Wine of Violence (25 page)

Should he speak of Brother John and his solitary penance in the forest clearing? Or of his own suspicions that the monk might have a youthful lover, a lad perhaps from the village? The consequences were dire if two men were found, as Thomas had been with Giles, and brought to trial. Men had been burned at the stake for it. Excommunication was common. Thomas shivered. He might have escaped all this himself either by the grace of God or Satan, but few did and he would never point a
finger at another man for a love he could not even now condemn.
Were the things he had seen or suspected about Brother John even related to the two murders, or were they unconnected? He did not know.

And what about Brother Simeon, a competent man who had taken control of Tyndal and run it well when the prior could not and the prioress would not. When Prior Theobald faltered, Simeon whispered words and decisions into his ear to use as his own, thus saving the old man's pride. And both Brother Rupert and Prioress Felicia had seen the wisdom in letting him run the tenant farms and see to the other businesses of the priory.

It was not until this year that things had faltered. Thomas was no farmer, but even he knew crops varied. So Simeon liked his wine and comforts. So what? Others in the Church took their
ease with women as well as wine, and few were called to account
as long as they helped the Church prosper. Surely, the sins of Brother Simeon were but laughable amongst worldly men, and Simeon worldly enough to know that.

This receiver, however, had an enemy at Tyndal. Someone had written the Abbess and suggested serious problems here, but Thomas had heard nothing from any of the monks or lay brothers to suggest who the author might have been. Was there a link between the accusation and these deaths? If so, what? He doubted Simeon knew anything about the letter. The receiver's greatest worry was the arrival of the new prioress and her threat to his leadership of Tyndal.

Had it been Brother Rupert who had written? Thomas had been told he was a man known for direct speech, so surely he would have been more specific about the complaint. Brother John? Thomas smiled. No, he was too busy with his beautiful music and beautiful boys to write vague, yet suggestive letters. Brother Andrew? He seemed a man who observed much, then let it lie. Who, then, had a quarrel with the receiver? Thomas struck his head. Who!

He stood up and walked back toward the sacristy. It was time for Mass again, and time to start on the assignment entrusted to him by Prioress Eleanor. "Fuck!" he muttered in frustration. Thomas was so glad he had met Tostig. The Saxons had such expressive words in their language.

Chapter Thirty

Bedlam would have been a model of calm compared to Tyndal's kitchen the next morning. Sister Edith stood in the middle of the room, staring at the ceiling and screaming orders, many in contradiction to others already given. Steam from overflowing pots boiled into billowing hot fog, the bitter smell of burning meat permeated the air, and a large pestle lay shattered on the
floor. Two sisters were in tears over half-chopped vegetables. And
the midday meal chicken escaped out the door, squawking in outrage at its proposed fate, just as Eleanor walked in.

"You are a scrawny one," she remarked as the bird raced past her. Then, looking at the scene before her, she wondered how anything, even the inedible, could emerge from all this disarray.

Sister Edith's face was red and her eyes squeezed shut as if she were in a bad dream from which she might awaken, if only she waited long enough.

Eleanor reached up and put a hand gently on the woman's shoulder.

"Cook it any way you want, for the love of God!" Sister Edith
screeched, once again raising her closed eyes heavenward. "Just don't ask me another question."

Then she opened her eyes.

"Oh, no!" she whispered as she looked down into the expressionless face of her prioress.

Eleanor struggled not to laugh.

"Come, sister," she said with immense control. "Let us walk in the cool of the garden and talk."

The two women walked silently out of the hot kitchen, across the cloister and through the trellised arbor into the garden filled with tiny flowers and toward the carved stone seat near the fountain. Despite the warming sun, there was a chill to the air that foretold the coming autumn storms. Sensing the change, bees buzzed with special urgency, but a butterfly or two floated almost carelessly in the air as if they cared not a whit for their fate in the darker season.

Sister Edith's head was bowed, perhaps less from humility than from embarrassment, for Eleanor noted that her eyes quickly looked sideways when they entered the garden, as if she could not keep herself from studying the state of the lush vegetation.

"Please sit." Eleanor gestured to the bench. The sound of the water in the fountain was as peaceful as a primeval brook running over ancient, smoothed pebbles.

"My lady, I have sinned.

"Brother Thomas is your confessor. He will give due penance
for sins of anger."

"I have failed both you and Tyndal."

Eleanor folded her hands into her sleeves, tilted her head, and waited.

"It was my rotation in the kitchen and I have failed in my duties."

"Rotation? Not as a penance for anything then?"

"When Mati.. .Sister Matilda was taken from the kitchen, I was rotated in. Our prioress that was, Prioress Felicia, said we must all learn to do everything in the priory. In that I have been unable to perform adequately."

"Everything? Indeed, that is not a bad idea, for the good of your soul as well as your experience. Surely you began with the basics of cooking?"

"No, my lady. I began in charge. I had been in charge of the gardens. Prioress Felicia felt it would be unseemly for me to do the base work of chopping vegetables."

"I saw two sisters doing just that."

"They are the daughters of knights.

