Priscilla Royal - Tyrant of the Mind

“When you heard the voices, however…”

“In truth, now that I think more on it, I must confess that I spoke too quickly when my sister was here. I heard nothing, unless it was voices in the dining hall. Aye, it must have been that and thus my confusion. It would have been the servants. Nay, I misspoke, Thomas. I heard no speech between two people.”

Thomas frowned at this sudden and doubtful retraction. “Such a quick abandonment of your previous statements, Robert? But surely with the body so warm there must have been someone nigh, someone that could have escaped down the passageway to other stairways. You must have seen or heard…”

Robert swirled around, his eyes angry but focused on the wall behind Thomas. “I saw no man. I heard no one, and I did not murder Henry. That may not be enough, Thomas, but that is all I can say.”

“Hywel’s wife? Might she have come to confront Henry…?”

“His wife was given a draught by the woman who took her away from his corpse this morning. After I left the dinner, I paid a visit to offer what comfort I could, and the old woman assured me that the drink she had concocted would put the wife into such a deep sleep for so many hours that she would awaken with a lesser grief. She has, after all, young children she must comfort and cannot afford to suffer such deep sorrow herself.”

There was clearly no purpose in pursuing anything further with Robert. The man’s eyes had glazed over and his color was now a gray pallor. If need be, the story of Hywel’s wife could be easily confirmed.

Thomas rose. “Will you promise to send word if anything else comes to mind, my friend?”

“Aye,” Robert replied. His words were barely audible, his head bowed, and his expression was hidden.

As Thomas left the prison cell and the guard closed the door behind him, he asked himself how carefully Robert might have chosen his words. Indeed, the man did seem to make a distinction between kill and murder , but with greater interest Thomas noted that Robert had said he had told him all he could say , not all that he knew .

Later, as daylight finished wrestling the last of the lingering shadows into the crevices of the rough corridor wall, Brother Thomas stood outside Isabelle’s room, stared down at the dark stains of blood on the stone floor, and shivered.

I might have a man’s body but a child’s heart still beats in my chest, he thought ruefully.

In his youth, he had often awakened in the deep night to the sounds of scuffling and moans outside his room, and he had cowered in terror, waiting for the sun to chase away those demons he knew must be waiting for him just outside his door. In the morning he would rise, open the door and, with bravery bought with sunlight’s coin, look out to see just such stains on the stone floor. He imagined the marks must from the blood of giant gray werewolves struggling with great black demons, until an older man took some pity on him and said that the blood was from mortal men fighting over petty things, and nothing to fear at all. He had been relieved that the creatures were not supernatural, but some fear had remained with him although he was no longer a little boy alone in the dark.

“I am a man, not a lad anymore,” he reminded himself with some success, then bent to look more closely around the area where Henry had been murdered. After a few minutes he shook his head. There was nothing here to suggest anything had happened than the most obvious. An examination of Henry’s body would reveal more details, of course, but he feared there was naught here to help Robert’s cause.

He hunched his shoulders as they began to ache in the cold and considered the possible ways of escape from this place. Henry had been killed right in front of the guestrooms assigned to Sir Geoffrey and his wife. Their chambers were at the opening to the staircase that wound down to the dining hall and then out to the castle ward. That was one exit. The rooms also faced the point where that inner passage turned and led toward one of the defensive towers at the corner of the wall surrounding the inner ward. That would be the only other way a murderer could have escaped because, in the other direction, the corridor ran straight down to the room Thomas shared with Father Anselm and abruptly ended there as if the workmen had never finished it.

“When Robert first claimed he had heard voices as he climbed the stairs but saw no one,” Thomas said aloud, “the speakers might have been anywhere. In the stairwell, in the dining hall, near the guestrooms or further into that tower passageway.”

Since the stairs were deliberately designed to be steep and sharply curved so any attacker would have difficulty swinging his sword against defenders above him, it was not surprising that Robert could not see anyone just ahead of him. Had Robert been near the dining hall when he heard the voices or had he been beyond that and closer to the living quarters above the hall? He could not remember if the man had said. Now, of course, Robert was denying that he had heard two voices at all so it would be useless to ask him, and, needless to say, Thomas did not believe his abrupt retraction.

“If the voices had come from the dining hall,” Thomas continued, “the speakers might have remained there until Robert passed that entrance, then retreated down the stairs he had just climbed. If, however, they had come from this higher level, the murderer, or murderers, might have heard him coming and escaped down the passageway to the tower before Robert emerged from the stairwell. Those are the only ways to escape.”

What if the speakers were further down the corridor where there was no exit? They might not have heard him climbing the stairs and that meant they might not have been able to escape before Robert emerged and would have been trapped. Thomas closed his eyes and tried to picture exactly what he had seen last night.

He and Anselm were in the very last room in that corridor. When the Lady Isabelle screamed, Anselm had been asleep. Thomas could confirm that he was there and no one else was in the room. Nor had the priest ever emerged. He had been sitting at the edge of his bed, pale and quaking, when Thomas returned with the grim news.

Next to them were the baron’s chambers, and as Thomas was leaving his room, the baron was rushing from his own door. He had been fully dressed and had his sword in hand. No one was in the corridor between those two rooms. That Thomas could confirm as well.

Thomas hesitated and opened his eyes. “Was it odd that the baron was fully dressed at such an early hour?” Perhaps not, he decided, for Robert had said that his father was often up before cock’s crow. Still, the hour had been very early. Any cock would still be enjoying the lush charms of his hen of choice and not yet sated enough to bring forth his morning boast. Perchance the Baron Adam had also just returned from the warmth of another’s bed. Or, like Thomas, suffered sleepless nights alone. He would think more on that.

The baron was, in fact, now residing in Robert’s usual quarters. When his grandson fell ill, he had given up his rooms with their luxuries of a curtained bed and hearth for warmth. The room next to the baron was now where Richard lay. The prioress shared it with Sister Anne as well while they cared for him. Of course, he had seen his prioress leave the room just behind her father. Sister Anne had returned to be with Richard as soon as Henry’s body was discovered, so Thomas had looked behind him as she left. Again, no stranger was in the corridor.

Next to the boy’s sickroom was the chamber assigned to the Lady Juliana. Had he seen her? He closed his eyes. The image of Juliana’s face peering around the door of her room came to mind. He could recollect nothing but her head.