Michael JECKS - Belladonna at Belstone

“Then thanks be to God that we can return home,” Simon said with feeling and allowed himself to fall back on his mattress, closing his eyes. “I don’t know about you, but I will be glad to get back to my Meg and Edith. The thought of leaving them both while the Despensers are trying to start another war is not pleasant, even with the castle for them to run to. You must be relieved, too.”

“Hmm?” Baldwin looked up, a faintly confused expression on his face.

“I said it’ll be good to get home and make sure that the Despenser armies don’t destroy our houses,” Simon said with his eyes closed. “Although for now, I’ll be glad to take an hour or so to snooze. Rising in the middle of the night doesn’t do much for me.”

Giving a half-hearted grin, Baldwin walked to the window. The ever-glum Hugh was already lying on his bench, with every appearance of being dead to the world, and Simon was soon breathing quietly, always guaranteed to be the prelude to loud snoring.

Baldwin threw open the shutters, catching them before they could slam against the wall, and stared out. South of the cloister, the weather was gloomy and threatening. Dark, steel-grey clouds hung apparently motionless in the sky, and when Baldwin leaned out and peered at the hill to the east, the whole of its summit was hidden. The snow which had fallen overnight had melted, but the air was sharp with the promise of more to come.

He pulled the shutters to. Getting up for Nocturns and Matins had not affected him so severely, for his experience as a monk had inured him to being deprived of his sleep. He felt fine now, although he had a sneaking suspicion that he would feel worse later.

It was hard to concentrate. He was used to action, and to have come here with a specific purpose which he had now been told to leave felt oddly anticlimactic: he was at a loose end, and had no idea how to fill the time until their departure.

On a whim he pulled on a cloak and went out, walking along the cloister. The frater was on his right and he stepped into the garth, crossing the grassed quadrangle to approach the church.

Something struck his cheek and he glanced upwards. The clouds were unleashing their burden and fresh snow began to drop. It was a curiously peaceful sight. The breeze had died away and snowflakes were falling in a continual stream, not dancing or eddying, but drifting down in great numbers, like the feathers of thousands of geese. Baldwin closed his eyes and inhaled with delight. Snow meant that war was all but impossible. Armies could not fight when the clean white covering smothered the landscape.

Opening his eyes, he stared up and suddenly caught a flicker of movement on top of the church roof. It was a huddled, robed figure. He screwed up his eyes to focus better on the strange sight, but with the swift-falling snow and the distance, it was impossible to see whether it was male or female, let alone recognise who it might be.

His curiosity stirred, Baldwin wandered to the church’s wall and stared upwards. He stood near the cloister’s roofed corridor, trying to see who it could be. Then a huge snowflake hit his eye, and he blinked, turning away, wiping at it with his palm, bending down and inclining his head.

Thus it was that the slate did not hit his head directly, but caught him a glancing blow, a sharp edge raking along the back of his skull and slicing off a long strip of his scalp. He fell, eyes wide, his head filled with the thundering roar of his blood, and was aware of the cold white snow covering the grass beneath his face. A loud whistling in his ears seemed to be deafening him, and he blinked slowly. Then, realising he had been struck, he rolled to one side, and found himself staring up at the cloister’s covered walkway.

It was at that moment that the body struck the roof of the cloister and he saw the slates shatter with the force of the blow before the figure rolled down the incline and crashed on to the grass surrounded by shards of ruined slates. Baldwin had enough energy to throw himself out of the path of the shower, but as he moved the pain in his head expanded to cover his whole body. Even as he cried out, his vision clouded and he fell unconscious.

Simon grinned at his wife as she shook her head at him. Meg had a way of half-raising an eyebrow, while mock-seriously admonishing him, that never failed to give him a warm erotic charge, and he was about to grab her and tease her all the way to their bed when their house began to ring with the pounding of artillery. The Despensers were attacking – war must have started without his knowledge! Meg was terrified, he could see it in her face, but before he could protect her, he heard a scream, and saw that Edith, his daughter, had been hit by a huge block of falling masonry.

He gave a great roar, for she was his only child now that his boy, Peterkin, was dead, and he ran to her side, trying to lift the lumps of moorstone from Edith’s body, but no one would help him. It was impossible to shift it on his own. The rocks were too massive for him to move, and even as he stared down in disbelief, he saw the light of life fading from Edith’s face.

“Bailiff, in God’s name! Wake up!”

It was a man-at-arms for the Despensers. Simon grabbed the arm that shook him, reached for his sword, but the hilt was missing, so instead he grasped the bastard’s throat.

“Master, no.”

Simon felt his hand prised away from the man, and opened his eyes to see Hugh staring down at him in concern. Behind him was the suffragan, who gave him a baleful look while he rubbed his neck.

“Bishop, my apologies, I never intended…”

“Remind me, Bailiff, never to insult you. If this is what you can do in your sleep, I hate to think what you’d be capable of in wakeful anger.”

“I dreamed someone had murdered my daughter,” Simon explained. He still felt shaken.

“It was a dream, no more,” Bertrand said. “However, your friend is in danger. A novice fell from the church roof, and a dislodged tile knocked him out.”

Simon swung from his bed. “Where is he?”

After speaking to Baldwin and Simon, Godfrey had gone to walk in the precinct, and it was here that he met Rose. Godfrey was concerned at what she had to say. There was no doubt in his mind that Rose thought she was telling the truth, but he wasn’t sure she had got her story right. Elias was not the kind of man who would try to run from the convent, and he would find it hard to persuade a nun to go with him.

No, Godfrey was fairly confident that Rose had misinterpreted the whole thing. All the same, perhaps Godfrey should ensure that Elias had absolutely no opportunity of leaving, just to make sure.

“Godfrey, Godfrey!” A young canon came running breathlessly towards him.

“What is it?” he demanded testily.

“Katerine fell from the church roof and hit the knight, in the cloister, right in front of me – come quickly!”

As the two hurried to the garth, the youth told Godfrey how Baldwin had been hit, how Katerine had struck the ground moments after. Godfrey shuddered with horror and quickened his pace, but he still had to ensure that Elias’s supposed plan to escape was foiled. Reluctantly he decided he must tell the prioress.

“There’s something I need you to do,” he gasped. “Tell no one except the prioress, understand? No one! Tell her this: that Elias is going to try to escape from the priory, and…”

Lady Elizabeth had been called to see to the mangled body as soon as the novice had been brought back to the nuns’ cloister. Now she stood over the corpse, her soul heavy within her. To see this second young life destroyed was terrible. It was as if the convent itself was damned. Lady Elizabeth had seen enough lives ended in her time, but to have lost two promising novices over the space of a few days was awful: first poor Moll – and now Katerine.