"And you and Sister Matilda are the daughters of a baron."

"Yes, my lady."

"Would you have minded serving under women of lesser rank?"

"I want to serve God well. If I serve best chopping parsnips, so
be it, my lady, but I have not done well directing in the kitchens. Even with Sister Mat..." She stopped and looked sheepishly at the prioress.

"Even with your sister's help?" Eleanor smiled and put a hand
on the nun's arm. "Fear not. I have seen each of you struggling to help the other, but I have also seen the anger between you."

"She will never learn not to water in the high heat of..." Sister Edith stopped as her own voice raised in indignation. "That is no more her fault than it is mine that I cannot remember how long to boil a pot of stew or the right flame for meat."

"No, it is not, and you both must make peace. Anger is sinful whether it be between kin or with any child of God."

Sister Edith squirmed uncomfortably on the bench. "Aye, but I still don't know how to cook."

"And I have a solution for that. Would you be willing to do anything, no matter how humble or unsuited to your station, to correct your faults?"

"I wish only to serve, my lady. True station exists only in the grace of God."

"Well said! We must all remember that the twelve apostles were men of very simple birth but were chosen to sit at the right hand of God. So take the lowly task I have for you and perform it well in the spirit of those men. Will you promise me that?"

"Aye, my lady."

"I am assigning you to the priory gardens that you may humble yourself in the earth and bring forth flowers for the glory of God and plants to feed us so that we will have the strength to serve Him better."

"What about Matilda?"

"I am bringing your sister back to the kitchen. She has served her time in the field. And I order the two of you to make peace so that she may prepare the fruits of your work to grace our tables within the blessing of unity."

Sister Edith cried aloud and tears flowed down her cheeks again, but both voice and tears were finally filled with happiness.

Chapter Thirty-One

Sister Ruth was droning. It was difficult to read the Venerable Bede's
Life of Saint Cuthbert
and make it sound dull, but the good nun was succeeding with impressive skill.

Eleanor looked down from the prioress's high table to the long
line of nuns eating silently on benches in the refectory below her. This night she had invited no one to join her. She was too weary even for familiar company.

Two deaths on priory grounds had been horrible, but daily responsibilities could not be set aside. After days of talking to the nuns, monks, and lay people at Tyndal, studying the account rolls taken from Brother Simeon, and making small changes she hoped would be beneficial to both body and soul, she was exhausted, her humors out of balance. She needed to spend an evening in restorative prayer and contemplation, something she had had little time for of late. At least her ankle had healed, she thought, quickly adding something positive to offset her list of complaints.

She looked down at the trencher in front of her and smiled. The return of Sister Matilda to the kitchens had been a popular
decision. Her talented cooking had also helped ease the transition
to a more spartan diet than the religious inhabitants of Tyndal had been accustomed to, a necessity in view of the poor monastery harvest and reduced income from priory lands. Fish from the ponds was still plentiful, and Sister Edith had offered hope
for an increase in the cooler seasons vegetables, but austerity was
still required if all were to have sufficient food through winter.

At yesterdays chapter, Eleanor had announced her personal vow to cut her own portions in half, eat no meat, and drink only ale from Tyndal's brewery. What wine the priory had should be saved for Mass and the sick, she declared, for none could be bought until revenues increased. Eleanor had left the choice of what to surrender from meals, other than wine, to the nuns themselves, although she had warned against an excess of fasting. Thanks to Brother Thomas' wise direction, she knew of one young novice who had difficulties with such excesses. At his order, the girl had told the head of novices about her self-induced vomiting and Eleanor had been told that the nun would be especially vigilant, not only with her but others who might exhibit similar debilitating behavior.

Ah, the good brother! He was the other reason Eleanor had given up any meat, and she meant to do so until her body ceased to respond in lustful ways to his presence. It was well known that meat heated the blood, and her blood needed no warming
when Brother Thomas was with her. Brother John, her confessor,
had agreed, although he had been kinder than others might have been when she told him about her adulterous feelings toward the monk. He might have suggested scourging. Instead, he had ordered her to pray alone in the chapel for one hour each night as she stretched out, face down on the stone floor. The penance had cooled her passions sufficiently in the warmer months of summer. She imagined it would utterly destroy them by midwinter when the stones turned icy.

Eleanor took a sip of ale. The taste was bitter, watery. She grimaced as she looked at the pale color. Had the drink been urine, surely the physician would have expressed concern over the health of his patient. Even urine might have better flavor than this, she thought wryly.

Tostig had not yet responded to her offer to talk about a partnership. Although Gytha said he had thought well of the idea when she first mentioned it, all of that had been discussed before the death of the man with the black beard. With his death, a kind of silence had descended on the village in their commerce with the priory. Business, per se, continued, but only just. The comfortable social commerce which village and priory
had enjoyed in the past had waned. The tension was as ill defined
as a hidden cancer but, Eleanor thought, just as palpable by all affected by it.

