Michael JECKS - Belladonna at Belstone

“Especially Moll, I imagine,” Elizabeth smiled tightly.

“Especially her, yes,” Constance agreed dolefully. “She always stuck her nose… Well, you know. Anyway, I gave all three a generous draught. Cecily drank hers down and was soon asleep. Joan is old and reacts quickly to dwale: I saw the drug overcome her almost immediately. I watched Moll drink a little of hers and left the rest of the jug at her side. It was not long before my lover arrived and we went to my chamber.”

“I see,” said the prioress. “And this was some time before Nocturns?”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“Would you have heard someone entering?”

“Margherita tried to,” Constance said. “I heard her and pushed her from the room, she made so much noise.”

“She woke Joan or…”

Constance shook her head. “All three were still asleep. I had given them enough dwale to sleep through anything.”

The prioress gave a fleeting frown. “The door to the infirmary opens very quietly, doesn’t it? Why should Margherita have made so much noise?”

“It was almost as if she wanted to make sure everyone could hear her.”

Now she thought about it, Lady Elizabeth herself could recall having been woken by something. At the time she had assumed it was Princess, feeling poorly and wanting to join her mistress in the bed.

Lady Elizabeth fixed Constance with a firm stare. “And the man was?”

Constance covered her face with her hands in a moment’s indecision, before meeting her prioress’s stern expression. “My Lady, I cannot tell you that. I can answer for my guilt, but I cannot take another’s decision for him. How can I accuse him without redoubling my guilt? If I speak of him, I force you to judge him. Better that he should have the opportunity of admitting his guilt before his confessor. It must be enough for you to know that I was there, I committed this sin, and I am to pay the price for my stupidity and… and lust.”

Lady Elizabeth was about to speak when her door opened, and the red face of Bertrand, breathless after climbing the stairs two at a time, appeared. “Lady Elizabeth, I would have a word with you,” he began.

For the second time in twenty-four hours the cloister rang to the bellow of a raised voice, but this time the astonished nuns and canons heard the distinct, precise enunciation of their own prioress.

“Who do you think you are, to thrust yourself in upon the confessional? Do you dare to assume the right to interrupt a nun in solemn declaration? Remove yourself this instant!”

Bertrand had expected an apologetic, slightly anxious woman, a prioress anticipating removal prior to the installation of her replacement. To be met with this icy blast of rage was almost physically blinding. He blinked and took a step backwards. Rallying his forces, he managed to point out, “But you cannot take confession. You’re no priest, you’re a woman.”

“Be silent!” Lady Elizabeth stormed, rising from behind her desk. “How dare you question my rights in my priory. Get out of here before I have the canons remove you from the whole of the precinct and bar you from ever returning. And be assured that if you force me to take this action, I will immediately write to my Lord, the Bishop of Exeter, and demand that you be advised never to come here again. Now be gone!”

The man licked his lips, glanced swiftly from the prioress to the nun then back again. Lady Elizabeth appeared to have grown to fill the room. Her unblinking stare was appallingly compelling. It was hard not to meet it. And once he had, he was mesmerised by her sheer fury. He wavered, but only for a moment, then withdrew, quietly closing the door behind him.

As soon as he had gone, Lady Elizabeth let out her breath in a long, disapproving sigh. “Stupid little man,” she muttered under her breath. “Now, then, Constance, where had we got to? Ah yes, you were saying that you felt the guilt of your action. You need not worry yourself about that.”

“But I killed her!” she wailed. “My dwale overheated her and caused her artery to burst!”

“No. Did you smother her or cut open her arm?”

“Her arm?”

“She was murdered. Someone went into the room and suffocated her then opened her artery to make it look like an accident.” Lady Elizabeth was suddenly silent. “But tell me, when you met your lover before, did you also give the inmates dwale to keep them asleep?”

“Yes.”

“So he was aware your patients would be quiet?” Lady Elizabeth asked.

“Well, yes, I suppose so.”

“Then surely you weren’t responsible for her death in any way. Your lover wouldn’t have killed Moll either, for her knew Moll would be asleep.”

“I am still guilty.”

“Why, Constance?”

“I should have been there to protect her.”

Bertrand stopped at the bottom of the stairs, trying to gain some composure. He had never been shrieked at like that before, and the shocked cleric put a hand to his breast, feeling the thundering of his heart as he took some steadying breaths.

The church door was before him. Keeping his eyes fixed on the ground in a solemn imitation of meditation, he slowly walked along the cloister and went inside. All was still and he made his way swiftly to the connecting door into the monks’ section, sighing with relief when he could shut it behind him.

Lady Elizabeth was no better than a fishwife, he thought. Screeching in that manner – she was obviously brought up to behave like a villainous peasant. With such reflections to soothe his ruffled feelings, he walked to the men’s cloisters, but before emerging on to the grassy quadrangle, he let his feet take him away from the gaze of all the brothers. Before he knew where he had gone, he was near the grille, where he saw Elias hanging around.

The sight made Bertrand curl his lip with contempt. That a lay brother should lurk, waiting for an opportunity to ogle the sisters was deplorable. He was tempted to shout at the man – but something made him stop. A brother so debauched was surely past redemption.

Bertrand turned on his heel and went back to the cloister. He was almost there when he heard the shouting and the loud cry.

In the guestroom, Simon dropped onto his bed and gazed speculatively at Sir Baldwin. “So you think that this place is rife with rampant clerics, and somehow that’s why young Moll got herself killed?”

Baldwin made a small, futile gesture with his hand. “It sounds perfectly stereotypical, doesn’t it? The nuns all repressed and suppressed within the cloister, a number of men living alongside; inevitably the two mix. Stereotypical, and yet so often it proves true.”

Simon knew of Baldwin’s past as a Knight Templar and didn’t need to ask how Baldwin knew so much about the deeds of religious people. “You reckon Moll herself was having an affair? It was another nun, a jealous one, who killed her?”

“It could have been, certainly, but it could equally easily have been a canon. Don’t forget, it was ridiculously easy to cross between the cloisters when we wanted to, wasn’t it?”

“It’s all very well to say that, but remember how the nuns gawped at us when we asked for a drink? It was as if they’d never seen a man before.”

“Most of them, yes, were taken aback to see us there – but that means nothing. An individual nun finding a man somewhere she expected him to be wouldn’t react in the same way. Godfrey implied he could get to the infirmary whenever he wanted; others could probably do so just as easily.”

“So we’re probably lucky to be told to go home,” Simon said.

“Yes,” Baldwin answered with a sigh. “You could say so. If we were to remain, we would have to question all the nuns and all the canons – not forgetting the lay brethren.”