Authors: Priscilla Royal
"Didn't eat much last night, did we?"
"I don't suppose you know who did this to you, brother?" Eleanor asked.
Thomas sat up slowly with Sister Anne's help and shut his eyes. "If I ever find out, the whoreson won't live long."
"Not a sentiment I'd expect to hear from a priest. You'll want to
remember that for your next confession." Eleanor kept her voice stern as she struggled not to laugh in nervous relief at his spirit.
"At least I should get exemption from the next bloodletting."
"You're feeling better." Sister Anne smiled, then looked up at the tall, green-eyed monk standing beside her. "Would you give me that cup? I think I can try again with the medicine."
"You said you found him?" Eleanor watched the man pass the cup with care to Sister Anne so that their hands did not touch.
The monk nodded and lowered his green eyes with courtesy.
"I do not know your name."
"Brother John, my lady. I am in charge of both the male novices and monk's choir at Tyndal. "
"And what did you see, Brother John?"
"Not much, I fear. I came out this morning after chapter to pick lavender to strew on the floor of the novices' quarters. They are suffering from a surfeit of fleas, you see. We grow only enough of the plant for medicinal use so I look for the wild herb. It serves the purpose just as well."
Eleanor nodded with some impatience.
"And as I came to this spot, I saw the brother lying just there."
He pointed. "After what happened to Brother Rupert, I fear I didn't check for signs of life. I thought he was dead with those eyes so staring at me. I ran to the nuns' gate and asked Sister Ruth to summon you, then waited in the outer court until you came so I could lead you here."
"I see," she replied. "But first tell me, brother, how you found your
way out of the monks' cloister without a key to the passageway?"
John blinked. "The door was unlocked, my lady." He hesitated. "Perhaps Brother Thomas forgot to lock it behind him when he left the cloister."
Eleanor looked back at Thomas, who was grimacing in the direction of the other monk. He must hurt so, she thought. "Do you find the passage door unlocked so often that you would check first before asking permission to leave?"
"Not at all! After Prime, as I led the novices back for lessons, I saw the door open and sent the boys on their way to consider further some questions I had already set them. I wanted to take the opportunity to get my lavender while I could. You see, when Brother Rupert was alive, he allowed me to accompany him when he left to attend to the nuns if I needed to go into the woods for herbs. Both Brother Simeon and Brother Andrew are quite busy, and I had yet to speak with Brother Thomas about a similar arrangement. I'm afraid I saw my chance this morning and took it without permission."
"And by so doing, found our injured brother. The good of your impulse outweighs your failure to seek proper permission," Eleanor said. "You would say, however, that leaving the door unlocked was a rare occurrence?"
"Indeed, my lady. Brother Rupert was very careful and strict about such matters. He would never lend the key out and only let another go with him if the need was reasonable."
Was the same true of the door to the nuns' quarters, Eleanor wondered. She would have to ask Sister Ruth. In the meantime, she had to question Thomas no matter how much pain he was in. He had no reason to be so far outside priory walls, nor should he have been so foolish as to leave the door unlocked with a murderer about.
"And why were you out of the priory, Brother Thomas?"
"A call of nature, my lady. Sometime after Matins."
"The monks do have a proper latrine for that. You needn't have come all the way out here.
"Forgive me, my lady, but I am still unaccustomed to my quarters and lost my way. I did not wish to waken anyone to ask directions."
Eleanor felt her face flush with hurt anger. Did he really think she was that stupid? His reason for being outside the priory walls
in the middle of the night was so ridiculous it was an insult to her intelligence. First of all, the latrine was just off the monks' dormitory, as it was in almost every monastery in Christendom. Second, if the call was so urgent he didn't have time to find such an easily located privy, did he really think she'd believe he could have waited long enough to find his way outside and wander so far away from the priory? She snorted in contempt. If he did, then he was the fool, not she.
As she looked at his bloody head and pale complexion, however, cold logic fled and she softened. This was not the time to joust with him over inconsistencies. He had not been here long enough to have found a willing woman in the village on his own for less than priestly purposes, and a staff of monks so frail that they could not even say Mass, if Brother Simeon were to be believed, would be unlikely to have a list of local whores any younger than they.
She would wait until he was feeling better to search out the real reason for his nocturnal meanderings, and she would do so privately. Indeed, her aunt had told her about monks who awoke at night, suffering from dreams conjured up by Satan as she had herself endured of late, and slipped away to spill their seed in the manner of Onan. Perhaps it had been thus with Thomas, and, if so, he might well be embarrassed to say so in front of three nuns and a monk.
Sister Anne stood and looked down at the monk who was struggling to stand up. "Can you walk to the hospital, brother? I need to treat that wound further with remedies I have there."
"Of course."
"With help." Sister Anne gestured at me tall monk. "Brother?"
"Aye. I'll steady you," John said, as he reached out his hand to Thomas.
It was with some interest that Eleanor noted Brother John used his left hand, as he had when he passed the cup to Sister Anne.
