Michael JECKS - Belladonna at Belstone

At the rear of the long line of canons, Simon saw the grimly forbidding features of Bertrand, and reminded himself that the suffragan had not been in the priory when Moll had died, so he was surely the last person to suspect. And yet Simon could not help but wonder about the man’s open disgust for the prioress. It was clear that Bertrand would be delighted to see her removed from office. And he would demand that she be replaced with Margherita, naturally – Simon had no doubts on that score.

Simon knew he should tell the suffragan about Rose, but he had a strange reluctance to do so. God alone knew what Bertrand would do when he heard that the prioress’s spy within the canons’ cloister was her own daughter, and she a whore!

No, Simon couldn’t see Bertrand yet. He turned away and walked to the church. It would be better to sit at Baldwin’s side up in the infirmary and consider all he had learned for a while in peace. But when he got to the connecting door, he found it was locked, and although he called, the sacrist was apparently elsewhere and didn’t hear his knocking. Reluctantly, Simon decided to find Bertrand after all.

As Simon retraced his steps, making for the frater, he was forced to step over a small pile of dog’s excrement on the way. It appeared most odd to him that someone should have allowed a dog in here – but then he recalled mention of the prioress’s terrier, and curled his lip. A convent was no place for a pet.

Only later would he realise the significance of the little pile.

Simon found the suffragan sitting at his ease in the frater, leaning back against a wall, his good hand clasping a large pot, while about him canons twittered sycophantically like a group of women. To the bailiff’s embittered eye, they appeared more unmasculine than the nuns at the other side of the church. However, something in the gossiping made him hold back and stand near the door for a moment, listening.

Jonathan was shaking his head in apparent wonder. “And you have discovered that this is true, Bishop?”

“There can be no doubt,” said Bertrand. He waved his bad hand airily. “The prioress’s management of the convent has been a disaster. You can see for yourselves how run down it is getting. We need a woman in charge who can protect the place. I think we shall need to have another election soon. The prioress must accept her fate and resign.”

“What if she refuses to?” asked Paul attentively.

Bertrand bestowed upon him a smile of such approval that Simon almost walked from the room. “She will have no choice, not now that you have helped me so well, Paul.” He held up a hand in a declamatory fashion. “You may as well know, Brothers, that I have more information for you all. This very morning, I was with your colleague here, young Paul, and he showed me an astonishing sight. In a stable were concealed a pair of packs for a canon and a nun in order that they might run away from the cloister and commit apostasy. I know…” he held up his hand for silence as the men began to ask questions, thrilled at his revelations. It gave him an immense sense of power.

Bertrand felt as though he held all the men in this room in the palm of his hand. He looked at them, all gripping their pots or jugs as they drank in his words avidly.

It gave him a faint pang to recall that the only confession he had got from Elias was false – he knew well enough that Elias had been at the grille when Katerine died, and no doubt the infirmarer would confirm that he had been with her when Moll died, but this was more important than a simple death. Bertrand was struggling to ensure the survival of the convent itself. To do that he was prepared to blackmail any of the canons in the room – aye, or see them thrashed, if it would help. Elias’s admission of his sins with Constance would surely hasten Lady Elizabeth’s removal.

And that was the important thing – the removal of the woman who had led the convent to this pass. The souls of thousands depended upon the convent being cleansed! The two dead girls hardly mattered, not to Bertrand. Surely they were already in heaven.

When a niggle of self-doubt caught at his conscience, he forced it from him. The fact that his actions would help his own promotion was merely a coincidence. Nothing more. He was acting selflessly for the good of St Mary’s.

When the men were still, he continued. “I know that this is not a reflection upon all of you, but it does show how poorly Lady Elizabeth has looked after St Mary’s if one of your number can consider renouncing his oaths and leading a nun astray at the same time. And then there is the matter of the prioress’s daughter…”

Aha! thought Simon. So he already knows.

“This daughter, this serpent in female form, has not only rejected her former life as a novice within the cloister and turned her back on the learning she was fortunate enough to be granted by the goodness of the Church, she has turned to a vile and degrading profession. Some of you may know what I mean,” he added, glancing about him shrewdly. More than one man reddened and looked away. “Well, I do not propose to censure those who may have been tempted from the path of purity, beyond demanding that all who so forgot themselves should confess at the earliest opportunity, but this evil cancer must be rooted out. She must be ruthlessly excised from this priory; just as a man would execute an outlaw to protect society. Otherwise her malign influence could corrupt the whole place.” Bertrand ran his words through his mind again. It sounded a little flowery, but overall he was pleased – he might use the same words when he reported to Bishop Stapledon.

One man at the table wasn’t impressed or pleased. Simon could see the anxiety on Godfrey’s face. “If you do that, where shall she go, Bishop? She would be ostracised and left to wander about without home – or hope. Wouldn’t it be more merciful to allow her to remain and…”

“Good God, no! Do you think we should harbour this viper? What of her foul attractions? She could well tempt more of you to stray, and it would be a gross sin on my part were I to allow her the opportunity. The unwholesome bitch must leave and never return.”

Godfrey opened his mouth to speak again, but his neighbour, Jonathan, put a warning hand on his wrist and Godfrey subsided, but as he sagged back in his chair, Simon noticed how he had blanched.

One man whom Simon had not noticed among the canons was Luke. After the service, he had gone to the door as usual, to go back into the monks’ side of the church, but as under the new regime he was to be locked out and excluded from the nunnery except during services, he was forced to wait for a nun to unlock the door and relock it behind him.

It was Denise the sacrist, and as she approached, he was struck by her shuffling gait. The sight made his belly churn in disgust – he had a hatred of drunken women – and yet he saw that he might be able to turn her inebriation to his advantage.

He stood patiently while she inserted the large key into the door and turned it. The lock snapped open, and she pulled the door wide, but as she did so, Luke frowned, slapping at his belt. “My purse!”

Denise peered at him owlishly. “What of it? You’ll have to get it when you come back.”

“But you don’t understand – I’ve lost it,” said Luke, quickly tucking it beneath a fold of his robe. “It could be anywhere.”

“Then seek it in the canons’ cloister,” said Denise unsympathetically; she was feeling more than a little sleepy and had no wish to stand here all day. Hurriedly putting her hand to her mouth, she tried to cover up a burp, then glowered tipsily at him. “Come along, then. Time you were gone.”

“I shan’t be long,” Luke called over his shoulder, and began to walk back to the sacristy.