Priscilla Royal - Satan's Lullaby

Davoir spun around to face Eleanor, his face scarlet with rage. “I sent no one. She lies! Her remedy was useless, and she wants to hide her incompetence by suggesting a strange plot.” Tears wended their way down his cheeks again. “Perhaps you are about to claim that this was an imp sent by the Evil One to kill a youth who served God well?” He swiped the moisture from his cheeks and pointed at Anne. “Maybe this fiend is well-known to you, Sister.”

“Enough!” Eleanor shouted with outrage. “Why assume there is something evil in a nun who has done much good in God’s name? We have no Brother Imbert, but that does not mean my sub-infirmarian has formed a pact with the Devil or is lying.” She began to turn toward Renaud and suggest he might have grounds to lie, but his grief-stricken face stopped her and she fell silent. One unjust accusation was one too many.

But Davoir had read her initial intent. “Why look accusingly at my clerk? What cause has he to tell a false tale? Renaud and Jean were like brothers!”

“I do not claim he did,” Eleanor replied. As if Satan had passed by, she wrinkled her nose. Something smelled foul, but she could not trace the source. All she knew for certain was that Sister Anne would not lie.

Shaking with anger and grief, the priest glowered at Sister Anne. “I accuse you of murder,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “When I refused to allow you to examine Jean, a godly youth who cringed at the very sight of women, you were resentful and let sin find a welcome in your heart. It was the Prince of Darkness who urged you to poison the devout lad out of wicked spite.” Suddenly, he faced Eleanor again. “Or there is another purpose here. You ordered your nun to kill my clerk so that I might flee in fear and not investigate the heinous crimes of which you may be guilty.”

Anne staggered in shock. Recovering, she turned red with fury and took one step toward the priest.

Eleanor put a hand on her friend’s arm to hold her back. “Beware the temptation to falsely accuse. God deems that a sin,” she said to Davoir, biting the end off each word. “If you insist on finding fault without proof, I shall plead my innocence directly to Rome.”

His horror was as palpable as his anger. “I never condemn without proof. Nor shall I denounce you until I have concluded my inquiry into the initial foulness of which you remain accused.”

Eleanor wanted to argue that he had lost all semblance of objectivity and ought not to continue this absurd investigation at all, but something stopped her. It would be futile, she decided, to attempt to debate with one who was blind to facts.

He raised a hand to command a silence that already existed. “Be grateful that I retain my desire, and that of my sister, for a just examination despite the painful death of my best clerk. I shall not order you to be locked away until I am done, Prioress Eleanor. If you are found innocent, your statements in support of this nun will be given due credence. If not, I shall denounce you both as Satan’s whores.” He pointed a shaking finger at Sister Anne. “She, however, must be locked away to prevent her from harming anyone else in my party. For that order, I have cause.”

Sister Anne gestured to her prioress not to protest on her behalf. “I accept that confinement, Father, but beg one thing,” Anne said, her tone unnaturally meek.

He hesitated, then sighed and agreed.

“Bring what is left of the remedy I am accused of sending so I may examine it. There is no evil in my request. You are here to watch me, and I shall immediately return it into your own hand.”

Sketching the sign of the cross to ward off evil, Davoir told Renaud to retrieve it.

When the clerk handed her the open jar, Anne asked what instructions had been given for its use.

He closed his eyes and repeated them slowly.

“Odd,” she said. “Those are not what I would have ordered for a drink of powdered ginger root and chamomile. She gazed into the jar, and her eyes grew round with disbelief. “This is autumn crocus,” she said in a whisper. “Tell me how he died?”

Renaud described Jean’s death agony in great detail.

“This preparation is for gout, not a queasy stomach. Even if Jean had suffered from gout, he would have died from the dosage you said I ordered.” Her face the color of chalk, she whispered, “As he has and in the manner described.”

“Lock her in a room with the guard I alone provide,” Davoir ordered. “If there is a man nearby who represents the king’s justice, he must be brought here to see the corpse.” He smiled at the infirmarian, his expression not unlike a cat savoring the sight of a doomed mouse. “But the Church will order the punishment you must suffer for this crime, and I promise that you shall long for death.”

“I submit to this, my lady,” Anne said to her prioress. “As Heaven is my hope, I shall be found innocent.”

The tiny cell had no windows. No rushes softened the stone floor. This room had once been used for storage, then converted to a cell to hold a monk accused of murder. One person had died here, and the room thereafter remained empty of all but ghosts. A few claimed there was one in particular, who sometimes hurried through the outside corridor in a stinging mist, wailing for mercy from his place in Hell.

Sister Anne sat on the prickly mat that would be her bed and stared at the lone flickering candle she had been allowed to banish darkness and evil spirits. There was nothing else to give comfort, but if her fortitude had weakened, she did not show it. Hands folded, she stared at the rough walls without blinking.

With no warning, the door squeaked open.

Prioress Eleanor and her maid walked in.

Sister Anne rose to her knees, bowed her head, and only now began to weep.

From the hall outside, a hand reached in and slammed the door shut.

“Forgive me, my lady!”

Eleanor grasped her friend’s arm. “Rise! You need not beg forgiveness.”

“I have added to your burden!” Anne looked around as if some solution to this nightmare might be found in the trembling shadows. “I swear I sent the right remedy and proper instructions with a clerk who claimed to come from our abbess’ brother.”

“I know you are telling the truth. We must discover who had motivation to do this thing, why, and how.”

“And you have been accused of a vile misdeed by some unknown person? Who would dare do such a thing?”

“There is too much awry,” Eleanor said with a thin smile. “You have not asked the nature of my crime, but the word will soon be out. Brother Thomas and I are accused of lying together in lust. That was the purpose for which Father Etienne was sent on this visit.”

Anne turned white with horror.

“I do not believe that our abbess sent her brother because she longs to discredit me. She is an honorable woman, and her elevation to abbess brought us great joy. I am convinced they both want facts, not an easy resolution based in half-gathered information.”

“Hasn’t Abbess Isabeau always found Prior Andrew’s reports on Michaelmas or Easter satisfactory?” Anne could barely speak. “How could she give any credence…?”

“She must do so. Recently, she has had cause to fear Rome’s displeasure. I heard that some of her abbey monks have grown rebellious under a woman’s rule. If Rome learns that one of her prioresses has also broken her vows with a monk, many more bishops will demand intervention, claiming these disciplinary problems prove that a woman’s leadership is against God’s law. If her brother can satisfactorily resolve the difficulty here, while she quells the restless abbey monks, Rome will be less inclined to interfere with the practices of our Order.”