Priscilla Royal - Justice for the Damned

Wulfstan seemed to have no enemies, despite his lawless years, and she could not set aside his equally long record of reliable, honest labor. His son may have led others to sin, but her aunt, who surely knew him best and agreed he might be a thief, thought murder beyond him. Were father and son involved in a plot to steal the Psalter, as she suspected? Was the quarrel but a drunken spat?

Who was the ghost? Was it a boy playing the fool or a killer in disguise? Mayhap Sayer? Was the spirit a woman or a man dressed up to look like one? Perchance Jhone, seeking to frighten both village and priory into reconsidering the condemnation of her childhood friend? As unlikely as that seemed, it was not something Eleanor could set aside either. And did it matter whether the shape was judged to be a queen or a local spirit back from Hell?

And what of this Bernard, a man in need of money to win the woolmonger's daughter and a profitable business? His name had not even been mentioned as a suspect, but she wondered if it should be. Was he a dreaming boy who truly loved his Alys, or a scheming thief who sought to sell a stolen manuscript and thus gain what he could not earn as a merchant of gloves? Even if Sayer and his father had planned the theft of the Psalter, they needed someone to sell it for them, a man who could travel with ease.

The prioress pressed her fingers against her brow. Her courses may have ceased, but a familiar dull ache was now starting over one eye. She must ask Anne to prepare that feverfew potion which helped with the blinding headaches she often suffered.

Suddenly, she heard a noise and looked up.

A crow hopped to a landing on the path in front of her.

If this was the bird nesting near the library, the creature must feel more certain of her brood to leave it unguarded. Or was it stealing just a few minutes away from the high-pitched chirping of demanding and featherless infants? Eleanor chuckled at the thought. The bird was no different from any other mother.

She stood very still, rinding delight in watching the bird totter along the path as if seeking the quiet to be found between rows of flowering bushes and budding plants. Most called crows ungainly things, their rolling gait like that of drunken men, their feathers askew as if they cared naught for appearances, but Eleanor did not agree. This creature did not remind her of a drunkard or some slovenly woman. Instead, it was like any young mother, stiff and pained from birthing, with little time now for the preening of her maiden days.

Many also hated these birds for their sooty color, calling them Deaths servants or Satan's fowl, but Eleanor had always liked their clownish ways, wondering if God had made them dark of hue to remind mortals that laughter must be found in sadness. Or else, she suddenly thought with some irreverence, they contained the souls of jesters condemned to Hell for telling bad jokes in the king's court. She raised a hand to cover her laugh. The thought was impudent, but she knew her aunt would enjoy the image as much as she.

Her gesture caught the bird's attention. The crow turned and studied the Prioress of Tyndal, its bright black eyes gleaming like tiny polished pebbles. With a raucous and annoyed caw, it spread its wings and napped back in the direction of the tree.

Eleanor sighed with regret, raising a hand in apologetic farewell as if the bird had been an acquaintance with whom she had shared a few pleasant words before innocently saying something to offend. "At least it succeeded in turning my thoughts from murder," she said, bending over a prickly evergreen shrub with fragrant yellow blossoms.

How delicate the petals, she noted, yet how fiercely protected by the sharpness of the bush. She laid two fingertips on a flower with caution. Even soulless plants defend their delicate offspring, she realized. What a miracle motherhood was, turning simple shrubs and weak women into creatures capable of the most remarkable feats.

Hadn't Sister Beatrice just wrought a maternal miracle? Were it not for her aunt's loving cleverness, Eleanor knew she might have succumbed to Death's charms out of indifferent weariness. Yet she had gained strength in the last few days, no longer falling asleep after dinner and requiring someone to wake her for prayer. Look at how much she had walked today without losing breath or growing numb with fatigue.

As she continued along the path, listening to the soft whoosh of green leaves rising and falling against each other in the sweet-smelling breeze, she remembered thinking, after her fever broke, that those who approach death begin to long for it even though they will leave loved ones. Eleanor had looked forward to dying, deciding that Tyndal could do just as well under Sister Ruth and grateful that she would be freed from the lust she suffered for Brother Thomas. Yet Sister Beatrice had teased her spirit back to the earthly life with ferocious determination. Like any good mother, her aunt knew well how to save a child from danger.

In the distance, the crow cawed loudly from her nest.

Eleanor raised her hands to her mouth. "O slow-witted woman," she gasped. "Surely God sent that crow as messenger, yet I have been standing here, so absorbed by selfish thoughts of my wretched self that I was blind to the insight He granted me."

Picking up the hem of her robe, she ran from the cloister gardens.

The priory bells rang out with joy for prayer.

"Come join me, monk!" Sayer sat on the library roof and waved his hammer. "You will feel closer to God."

"Come down to earth," Thomas countered, unable to hold back a grin. Then a heavy darkness settled around his heart. "I want to talk to you."

"I have work to do and what light remains is precious." He gestured for Thomas to go inside. "There is a way to the roof up some stairs. At the top you will find an opening that leads onto the scaffolding. Once there, I will help you climb to a seat, and we can talk while I continue at my task."

"I have not your firm footing."

"Afraid of dying, monk? What sins do you fear might send you to Hell if you fall unshriven?" Sayer's smile suggested he was jesting, but his tone did not match the look.

Thomas recoiled from the blow to his honor. If the man was suggesting he was a coward, he would prove otherwise. "Which stairs am I to climb?"

The steps were steep, and the window through which he edged was small. Now as he balanced himself on the narrow scaffolding and stared at the sharp angle of the roof, Thomas asked himself whether a true monk would have surrendered his pride and turned down Sayer's implied dare. How often did he betray his insincere calling in just such ways?

Whatever the roofer's intent, he showed gentle courtesy by helping the monk climb the steep pitch to a safe place. Once settled in, Thomas gazed at the view and understood why some envied soaring birds. From here he could see beyond the walls and across the river to the strange mounds the monks mentioned only in hushed tones. The village was also on the other side, quite tiny from this great height and filled with bustling miniature people. Do we look that small to God, he asked himself.

"You have fallen silent, monk. I thought you wanted to talk with me." Sayer raised his hammer with a flourish and whacked a new nail into the slate patch.

"I wonder at what a man can observe when raised higher than he might otherwise be. Now I see why angels have a far greater understanding of the earth from their vantage point in Paradise." Or so Thomas decided he might have been thinking if his eyes had not slipped from contemplating the heavens to Sayer's muscular stomach. He looked away.

"A most philosophical monk. Surely you did not wish to talk of angels with me, for I shall confess I much prefer the feel of the earth than any angel's breath." Sayer studied Thomas with mock gravity.