Michael JECKS - Belladonna at Belstone

Simon laughed. “Rose, there’s no need to try to tempt me. All I seek is a murderer.” He strode to a bench and motioned to his side. She gave a brief nod.

“Very well, but if you don’t like what I’ve got to say, don’t blame me.”

“The girls who died – did you know them?”

“I tend to meet all the novices,“ she said. ”They come to me out of interest, I think, and from a desire to get into my mother’s good books. Not that talking to me is likely to help them much!“

She chuckled then, and Simon had to grin at the sight. Rose gave herself up to the pleasure, leaning back and gazing up at the rafters as she chortled. For the rest of their conversation she often did that; breaking off in the middle to give a delighted and delightful belly laugh, her hair dancing all down her back, arms straight, elbows locked, hands resting on the bench. When she was finished, she turned to eye Simon directly, without shame or embarrassment. “Moll wasn’t a very nice girl, you know.”

“No?”

“She was very religious, I reckon, and that made her difficult to get on with. It was all right for me, but the others found her tiring. She would keep on at them.”

“You found her easier to deal with?”

“Oh yes. I found her no difficulty at all. She thought I was the lowest of the low, but as such I merited some attention, and she often tried to persuade me from my ”path of dishonour“ as she liked to term it.”

Simon pulled a face. “Just what you needed to hear.”

“It was hardly novel to me,” she agreed, then chuckled. “My mother has spoken the odd word to me on occasion.”

“With a mother like yours, a woman so steeped in the religious life, what made you choose your profession?” Simon asked.

She grinned. “If you wanted to rebel, how would you go about it? I didn’t know she was my mother until I was fifteen. All that time I thought I was the daughter of someone lowly – just a cottager from a local vill who had got herself impregnated and passed her illegitimate daughter – me – to the local nuns to look after. But then I discovered whose daughter I was.”

“How did you find that out?”

This time there was no mirth in the grin. “It was dear Margherita who let it slip. Oh, I expect it was partly by accident – but not entirely. All along she wanted to get back at Mother for being elected when Margherita wanted the top job for herself. She thought I would create a scene – I don’t know, maybe go to Mother and scratch her face, accuse her, scream abuse at her – anything! But I didn’t. I stored it up, just like a good little nun, and thought about it until I felt I would explode.”

She was staring out over the top of the forge now, but her eyes appeared to be staring out over an unimaginable distance. “Then one day I had to know whether it was true, and I went to see her in the cloister. I was going to speak but she started crying. Not making a noise, just weeping, with tears rolling down both cheeks. She’d guessed what I’d learned, and I didn’t need to ask her then. I just told her I was leaving.”

“Up to then you were a novice?”

She gave him a sharp glance. “Of course. But not now. And I never took even the lower vows, so I can’t be forced to return against my will. Not like a real nun running from the place,” she added as an afterthought.

“Are you thinking of someone in particular?”

“You’ll know who I mean soon enough.”

“Do you mean that this person could be the murderer?”

“Oh no!” she laughed again.

“How did your mother feel about Katerine?”

Rose thought. “Katerine was enthusiastic about the place. She always kept her ear to the ground and figured out which way a vote might go, who would say what and why. Katerine would have been an invaluable assistant to my mother. Intelligent and well-informed about how the other nuns felt. And ruthless.”

Simon fell silent. “You said that you thought you could be in danger, that the person who killed twice may not hesitate to do so again. Why should you be in any danger?”

“Like I said, Bailiff, some here look down on me because I bring an ill reputation to the convent. They think I’m dishonouring the place. Some might be willing to remove me and my wrongdoing.”

“Who?”

“Well, Margherita, for one.”

Elias felt his mouth fall open with dismay as the suffragan bishop inched his way to his feet with regal slowness. His finger shot out and pointed from the bottle in his claw-like left hand to the smith himself. “You, Elias, planned to run away with these pitiful rags so that you could escape the evil of your deeds.”

“What?” Elias squeaked.

“You murdered the two girls because otherwise they would have told the prioress about your unchastity.”

“I couldn’t have – I was with the infirmarer.”

“When?” Bertrand sneered. “You dare suggest that you were with the infirmarer when these girls were killed?”

“Yes, when Moll died, at any rate.”

Bertrand was silent a moment, then his voice dropped to a hushed horror. “At night? You went and ravished the poor child in her own bed? Is there no end to your hideous concupiscence? You dared to take a holy child, a…”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, it wasn’t like that,” Elias said, holding out both hands in appeal. “I wouldn’t have touched her if she hadn’t wanted…”

“Silence!” Bertrand roared. “Your assertions of her unchaste behaviour are no protection to you, and your attempt to throw the blame on her shows only a contemptible cowardice on your part. What of the second murder this morning? Do you declare that you were with your lover when Katerine died?”

“No, but I was waiting for her – at the grille between the cloisters.”

Paul whispered to the bishop. “I saw him there, my Lord.”

Bertrand ignored him, his voice hardly altering. “Who saw you there? Who can confirm your innocence?”

“Well, the prioress – she saw me there.”

“Bishop…” Paul said, and Bertrand angrily motioned him to be silent. “While the novice was being killed?”

“I don’t know, I…”

That was better, for Elias’s voice betrayed his nervousness. Although it was quite possible that the man’s damned concubine would affirm his innocence of Moll’s murder, and Bertrand himself knew Elias was innocent of Katerine’s death, Bertrand knew he had Elias by the balls. “So you have no witness to corroborate your stories? I congratulate you, Paul, it seems you have indeed found the murderer.”

“I’m no murderer.”

“So you say, but the evidence is overwhelming.”

“You must believe me, Bishop. I had no reason to want to harm either of those girls.”

Bertrand sneered. “I don’t presume to understand the murderous instincts of a madman.“

“How can I convince you I’m innocent?” Elias threw himself on the ground before the priest and grabbed at his feet, missing the left one, but catching hold of the right. “I’ve never hurt anyone in my life!”

His voice was muffled, for his face was in the straw of the chamber’s floor, but Bertrand heard his words clearly enough. He turned to Paul. “You may leave us, my son. I wish to speak to this man alone.”

It was difficult to keep the glee from his voice. Looking down upon the bedraggled brother, Bertrand saw only the man who would destroy Lady Elizabeth.

Simon pulled a splinter from the bench, played with it, then tossed it away. Finally he faced Rose. “What possible reason could Margherita have to want to hurt either of those girls? She seems the woman most determined to protect the name and reputation of the convent, come what may.”

“You think so?” Rose said. “Margherita is certainly determined to have a convent to run. To make certain of it, she’s prepared to do anything to harm Lady Elizabeth, my mother.”