Michael JECKS - Belladonna at Belstone

Not that there was much similarity between the two, of course. One had been murdered, although why was anybody’s guess, and now this child had fallen from the roof – although God only knew what she had been doing up there. Either she had slipped, or… But Lady Elizabeth shied away from the notion that one of her novices could have committed suicide.

Katerine’s face was scratched on one side, and there was a deep, jagged cut on her cheek where a sharpened piece of slate had caught her, but neither of these injuries had ended her life. The reason for her death was obvious from the hideous, leaking wound in her head. Blood mingled with her hair to form a hardened, matted cap. Lady Elizabeth grimaced at the sight, and didn’t fail to notice how the girl’s head sat at an odd angle. When they had carried Katerine’s body here, her head had flopped loosely. She must have fallen head first, her neck breaking instantly upon hitting the ground.

More embarrassment for the priory, Lady Elizabeth thought, turning and walking back along the cloister. She went to her desk and sat. The account books were ready for her, but she couldn’t pretend to read them. Katerine’s death had affected her more than she would have expected.

The child was not special. She had not possessed any particular skills, but was pleasant enough, even if she had displayed an unedifying greed, as Rose said. Katerine had been friendly with Agnes for a while; the two had been quite close when Agnes had first arrived, Lady Elizabeth recalled, but then their friendship had cooled. At the time Lady Elizabeth had thought it was girlish jealousy or pride, but now Rose had enlightened her: they had both desired the same man.

It would have been a surprise if they could have remained friends, one being the daughter of a nobleman, the other a bastard; it was much the same as she and her treasurer. Lady Elizabeth had been born to a great family and Margherita had not.

Her rivalry with Margherita had begun long before either of them had anticipated leading this community. Perhaps Elizabeth should have been more conciliatory towards the younger woman, but there was so great a chip on Margherita’s shoulder that any overtures on her part caused offence and were rejected with contempt. Margherita was the one who had decided that they were enemies, not Elizabeth – and this for the simple reason that Margherita could not envisage being the friend of someone who was of noble birth.

Margherita was Sister Bridget’s illegitimate daughter. Elizabeth remembered Bridget. Friendly, she was, always smiling. She had run away the last time while Elizabeth was herself a novice, little more than a child. Margherita seemed to think her mother was cause for shame and embarrassment, although Lady Elizabeth had no idea why. As far as she was concerned, the sins of Margherita’s parents were not their child’s responsibility, and in any case, Lady Elizabeth was the daughter of an old-fashioned nobleman. She was fortunate to have been born to his legitimate wife, and not to one of the many other women with whom he was wont to spend his leisure. Illegitimacy was no slur on the character of a good person.

Lady Elizabeth picked up her reed and idly scratched at the page before her. She had no regrets about being on adversarial terms with Margherita – although right now it would have made her life a great deal easier to have the woman as an ally.

Especially, Lady Elizabeth realised, since the local peasants were bound to start talking about the convent.

Her scalp crawled: the death of Moll was bad enough, but it would have been perfectly simple to hush it up. It was in nobody’s interests to bruit knowledge of it abroad, and even the suffragan, who would have been happy to use it to his own advantage, should he manage to find the murderer, would still only have told the Bishop of Exeter. Even that idiot Bertrand could see that there was no benefit to anyone, to allow information of that kind to be spread.

But now a second death had occurred, and while one dead novice could be put down to bad fortune, two in as many weeks was news of the most dramatic kind imaginable. Lady Elizabeth knew perfectly well how people who had nothing to do with the cloister would dream up the most incredible stories about nuns, and to add two dead novices to such gossip would have the effect of putting oil to the flames of rumour and conjecture.

It was intolerable, but it was a fact. Then another thought struck her, with sufficient force to make her drop her reed.

Sir Rodney had wanted to put his money into an institution where he thought there could be no hint of scandal. He would be able to ignore the death of one novice, but this second would lead to gossip of the most prurient kind. Lady Elizabeth had seen it all before: when an accident occurred in a nunnery, people were always prepared to put the worst possible slant on it. Hearing of two novice nuns dying, Sir Rodney would assume it was proof of the unsanctity of the place. He was a pious knight, and wanted his bones interred in a sanctified chapel where they would be protected, along with his soul, by the constant prayers of the nuns. If the site was rendered unholy in his eyes, he would withdraw his money.

Lady Elizabeth stared up at the window, searching for an answer to the perennial problem of where to find the money to maintain the convent. Without Sir Rodney’s contribution, she couldn’t keep the nunnery from collapse.

If Sir Rodney heard a series of suspicions and half-garbled rumours, he would feel justified taking his patronage elsewhere; the only defence for the convent was proving who had murdered Moll – and why. At least Katerine’s death couldn’t be murder, Lady Elizabeth thought. A doubt pricked at her mind, but she thrust it away. Katerine had fallen while… while playing on the roof?

As an explanation it was as good as any other, she thought.

Paul, the canon despatched by Godfrey to take his alarming message to the prioress, hesitated at the connecting door in the church. He tapped on the wood, trying to gain the attention of the sacrist, but dared not walk straight into the nuns’ cloister. It was something he knew others occasionally did, but Paul had scruples about obeying God’s commandments, and even if Godfrey wanted him to go straight in, Paul was quite sure where Godfrey stood relative to God in Paul’s scheme of things.

There was no answer; nobody answered his anxious rapping. Screwing up his courage, he pressed the latch and opened the heavy oaken door, peering round it. There was no one there. Hurriedly he pulled the door shut and stood nervously tapping his foot and sucking his lip. He daren’t return to see Godfrey without attempting another means of speaking to the prioress.

Not that he wanted to help her. The Lady Elizabeth had not controlled the place as efficiently as she should have, and Paul, who although slightly eccentric was still enthusiastically religious, felt that her tenure had not served to honour God as it should have. He could see the advantage of another prioress taking over. Apart from anything else it would free him from that horrible old man Jonathan.

Paul pulled a face as he recalled that Jonathan had asked him to go and walk with him in the garden. The very idea made his flesh creep, and Paul shuddered. If the prioress was doing her job, an ageing satyr like Jonathan would be controlled. Margherita wouldn’t allow Jonathan to try to seduce other canons.

Suddenly, Paul realised there was another way to get a message to the prioress via the grille in the herb garden. He could call through it and ask a nun to fetch the Lady Elizabeth to come and hear Godfrey’s words.

But arriving there, he saw Elias already at the grille, eagerly peering through it. Paul stopped and frowned. This was outrageous: didn’t the smith have any sense of wrongdoing? It was just one more example of the slack discipline at Belstone. The prioress was responsible; she was in charge. It was wrong! She shouldn’t permit such open communication between canons and nuns. If Elias was guilty, then so was she. It was high time the Lady Elizabeth was removed and someone else took over.