Priscilla Royal - Wine of Violence

“A man new to the priory knows an entrance I do not after all my years at Tyndal? Come, Thomas, I took you for an intelligent man. Surely you can lie better than that.”

“Begging your pardon, my lord, but I would guess it has been some time since you have had to escape a lady’s chamber when her lord did unexpectedly return.”

Simeon’s lips twisted into a smile.

“The latrine is not a pleasant ladder to safety, but few men would suspect a monk of knowing that weak point in, shall we say, this castle’s defense.”

Simeon’s throaty laugh cracked like fragile clay. “Thomas, you are a good man. Indeed, I must make up for striking you on the head that night. It was out of my own fear of what you might find out if you caught… But first we must be gone. After I dispatch this troublesome monk.…”

“My lord!” Thomas’ eyes widened in horror as he pointed behind Simeon. “The torch!”

For just an instant as he turned to look, Simeon loosened his hold on Brother John, the edge of the knife dropped slightly. John threw himself backward, knocking Simeon off balance. As the two men fell on their backs, Simeon’s knife flew out of his hand.

“Yes!” Thomas shouted as he dove for the knife.

John rolled just out of Simeon’s grasp.

As he seized the knife, Thomas heard a strange whine above him, then a thud, and a grunt. When he looked up, he saw Simeon lying lifeless in the straw, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. A crossbow bolt stuck out of his chest.

“How sad,” Ralf said with a half frown as he looked at the crossbowman. “I do believe the man is dead. You must learn better control of your weapon.”

“The Church had the right to try Brother Simeon for his crimes, Ralf.” Sister Anne’s face was flushed with outrage.

“Indeed, Annie, but my man fired the crossbow by accident. A steady fellow overall, but I did reprove him severely. He’s been ordered off for more practice. We cannot have deputies carrying weapons they don’t know how to handle properly. An innocent person might have been shot.” He bowed his head. “When I explained the accident to Prioress Eleanor, she did not condemn me as you have.”

“I know you better, and you haven’t changed a bit. When you do not trust the authorities to conduct what you consider a proper hearing, you take justice into your own hands. Such an act was capricious and unworthy of a civilized man.”

“That was unkind. Come, Annie, surely you know me to be fair and honest.” Pain was evident in Ralf’s eyes as he looked at the nun.

Sister Anne looked down at her hands. “Aye, Ralf, you are that, but one of these days you will condemn a man for sins he did not commit. You are not God. Do not forget it.”

Ralf turned his face from her and said nothing.

Sister Anne reached over and briefly squeezed his arm. “You are still a good man. Brother Simeon was not. Indeed, your sentence on him was kinder and quicker than he would have gotten from any other earthly court.” She smiled at him. “Now he is in the hands of God, who will be harsher on him than any mortal man, I think.”

“Annie, you know how much I care about what you…” Ralf reached for her hand, but she withdrew it quickly.

“Hush, Ralf, and go. You saved John, for which I am deeply in your debt. I shall keep your secret, but do not think you have fooled our prioress with your story. She is wiser than her youth would suggest, and I suspect she knows as well as I do that you ordered your man to kill Simeon. Still, she will keep her own counsel about it. I think she knows you for the decent man you are.”

Ralf opened his mouth, then shut it as he watched Sister Anne walk away from him. After she was gone, he bowed his head and wept, his hand pressed against a heart that ached with a very old sorrow.

***

Thomas stood at the entrance gate, straight-backed and hands folded into his sleeves, as he watched the man in black ride slowly away. When the rider had disappeared into the dusty distance, Thomas slumped against the rough walls of the priory and did nothing to stop the flood of his tears.

“I have made a bargain with the Devil,” he muttered. Indeed, he was beginning to wonder if the man who had saved him from the stake was no man at all, but one of Satan’s minions or even the Prince of Darkness himself. “Nay, with that tonsure, he is surely a man of the Church,” Thomas muttered, but in his anger he refused to concede that such a man could be godly.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. The man in black had been contented with Thomas’ handling of Simeon. Quite clever, he had said, when he heard about the scene in the storage room, and the man’s thin lips had even twitched into a shadow of a smile. Dead men could not testify to dark sins; the creditable living could be trusted not to speak of scandal; any rumors would be quelled. Yes, the demon messenger had said, it was all quite satisfactory. He looked pleased, even happy, if one could interpret anything at all from the man’s colorless face and faded gray eyes.

And that was the end of the visit. Or nearly so. After the man had taken a final sip of reddish wine and stood to leave, Thomas had jumped up and demanded to know what else he had in mind for him and when his next assignment would be. He would not be played with like a mouse by a cat, he snapped.

The man had smiled at Thomas’ anger and asked in return if he was comfortable at Tyndal.

“This forsaken pile of moldering rocks? This place where the air stinks of rotting fish and slime? What do you think? Of course I am pleased with this place. Who would not be content to stay in such bitter exile?” Thomas had virtually spat at the man, but he had spoken the truth, hidden in the abusive words. He wanted to stay. And he did not want this cursed shadow of Satan to know it.

“Then you shall, good monk. For a while. And when you are needed for some other task, I will come again. Needless to say, I cannot promise when or the circumstances. Nor, I might add, do you have any right to demand anything. You have life, after all, and now…” he waved his hand around the room gracefully, “a comfortable enough haven, despite the smell of the sea.”

With that, the man had gestured at the door, and Thomas had led him to the gate where a handsome gray horse waited.

“Brother?”

Thomas started and looked around. Brother John was standing behind him at the entrance gate, his green eyes soft as young meadow grass on a spring afternoon.

“I was looking for you.” John lowered his head. “I’m not sure there are words enough to thank you for saving my life.”

Thomas looked at the man he had not trusted, a man he still did not fully understand, and was humbled by John’s gratitude. “There is no need to thank me, brother,” he mumbled and bowed his head.

John reached out and put his hand gently on Thomas’ sleeve. “You did not like me, yet you risked your own life to save me. You distrusted me, but you treated me with fairness. There is much to thank you for.”

With John’s touch, Thomas began to feel an unfamiliar peace flow through him, and the tension he had felt with the visit of his tormentor started to dissipate. He looked up at his brother monk and said, “Can you forgive me for my thoughts? That would be thanks enough.”

John smiled. “There is no need to forgive what never hurt me.”

“Then there is peace between us,” Thomas heard himself say and realized he truly meant it.

“Peace, aye, and even understanding in time, for I do believe we have some things in common. The love of fine music, for one.” John put his arm around Thomas’ shoulder. “The novices are ready to practice, and the sound of their sweet voices might give both our souls a needed balm.”