Priscilla Royal - Chambers of Death

“Cursed creatures,” she hissed and closed her eyes so tight that her head pounded and Hell’s scarlet flames danced against her lids. “Oh how the Devil rules here!”

And lust was surely the deadliest of his evils. Did she not see enough proof of that as a young girl? Her mother had screamed with each hard birth, until she finally died when the blood would not stop after the last dead babe. Yet she had heard her parents continue to couple like rutting goats after each childbearing. Why had they failed to learn what God was trying to teach? Giving in to lust with a man was the straightest path to death and Hell for a woman. At least she had understood that lesson.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself up, scraping her hands against the rough stone, and stared again down into the courtyard.

Her husband was still there, a man she hated. He pretended virtue, but she knew what he did in bed after she refused his vile demands. Payment of the marriage debt indeed! All her mother had gained from that was a very narrow grave.

And still standing in the courtyard beside Master Stevyn was Mistress Maud, a true Jezebel who wore the chaste and simple robes of widowhood while her body festered with abominable sin. That one was no better than Mistress Luce, a woman who would couple with Satan himself if a mortal man was not ready to service her.

As for Hilda, she felt no pity. Hanging was no more than the woman deserved. She had seen her pant shamelessly over Tobye. No better than a bitch in heat.

Fools! Constance snorted in contempt. They probably thought she was immune to lust and that chastity was an easy choice. But wasn’t she her mother’s daughter, hungering for a man between her legs just like any other wretched woman? She understood how longing twisted its way into the soul, turned it black with the gangrene of iniquity, and brought incubi to shatter a woman’s peaceful dreams.

How she wished her father had listened when she begged for entrance to a convent, but he suffered as much from avarice as lust. The chance to bind her to the steward’s eldest son was too tempting, and he had persuaded her to agree by suggesting that Ranulf would follow his own mother’s pious example and demand only an heir or two from the marriage bed.

Instead, Ranulf had thrown her on the rushes and rammed her like a bull despite her cries of pain the night after they took vows at the church door. The babe he seeded in her died in a rush of blood a few months later, but she had survived and soon learned that her husband was easily filled with guilt for the weakness of his flesh, if not completely persuaded to deny his too frequent need to satisfy it.

Thus God had revealed how compassionate He could be to those longing to remain chaste and had shown her the way to keep her body unsullied by Ranulf’s loathsome touch-at least most of the time. As for her dreams, they were minor failings compared to the brazen sins of others. She did not willingly allow any mortal man to touch her, even her husband, and kept a small whip for secret penance on those occasions when the incubi mounted her and she failed to awaken until she howled with bucking lust. Indeed, God was surely pleased enough with those atonements.

Until now.

She pressed her nails into her cheeks. Despite His patient mercy, was there anything she could do to keep Him from flinging her soul into Hell after what had happened that night?

Leaning back against the wall, she began to weep.

The guard had taken Eleanor’s invitation to accompany them to the chapel quite literally and was now kneeling in ardent prayer only a few feet away.

“What news have you for me?” Eleanor sang softly in Latin as she kept an eye on the guard to her left.

After hesitating over how best to respond, Thomas chanted, “The dagger and some concerns.”

The first part of his answer pleased the prioress. “Tell me of the former.”

“I found it hidden in the straw, where others should have discovered it had they looked, but none did, which is no better than we feared.”

“Alleluia!”

Thomas buried his face in his hands and hoped he could match his prioress’ discretion in this covert conversation. “The crafting is well done, yet the object bears no distinctive mark.”

“Has it kin amongst the cook’s tools?”

“Sadly.”

“Might it have been stolen?”

He hesitated, wanting very much to say it had been. “Or not,” he finally forced himself to reply. “Whether dropped by accident in the rush to escape, or deliberately left as some ruse, remains unclear.”

Eleanor fell silent as she studied the guard. Although he seemed uninterested in their discussion, she began a regular litany of prayers.

Thomas dutifully followed until the final Amen .

The guard remained on his knees, hands clasped tightly, and apparently unaware of his companions.

“Will you ask if anyone recognizes the knife?”

“If so, I shall claim I found it near the kitchen.”

Eleanor gazed up at the cross. “Be careful, lest you ask the man who did this deed. He might choose to silence you.”

The likeness of one immediately came to the monk’s mind, the man’s arms encircling him. Then he imagined a knife pricking his breast. Thomas flinched. The vision vanished, and he nodded concurrence with her plea for caution.

The guard rose to his feet.

Their chance to exchange information had ended, but Eleanor knew her monk had more to say and that something troubled him. After all the crimes they had solved together, she knew Brother Thomas would never recoil at the prospect of facing a murderer. What else was worrying him? She would chance one last question.

“Have you left a concern unspoken?” she chanted.

Thomas visibly paled.

Although the guard’s head was bowed, he now leaned against the chapel wall where he could see what the two religious did.

“Tell me quickly. We must leave.”

“The younger son gave false witness today. He did not return as he claimed in the early morning. I did not see him at all until later in the day.”

Eleanor’s eyes widened. That might well make Huet another suspect in this killing. Yet, if he had done it, his heated defense of the cook suggested he did not want an innocent to suffer for his crime. Might that mean there was a complication to this murder? Might it even have been self-defense? Yet there had been no sign of a struggle.

She frowned. There was something else that bothered her. Why had Huet lied so publicly when he knew Brother Thomas could give witness against him?

Glancing at the guard, she saw he was showing some impatience and knew she could not ask her monk more.

“I pray that God will have mercy on his soul if he is guilty of this sin,” she whispered.

“Amen,” Thomas responded, turning his face away.

The current storm had passed, even the weakening rainfall had ended, but the air remained heavy with moisture. Looking across the courtyard, Eleanor wondered if she should chance a walk through that chill mist.

Mariota had fallen asleep. A servant, rhythmically twirling a spindle to twist wool into thread, sat nearby and watched over the girl. There was no reason for the prioress to stay inside after chapel, and she was never inclined to remain sedentary for long. Even if the ground was sodden, she longed for the exercise. It would help her think, and she had much to ponder.

As she walked down the steeply curving staircase to the hall below, she forced herself to confront the question of why she had gotten involved in this matter of murder. It was no business of hers. This was not priory land. The king’s law ruled here. Although the sheriff may have offended her, and he did prefer the easy answer to problems, he was not dull-witted. That young guard he had assigned to make sure she did not meddle in his affairs was one proof of that.