Priscilla Royal - Sanctity of Hate

“There was the blow to the head,” the monk said, his reluctance in mentioning this quite evident. “If Kenelm was stunned, a weaker man could have cut his throat.”

“Brother Thomas and I examined the body.” Anne turned to Eleanor. “I concluded that the skull may have been cracked, but the blow did not kill him. Why the killer did not strike him again but instead cut his throat is a fair question.”

“The murderer wanted to make sure he was dead?” Thomas looked doubtful. “He was so angry he both struck him and cut his throat?”

“It is odd to do both. A man suffering frenzy will stab more than once, if he uses a knife, or hit his victim repeatedly, if he first struck him,” Anne said. “We know very little, in fact. I grieve that I could not find anything of especial note from my examination. I doubt the corpse has more to teach us.”

“Then we shall bury him,” Eleanor replied. In the summer heat, quick burial was obligatory. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at Sister Anne.

After their return from Baron Herbert’s castle last winter, the sub-infirmarian had grown gaunt. Now, for the first time, there was a healthy blush in Anne’s cheeks and a long absent interest hovering in her eyes. “Your observations may own more merit than you think. I am grateful, and our crowner shall be as well,” the prioress said, feeling relief at the change in her friend.

Thomas, on the other hand, looked uneasy. “Do you still believe this matter belongs to the king’s justice?”

“The crime was committed on priory land,” Eleanor said. “Although we may feel confident that none of our religious were involved, I must still look more deeply into the question. Even if all of us are innocent, I must be kept informed and may wish to assist our crowner.” She smiled. “Ralf has always welcomed our assistance, so we shall freely offer our help.”

“But why did the crime occur at this spot?” Thomas rubbed sweat off his forehead. “It is but a short walk to the gate. If a quarrel burst out between two men, they would have left the priory to settle their differences. The forest or the road would have been the most likely place to fight. Why shed blood on God’s earth?”

“Like you, I am troubled by that,” Eleanor replied. Her gray eyes now matched the color of the darkening clouds. “I fear murder was not done within our walls by accident. There was a reason.”

Belia squeezed her mother’s arm with all her strength. Sweat ran down her face in rivulets.

Ignoring the pain of her daughter’s grip, Malka crooned to her with soft love, although she had just looked with dark anger at her son-in-law, Jacob ben Asser.

The young woman could not have owned more than twenty summers on earth, but her features resembled those of an ancient crone, sharp-edged and hollow-cheeked. When she opened her eyes, terror glittered from them. Death’s touch was one all mortals know. Belia stood at the edge of a grave and knew the space would fit her well.

“Sleep, my dove,” the mother said. “The pain shall pass. This is but any woman’s trial. Did I not bear you and your three brothers?” She shrugged. “And here I sit beside you, no worse for it all. You will soon forget this labor when the babe lies safely in your arms. That, I promise.” Smiling, she kissed her daughter’s cheek.

Belia nodded weakly, her jaw briefly setting with determination before her eyelids, once again, grew too heavy. The pain must have lessened. She fell into an uneasy sleep.

Slipping away from her child’s loosening grasp, Malka rose and motioned for Jacob to step away from the large-bellied woman who was his suffering wife.

They walked just outside the stall, more suited to housing a horse than three adults. One young servant leapt to her feet in anticipation of some request. Jacob shook his head and asked her to stand some distance away so he and his mother-in-law might speak in private.

“She needs more than I can give her,” Malka said.

“And you are all she has,” he replied in a broken whisper. From his eyes, tears rolled down his smooth-shaven cheeks like a flash-flood. He gestured discreetly at the servant. “That one is but a child.”

“Tell me how I shall aid her in birth with these?” The mother stretched forth her hands. The fingers were bent, some backwards and others sideways, the knuckles were huge, and the skin red. “I would kill her and the babe, even if I had the strength to pull the child into the world. She needs a midwife.”

“Had we reached Norwich, we’d have had our choice of skilled women.” He pointed toward the opening in the unfinished wall. “Here we are surrounded by those who hate us.” He grimaced. “The innkeeper offered to send for a nun. A nun! One who would have baptized the child, stolen the babe before he could suck his own mother’s milk, and passed him to a Christian family to raise. How…” He buried his head in his hands.

Malka turned away, her jaw set with anger, looking much as her daughter had before falling asleep.

From inside the stall, Belia whimpered, and the mother now lost her resolve as well. Tears wound their way through the creases in her cheeks.

Jacob put his arm around her shoulders. She rested her head on his.

Quietly, the two wept.

From outside the partially completed stable, a man’s voice suddenly roared. “Let the scales of the Devil’s blindness drop from your eyes. Listen to God’s Will. Hear His Son’s cry. Be not a stiff-necked people and embrace the truth! Accept baptism. Be saved from Hell!”

The young servant cried out and braced herself against the wall, her widening eyes black with helpless terror.

A cry of anguish escaping from his lips, Jacob leapt to his feet.

His mother-in-law tried to grab his robe, but her hand found only air. “Do not go out there!”

Jacob looked down at her, fury turning his face as bright as fire. “No sooner do I rid us of one abuser than another takes his place. I will kill him!”

She took a deep breath. “Stay calm,” she whispered. “We dare not fight back, except with reason and gentle courtesy.”

“Those who scream such things at us own neither,” he hissed.

Again the man outside shouted: “Cease your dance with the Devil and accept the cleansing of baptism. Your willful denial of His truth corrupts all you touch. How long do you think God and good Christian men will tolerate this before you are destroyed like the evil ones in Sodom and Gomorrah?”

From the stall, Belia groaned.

Jacob put the heel of his hands against his eyes, then threw his head back and shook his fist at the door leading to the inn yard. “I cannot allow that fool to destroy what little peace my wife has! She bears a child. If she must do so in a horse stall with neither a gentle midwife nor a decent bed in which to nurse the babe, surely she should be allowed to sleep without this bellowing.”

Malka looked up at him, and her expression changed to weary resignation. “If you must go forth, do so with humility and a calm voice. Men who shout condemnation at us often hold swords and pitchforks with which to pierce our breasts, but a meek man has been known to soften even a lion’s heart. If you leave here with fist raised, you court death as surely as if you faced a wild beast. Shall your child never know his father?”

“All I want is for him to cease his ranting. Belia must gather her strength.” Jacob groaned. “But you are right. Shall I promise to listen to his preaching after the child is born? In Cambridge, I was forced to do so once a week. Another few hours of that is worth an hour of quiet for my wife.”

“And speak of charity, on your knees if you must, and say that you will ponder his words. Beg him for merciful compassion while you do.” Malka ran her hand along the seam of her robe as if considering the quality of the stitches. “Christians think they invented the virtue,” she said, glancing back at Jacob with a quick smile. “If it helps us all survive, let the man outside continue to believe it.”