Chapter Sixteen
"You've got yourself quite the wound, brother." Crowner Ralf stared fixedly at the back of Thomas' head, then reached out his hand as if to touch it.
"Keep your hands to yourself, Ralf! Brother Thomas is no corpse that you can prod and jab with impunity. I'll describe anything you need to know."
It was the morning after the attack against him and Thomas sat on the edge of his bed in the hospital while Sister Anne removed the dressing and examined the injury. He winced slightly and she patted his shoulder once in sympathy before reaching over to a nearby basket for a fresh poultice of yarrow and bandaging. "It's healing well, brother," she said.
The crowner looked at her, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "Very well, Annie, then describe to me in detail the man who did this to the good brother, for I haven't the slightest idea."
"A strong one," the nun said without hesitation, "and left-handed."
"Ah, our sinister friend again? And how, may I ask, did you come to that conclusion?"
"The wound slants thus." Sister Anne drew a line in the air about an inch from Thomas's skull from a high on his left side to a low on the right of the head. "He swung from the side. If he had hit him here..." she pointed to the top of Thomas' head, "he'd have killed our brother."
"Are you saying you don't think he meant to kill him?"
"I don't know, Ralf. You'll have to ask the man who did it."
Ralf snorted. "If I can find him, and so far he has left few traces. We have had no recent problems with highwaymen or any other masterless men, but no one has seen or heard anything unusual around the village. I would guess that the culprit might be the same who killed Brother Rupert only because Tyndal has never suffered such a spate of crime in my long memory. Nonetheless, I have been unable to unearth a reason for either the murder or the attack you suffered, brother. Perhaps you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. What do you remember?"
"Nothing much." Thomas raised his head gradually to avoid the pain of any sudden movement and turned just as slowly to face Ralf. Behind the crowner stood the prioress. She had said little to anyone this morning, but Thomas noticed that her face was unusually pale. Her right hand was clenched in a fist and she held it tight against her waist.
"Perhaps you can start with the reason you left the priory in the first place, brother," Ralf suggested.
As Thomas started to speak, Eleanor raised her hand in a gesture of precaution. "Please do leave out the call of nature. That story wasn't even clever."
"My lady..." Thomas began and then stopped as he watched the prioress's face flush pink. He wondered if she was feverish.
"Lest you were in doubt on this matter, brother, I am neither ignorant nor stupid. The truth, therefore, would be quite refreshing. It might even make it easier to discover who did this to you, and, perhaps, to find Brother Rupert's killer."
Thomas shut his eyes. The pain had diminished from yesterday, but his head still ached and the prioress's tone was harsh. He was not in the mood to be treated thus even if he had lied to her and she was the prioress to whom he owed obedience. The cowardly attack on him was a matter of honor, an attack on his manhood, and no woman should hold authority over him in such an affair. He would deal with the man who had hit him in his own way. Nor did he want the crowner here either. It was none of his business. He'd find the perpetrator himself, although he was almost certain it was that grim-faced, green-eyed Brother John. "'S blood," he muttered.
"Presumably you can find your confessor better than you could find the privy. Profanity is unacceptable in a man dedicated to God. You must have known that long before you took your vows."
Thomas covered his face with his hands.
Sister Anne turned to Eleanor. "He hurts, my lady."
The prioress drew in a deep breath, let it out very slowly, and started again with a gentler tone.
"I know you are in pain, brother, but we need the truth if we're
to prevent more violence. First, we had Brother Rupert's death, and now we've had the attack on you. We don't need a third such incident because you are suffering from the sin of pride."
Thomas nodded. Ralf and the prioress were right. It hadn't been that clear to him that the two incidents were related, but he did not want someone else killed or injured. Still, what truth could he tell? What made sense and what should he or even could he explain?
He remembered following Brother John and the young man as they ran out of the chapel. Following them had been an instinctive act; thus the reason he had done so was quite inexplicable. Nor was he sure he wanted to try. He might be chary of
the somber monk with glittering green eyes, but he wasn't sure he
wanted to tell what he had witnessed either. The scene between monk and youth had been intimate, poignant. Thomas' interest had been piqued for sure, but he also felt protective of them.
Perhaps there had been no sin between the two, although the observed encounter rather lent itself to the darker interpretation. The youth he had seen with the monk was no high-voiced child. He had had the shoulders and height, if not the girth, of a man. No, he thought, he would never be guilty of doing to another what had been done to him. Thomas shook his head to shatter the image of Giles in his arms and turned his thoughts back to what had happened outside Tyndal Priory.
It had been difficult to see far in the outer court. Clouds or fog had drifted across the sky. The moon gave only meager light and the stars were hidden from view. The area was still strange to him, and he had stumbled on the unfamiliar, rough ground as he tried to keep the shadows of monk and youth in sight.
He remembered crossing a small wooden bridge below which he assumed must be the priory mill from the sound of groaning wood and splashing water. Then he had seen the silhouette of the mill itself. It loomed blacker than the night along what had suddenly become a smoother, well-worn path.