Priscilla Royal - Wine of Violence

Sister Anne gestured, and a lay sister came out of the shadows. They whispered together for a moment, then the lay sister and Sister Matilda wobbled away in the general direction of the hospital.

“I will stand just there until you need me,” Sister Anne said, gesturing to a yew tree a little distance away.

Eleanor turned to Brother Thomas. “You look shaken yourself, brother.” She meant it kindly, but she saw him stiffen. “It is one thing to cross swords with a human enemy, but yet another to face Satan himself,” she added quickly. “Your courage was impressive.”

“I faced a corpse, not Satan, my lady.” His expression was unreadable.

“You did not know that when I asked you to protect us against a possible demon.” Eleanor wanted to reach out, take his hand, and clutch it to her as she had the terrified nun. The sweet pain she felt at the thought of his hand on her breast was less than chaste. She dropped her gaze, and there was silence between them.

“As you will. I am here to serve and am pleased if I served as you wished.”

“You served well, brother.” Eleanor took a deep breath and looked up. “I have one thing more to ask of you.”

Thomas bowed his head in silence.

“Should you see or hear anything of note in the matter of this death as you perform your tasks, I would hear of it, and hear of it first. Anything unusual. Anything out of place. We are both new here, but I have learned that you are a thoughtful and observant man. Crowner Ralf can only search the outside world for signs of this murder and that of Brother Rupert. I need your skills for noting anything untoward within our priory, especially amongst the monks and lay brothers.”

“Aye,” Ralf said. “I concur, good brother.”

Had the light not so failed that his face was in shadow, Eleanor might have seen Brother Thomas turn pale before he nodded agreement.

The rock bounced off the stone walls of the priory, and the curse spat after it was quite Anglo-Saxon.

“Who knows me here? Who is her spy?” Thomas snarled, as he threw another rock in impotent rage at the priory. “And what fool gave a woman the right to order men around? Unnatural, it is. This whole place is fucking unnatural!”

This rock shattered. Thomas sat down on the ground and put his head in his hands. He was shaking, but rage no longer masked his fear. Indeed, he had been afraid when the prioress had told him to come to the chapel and hold a cross against any demon still residing in the corpse of the man he had found.

And when Sister Matilda screamed, he thought he had seen a Son of Darkness rise from the body, smelling of smoke, his grinning image flickering in the candlelight. Thomas would have sworn to that. And when he held the cross in front of him, for cert he had heard the thing sigh before it disappeared, then all he heard was the calm prioress crooning to the nun in her arms as if she held a baby there, not an adult woman. Truth to tell, there was a instant when Thomas wished she would soothe him as well, but, along with the innocence of childhood, he knew he had also lost the right to such a comfort for himself.

Thomas began to sob, his body shaking uncontrollably. He had wept little since he was a small boy, yet in this place dedicated to peace and God, tears came to him easily and often. “Aye!” he cried into his hands. “She is a better man than I. I hate her for it!”

In truth, he did not hate the prioress. Had she been a man of the world, he would have admired her coolness. Had she been a prior, he might have sat at her feet and begged to learn how she blended her piety with pragmatism. Had she even been a saintly woman, he could have worshiped her holiness. She was none of those, but rather a young and earthy woman who was so very different from all the others he had ever known. He did not understand her at all, but he did respect her.

Whatever could he tell her? What was pertinent and what would be the betrayal of secrets with no relevance to these crimes? As Brother Andrew had said, many inhabitants of Tyndal had secrets buried in their hearts. Those were things between them and their God, as far as Thomas was concerned, and of no moment to mortal men, even to prioresses. Someone had a very dark secret, however, and that secret must have led to murder.

Should he speak of Brother John and his solitary penance in the forest clearing? Or of his own suspicions that the monk might have a youthful lover, a lad perhaps from the village? The consequences were dire if two men were found, as Thomas had been with Giles, and brought to trial. Men had been burned at the stake for it. Excommunication was common. Thomas shivered. He might have escaped all this himself either by the grace of God or Satan, but few did and he would never point a finger at another man for a love he could not even now condemn. Were the things he had seen or suspected about Brother John even related to the two murders, or were they unconnected? He did not know.

And what about Brother Simeon, a competent man who had taken control of Tyndal and run it well when the prior could not and the prioress would not. When Prior Theobald faltered, Simeon whispered words and decisions into his ear to use as his own, thus saving the old man’s pride. And both Brother Rupert and Prioress Felicia had seen the wisdom in letting him run the tenant farms and see to the other businesses of the priory. It was not until this year that things had faltered. Thomas was no farmer, but even he knew crops varied. So Simeon liked his wine and comforts. So what? Others in the Church took their ease with women as well as wine, and few were called to account as long as they helped the Church prosper. Surely, the sins of Brother Simeon were but laughable amongst worldly men, and Simeon worldly enough to know that.

This receiver, however, had an enemy at Tyndal. Someone had written the Abbess and suggested serious problems here, but Thomas had heard nothing from any of the monks or lay brothers to suggest who the author might have been. Was there a link between the accusation and these deaths? If so, what? He doubted Simeon knew anything about the letter. The receiver’s greatest worry was the arrival of the new prioress and her threat to his leadership of Tyndal.

Had it been Brother Rupert who had written? Thomas had been told he was a man known for direct speech, so surely he would have been more specific about the complaint. Brother John? Thomas smiled. No, he was too busy with his beautiful music and beautiful boys to write vague, yet suggestive letters. Brother Andrew? He seemed a man who observed much, then let it lie. Who, then, had a quarrel with the receiver? Thomas struck his head. Who!

He stood up and walked back toward the sacristy. It was time for Mass again, and time to start on the assignment entrusted to him by Prioress Eleanor. “Fuck!” he muttered in frustration. Thomas was so glad he had met Tostig. The Saxons had such expressive words in their language.

Bedlam would have been a model of calm compared to Tyndal’s kitchen the next morning. Sister Edith stood in the middle of the room, staring at the ceiling and screaming orders, many in contradiction to others already given. Steam from overflowing pots boiled into billowing hot fog, the bitter smell of burning meat permeated the air, and a large pestle lay shattered on the floor. Two sisters were in tears over half-chopped vegetables. And the midday meal chicken escaped out the door, squawking in outrage at its proposed fate, just as Eleanor walked in.

“You are a scrawny one,” she remarked as the bird raced past her. Then, looking at the scene before her, she wondered how anything, even the inedible, could emerge from all this disarray.