Michael JECKS - Belladonna at Belstone

“When the visitor comes back, he’ll not just be looking at the prioress,” she declared, “he’ll be watching all of us. He’s not going to be as polite and friendly as last time. Oh no. This time he’ll be asking about the death of a novice, investigating how we sisters could have allowed it to happen. It’s not as if he’s going to be able to hide this matter from his master, our bishop. We all know what’s going on. It’s Lady Elizabeth and her man…” Margherita caught sight of Katerine. “You – girl! Stop listening to chapter business that doesn’t concern you!”

Katerine obeyed sullenly, but as she walked to the cloister, she wondered what was happening. First there was Constance, who must have been dreadfully upset to have got so maudlin drunk; then Margherita in a high old state of anxiety.

Both were bound to be perfect sources for conjecture among the novices after Compline, when all went to their beds, and she quite looked forward to holding the younger girls spellbound while she related the curious behaviour of Constance in the kitchen.

Perhaps it was the impact of the visitor. His arrival, for the second time in so short a space, was certain to cause some concern amongst the nuns. Katerine was only young, but she wasn’t blind. The nuns flagrantly ignored their Rule. Many wouldn’t obey even the lightest part of their duties: they didn’t get up in the middle of the night to help conduct the Nocturnes and Matins as they should. And the drinking after Compline was excessive, just as if the nuns were members of a select lord’s party, and entitled to consume as much wine as any wished without a thought to the fact that they should all have gone to their beds after this last service of the day.

Not that it bothered Katerine. For her, the more drunk and incapable the nuns were, the easier her own affairs became. She could learn much more when they were in their cups, and all information was potentially profitable. Such as Constance with her man – or Agnes with Luke. Katerine’s face took on a bitter aspect as she considered them. Agnes – once her friend, and Luke – once her lover.

The tavern was a ramshackle, cruck-built house with a thin, moss-covered thatch, and when Bailiff Simon Puttock rode up to the door and gave it a once-over, the whistle died on his lips. Smoke floated from the louvre in the roof, but the limewash was a mess with green lichen and moss growing thickly, and his confidence in the builder was somewhat diminished by the rubble at the side of the place where a large portion had collapsed. Still, he reflected, it should last long enough for lunch. He nodded to his companion.

“Hardly looks the sort of place Baldwin would pick. More like one of your grotty little alehouses, Hugh.”

Hugh, his servant, ignored the jibe. He was a wiry, short man, and wore a perpetual frown on his face, as though he knew the world was making fun of him.

Today he felt particularly disgruntled, and as he hopped from his horse he tugged his thick fustian cloak about him more tightly. “I’d be happier staying in an alehouse than going on in this weather,“ he grunted.

“Enough grumbling, Hugh. Look on the bright side – Peter’s message makes it look like there’ll be women enough willing to warm you up at Belstone! So long as you don’t let this pisshead priest Baldwin’s bringing with him find you in one of his nun’s beds!”

Hugh snorted contemptuously, ignoring his master’s joke. The idea that nuns would grant sexual favours wasn’t new, it was the fantasy of every adolescent male – and many weak-minded adult males, too. Hugh had heard plenty of stories about such women, especially the ones who escaped from convents. They often couldn’t lift their tunics fast enough, from what he’d been told. Not that they were running any great risks; for if they returned to their nunnery they would be welcomed with open arms, even if they had to accept a penance of some sort to show the Church’s displeasure. But there was one aspect to all this Hugh was convinced of. “They’d not look at me,” he muttered.

Simon grinned broadly. “So that’s what has got to you – you reckon you’re too lowly for them.”

“Nuns are all well-born, aren’t they? Daughters of nobles and lords and such. Nah, they’d not look at my sort.”

Dropping from his horse and tossing the reins to the waiting ostler, Simon chuckled aloud. “In that case, be happy, Hugh, because you’ll not be risking your eternal soul by fornicating with a woman dedicated to Christ.” He caught a glimpse of his servant’s black expression. “Hell’s teeth! Try to cheer up!”

Simon Puttock, the Bailiff of Lydford under the Warden of the Stannaries, was far too happy to tolerate his servant’s dour expression. While Hugh looked over the landscape and saw grass smothered under a freezing white covering, skeletal trees with no leaves, paths and tracks made treacherous with ice and no prospect of a warm meal until they arrived at the priory, Simon saw the world differently: to him the land was delicately rimed with frost which served to emphasise its soft contours, the trees were full of the promise of spring, their branches preparing to explode with fresh green leaves, the roads on which they travelled were solid and dry instead of spattering them with mud, and the alehouse held the certainty of a reward after having come so far: there would be ale heated at the side of the fire. There was good reason for his cheerful humour, for his wife was pregnant again.

He strode over the threshold into the dim, fuggy hall. Two candles smoked at one wall, and a cold draught came in from the high, unglazed windows, but the fire was smouldering nicely, and the household’s iron pot hung over it, a thick soup bubbling gently. There were only a few men inside, two near the fire watching a third man lying atop a slatternly looking girl on a rug in a far corner.

Simon hesitated, but seeing a man near the door to the buttery, waved to him and ordered two ales, then took a seat. Hugh soon joined him, and eyed the two on the floor. It wasn’t the sort of behaviour he could understand. He had made use of prostitutes himself before – which man hadn’t? – but he’d never been tempted to couple in public like these two; it reminded him too much of dogs in the street. Although now Hugh was almost tempted to nudge her and ask whether he could have her later.

For Hugh was lonely. It was a novel sensation to him, because he had been a shepherd out on the moors near Drewsteignton as a lad, and most of his youth had been spent many miles from other people, especially girls; his early adult life had been one of complete self-reliance, with only his charges and a dog for company, and although Simon, his master, had rescued him from the boredom – and damp – of that existence, still the change had prevented Hugh from meeting women of his own level. Those with whom he came into contact at Lydford were mostly suspicious of someone from so far away, for Hugh’s accent set him apart from the servants of the busy stannary town, and when he returned with his master to their old town of Crediton, the women were prone to see him as a feeble-witted and awkward country fellow, someone of little account and useful only as the butt of jokes.

It was now over two years since Hugh had been romantically involved with a woman. There were whores in the taverns near Lydford which lined the busy roads north and south, but that was very different. And now Simon was to be a father again, Hugh was aware of a kind of jealousy. He hated feeling that way about his master, but he couldn’t help it. Especially when Simon was so tediously proud.

Hugh watched as the whore and her bawd rose, the man joining the other two by the fire, casting suspicious looks at the strangers as he retied his hose and the girl went out to the room at the back.