Priscilla Royal - Justice for the Damned

"Eda is at peace, mistress. God has rendered justice," Eleanor said, her voice as soft as the breeze against their faces.

"She will be reburied in holy ground?" lomorrow.

"She is no longer in Hell?"

"I doubt she ever was," Eleanor replied. "The Prince of Darkness may have blinded the crowner and his jury with ignorance and hardened hearts, but God would have known the truth."

Drifa wiped Jhone's cheeks with an elder sister's love. A smudge of dirt remained under one eye, but tears quickly washed it away.

"I came here every day to pray," the woolmonger's widow whispered.

Her sister took her hand and pressed it.

"Most would not have done so, mistress. This is the burial ground of condemned souls. Many fear the contagion of their wickedness," the prioress said.

"I knew she was innocent, my lady. We had been like kin from the day we could first walk. I owed her a friend's steadfastness," the woman replied with simple, unwavering belief.

Eleanor glanced at the uneven ground surrounding them and so many graves of the damned. The silence of this unholy place made her shiver, yet she caught herself wondering how many more innocents were buried here, condemned by men but never by God.

Mistress Drifa kissed Jhone on the cheek and once again pulled her sister into the comfort of her arms.

In silence, the prioress watched the two sisters and smiled at the tenderness between such resolute women. Would she herself have been able to show such bravery, kneeling on this cursed earth and persevering in the belief that a friend was innocent when a community might well rebuke her? Would she, like Drifa, continue to see goodness in a son who kissed the Devil's hand? The actions of these two had raised questions that she knew she would ponder long after her return to Tyndal.

"My lady, I have much to thank you for," Jhone suddenly cried out, throwing herself on her knees before the Prioress of Tyndal.

Eleanor gasped. "You have no need…"

"I have another favor to beg."

"Ask it but do not kneel to me." Eleanor raised the wool-monger's widow to her feet.

"My sins have been grievous ones! Like my husband, I was blinded by Master Herbert's well-crafted cloak of wealth, but God has now torn that pall from my eyes. My daughter shall marry her glover, a man I might have found worthy enough had it not been…"

Although Jhone turned her face away, Eleanor saw anger flash in her eyes. Was the cause her husband's inability to see Herbert's true nature or her own unthinking complicity in a decision that would have forced her beloved daughter into the arms of a murderer?

"And you shall have grandchildren to make your life most joyous," the prioress quickly said. The image of plump children racing around their grandmother, graced with Alys' loving determination and Bernard's gentle nature and pink cheeks, was a sweet one.

"I want to end my days in the priory."

"Only Prioress Ida has the authority to grant that plea!"

"But she would listen to you!"

"Seek instead the counsel of Sister Beatrice, a woman far wiser than I and one whose voice the prioress of Amesbury respects."

"As you will, my lady, but there is no reason to doubt my longing to leave the world. I owe God a long penance. I married for lust and fell into a cruel bondage with a husband who had always been an angry man. He beat me when I smiled at the butcher or did not cook his meat the way he liked it. When he struck me so hard that I lost the one son he gave me, he took to drink. As a good wife must, I turned my head away from his growing iniquity and honored my vows of obedience until his death. As a good wife still, I pray daily for his soul, but it will take many years before I can forgive his wickedness toward the innocent even if God does so."

Eleanor looked over at Drifa. Wulfstan's widow was weeping.

"Yet I, too, committed great wickedness when I tried to force Alys into a marriage with a malevolent man. My husband may have been fooled by the vintner's fine show of competence and prosperity, but I bear fault enough myself. In my youth, I failed to heed my parents. When I saw Alys set her heart on the glover, I feared she was as blinded by lust as I had been once. Although she, unlike I, chose a good man, I did not note the differences and was determined that she follow the path I had refused." Jhone's face darkened with grim determination. "Like Moses, I should not cross the Jordan and taint the future of my child and the innocence of her children with my knowledge of wicked ways."

"Mortals do evil things, mistress. It is our nature. Your mistake was born of reasonable fear, but there was no cruelty in your heart. Seek penance and remain in the world where Alys and her babes can bring you joy. Help your sister with her fatherless children. You can bring all these young ones the wisdom learned from your errors so that they may avoid the same faults."

"I fear that the Devil has not let me go," she whispered, "and I would only lead the innocent to calamity as I almost did my daughter. Nor would I burden Bernard with my care. He has proven himself a worthy man, and, despite my cruel words to him, I believe he would be forgiving and generous to me. It would be kinder if I did not accept a place at his table. Nay, after paying my dowry to the Order, the remaining wealth and the business must go to him and my Alys' children."

"There are other good men in the world…"

"I have no wish to remarry. Although the Church says I may without sin, I could not bring myself to bed with another man."

Eleanor glanced at Drifa, asking for confirmation of what she had just heard.

The woman nodded and gazed back at her sister. The tears that flowed down her cheeks glittered with both sadness and love.

"On Judgement Day," Jhone now continued, "I will seek my husband. May God grant that I am able to give him my hand in forgiveness. With God's mercy, I pray he will have learned the horror of his sins. We should stand side by side at God's throne while we wait for His verdict on our various transgressions. For the remainder of my days on this earth, I would find chastity, obedience, and poverty easy vows to take, although I would beg to be granted one wish."

"And that is?"

"Until I die, I would like to come each day and pray beside the new grave of Eda, that her time in Purgatory may be short. She was as virtuous as any mortal can be."

As Eleanor drew Jhone into a comforting embrace, the harsh silence in the lonely graveyard of damned souls softened as if hope had entered the gate.

On the edge of the graveyard, standing alongside Sister Anne and Brother Thomas, Beatrice watched her niece take the woolmonger's widow into her arms. She might not have heard what each had said to the other, but the novice mistress could read the words writ on faces well enough. After all, she herself had been a wife and mother, then a widow, before she became a nun.

As she watched Eleanor comfort Mistress Jhone, Beatrice pressed a hand to her breast to hold in the joy flooding her heart. Such pride in her niece might be sinful, but she suspected God forgave more quickly in instances like this.

After Eleanor had ridden back to Tyndal, she promised to confess. There would be time enough then to deal with her mortal failings. Beatrice knew she would face the parting with a stern will, after which she would escape to the cloister gardens where she could weep without restraint. Life was such a fragile thing, she said to herself, looking down at the wrinkled skin on the back of her hand. She might never see her beloved Eleanor again.

A few rude tears stung the corners of her eyes, and she angrily wiped them away, willing her mind from such indulgent imaginings. Instead, she concentrated on a butterfly hovering nearby, its delicate wings vibrant with orange, black, and white markings. Quickly it fluttered off, landing on a yellow flower some distance away. In its beauty, Beatrice found comfort. There was, after all, much to be grateful for in this moment.