Priscilla Royal - Chambers of Death

“Where were you while Mistress Luce was being murdered?” Thomas asked softly.

Master Stevyn looked up at his son. A rising of tears now glistened in his eyes.

Here was a man accustomed to facing many trials without flinching, Thomas thought. Now he quakes with fear for the safety of his beloved Huet. He hoped the ordeal would soon be over.

Huet squeezed his father’s shoulder in reassurance. “I was at Hilda’s side. Mistress Maud asked me to watch over her when a servant came to her door, calling her away. I did suspect you had summoned her and thus I promised to watch over our cook in case Death came for her and a priest should be called. That is where I was when I heard the hue and cry from the courtyard.” Turning to Thomas, he met his gaze without blinking. “I even prayed that she regain consciousness and name her attacker. Sadly, she did not.”

“Very well,” Thomas said after a moment. “If you both are innocent of sending unshriven souls to Hell, who might have done the deed?” He looked first to the steward, then to the son. “Surely you have suspicions.”

Stevyn sank into the bench and rubbed at his eyes.

Huet fell into a contemplative stance.

“Brother Thomas, I have finally found you!”

Startled, the monk turned to look behind him.

His prioress’ guard stood at the door.

“Prioress Eleanor begs you come immediately!” the man cried. “To the room where the cook lies. There has been a confession.”

Thomas set off at a run.

Huet snatched a dagger from the table, the blade flashing in the hearth firelight, and followed close behind.

The steward stared after them, his hands trembling as if a severe palsy had just struck. Then he threw his head back and cried out like a wounded animal alone in the forest.

Eleanor gasped in shock.

“Forgive me, my lady. I have no wish to point an accusing finger at an innocent,” Maud said. “Although I do find the creature obnoxious, I mention the name only to suggest there were others who might have had cause enough to do violence.”

“What reason would Constance have to kill anyone? I thought her eyes looked only to Heaven, however benighted her vision of it might be.”

“Mistress Constance hated her husband. I was not the only one who heard her loudly refuse to lie with him and plead that they take vows of celibacy for the salvation of their souls. Yet she was not without carnal longings and had a hot eye for a well-formed man. When my son first returned home, now more a man than the boy who left here, she even gazed upon him like a hungry traveler might look upon an innkeeper’s savory stew. Then he bluntly told her that he would be no woman’s supper.” Her lips briefly twitched with a smile.

Eleanor mind began to race with this new possibility. Ranulf was quite certain he had seen a woman visiting the groom the night he was murdered. Might it have been the elder son’s wife? Yet surely he would have recognized her. There must have been too little moonlight to identify the person. Perhaps he had just assumed it was Hilda?

But Constance was a slight woman, unlike the cook, and thus more like the steward’s wife at a glance. How could he have confused such different women? As for Luce, now that she had been murdered, she was unlikely to have been Tobye’s killer. Indeed, this mysterious woman visiting Tobye might be innocent as well. The killer could have arrived later.

Eleanor wiped her face as if removing an annoying cobweb. “Tobye had quite the following of women. Was Mistress Constance one?”

The widow might be mistaken for Hilda in poor light, the prioress thought. As much as she believed Maud was innocent, dare she finally eliminate her from the list of suspects? Aye, she could. What Mariota had seen was not a lover’s embrace but that of mother and son. In light of what she had just heard about the longtime relationship between steward and widow, she doubted Maud would invite Tobye to her bed. What she knew of the widow just did not suggest the woman was a killer.

Then whom had Ranulf seen?

“There is much common gossip,” Maud said with evident hesitation. “I do not want to spread malicious untruths.”

“I am a stranger here and thus seek to learn what others know. If you believe the tales are born only of spite, I have no wish to hear them. That said, I beg your opinion on how much truth lies in others.”

The widow sighed. “There was a rumor that Mistress Constance was obsessed with the groom. Even Tobye laughed about her with his fellows, and I did overhear him once jest that her eye was often on his groin while she bent her knee to God. Whether this was true, I cannot confirm.” She looked at the prioress as if hoping this was sufficient.

“Did he ever claim to have lain with her?”

“I can avow no direct knowledge of that, my lady, although I never heard such a story. Perhaps there was pleasure enough in telling the tale that this stern and pious wife might chase after a lusty groom. What I did notice, however, is that his jests about her, which I overheard from others, grew quite cruel. One might think he had grown weary of her longings?”

“Public mockery is hard enough to bear for any mortal, but more so to one who purports to be righteous,” Eleanor replied. “The humiliation has most certainly driven some to murder. And a woman could slip up on a sleeping man and slit his throat. Perhaps she is also the one who drove a knife into Hilda’s back. But I wonder if Mistress Constance was strong enough to strangle a younger woman and hoist her body to simulate a hanging? Ranulf’s wife was too slight, was she not?”

“Aye, but might not jealousy add strength to a hand already driven by shame? Surely she had heard that Tobye was bedding Mistress Luce.”

“Although envy is a very malignant sin, especially when joined to lust and public shame, I am not convinced that Mistress Constance is our murderer. Out of fear, a woman might strike a man with a dagger, or even in a moment of rage, but she does not usually choose that means to kill and Tobye’s death was most certainly planned.”

“Yet Jael, the wife of Heber, drove a nail into Sisera’s head…”

“…with the strength of God’s hand to save Israel. Nonetheless, you may be right. Yet is it truly reasonable to conclude that a woman could strangle another, one who would fight back with equal vigor, and then pull her dead body…?” Eleanor gasped.

“My lady?” Maud stretched out a supporting hand as if she feared the prioress had just been stricken with illness.

“I am well enough, good mistress, but have reason to curse my slow wit! There is another I have never considered, one whose motives for the violent acts are becoming clearer now.”

The door to the chamber crashed open.

Both women whirled around.

Master Ranulf was bolting the door shut behind him.

“Whores. The women were but whores,” he snarled. “I successfully sent all their souls to hell, with God’s blessing, saving only that cook who still breathes there and whom you have wickedly tried to save. I shall now finish my task.”

“Does He not grant everyone the right to repent their sins?” Eleanor asked quietly, noting the knife he held in his right hand. “By what right did you assume God wanted any quivering soul condemned without the chance for mercy?”

“God is wrathful and sends His fire down on all who defy Him like the foul creatures in Sodom and Gomorrah.” Ranulf’s eyes glittered. “What lusts do you hide?”

The prioress winced at this accurate blow, then modestly lowered her eyes, hoping to cool his rage with meek humility while she concentrated on the more immediate problem of staying alive. “Being mortal, we all sin, but surely God wants us to recognize the evil we have done and strive never to repeat those errors.” Glancing to her left, she saw a jug and basin on a nearby table.