Priscilla Royal - Chambers of Death

“Hilda?” The steward stared in amazement at the mud-stained servant. “You think she killed Tobye?”

Mistress Maud put her hands on her hips as fury stiffened her square body. “She’s shown violence only to chickens and pigs, my lord. What proof have you to find her guilty of a more heinous act?”

Eleanor decided to push her way through the crowd, but so enthralled were they by the spectacle, they refused to budge.

“If I may, my lady?” her guard whispered, then stepped in front of her. “Stand aside for the Prioress of Tyndal,” he snarled as he thrust people out of the way. Like awkward statues, they tilted this way and that but did shift position enough to allow her space to walk.

The sheriff strode over to meet the steward. “She’s guilty enough,” he said, replying to Stevyn rather than the widow who had asked the specific question. “A woman past child-bearing who lusted after a young man and was mocked by him, probably rejected for one better suited to his taste in bed. She cut his throat in revenge, an act not unusual for women like that.”

“Even if she did want to lie in his arms,” Maud shouted, “there was nothing more between them than her dreams.”

The cook was still on her knees, her body steaming from the reeking mud and animal dung that stained her clothes. “I give you my word that I did not kill him, Master Stevyn,” she whimpered. “On God’s mercy and my soul’s hope of heaven…”

“Don’t blaspheme!” a man yelled, and Ranulf shoved two people out of his way to rush to his father’s side.

“God knows I bear no blame in this murder,” Hilda wailed. “When I swear my innocence on His name, I commit no sin.”

“Sir Reimund,” Eleanor called out in a tone that carried with authority over the heads of the crowd, “you have been asked a reasonable question. Since you have yet to respond, I must conclude that you did not hear it. Thus I shall repeat the query.”

The crowd hushed and turned to hear what the Prioress of Tyndal had to say.

“What evidence do you have of this woman’s guilt?” Eleanor asked. “Does she not deserve to hear the accusations in order to better answer them? Gentle King Henry was known for his mercy to sinners. Surely you do not dare to believe that his son, now our noble lord, would demand a less perfect justice?”

The sheriff’ brow furrowed with dark fury and the assault on his authority. “With all due respect, my lady, I do not think this matter is any of your concern.”

A loud voice from behind Eleanor replied: “God demands justice, Sir Sheriff, and no earthly king’s man could ever speak for Him as truly as the Prioress of Tyndal. I, on the other hand, have more worldly cares. We shall be without dinner if you arrest our cook. Has the Earl of Lincoln or his steward so offended you that you wish to get revenge by making us suffer so?”

When Eleanor turned around, she saw Huet close by. His tone may have been tinged with merriment, but his demeanor was devoid of it.

“Our honored guest has requested no more than fairness demands,” the steward replied. “In that, my younger son has argued well. What is your proof of guilt?”

Realizing he was outnumbered by those he dare not offend, the sheriff shrugged but his face paled with the effort of concession. “Her lust for the man and her outrage, when she believed he was swyving another woman, were observed by an impeccable witness. This same person saw her near the stable the night the groom was murdered, a time when the virtuous are in their beds or on their knees in prayer.”

“By your own words, Sir Reimund, you have also damned this witness as a vile sinner if he saw our cook wandering about at the Devil’s hour,” Huet replied. “Do you think any honorable man could hear the testimony of such a wicked soul and conclude it was honest?”

“How dare you!” Ranulf bellowed.

Huet grinned. “The witness must have been you, sweet brother. What were you doing, wandering around at such an hour? Looking for a horse to ride, or perhaps you sought help to raise your lance against the Prince of Darkness?”

The color of Ranulf’s face burst into apoplectic purple.

The sheriff said nothing and had apparently decided he would be well-advised to make sure his fingernails were perfectly clean.

“What have you to say for yourself?” Master Stevyn turned to Hilda, his customary roughness curiously softened.

The cook looked down at her filthy dress, then raised her reddened eyes to meet the gaze of every one in that crowd, people who would never forget this day of her humiliation. “Tobye did give me a kiss or two in payment for a few small sweets I baked,” she said, “things too imperfect and unworthy of your table. Aye, I felt a sinful pleasure in those kisses, but he was far younger than I.” Meandering tears whitened paths down her muddy cheeks as she wept anew. “Why should I feel jealousy when I always knew he would never love a woman like me with such a belly and hanging breasts?” Her speech dropped back to a whimper.

“Did you rage at him as you have been accused?” Stevyn’s face grew pale. “Did you go to him the night he was murdered?”

As if she had just been stripped naked, she wrapped her arms around her breasts and bent her head with shame. “Aye, I did roar at him once because of the woman- women he thoughtlessly swyved. As for being out the night Tobye was murdered, I went to the privy once, perhaps twice.”

“You were resentful because you are a woman, and lust banishes the little reason you possess,” Ranulf snarled. “Your defense is guided by Satan and it is his honeyed voice, spoken with your tongue that makes your wickedness sound almost innocent.”

Eleanor bit her lip. Hilda had slipped when she said she had berated Tobye for coupling with one woman, then tried to correct the error by making the number greater. Hilda was a loyal servant and would not give more information out of fear that she would lose Master Stevyn’s apparent sympathy. And she probably had the right of that. She might well be called a liar or traitorously ungrateful were she to name Luce. As matters now stood, however, her heated argument with Tobye sounded like the rant of a jealous woman, not a concerned condemnation of the affair between Tobye and the steward’s wife.

But was Hilda jealous? Could the cook be Tobye’s killer? Eleanor rather doubted the woman’s guilt. Unless Hilda was possessed of greater cunning than her demeanor would suggest, the prioress believed her innocent of this particular crime. But she was not so convinced that the woman had not been near the stable that night for some reason other than a mere trip to the privy. Her mention of that sounded hesitant as if she were desperate to find an excuse. Was there a way to question the terrified woman in private?

Huet’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Come, come, elder brother,” he was saying. “Surely you know that some women don’t suffer from lust at all. Is not your own wife an example of such perfect virtue?”

Ranulf’s glared, his face changing hue from red to white and back again.

Eleanor concluded that Mistress Constance must be notoriously in arrears on the marriage debt.

The sheriff was losing patience and finally interjected: “All that may be argued with differing opinions amongst honorable men, but the fact remains, an unarguable fact, that this woman, who has confessed to lust before you all, was seen near the stable the night the groom was foully sent to God with all his sins riding on the back of his crooked soul. On that alone, I must arrest her.”

“If you will give me leave, Master Stevyn, I must speak.”

Eleanor looked up in surprise to see her monk maneuvering through the crowd toward the sheriff.