Priscilla Royal - Chambers of Death

“Surely you jest, Evil One! The night before Tobye died, I confess I hid in the stable, as I oft did, to watch him sin. But he caught me and, with harsh ridicule, accused me of watching him couple with women because I longed to join in the sport. Shamed by his discovery, I fled.” Taking a deep breath, she howled with profound misery. “Had you not entered his mouth and used his tongue to speak those vile insults, that low-born creature would never have dared utter such obscenities to a woman of my rank. How dare you continue humiliating me!”

“Why did you not return to your husband, chastened, and embrace him in the marital bed, as God allows, thus bringing the joy of male children?”

Her sole response was the shrill laughter of contempt.

The sound echoed in the darkness.

“Oh you adulterous whore! Perhaps you did not lie with the groom, but your body longed for his. Rather than welcome your lawful husband, you found wicked pleasure by watching others in unnatural acts. Was that not why you followed Mistress Luce to the stable last night, hoping to see her seduce another man into corruption?”

Constance rubbed her cheeks with her bloody fingers and moaned. Her guilt so overwhelmed her that it crushed a gnawing suspicion, tiny as a nibbling worm, that this voice belonged to a mortal.

“How did you learn she was going to meet another?”

“I overheard Mistress Luce…”

“And thus you ran after her, although you told all that you would spend the night in the chapel for solitary prayer. Jezebel!”

She swallowed with pain, all moisture vanishing from her throat.

“Your sins shall drag you down to Hell. Had you not lied and gone to the stable, you would not have seen the one she met and what happened-nor would you have been observed. Now is the day of reckoning!”

Constance tried to speak but managed only a croak.

The figure moved swiftly from the shadows.

Her eyes widened and terror froze her in place. Unable to scream, her mouth opened and shut like a gasping fish lying on a fisherman’s boat.

Clutching her shoulder, the man smiled-then plunged his dagger into the exact middle of her faithless heart.

The crackling branches spat out a merry warmth from the nearby hearth. Although he was a young man, Thomas was grateful for the heat that chased the dampness from his bones. He rose and walked closer to the fire, stretching his arms wide to embrace more of the comfort. A cup of watered wine would be welcome as well, he decided, especially if he must hear an admission of murder.

“Wine!” a voice shouted.

Thomas turned to see the steward limp into the hall.

From the shadows behind a pillar, a servant rushed off to obey.

Stevyn approached the hearth, rubbing his hand against his side.

“You have cut yourself,” Thomas said, seeing smears of blood on the robe when the man drew closer. “I should make a poultice for that wound before it festers.”

“Nay, Brother. You are kind, but it is a minor thing.” He scowled at his hand, as if it had offended him, and picked out what seemed to be splinters. “I tripped and scraped it against the rough wood of a wall, trying to keep balance. In my youth, I would have righted myself easily, but my legs buckled. Like my youngest son returning from his studies, my body often rebels against my wishes.”

Thomas smiled in response.

The servant arrived with a pitcher and two cups. Stevyn grunted and waved him away with the injured hand.

Thomas concluded the wound must be insignificant enough.

The pewter cup Stevyn handed him was of plain design but fine crafting and filled with a dark wine that turned out to be excellent. Thomas nodded with surprised pleasure.

“From Gascony,” the steward replied to the unspoken question. “Now, Brother, sit back and let me tell you a tale. Women like them to be filled with handsome knights and courtly love, but I fear this one is about a simpler fellow.”

Raising his cup, Thomas grinned. “As a monk from a priory near a seacoast village, I know more of that ilk than I do of knights, Master Stevyn.”

The steward raised one bushy eyebrow to express affable doubt, then settled into his chair, drank his wine, and began the story.

“Long ago, but near to this place, there dwelt a lad and a lass, both sinners by birth but as close to Eden’s innocence as youth can be. They fell in love, but he was a younger son of a landed knight, and his father had higher ambition for him than a merchant’s daughter. A worthy spouse with a little property was soon found for him, and the lovers were forced to part, innocent of lewdness but wounded in heart.”

He drained his own wine, glanced over at the monk’s cup, and replenished both before continuing. “The lad was now a man in possession of some earthly wealth. His new wife also owned a good soul. She prayed much, gave alms to the poor, tended to the sick, and dutifully bedded her husband for the sake of heirs. She bore one in great agony, then failed to quicken again. Indeed, bedding her husband grew so painful after that hard birthing that he took pity and ceased demanding payment of the marriage debt.”

Stevyn stopped and looked into his cup with a disappointed expression as if surprised not to find therein an answer to some question.

“He bore no fault for the pain his wife suffered,” Thomas said. “Sometimes God brings suffering to the good for reasons only He knows.” His heart always ached whenever he said this, and thus he used the argument as little as possible, but he suspected the steward would only take the words as rhetorical things.

In fact, the steward waved them aside. “There is more, Brother, much more.”

Thomas gestured for him to go on.

“Although the man did not love his wife, he honored her and sought remedies to heal her pain. When pilgrimages and trips to noted healers failed, he desperately turned to his former love. By this time, she had also married a good man at her parents’ behest and then gained some reputation as a woman skilled with herbs.”

He rose and paced without speaking, drained his cup, and refilled it. His hand visibly shaking, he spilled wine and muttered a mild curse. “Aye, a physician would have been the better choice, but the man’s wife had begged for a woman to attend her, confessing that her modesty had been offended enough by the questioning of one of the male healers.”

Thomas drank in silence.

“This desperate measure failed as well, and the man’s wife did not regain her health. As it turned out, it was a dangerous mistake. While the man’s wife prayed for relief, Satan found a fertile field in the hearts of the husband and his old love. At first they felt only comfort in each other’s company, then hellfire manifested as lust enflamed them beyond endurance. It was not long before they committed adultery, not just once but again and again.”

Although guilt colored the steward’s cheeks, Thomas briefly glimpsed something else in the man’s face. For just an instant, the wrinkles etched in his face smoothed and the brightness of youth flashed in his eyes. Did sin ever bring peace, the monk wondered before fear banished the blasphemous thought with just speed.

Stevyn sat back down and shook his head. “Unlike Huet, I tell tales badly, Brother. Let it be said, simply enough, that the wife learned of her husband’s sin and, like a true Christian, forgave him. God cursed him, however, and the good wife grew increasingly weak and finally died, leaving the husband so befouled with wickedness that he lost all reason. Blinded by the Devil, he turned selfish and took a young wife, whom he neither loved nor ever learned to respect, but whom he could swink at will like a boar in rut.” He closed his eyes, the illusion of story-telling grown as sheer as worn cloth.