The crowner continued to remark on the lack of cooperation from his regular sources, men who had once cared more for justice and peace than any two-hundred-year-old quarrel between Saxon and Norman. Oh, villagers still came to him when a sheep was stolen or a border marker moved, but there was a grimness in their faces that Crowner Ralf had not seen since the early days of his tenure. Tostig in particular seemed to avoid him, and that hurt Ralf most. According to Sister Anne, the two men had been friends since childhood. And the crowner was still no closer to solving the murders of the monk and the man, a frustration that did not improve his somewhat impatient temperament.

Her trencher empty and her goblet dry, Eleanor looked down on the nuns and saw that they too had finished their evening meal. With this second death in the sanctity of their grounds, the calm she had just managed to achieve had vanished. In the fear-widened eyes of these women, she saw a pleading for strength from her. She had come through for them after the first murder. Would she be adequate to their greater need now?

She rose. It was time to lead her charges to prayer and whatever peace it might bring them all.

On the monks' side of the priory church, Eleanor's orders for more modest fare were not greeted with unanimous joy, at least amongst some in the higher ranks. Or so Brother Thomas thought as he looked around him at the evening meal.

Prior Theobald was the exception to that. He seemed content enough, picking up odd bits from the half portion he had put on his trencher, but then Thomas doubted food had ever been of major interest to him. He'd probably not notice if horse piss
were poured into his cup instead of wine. Indeed, considering the
taste of Tyndals finest ale, it might have been. Thomas shoved his goblet aside and briefly wondered if even well water might be preferable.

Brother Simeon, on the other hand, looked positively gray. As receiver and sub-prior, he did no work in the fields, and the prioress had directed that heartier food and drink should be given to those who did hard labor, since they needed it most. That included the lay brothers. Thomas saw him wince at the arrival of the vegetable stew and noted that he had gone so far as to rip small pieces from his own trencher, which normally would have been passed on to the poor. However improved and quite savory the simpler meals had become of late, Brother Simeon liked his meat and wine. This would be a hard season for a man of appetite.

Even Brother John looked more somber than he usually did at mealtime. Thomas had noticed that the monk cared little more about his food than did the prior, although he did not fast in excess. His lean body and lonely midnight scourgings might point to a dedicated religious sternness, but there were clear limits to his asceticism. He usually ate what he was given with grateful appreciation, and drank wine in moderation but also with some pleasure. Tonight, however, he seemed troubled and poked absently at the food. If his grim mood was not over the meal, then it surely stemmed from something else.

Thomas was curious.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Eleanor walked slowly up her private stairs from chapel to chambers. The evening communal prayers were complete. Her own hard penance on the stone floor had been performed. The
evening air was cool and no man in the moon's chilly face peeked
through the drifting clouds of the evening sky. It would be a black night tonight, she thought, as she stood in her chambers and looked out the window near her narrow cot.

As she prepared for sleep, folding her head veil and wimple
neatly before placing them into the chest at the bottom of her bed,
something soft brushed up against her leg, causing her to smile.

"Well now," she said with a gentle tone, looking down at the orange cat. "I suppose you are looking for a warm bed after your hard work in the kitchens today?"

The cat looked up at her with hopeful green eyes.

"I did hear from Sister Matilda that you hunted well. She seems more pleased with your efforts than Sister Edith was. Perhaps you have improved on your presentation."

The cat reached out with a paw and tapped her leg.

"One of these days I suppose I should ask Brother John whether there is any sin in a cat sleeping with a nun. And a male cat at that."

The cat jumped up on the cot.

"Perhaps I will just leave the question be. You've earned a soft, warm bed after your good work keeping the vermin at bay who set siege to Tyndal."

And as Eleanor lay down on her back on the cot and crossed her hands over her chest, the orange cat stretched himself out along her side. In a minute, both weary ones were sound asleep.

Eleanor sat straight up.

The orange cat had used her body to hurl himself, hissing and snarling, out of the bed.

She cried out, as though from a bad dream, not yet awake, eyes still shut. The brush of something down her back, the yell of pain not her own, and the sound of running feet against the rushes on her chamber floor did not arise from any dream.

She opened her eyes. In the dim light, she could see the cat standing by her open door, back arched, growling angrily. With heart pounding, Eleanor flew out of bed to the chamber door and heard the footsteps running down the stone steps to the cloister below.

"Help!" she shouted. "Someone has been in my chamber. Stop them!"

Sister Anne ran through the prioress's private entrance to the chapel. "My lady! What has happened?"

Eleanor grasped the nun hard as if her very sanity depended on the human contact. "I don't know. Someone was in my room. The door is wide open. I heard footsteps running down the stairs."

"I will alert the monks, then return to you immediately." With that, Anne dashed from the room.

Suddenly Eleanor felt chilled. She turned back toward the bed to pull a warming blanket from the chest, then stopped. Her hand covered her mouth in horror.

On her bed lay a knife.

Thomas couldn't sleep. He had tossed and turned since Compline and it was still many hours until Prime. Giving up, he put on his shoes and slipped down the stairs from the dormitory to the cloister. Perhaps some exercise, followed by kneeling on the stone slabs of the chapel, would be sufficient penance and God would grant him a few hours of rest.