Priscilla Royal - Satan's Lullaby

Davoir waved his hand at Thomas. “You do reach above your authority in this matter, and I am showing remarkable tolerance only out of deference to your prioress.”

Thomas bowed his head. “You show a saintly patience, Father. I am humbled by your example.” Not wishing to waste more time humoring the man, the monk quickly knelt at the clerk’s side.

Renaud’s eyes were tightly closed, and he repeatedly muttered, “I did not know I was killing him. I swear I did not know.”

“But when Jean died, you hoped to take his place.” The monk’s voice was as soft as a feather.

The clerk’s body jerked like one suffering a seizure. “Father Etienne mocked me! After I had risked my life to protect him, he told me that I could never replace his beloved Jean, that he had planned and still planned to dismiss me!” He began to strike his head on the floor. “Tell me where my reward is. The master is no master. He was sent by the Devil to torment me! Was it not right that I send him back to Hell like I sent Jean?”

Thomas grabbed the clerk before he reopened the wound in his head.

Renaud tried to bite him.

Ralf shouted at the priest. “If he is your creature, take responsibility for him!”

Stepping back in horror, Davoir cried out, “But he is possessed! His demon will attack us!”

“Pray?” Conan called out from the doorway. “Isn’t that your chosen weapon?”

Suddenly, Renaud collapsed into Thomas’ arms. “I didn’t want to kill Jean! But he has come back as a damned soul to torment me. I saw him in the courtyard before he struck me down. I was sure his soul was cleansed before he died. I tried to tell him that. I did not mean to condemn him, but something went wrong.” The clerk began to squirm in agony. “He is in Hell, and it is my fault!”

Thomas looked up at the trembling priest. “We have a confession from Renaud that he did kill your clerk, although I doubt there was any clear intent or malice in it. I witnessed his attempt to murder you. There was no accomplice. Tonight proves Sister Anne is innocent of all wrong, and we may free her and use that cell for Renaud.”

The clerk began to scream that Jean was in the room and wearing a fiendish tail.

“Send for clerks from the monks? quarters,” Davoir said, his voice hoarse with terror.

“I have just done so,” Ralf replied.

“And agree to Sister Anne’s release,” Thomas added before the crowner had a chance to demand it.

Swallowing what must have been bitter bile, Davoir agreed.

Renaud went limp in his restraints and wept like a whipped child.

“Are there any more questions?” Thomas asked. “Quickly, if you do, and be brief. His wits are fleeing.”

“I shall ask mine when the Evil One is beaten out of his body,” Davoir said.

“One,” Ralf said. “Who was Brother Imbert?”

The monk bent over the wretched clerk and asked.

“I made him up,” Renaud mumbled, then grinned as his eyes again grew unfocused. “Wasn’t I clever?”

Thomas frowned. “You have said it was Jean who struck you down. Was it only…?”

Renaud twisted his head around and screamed, “It was Jean! I saw his spirit in the shadows, waving his arms and howling that he had come from Hell.” The clerk began to foam at the mouth. “Ask him yourself! The hellish minion is there, standing by his priest!”

Conan looked uneasily at Davoir, shook his head, and then shrugged at the crowner.

Ralf raised an eyebrow at the monk.

“If Renaud truly believed he saw the ghost of his fellow clerk coming for vengeance,” Thomas said, “he might have fainted from shock and struck his head on the stones of the path. That might have caused the wound.”

The two men nodded.

Thomas was not convinced by his own argument, but he decided that the cause of the injury no longer mattered as much as he once thought it might.

In the distance, the church bell sounded for the morning Office. The men dutifully bowed their heads, but the call to prayer brought little peace to any and most certainly none to the guilty one who now lay still in a pool of his own urine.

After that early morning prayer, Father Etienne reluctantly swore to his agreement that the sub-infirmarian be released, and Ralf left to take the news to Prioress Eleanor. Even faced with the indisputable fact of her innocence, the priest struggled against the truth. “Surely,” he had muttered, “the woman is guilty of something.”

When Thomas asked if he would accompany his wretched clerk to the cell, Davoir refused without explanation. The monk suspected that his decision had more to do with his unwillingness to see Sister Anne freed than it did with any pain he might have felt over Renaud’s attempt to kill him. Thomas, however, looked forward to joining Prioress Eleanor and Crowner Ralf in welcoming the sub-infirmarian as she left the cell.

After Conan and the clerks bore Renaud away, the lad singing curious ditties under his breath, the priest returned to his prie-dieu and cross. In the ashen morning light, the jewels lost all color.

As he turned to leave the guest quarters as well, Thomas chose not to ask Father Etienne if he needed another priest’s comfort.

***

When the cell door opened, and Sister Anne emerged to the joyful greetings of her friends, the nun stopped in horror as three clerks dragged the bound Renaud inside. The youth stank of excrement and urine.

The heavy wooden door of the cell slammed shut. Two more of Davoir’s clerks remained outside and positioned themselves in front of it. Their boyish cheeks were round and utterly devoid of a man’s beard, but they folded their arms with adult solemnity. Considering the tragic fate of their fellow clerk, their dedication to the assigned responsibility was poignant.

Prioress Eleanor quickly explained to her friend what had happened, and the nun gasped in dismay. Her expression grew solemn when she learned that the clerks must remain with the youth out of fear he might commit self-murder. Then tears wended their way down the sub-infirmarian’s cheeks. “Surely he did this out of madness, not evil,” she said to her friends, all of whom were inclined to agree.

Looking back at the door, which did not mute all screaming, Sister Anne asked how Renaud had been able to confess anything, considering how far his sense had fled.

Prioress Eleanor explained that Brother Thomas had been as gentle with his questions as a father might when a beloved son was in great pain.

The nun nodded. “If the clerk had received that kindness before, he might not have lost his reason so completely,” she said. “Does He not command us to be compassionate?”

At no time did Sister Anne ask if Father Etienne had shown grief over these events or if he had sent an apology for misjudging her. She simply said she would pray for this youth who was so tormented that he might choose self-murder and an eternity in Hell to escape his temporal agony.

As the foursome left the corridor and Renaud’s howls faded, Thomas thought about what must happen next. Of course the Church would not execute Renaud, although the alternative could be a more chilling punishment.

The monk shuddered. Exorcism would be performed. If that did not bring the youth back to his senses, Renaud might well spend the rest of his life chained in a tower or locked monastery cell where demons, real or imaginary, would infest his remaining days and nights with vicious mockery and obscene taunts. Thomas had heard tales of men ripping off ears, and blinding or castrating themselves to escape the torments. None of this helped when nightmares had bored so deep into their souls.

Crowner Ralf would say the lad might be better off hanged. If Renaud were truly mad, Thomas asked himself, might that be the kinder justice? A cure for the satanic possession of a soul was possible. As he had once been told, the imp that allegedly forced his friend, Giles, to lie in sin with Thomas had been exorcised. But there was no cure for madness, a fate so cruel that many found a way to kill themselves despite all precautions and thus fell into an eternity of misery because they had done so.