Priscilla Royal - Tyrant of the Mind

Eleanor waited with great patience and in silence.

“He is a good lad,” Adam at last said in a low voice.

Eleanor nodded.

“An honest one as well.”

She nodded again, gripping her arms more tightly.

“Not given to telling wild tales as if they were true.” Adam hesitated, then turned the mazer cup in a half circle. “When asked, he says he only fights play dragons.” He turned the cup the rest of the way around. “He told me that one day he might find real ones to fight but the dragons here were just for practice, like the stuffed figures dressed in chain mail at practice tilts.” Adam smiled in spite of himself.

Eleanor relaxed her hands. Her nails no longer cut into her arms. She still said nothing, waiting for her father to say what she hoped he would.

“Oh, very well, lass! Yes, I believe the boy thinks he saw Sir Geoffrey. Maybe it was someone who looked enough like him to confuse the lad. I just cannot believe the man would have tried to kill Father Anselm! And it was Geoffrey who was most adamant about Robert’s innocence. Why would he want my son freed if he were the murderer? Does not a guilty man seek to cast his culpability onto another? How could he kill his own son, his heir and his own blood? Are these not enough contradictions to raise reasonable doubt that he is the murderer?”

Eleanor bowed her head. “Surely you know better than I that mortals are full of contradictions, father, but let us then say that he did not kill Henry but knows who did. Perhaps he wants to save Robert, because he is the honorable man you know him to be, and does not wish your son, an innocent man, to take the blame when he knows who did the deed. Perchance the person who did kill Henry is someone whom he also loves? Thus he may be the one who tried to kill Father Anselm but may not be the one who killed his son.”

Adam frowned. “Killing a priest is not the same as killing another man. Yet,” he hesitated, “I might believe that love or loyalty could drive him to it. Whom do you think he might be protecting?”

“Who is closest to him? George is not here. Henry could not have stabbed himself in the back and thus committed the sin of self-murder. That leaves his wife and his daughter.” Eleanor hesitated. “Unless you know of someone else in his company…”

“Nay, lass, you’ve named them all.” Adam took a sip of the previously untouched wine. “You have not yet explained his own wound. Could it be that Robert killed Henry and someone else attacked Sir Geoffrey?” He held up his hand to silence the expected protest. “Do not misunderstand me. I believe Robert is completely innocent and this latest attack makes such a conclusion credible, but we must consider all possibilities if we are to prove my son’s innocence. He was, after all, still found with dagger in hand, blood staining his hands while he bent over Henry’s corpse.”

Eleanor looked over at Thomas and Anne. Their wine was untouched, and they were watching her with quiet concentration. “I find the conclusion that there are two murderers loose in the small confines of Wynethorpe Castle as illogical as the idea that Robert is the head of a band of masterless men with some purpose in killing off the Lavenham family, one after the other. If the same person did not attack both father and son, then the motive for attacking Sir Geoffrey separately remains unknown and the likelihood of two separate attacks for two separate reasons is doubtful. We may live in troubled times, father, but Wynethorpe Castle is well disciplined and, as I have already said, not a breeding place of lawlessness.”

“Well argued, Prioress of Tyndal,” Adam replied with a smile that bespoke some pride in his child.

“Thus,” Eleanor continued, “we have three prime suspects in Henry’s murder: Sir Geoffrey, his wife and his daughter.”

“And in the attack on Sir Geoffrey?”

“The same three.”

Adam slammed his hand down. The cup bounced and wine splashed on the table. “I find it impossible to believe that a woman could kill two adult men, including one who was well-versed in fighting. I find it equally impossible to believe that my friend could have so grievously wounded himself.”

“Why not his wife and daughter, my lord? Certainly Juliana and Henry were of much the same build. Henry was more muscular, for cert, but he was small compared to most men and not inclined to sport, which suggests he had less strength than many, despite his quickness. Might not both Isabelle and Juliana have been the guilty ones?”

Adam shook his head. “Nay, women are weak creatures, my child.” He raised his hand as Eleanor began to speak. “Let me finish. Although you may argue that two women might have overpowered Henry, Sir Geoffrey is a trained warrior.” Suddenly, Adam looked down and frowned. “Still, you may have a point. Few men were equal to Geoffrey in a fair fight, yet no man can be prepared when someone he trusts and loves attacks him. Either his wife or daughter might have done this. They are both dear to him and could have gotten close enough to stab him before he knew what was happening.”

“You have discounted revenge for the death of the Welshman then?” Thomas asked with some hesitancy.

“I have, brother.” Adam sipped at his wine. “Although someone might have killed Henry for that, none would have had reason to attack Geoffrey. Indeed it was he that gave the widow a fat purse filled with coin for the orphaned babes. It was accepted as a fair blood price so I do not believe anyone killed Henry for revenge either.”

“Blood price?” Thomas asked.

“A Welsh custom. Perhaps I should say ‘law’, although we do not accept such and find the practice barbaric. The Welsh take money in payment for the death of a loved one.”

Thomas shook his head in amazement.

“That aside, we did question the Welsh just as we did the English and all were elsewhere, with witnesses enough to prove it, at the time of Henry’s death. Nay, I have no reason to think it was a killing for revenge. We may find the customs of the Welsh strange, brother, but they follow them as honorably as do other men. Once the blood price was accepted, the widow and orphans most certainly continue to grieve, but they would demand nothing further.”

“Then we are back to considering why wife or daughter might have killed Henry and if Sir Geoffrey would be willing to kill a man of God to protect either or both. The murder of a priest is not the act of a man who would later turn against either woman, telling what he knew to the king’s justicular. Thus I ask why these women would kill a man who was protecting them, a man who is husband to one and father to the other. In this you are more knowledgeable than I, Father, for I am long away from the days when Isabelle, Juliana, and I frolicked amongst the summer flowers.”

“Not so far, Eleanor. To begin, you know the reason why his daughter might as well as I. She wishes to enter a convent and her father wants her to marry.”

“A woman who is called to become a nun usually does not commit violence to obtain her way.”

“Then I ask this: what would you have done if I had not granted your request to leave the world and, instead, ordered you to marry George?”

Eleanor bent across the table and touched the back of her father’s hand. “Your wisdom, my lord, is known by all in this land, and you are wise as well in your kindness. For this I have always loved and honored you. Had you rejected my plea to become a nun, I would have grieved, but I would have respected your choice. I might have thrown a wine cup against the wall in anger, but I would not have tried to kill you.”

Adam turned his head away, but not before Eleanor saw the flush of pleasure on his cheeks at her words. “I am most pleased to hear that.”