Priscilla Royal - Sanctity of Hate

“Indeed?” Eleanor’s eyes betrayed her amazement.

Sister Anne passed the cross to the crowner.

“And yet you found his cross near Brother Gwydo’s body.” Ralf fingered the loop on the top of the cross.

“Somehow I have misjudged the youth,” Thomas replied, “but I am not sure whether I erred more in believing him capable of attacking those he called sinners or in thinking he might be converted to reason.”

The prioress turned to the crowner. “Brother Gwydo has left the priory on a least one other occasion. On the day Kenelm was murdered, Adelard told Brother Thomas he had seen Gytha and our lay brother coupling.”

Anne gasped. “That cannot be true. Those who take religious vows are not more chaste than she!”

The prioress waited.

Ralf stared at her in distressed silence.

She decided to lessen his misery. “He may well have seen them together, but he misinterpreted what he saw,” she said. “Gytha had tumbled down the embankment on her way home from visiting her brother and hit her head. When she recovered her wits, the lay brother was beside her. He helped her to her feet and back to the priory.”

“Other evidence I found before discovering the corpse would support her story,” Thomas said. “When I took the shortcut to the village, I found a root that had been pulled up and signs that someone might have tripped and fallen over the side to the stream bank below. I went down to investigate, fearing our lay brother had been injured, but found no one.”

“What Adelard must have seen is Brother Gwydo either kneeling by her side or helping her to her feet. She was dizzy and could not do so by herself.” Eleanor spoke these words to the crowner.

“If the light was poor,” he muttered. “Adelard might have misinterpreted that as an embrace. Since Brother Gwydo was a lay brother, he was not supposed to touch women.”

“Well argued,” Eleanor said gently.

“It was an act of compassion,” Anne said.

“And not a violation of the spirit of his vows,” Thomas added.

“Why would Adelard have killed Brother Gwydo or Kenelm?” Ralf tore his eyes away from the steady gaze of the prioress. “He is now the most likely suspect.”

“He has established that he hated Master Jacob and his family for their faith and believes the blood libel and well-poisoning tales so common in the land,” the prioress said. “To his mind, Kenelm sinned grievously by protecting those Adelard condemned. As for the death of Brother Gwydo, he may have decided to render his interpretation of God’s justice because he believed the lay brother had broken his vows with my maid. For a religious to give in to lust is a profound wickedness.” Eleanor gestured toward Thomas. “Finally, his cross has been found near our brother’s corpse.”

“If he is choosing to execute those whose behavior he finds most sinful, then our Gytha is in danger.” Anne’s face turned white. “Fool that Adelard is, he believes she lay with Brother Gwydo.”

Eleanor spun around in horror.

“She must not leave your side, my lady,” Ralf said, emotion cracking his voice.

Jacob ben Asser knelt a short distance from Belia and cuddled their son in his arms. In this tiny stall they had little privacy with only a thick cloth over the door to keep the outside world away. Malka had just stepped outside to give the new parents time with their child, but she would not have wandered far. The riot had been quelled, but the danger of attack remained.

“You are worried,” his wife said in a low voice.

“Have I ever been able to hide my thoughts from you?”

Belia smiled. “Even in childhood, we were one in both joy and sorrow.”

“And we were fortunate that our families found our marriage to be of mutual benefit.”

Belia whispered, “My mother always loved you like a son.”

His eyebrows twitched upward. “You married me only to please your mother?”

She threw him a kiss.

He looked down at his sleeping son and watched silently as the boy blew bubbles from his mouth. “I would have lain down and died beside you had you not…”

Belia turned her face away. “The nun said I might not be able to bear more children,” she murmured.

Shifting the precious burden into the crook of one arm, Jacob reached out to touch her cheek, then quickly drew back his hand. “Do not grieve,” he said. “We have a fine son.”

“Do not say it! Our boy is a poor thing, ugly and ill-natured. To say otherwise is to tempt evil things.”

“Very well,” he replied, frowning at the child with difficulty. “Then it is well if you are unable to bear more for this creature will shame me. It seems I must also suffer the grief of having you at my side for the rest of my life.” He could jest no further and he bent as close as he dared. “I love you,” he whispered.

“You need other children, Jacob. Divorce me. Marry a woman with a fruitful womb. My mother would grieve but not stop you.”

“As your husband, I may order you to do as I wish, a right I have never exercised. Now I must and so decree that you shall never again speak of this. I have no wish to marry another. If it is meet, you may bear us more children as Sarah did in her old age to Abraham, but I will not cast you aside for another. As I was named Jacob, so are you my Rachel.”

“Then you are a fool, beloved.”

“And hence you exceeded all other women in pious compassion when you wedded me without protest.”

They laughed and, for a long moment, said nothing more but took comfort in watching their son innocently dream.

“Yet you are still troubled,” Belia said again. “If the reason is not my future barrenness, or the health of either your son or wife, what causes that shadow to drift across your eyes?”

“We cannot remain in England. I want our child to grow up in a land where he may laugh and find joy without fear.”

“My mother would say that our people will never find such a land until the mashiach leads us back to Jerusalem and our Temple is rebuilt.”

“A time we may never live to see,” he said, his brow furrowed, “but we shall make plans after our return to Norwich. Others are less fortunate than we and have little means to escape. You have an uncle in Avignon who speaks well of the conditions there, although the quarter allowed us is crowded. I have merchant cousins who claim that Fez is a safer place. Finding a new home may be hard, but I have skills to start a new life. We had already agreed that this new king has taken too much with nothing given in return.”

She pressed a hand to her heart. “I feel a greater sorrow yet in you.” Taking a deep breath, she continued. “I know more than you realize about what happened. Now that my trials are over, there is nothing you need keep from me.”

Jacob tilted his head back toward the stall entrance. “He has not come back.”

“Did he say he would?”

The babe grew restless in his arms and began to whimper.

The curtain flew back and Malka rushed in. Taking the child from Jacob, she placed him into her daughter’s open arms. “He is ready to nurse,” she said, “and you are forbidden to touch your wife.”

Her son-in-law looked at her, his expression shifting from annoyance to gratitude.

“I listen only for the needs of my grandchild,” Malka said, holding her twisted hands to her ears. “Therefore speak softly when you compliment me.” She smiled and retreated to the stall entrance. Turning briefly, she added, “Otherwise, I shall wait to be summoned.”

“Your heart will tell you of any need even if your ears do not,” he replied, the words fondly spoken.

His mother-in-law laughed and left them alone.