Priscilla Royal - Wine of Violence

It was something he could not do with Sister Ruth, whose hatred of the new prioress was so unbalancing her humors that she seemed to find no pleasure in anything. Indeed, Prioress Eleanor’s recent decision to appoint her sub-prioress angered her even more. Nor did Brother Simeon help matters any with his remarks to the former porteress about the injustice she had suffered and with his praising of her superior abilities over those of the woman who had supplanted her at Tyndal. Satan had a fertile field in the older nun. Thomas had oft been tempted to suggest she scourge herself for her less than charitable thoughts. To order a nightly penitential whipping, however, would satisfy his own dislike of the woman more than it would help banish the Devil, so he had resisted. Not surprisingly, she had expressed no desire herself to perform such a penance.

He crunched along the path that led from the church and listened to the soft wind whispering through the tall grass, dry after the long summer.

None of the other nuns had cared much for the method of choosing Eleanor either, he’d heard, but he was seeing a slow change in their view of her. Her youth still bothered most, although he now heard more about her kindness, modesty, and willingness to listen. The extensive changes they feared would be made had not occurred. The small ones that had been made seemed to please them.

He had even heard some compliment her on being more in their midst, something the old prioress had rarely done. When she was obliged to entertain, they learned that the food served was what they themselves ate. And rumors had come from Amesbury kin of a couple of the Tyndal nuns that the new prioress had spent a year in the world before making her final vows, a fact that argued somewhat against the inexperience which had troubled many.

In addition, Eleanor had been seen in conversation with the crowner. It was noted that this older man, a representative of King Henry, showed her due respect despite her youth. This pleased the nuns. When respect was shown to their leader, honor was bestowed on the priory.

Thomas stopped just at the rise of the hillock near the monks’ quarters and breathed in the salty air. Bracing, he thought. Perhaps he was growing accustomed to it. He walked on toward the small bridge leading to the stables.

Nonetheless, Brother Rupert’s murder had still not been solved, a reality that cast a long shadow over both nuns and monks at Tyndal. Although lay brothers visibly watched the gates and walls of Tyndal and the prioress was observed overseeing such efforts, Thomas still heard voices turn hoarse in terror as nuns recounted awakening during the night after dreaming that some demonic creature was standing over them, bloody blade in hand. It troubled Thomas as well that nothing had come to light since the discovery of the knife hilt and bloody garment. The murder seemed no closer to being solved.

Thomas looked down from the bridge and watched the sparkling stream flow beneath. It had a soothing babble, and the occasional dark shadow wriggling through the clear water suggested there were fine fish to be caught for dinner. He turned away and crossed to the other side.

Truth be told, however, his concern over the murder had been momentarily diminished by another decision just made by the prioress. All nuns at Tyndal came to him for confession except Prioress Eleanor. Of course he was used to those in power choosing their own priests, but it seemed strange that a prioress, noted for being more with her flock than prioresses were wont to be, should behave in only one respect as he would have expected her to do in all others. What bothered him most, however, was that Brother John was her choice for confessor.

Thomas continued up the path that led to the stables and smiled. At least the smell of horseflesh was the same, he noted, whether in London or in the country.

Nay, he was not jealous of Brother John. After what he had survived in his London prison, ambition and competitiveness dwindled to insignificant passions. No, the problem lay in his opinion of the man. Thomas was of two minds about him. The monk’s eyes could be as cold as green ice or as warm as gem fire in the sun. He had treated Thomas both with disdain and with gentleness, neither of which seemed contrived. Indeed he was a curious man, intriguing enough that Thomas had followed him on occasion and had even spent more time in his company.

Just two nights ago, Thomas had seen the monk slipping quietly out of the dormitory and he had followed him, once again into the clearing in the woods. This time no one attacked Thomas, but he watched as Brother John stripped off his habit and spent an hour whipping his naked body in the moonlight while praying in a quiet voice for unspecified forgiveness. As the monk stood with arms raised to the sky after his strange penance, Thomas found himself inexplicably seized with lust for the first time since he had arrived at Tyndal, but in the few moments it took him to quiet his own unruly flesh, Brother John had disappeared. Thomas had spent the rest of that night troubled by sporadic and now forgotten dreams.

The next morning, the monk had greeted Thomas with good cheer and asked if he would like to accompany him when he took the novices fishing after Mass. The man he had seen caressing a lad in the chapel behaved properly during the fishing trip, and Thomas noted no hesitation on the part of any boy to be close to him or to join in the physical roughhousing usual between elder and younger males. Although no man had ever groped him as a youth, he knew other boys who had been, and one who was raped by some knights in his father’s company. Those boys had tried to avoid the men thereafter. Brother John, however, seemed genuinely loved. A puzzle, Thomas thought, for he was sure the monk had shown more than brotherly love for the youth in the chapel that night of his attack.

Thomas walked into the stable, stopped, then looked around. His pitchfork was not where he had left it yesterday. Had one of the two lay brothers he had replaced hidden it out of spite? He chuckled. He hoped they liked slopping hogs and cleaning up after the chickens better than stable work.

He kicked around at mounds of hay and checked in the stalls. It had neither fallen nor been put elsewhere. Perhaps someone had taken it up for some task and hadn’t thought to return the tool where Thomas had propped it.

He walked outside and around the back into the shadows of the stable building. There, sticking out of a mound of filthy straw, was the pitchfork. As Thomas tugged at it, he realized it was stuck on something. He grabbed the handle with both hands, then pulled with a sharp jerk.

The tines emerged from the straw. For cert, they were quite stuck. Deep into a man. He was dressed in ragged, stained clothing; his beard was black and unkempt. His eyes stared fixedly at Thomas. He did not blink.

Indeed, the man was quite dead.

The wooden door to the prioress’s chambers creaked on its hinges, then slammed shut, the wooden panels shaking quite visibly from the force.

Eleanor raised one eyebrow.

“I swear that woman hates me,” Ralf the Crowner said as he stared at the still quivering door.

“Sister Ruth shares the concerns of many over yet another death in our priory.” Eleanor gestured toward a stool, and Ralf sat.

“I join with your charges in that concern, but I have found no traces of the person who murdered Brother Rupert. I suspect there is a link to this second death, but I have not found it. I am not used to being so thwarted, my lady, yet thwarted I surely am.”

“Have you identified who the poor man was?” Eleanor watched as Gytha carefully poured a goblet of wine for the crowner, then put the ewer down and began to cut some cheese.