Priscilla Royal - Chambers of Death

With all her other pressing responsibilities, however, there had been little time to gain the young woman’s confidence in order to talk with her as needed. Eleanor suspected the girl might simply not know what she wanted. There was no doubt that a life of prayerful service profited family souls, and God rejoiced when mortals rejected the violence and sins of a secular world. Yet choosing the religious life with no calling often brought its own problems, and Eleanor had no wish to force young women to take on a life they would grow to hate, a loathing that often infected a community like some plague.

In any case, the decision regarding Mariota’s future must be made soon. Eleanor had hoped the enforced companionship on this trip would allow the young woman to confide in her, and thus the prioress might suggest a clearer path for the girl. With this journey so cursed, however, even that plan had been thwarted, and now the poor child lay sick and in danger of dying.

Eleanor leaned her head back against the wooden shutter and groaned. How much she needed advice and direction herself!

On one hand, she had Brother Thomas longing to leave the priory and become a hermit for at least a year. On the other, she had a girl with a fine dowry who might have come to Tyndal with no calling at all.

She cursed her frailties!

Instead of granting her monk’s request, she had ordered him to come on this trip where she could see him every day. Rather than sending Mariota home to think about her vocation, she had let her sit with the novices for far too long, hoping she would simply discover a calling.

“I am a fool,” she muttered. “Greedy, selfish, and imprudent. Have I considered what is best for their souls? Nay, I have only thought of my own desires and the wealth of my priory.” Sighing in frustration, she looked down on the manor land.

The fields were barren, all crops long harvested and either sold or stored in one of the outer buildings. To the left she could see a road crossing through a pasture, then where it veered abruptly toward the gate to the courtyard. Ruts, dug deep by wagon wheels, had filled with rainwater, making the way treacherous with slippery mud. Her party had been fortunate, Eleanor thought, that none of their horses had fallen or broken a leg last night.

A movement below and to her right caught her attention, and she cautiously slipped closer to the other side of the window to see more clearly.

Two people stood together near the thatched and steepled barn. In spite of the vile weather, neither appeared inclined to seek shelter.

How curious, Eleanor thought.

One of the pair was a woman, judging by her size and dress. Her robe was brightly colored and stood out against the rain-blackened wood of the barn. The other, a man, was clothed in a duller hue.

While the prioress watched, the man slid his hands down the woman’s back, tucked them firmly under her buttocks, and pulled her hips against him. She clutched him yet closer, then threw her head back as he began to kiss her neck.

“And ardently enough to warm any body on such a day,” Eleanor said aloud, surprised at the wanton display.

Suddenly the couple jumped apart.

Eleanor followed the direction of their gaze and saw several riders turning down the road toward the manor gate.

The woman picked up her robe and fled toward a low-roofed building, which the prioress guessed might be the stable. Her companion walked slowly to open the gate, then stood in the road where he waited to greet the lead horseman.

Gripping the rough stone for balance, Eleanor bent further out of the window. She could just see into the courtyard.

The rider was dismounting with observable stiffness and the steadying hand of the woman’s companion.

The bright-robed woman now raced from the shelter of the stable, arms wide to embrace the horseman. “Dearest husband, you are safely returned!”

Had anyone noticed what she had seen just a moment before? Perhaps the couple had been sufficiently hidden from the view of all but her, Eleanor concluded.

The horseman apparently had not seen anything untoward. He embraced the woman willingly enough, before slipping his arm around her shoulders and limping out of sight.

“I wish I had not witnessed that,” Eleanor murmured, sliding out of the window and back into the shadows of the stairway. Giving the shutter a pat as if granting some form of absolution, she left it hanging open and climbed the last couple of steps.

Surely the woman must be Mistress Luce. Although many religious might rightly consider the apparent lapse of virtue a proper matter to address, Eleanor decided that both courtesy and wisdom demanded she say nothing about what she had beheld. As a guest, she had no wish to bring dissention to a house that had granted refuge and aid to her desperate little company.

“The woman has a confessor,” she murmured, while fervently hoping that the errant wife would seek both counsel and penance before her actions festered into even greater evil.

Despite wind so freezing that his nose ran, Thomas bent his head and walked through the courtyard mud with determination, while humming something Brother John had been teaching the novice choir at Tyndal.

A calico cat from the kitchen raced past him, in pursuit of some real or imagined prey, then skidded and tumbled into a puddle. As the creature shook herself, Thomas grinned. “Prioress Eleanor’s orange cat would never display such lack of feline dignity,” he teased affably.

Scrubbing with vigor, the cat pointedly ignored him.

Thomas slogged on, delighted at his remarkably bright spirits on this glum morning. Considering his long-entrenched gloom, this change should perhaps trouble him, but he decided that sort of logic came from Satan. The Fiend would rather any mortal be cursed with such hopelessness that the soul took on the burnt hue of the Evil One himself. The monk banished his doubt. After all, if he chose to analyze it with more care, the root of his happier mood was easy enough to discover.

After he had been shown to the kitchen last night, and dried himself by the hearth fire, he shared a late supper of hot soup and fresh bread with the cook and the kitchen servants. Although the arrival of the prioress’ party, and the anticipated return of Master Stevyn, would mean extra work on the morrow, the servants took advantage of whatever ease they could enjoy before dawn.

And the company had most certainly been a merry one, reminding Thomas of boyhood days spent with the cook who raised him after his mother’s death. Adding to the cheerfulness was the addition of Master Huet, younger son to the steward, who had just arrived himself the night before.

From a few overheard remarks by the servants, the monk concluded that the son’s return had been quite unexpected, but the man was greeted with great delight nonetheless. Of course Thomas had recognized the grown-out tonsure at the time, an observation he found rather disturbing, but no one else seemed bothered and thus he dismissed his curiosity. If the others found joy in Huet’s company, a man they knew far better than he, perhaps he should respect their view.

That had, in fact, been easy enough, for Thomas was soon beguiled by the man’s graceful charm and quick wit. Now he shuddered in retrospect. Didn’t the Devil have that kind of charm, numbing the soul to danger as he transformed his vile and sinful shape into one of more pleasing appearance?

Yet he had sensed no particular evil in Huet, either last night or this morning. Indeed, Huet had joined the servants with a humility uncommon in those of higher station. Many monks were rarely as modest, and imps most definitely never.

And Huet was a good storyteller, with many interesting tales about his travels. What pleased Thomas most, however, was the man’s singing voice. He had amused them well with songs he had learned along the route, especially during his stay in Arras. The subject of the songs had been worldly love, but that did not matter to Thomas and most certainly not to Hilda, who alternately clutched her heart and wept joyfully over the lovers’ trials in the romance of Aucassin and Nicolette.