Priscilla Royal - Chambers of Death

“Perhaps the total will be four. Hilda’s fate is still in God’s hands,” Eleanor said. Indeed, she offered many prayers for the cook last night, and Hilda’s eyes had opened this morning. Nonetheless, there was no recognition in the woman’s gaze, nor had she spoken. The prioress lowered her eyes to hide the tears they held. If God took Hilda’s soul, He would most surely treat it with infinite mercy and pull it gently enough from this world. Yet mortals will grieve, and her laughter would be sorely missed.

The sheriff nervously cleared his throat.

Startled out of her thoughts, she looked up at this man, who weighed the cost of justice in the scales of ambition, and found she was not yet capable of forgiving him.

“My lady, if the guard I set to protect you offended in any way, please let me know. I shall punish him accordingly.”

Eleanor swallowed her anger. That he was so willing to cast blame on another, one who had no choice but to obey orders, meant this wretched sheriff had learned nothing. “He was most courteous, Sir Reimund, and, most worthy of reward for his care. I am sure that a larger bit of land from you, so he might marry again and support a growing family, would not go amiss. When I tell my father of the events here, I will mention his name.” Thus you dare not treat him ill for the kindness and good service he did render me, despite your spiteful intent. With a pleasure she knew was wicked enough to require confession, she fell into a pointed silence.

“Then I hope you bear me no malice, my lady, for my wish to keep you safe with a killer about.”

She tilted her head and smiled but said nothing more.

A flush rose from Sir Reimund’s neck and bathed his face with a scarlet hue. He waited for a very long minute, then bowed his head. “You are most kind, my lady,” he muttered, willing her indifferent smile into a sign of favoring grace to him.

Quickly, he gave the order for his contingent of men to leave. When the sad party moved toward the manor courtyard gate, a man poked at Ranulf to indicate he must walk on as well. Staggering forward, the elder son of Master Stevyn neither cried out, nor did he turn to give any farewell to his father.

As she watched the small procession, Eleanor realized she was saddened by the thought of hanging this man. Without doubt he had murdered several people, but Satan had so blinded him with obscene obsessions that he could not see it was Evil who had directed his hand against those victims, not God. According to Brother Thomas, the man’s wits had fled, leaving him utterly possessed by madness, and thus rendered incapable of repentance or confession.

Would Ranulf ever be able to feel the horror of his crimes and beg forgiveness, even when the hangman draped the rope around his neck? Shouldn’t all men have the chance to cleanse their souls? Perhaps she should not grieve for him, murderer that he was, but her heart was not easily silenced on the matter. To distract herself from the murmurings of that womanish organ, she turned to consider whether there had been a lesson in the events of the last few days for her.

She thought back on all the times she had involved herself in mortal crime and wondered if she had committed the same error as Ranulf when she decided she knew better than others what God’s justice meant. Had the Prince of Darkness blinded her to the dangers of her own arrogance?

In this case, her motive for interfering with a matter of justice, which belonged under the jurisdiction of an earthly king, was not pure. The sheriff had treated her with disrespect, and her pride in rank had been offended. Had she been less concerned with thwarting the sheriff, might she have saved Mistress Luce’s life, perhaps even that of Ranulf’s wife? Had her failure to discover the truth in time been due, at least in part, to her own sinful motivations?

Just a few months ago, after Martin the Cooper was poisoned, she had been blinded by her jealousy and failed to see events with needed clarity. If she finally succeeded in conquering her own lusts and pride, would she not serve God’s justice better?

Yet the mortal heart had much to teach, especially about the power of love. From old Tibia last summer, she had learned the force of a mother’s love. Even Ivetta the Whore had demonstrated loyalty, albeit to a man who little deserved it. This time, Stevyn and Maud had lessons for her. But finding the jewel of love amidst the dross of sin required a craftsman’s skill, and Eleanor felt so pitifully ignorant.

She folded her hands, closed her eyes for a moment, and begged God for forgiveness. When she returned to Tyndal, she promised to ask a hard penance from her confessor for her failings. In the meantime, she would pray for Ranulf, as difficult as that would surely be. When the steward’s son died and his quaking soul discovered that his true master had been Satan, might God still grant him at least some mercy for having lost all reason? Or was that a blasphemous hope?

She looked up. The gates to the manor were closed. The sheriff’s party was well along on the road with their prisoner.

Eleanor turned away, pressed a hand against her heart that ached with unhappiness, and walked back to the chamber she shared with Mariota. During those days and years of prayer she owed God, there would be many questions for which she would seek answers. The truth of this particular situation was one, relegated to that shadowy corner of her mind where it would await His enlightenment.

The cold air nipped their cheeks, but there was enough promising blue in the sky to suggest that this journey home to Tyndal would have a good beginning.

Eleanor and Maud stood next to each other, the shared regret at the parting tinged with additional sadness that the bond of their emergent friendship had been forged in such tragic circumstances.

“Would you give me your blessing, my lady?” Maud bowed her head and eased herself down on her knees.

“With a heart most willing,” the prioress replied.

As the widow rose, they both began to weep and drew each other into a warm embrace of farewell.

“I shall never forget what you have done for my charge,” Eleanor said, standing back and wiping her tears away. “Nor will I cease to be grateful to you for saving my life.”

Maud folded her arms, her expression amused as if she had just won a friendly argument. “My lady, had you not struck the man with such force and accuracy, I would never have had the chance to fell him so. Methinks it was your vigorous attack that saved us both.”

“This weak creature?” the prioress replied, looking at her hands with mock amazement. “I believe we must thank God who gave my arm an unwomanly strength. Did He not do so for Jael, the wife of Heber, when she drove the nail into Sisera’s head?”

“This manor is but a sparrow compared to the eagle that is the land of Israel…” Maud’s words began as a jest but her abrupt silence suggested she had been overcome with uneasiness.

“I pray that He brings comfort to you and Master Stevyn.” The prioress grasped the woman’s hand. “Violence has claimed too many here, and the pain must be intensified by the identity of the killer.”

The widow turned her head away. “I fear this scourge has been the result of our sin.”

“Some would concur, and I should not presume to counter those deemed far wiser than I,” Eleanor replied, “yet my woman’s imperfect heart stubbornly rebels against the conclusion. That you sinned is indisputable, but you saw the error of your ways with clarity and repented with sorrow. Ranulf did not and howled so loudly over the wickedness of others that the noise drowned out the cries of his own soul. Then he bathed in their blood as if violence would somehow make him a less tainted mortal. I cannot see that you and Master Stevyn were to blame for all that.”