tonight?” I asked, alarmed. “Is it safe to ride that distance after dark? What of robbers on the road?”
Geoffrey bent down from his saddle with a smile and said: “Don’t you want Brother Edmund freed as soon as possible? I thought that was more important to you than anything else.”
Before I could say a word to that, he straightened up and rode away.
That evening I detected a ripple of hope in the refectory and the passageways of the priory. Soon all of England would know that it was not a friar, not a member of a religious order, who’d killed a noble guest under our roof. When the king’s commissioners arrived to examine Dartford, we’d be free of that stain on our honor.
There was, of course, one person in the priory directly affected by Lady Chester’s suicide. I wasn’t with Sister Christina when she was informed and did not see her for a number of hours, but after last prayers, when I came to novice quarters, I found her there and greatly changed. Her determination and her sense of intelligent conviction were gone. She looked completely lost. Frail.
“Do you need anything?” I asked. “I feel I should do something for you, Sister Christina.
You’ve had a tremendous shock. Should I fetch Sister Agatha?”
“No, please don’t.” Her voice was scratchy. “I don’t want Sister Agatha with her questions, or Sister Rachel with her potions, or the prioress with her prayers. The only person I can bear to have near me is you, Sister Joanna. I know that if I ask you to be silent here, you will respect my wishes, won’t you?”
“Of course.”
And not another word was said.
• • •
Late the next day, Sister Christina’s uncle, the Bishop of Dover, arrived. He had not come to the priory after the murder of his older brother, but the suicide of his sister-in-law brought him to Dartford. Sister Christina spent several hours talking to him in the
locutorium
and emerged from it less lost, though still subdued. I honestly couldn’t imagine how she would cope with the horror of a murdered father and a mother who took her own life. Lady Chester could not be buried in consecrated ground.
But it was Sister Winifred who worried me the most. The morning after I went to town I made my usual stop at the infirmary and found her tossing, restless, in her bed. Her forehead felt warm; two red spots flared in her cheeks.
Sister Rachel said nervously, “This is what I’ve been fearing. She has contracted infection and does not possess the strength—or the will—to throw it off.”
“What can I do?”
“I’m preparing an application of comfrey; you can assist me,” she said. “Although you most likely should keep your distance from Sister Winifred.”
“I never take ill; please let me nurse her,” I pleaded.
She sighed. “Very well, but if we lose you both, the prioress will be most grieved.”
I received permission to spend all my hours in the infirmary, except for time spent observing the Dominican offices. Yet my nursing made no difference. The comfrey did not bring her relief, nor did the remedy Brother Edmund taught me. In the night Sister Winifred started a wet cough. Every time I heard it, my body tensed.
The next morning, cooling
her brow with a dampened cloth, I couldn’t deny my fears any longer. Sister Winifred might very well die. For the tenth time, I wondered if it would strengthen her to learn that Lady Chester had admitted to killing her husband, that Brother Edmund was innocent of crime. Sister Rachel and I had discussed it the day before, but the manner of Lady Chester’s own death was so upsetting, and, without the certainty of Brother Edmund’s return, she felt the news would only further confuse Sister Winifred.
She coughed, and it was such a deep one, she shuddered with pain. “May the Virgin heal and protect you, Sister Winifred,” I whispered. She turned her head toward me. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. “Edmund,” she groaned.
“Yes, I know, I miss him as well,” I said, patting her delicate throat with the cloth.
“I am here, Sister,” said a familiar voice behind me.
My heart leaped—it was Brother Edmund.
With a strength I wouldn’t have thought possible, Sister Winifred sat up. She stretched out trembling arms. “Oh, God has heard me.”
With his usual swift, deft movements, Brother Edmund lowered Sister Winifred onto her bed while feeling her forehead. “Yes, I am here and I shall care for you now,” he said. “Calm yourself.” My heart leaped with a fierce joy.
But then I saw his face.
Brother Edmund had aged ten years in less than a month. Wrinkles creased his face; deep violet shadows sagged under his exhausted eyes. Worst of all, he was sweating. It was November, but his face was as damp as if it were the hottest day in July.
I caught his sleeve, horrified. “You’re ill, too, Brother Edmund.”
“No, I’m not.”
“But it’s obvious you are,” I persisted. “What can I do?”
Brother Edmund shook his head. “Nothing. You’re not an apothecary or a barber, and you’re certainly not a physician, Sister Joanna. You have no knowledge of illness.”
I could barely see, for my eyes swam with tears. It was ridiculous to react this way, but I couldn’t help it.
Brother Edmund did not notice my tears. He was too busy searching through his cabinet of supplies for the right herbs for Sister Winifred. He’d made a fresh poultice and
applied it by the time Sister Rachel returned.
She, too, expressed joy at his return, followed by dismay over his appearance.
“I’m telling you both, I am
not
ill,” he snapped. “Now please, let me concentrate on healing Sister Winifred.”
Sister Rachel, deeply offended, swept out of the infirmary. I remembered the tactful way that Brother Edmund had dealt with his arrival at Dartford in October, how he’d made sure to smooth the transition of replacing her as the chief healer of the priory. It was like he’d become a different man.
But was this so surprising? I thought of where he’d been for the past three weeks: in gaol, accused of murder. No one knew better than I the harsh effects of imprisonment, on body and soul. I determined not to be dismayed by any other affronts.
Under his devoted and skillful care, Sister Winifred improved remarkably. The dullness had gone from her eyes, and she took every drop of broth I spooned her. While she ate, Brother Edmund sat on a stool on the other side, never taking his eyes from her.
“I thank you, Sister Joanna, for caring for Sister Winifred,” he said quietly.