Priscilla Royal - Justice for the Damned

A cloud drifted back across the moon, dimming the light.

"I think not, but I cannot be sure. They could both be the Devil's imps." Brother Infirmarian quickly ordered several of the lay brothers to assail the library but gestured for one to remain behind with him. The two men slipped closer to the walls and stared upward, raising their crosses to frighten any demon that might lurk there.

The grey forms on the roof looked like sooty ghosts against the darker roofing. The apparition higher up laughed with wicked merriment.

The men below clutched their crosses to their hearts. "Has the Devil released his minions to befoul God's priory with obscene antics?" the lay brother whispered.

The moon once again escaped its cloud, and the men on the ground could see one apparent mortal stand and wave something over his head.

"Give me that!" the other shadow shouted.

Brother Infirmarian looked at his companion. "Do you recognize that voice?"

The lay brother said nothing, his eyes wide-open with terror.

"Catch me if you can," the first one sang and climbed farther upward.

"Devil's spawn!"

"How fond you are of slandering others! I may be a rogue, but I would never defame the innocent. Now that you are on God's ground, surely you must confess that you lied about Eda. She never committed adultery, did she? Shout the truth to God, and I may give you this Psalter."

"She never forsook virtue," Herbert roared. "Give me the manuscript!" He pulled himself closer to the desired object.

The leaner shadow waved it over his head once again. "And a woman who so loved God would never have committed self-murder, would she? Even you could not claim otherwise, although you let others condemn her. Come," he said, holding the Psalter just out of reach. "Tell me how she died, and I shall release this."

"I held her head under the water until she drowned." The vintner grabbed at the Psalter, then slipped. As he slid down the roof, he screamed, but he landed safely on the scaffolding.

"On this holy ground, will you not ask His forgiveness?"

"Give me that Psalter! Dare you call me a sinner when you are Satan's own bedmate?"

"Now you have hurt my feelings."

To the right, two more men could be seen pulling themselves through a window onto the narrow wooden walkway.

The figure high on the roof lifted the Psalter over his head. "Beg for this." Suddenly he lost his footing. "Here! Catch it!" the man cried out, tossing the manuscript out into the darkness as he tumbled downward.

Master Herbert bent backwards to seize the manuscript as it flew over his head. The thin railing at his back snapped.

Brother Infirmarian, ignoring the screams above him, raced to the man who had just hit the ground.

"The hangman has been thwarted," he said softly.

The vintner's neck was broken in two.

Sayer lay in the monks' infirmary, his face pale and one arm bound to his chest.

"Does your shoulder hurt?" Bernard asked with frank concern.

"Brother Infirmarian pushed the bone back in quickly enough." Sayer's expression spoke more of indifference than any relief. "I am weak and may not move this arm. That is all."

"When we pulled you back onto the scaffolding, I wept for your pain." The glover wrung his hands and glanced over at the monk beside him. "Had Brother Thomas not been with me, you would have died. I did not have the strength to save you by myself."

"I should thank you both for that," the roofer said, "but I heal only to face the hangman. You should have let me fall to my death and saved the cost of a rope."

"You have killed no one," Brother Thomas replied.

"If I had not agreed to play a ghost to keep everyone inside at night so the vintner might steal the manuscript, my father would have lived. Although I did not strike the blow, I still murdered my father with my greed and wicked foolishness."

"God wants to forgive, and your actions tonight will do much to assuage the evil you have done in the past," Thomas replied, touching the binding around his head without thinking. He winced. "You did not know that my prioress had a plan to catch the guilty, yet you had already plotted to expose both killer and thief."

"Then only my hand will be cut off for my own part in attempting to steal the Psalter? I would rather kill myself than become a further burden to my mother."

Bernard gasped. "Your mother loves you as does Alys. Why make them suffer by committing that cruel and sinful act?"

"When the sheriff chops off the hand, I may die anyway. Satan will get a fine jester when he receives my soul."

"Justice will not be a secular one," Thomas said. "Your sheriff has proclaimed, in front of witnesses, that Church law rules in the matter of ghosts. Since you were the ghost, the priory will decide your punishment."

"Have I not profited from leading monks to sin? Did I not agree to help steal a holy work? Surely the Church would say that I am to blame for the death of my father and Brother Baeda, a most virtuous monk who joyfully shared the Psalter's sacred beauty with this wicked man." He turned his face away. "The Church will love me even less than King Henry's men."

"You conspired to catch Master Herbert in the theft and arranged for me to witness his confession of murder." Bernard folded his arms. "Does that not show repentance for any past sins?

"Repentance?" Sayer laughed. "I but wanted you and Alys to marry! Once the vintner's crimes were exposed and your courage in catching him out was told, my aunt would accept your suit."

"More is involved, I think," Thomas added.

"Consider the advantage to me if Bernard heard the vintner's confession. It absolves me of killing my father. When he was murdered on the path outside the priory, I suspected who had done it. Only Master Herbert knew about the toeholds I had gouged into the mortar when I finished repairing the wall for my father. When I confronted the man, he did admit the deed, claiming my sire had to die because he recognized him escaping from the priory after a monk cried out in fear."

"If he confessed, why did you not report it?"

"He reminded me that many had heard how my father and I quarreled and the threat I made in the heat of it to kill him. It would be easy to make sure I was arrested for my father's murder."

"A threat most did not believe you meant," Thomas added.

"Dear cousin, why do you continue to cover your soul with foulness? Admit your honest deeds."

Sayer raised an eyebrow. "Cousin? You should not stain your honor by adding me to your family."

"As Alys' beloved cousin, you are mine as well." Bernard raised his chin. "If you insist on confessing your evil deeds, at least add how you planned to trap the man."

"And failed to do so before a kind monk was killed." The roofer's mouth trembled. "Since the vintner had not asked my help in his first attempt to steal the Psalter, I should have known he did not trust me, or else had grown impatient with greed. Once again and without my knowledge, he climbed the wall and managed to slip into the library. Brother Baeda caught him and died. For that, I grieve."

Thomas shook his head. "Yet you came for the Psalter last night. How did you regain the man's trust?"

"I squirmed on my knees and beseeched him for coin, a longing he well understood. Since he had failed twice, I convinced him to let me try. I knew the building best, having reached the scaffolding to the roof from inside the library." Sayer shrugged, then winced with the pain. "When he agreed, I knew he would probably follow, hoping to kill me as soon as he could get the manuscript in hand."

"Surely the ghost could only be accused of so much violence before someone suspected a human hand. How dare he chance another corpse?"