Ariana Franklin - The Serpent’s Tale

The only men over them were Saint Benedict, to whose rule they were subject and who was dead these six hundred and fifty years; the Pope, who was a long way away; the Archbishop of Canterbury, often ditto; and an investigative archdeacon who, because they kept their books and their behavior in scrupulous order, could make no complaint of them.

Oh, and the Bishop of Saint Albans.

So rich was Godstow that it possessed two churches. One, tucked away against the abbey’s western wall, was small and acted as the nuns’ private chapel. The other, much larger, stood on the east, near the road, and had been built to provide a place of worship for the people of the surrounding villages.

In effect, the abbey was a village in itself, in which the holy sisters had their own precincts, and it was to these that the travelers were taken by the porter. A maid carrying a yoke squeaked at the sight of them and then curtsied, spilling some milk from the buckets. The porter’s lantern shone on passageways and courtyards, the sudden, sculptured pillars of a cloister where the shutters of the porter’s windows opened to show white-coifed heads like pale poppies whispering, “Bishop, the bishop,” along the row.

Rowley Picot, so big, so full of energy and intent, so loudly male, was a cockerel erupting into a placid coop of hens that had been managing happily without him.

They were met by the prioress, still pinning her veil in place, and begged to wait in the chapter house where the abbess would attend them. In the meantime, please to take refreshment. Had the ladies any requirements? And the baby, such a fine little fellow, what might be done for him?

The beauty of the chapter house relied on the sweep of unadorned wooden crucks and arches. Candles lit a tiled floor strewn with fresh rushes and were reflected back in the sheen of a long table and chairs. Besides the scent of apple logs in the brazier, there was a smell of sanctity and beeswax-and now, thanks to Ward, the stink of unsavory dog.

Rowley strode the room, irritated by the wait, but, for the first time since the journey began, Adelia fed young Allie in the tranquillity the baby deserved. Its connection with Rosamund Clifford had made her afraid that the abbey would be disorderly, the nuns lax and no better than they should be. She still had bad memories of Saint Radegund’s in Cambridge, the only other religious English sisterhood she’d encountered until now-a troubled place where, eventually, a participant in child killing had been unmasked.

Here at Godstow the atmosphere spoke of safety, tidiness, discipline, everything in its place.

She began to doze, lulled by the soporific mutterings of Father Paton as he chalked the reckonings onto his slate book. “To cheese and ale on the journey…to provender for the horses…”

A nudge from Gyltha got her to her feet. A small, very old nun, leaning on an ivory-topped walking stick, had come in. Rowley extended his hand; the nun bent creakily over it to kiss the episcopal ring on his finger. Everybody bowed.

The abbess sat herself at the head of the board, took trouble to lean her stick against her chair, clasped her hands, and listened.

Much of Godstow’s felicity, Adelia realized within minutes, was due to this tiny woman. Mother Edyve had the disinterested calm of elderly people who had seen everything and were now watching it come around for the second time. This young bishop-a stripling compared to her-could not discompose her, though he arrived with a Saracen, two women, a baby, and an unprepossessing dog among his train, telling her that he had found a murdered man outside her gates.

Even the fact that the bishop wished to conceal the corpse in her icehouse was met calmly. “Thus you hope to find the killer?” she asked.

“Killer sss , Abbess,” the bishop hissed impatiently. Once again, he went over the evidence found by Dr. Mansur and his assistant.

Adelia thought that Mother Edyve had probably grasped it the first time; she was merely giving herself time to consider. The wrinkly lidded eyes embedded into a face like creased calfskin closed as she listened, her veined hands reflected in the high polish of the table.

Rowley ended with, “We are assured that there are people who wish the young man’s death and name to be broadcast; when there is only silence, they may return to find out why.”

“A trap, then.” It was said without emphasis.

“A trap is necessary to see justice done,” Rowley persisted, “and only you to know about it, Abbess.”

He is asking a great deal of her , Adelia thought. To conceal a body unmourned and unburied is surely against the law and certainly unchristian.

On the other hand, according to what Rowley had told her, this old woman had kept both her convent and her nuns inviolate during thirteen years of civil war, much of it waged in this very area, a feat suggesting that the rules of men, and even God’s, must have been tinkered with somewhere along the line.

Mother Edyve opened her eyes. “I can tell you this, my lord: The bridge is ours. It is our convent’s duty to maintain its structure and its peace and, by extension therefore, to catch those who commit murder on it.”

“You agree, then?” Rowley was taken aback; he’d expected resistance.

“However,” the abbess said, still distantly, as if he hadn’t spoken, “you will need the assistance of my daughter prioress.” Sliding it along her belt from under her scapular, Mother Edyve produced the largest chatelaine Adelia had ever seen; it was a wonder it didn’t weigh her to the floor. Among the massive keys attached to it was a small bell. She rang it.

The prioress who had first greeted them came in. “Yes, Mother?”

Now that she could compare them, Adelia saw that Sister Havis had the same flat face and the same calfskin, though slightly less crinkled, complexion as the abbess. “Daughter prioress,” then, was not a pious euphemism; Edyve had brought her child with her to Godstow when she took the veil.

“Our lord bishop has with him a consignment for our icehouse, Sister Havis. It will be stored there secretly during Lauds.” A key was detached from the great iron ring and handed over. “There shall be no mention of it to any soul until further notice.”

“Yes, Mother.” Sister Havis bowed to her bishop, then to her mother, and left. No surprise. No questions. Godstow’s icehouse, Adelia decided, must have stored more than sides of beef in its time. Treasure? Escapers? Situated as it was between the town of Wallingford, which had held out for Queen Matilda, and Oxford Castle, where King Stephen’s flag had flown, there might well have been a need to hide both.

Allie was wriggling, and Gyltha, who was holding her, looked interrogatively at Adelia and then at the floor.

Adelia nodded, clean enough. Allie was put down to crawl, an exercise she was refusing to perform, preferring to hitch herself along on her backside. Wearily, the dog Ward disposed himself so that his ears could be pulled.

Rowley wasn’t even thanking the abbess for her cooperation; he had moved on to a matter more important to him. “And now, madam, what of Rosamund Clifford?”

“Yes, the Lady Rosamund.” It was spoken as distantly as ever, but Mother Edyve’s hands tightened slightly. “They are saying it was the queen poisoned her.”

“I was afraid they would.”

“And I am afraid it may precipitate war.”

There was a silence. Abbess and bishop were in accord now, as if they shared a foul secret. Once again, trampling horsemen milled around the memories of those who had known civil war, emitting to Adelia a turbulence so strong that she wanted to pick up her baby. Instead, she kept an eye on her in case the child made for the brazier.