Priscilla Royal - Sanctity of Hate

That last thought gave him pause.

He rarely let down his guard with others. Oh, a few to be sure, but they shared his feeling of not quite fitting into the world as most did. Prior Andrew, for instance, had fought on the wrong side of the de Montfort rebellion. Sister Anne had followed her beloved husband to the priory, despite having no longing for the cloister herself. Never did he have cause to doubt Gwydo’s sincere faith and calling, but he had sensed a profound sorrow hiding deep in the man’s soul, a feeling he himself understood well.

He continued through the mill gate and walked into the road. For want of a better destination in his hunt, he decided to visit the place known as the hut of Ivetta the Whore, where he had spent almost a year as a hermit.

The sea breeze was soft and carried a welcoming coolness to the land. Had yesterday not brought a village near riot and a family close to death, the world might have been as sweet and innocent as it was only a day after God finished creating it.

Thomas shook his head. This illusion was surely the Devil’s mockery. A man’s throat had been slit, and the stench of hatred was still in the air. Slipping into the forest, he stepped over a rotting log and found the short-cut to the hut.

He had not walked far before he saw where someone might have tripped and tumbled down the embankment. Kneeling on the ground, he found a root pulled up, the earth still damp where it had been buried, and the surrounding vegetation flattened or broken. He bent over the edge and concluded that the distance to the stream was not far. There were many rocks and some tree trunks that could break any fall but which also might break an arm or injure a head.

Was Gwydo lying wounded and helpless below? He eased himself down to the water’s edge.

A brief search of the area revealed neither lay brother nor anything else of note. Thomas sighed with frustration and climbed back up.

He loved this forest, a place apart where he had often mused without interruption in his days as a hermit. Of course it held danger as well. There were often rumors of lawless men, although he had never seen them, and near the stream below he had once found a body. Here too, Gytha and the lay brother had been seen by Adelard.

Of course he was certain that the prioress’ maid was innocent of any intentional sin. As for Gwydo’s reasons for being outside the priory, blameless or culpable, Thomas worried that his ignorance of the man’s past kept him from grasping what the lay brother’s true involvement was.

The first question to consider was whether or not Adelard was correct in believing he had seen the lay brother and Gytha coupling. Had the current situation been less dire, the monk would have laughed at the absurdity of the allegation. After all, he had known the prioress’ maid from the time she was just past childhood.

A woman vowed to God could not be more chaste. It was common enough for young village women to lie with lovers, often bearing large bellies to the church door as an additional witness to the joyful union, but Gytha had not done so. Her fondness for the crowner and his little daughter was well known, but Ralf had never tried to take advantage of that either, despite loving her in return. All of Tyndal knew how he felt. Some had even wagered on when he might finally ask her to marry him.

Why, then, would she lie with Gwydo?

Or had he raped her?

He entered the small clearing where the hut stood and paused for a moment, feeling a twinge of sadness. Prioress Eleanor had taken permanent possession of this small bit of land for the priory and ordered it tended until another monk begged for a hermit’s retreat. Thomas wondered if she was thinking of Brother John, who was steadily withdrawing from the mortal world.

In the meantime, he was pleased that his old vegetable garden was still being cultivated and the hut kept in good repair by a man in Tostig’s employ. He took a deep breath, taking the opportunity to draw in some of the peace he still found here. Then he sat on the wooden bench he had built and pulled his mind back to Gwydo.

Was the man likely to have raped any woman, let alone the prioress’ maid?

Although Thomas never claimed his opinions were infallible, he strongly doubted the former soldier had done so. One of the reasons he was comfortable in the company of this lay brother was the man’s profound gentleness. Gwydo may have been a soldier, and surely killed men in battle, but he had often said that war had given him a calling for peace. Clenching his fist with the agony of memory, Thomas was quite aware that rape was a violent act. Whatever Gwydo had done in battle, he had come to Tyndal seeking tranquility. Such a man was unlikely to defile a virgin.

If none of this occurred, had Adelard lied or simply misinterpreted what he had seen? The young man had faults enough, but he had shown willingness to listen yesterday, despite his initial enthusiasm for killing the family in the stables. That suggested there was a seed of compassion in the man’s heart, or at least a crack in his otherwise rigidly defined canon of sins. Thus it seemed more likely to Thomas that Adelard had misjudged what he saw.

But that was as far as he could reason, the monk decided. He did not have enough facts. All he was going on was intuition, a woman’s weakness from which he frequently suffered. “Yet I have not often been failed by it,” he muttered, feeling uncomfortable and obliged to defend himself despite being alone.

Rising from the bench, he chose to visit the pond below the hut where he had once enjoyed a daily swim in summer. Perhaps, Thomas decided with little hope, he would find Gwydo snoring on the bank.

When he reached the path leading downward, he suddenly stopped.

Something was not right. He sniffed the air.

Animals often died, and perhaps that was the sweet rot of death he smelled, but the odor was pungent. He stepped cautiously into the immediate undergrowth and began to pull aside bushes and jab into piles of fallen debris.

It did not take him long to find the body.

Just a few feet from the path, Gwydo lay on his back, bulging eyes empty of meaning, lips stretched in a silent scream, and hands clenched against his neck. The lay brother had been strangled with a cord that still bit into the flesh under his chin.

Thomas knelt, bent to the corpse’s ear, and whispered the ritual of forgiveness.

In a beam of sunlight, just a short distance away, something glittered and caught the monk’s attention. When he took it into his hand, he realized the object was a cross. It was one made of silver.

There was no question about what the discovery meant. The last time he had seen this, it was hanging around Adelard’s own neck.

Sister Anne laid her hand on the head of the new corpse. Her touch was as gentle as a mother’s on her son. “Garroted. From the state of rigor, signs of decay, and the last time anyone saw him, I assume the killing was probably done on the same day as the riot.”

“Why did he have to be killed?” Eleanor gripped her hands tightly against her waist as if fearing she might raise a fist in anger to the heavens. “He came to our priory seeking peace. We failed him.”

“He left the protection of our walls, my lady,” Thomas said, his voice soft.

“That alone was a small enough failing, one I might have forgiven quickly if the cause for disobedience owned a higher virtue.” She closed her eyes. “We do not know if his act was based in good or ill, but I grieve that he died without the consolation of faith.”

“I pray his soul was still hovering over his corpse for I absolved him of his sins,” Thomas said. “I knew little of his past life, but he was gentle enough in his current one. No man ought to face God’s judgment without the chance to shed any mortal failings.”