Covenant With Hell (10 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Master Durant rubbed at his eyes. The sun was shining directly into them.

He realized he had been watching by the window for longer than he had imagined. The sun may be weak, he thought, but it has greatly changed position since I first stood here.

Although he had learned little of value from his spying, the time spent had been worth the effort for other reasons. As a good companion amongst men, he eagerly got needed information from carefully planned conversations, but he pondered the implications of it better in solitude.

From the fewer voices heard below, he assumed the religious had finished their questionings and he could safely reveal himself. He peered down from the window.

The small clusters had broken up and moved away. The monk was talking with animation to his prioress. An older woman of sober mien stood next to her.

Durant walked away and sat down on his bed. Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas could be seeking Gracia for a Godly purpose, he thought. Had Sister Roysia not fallen from the bell tower, he might have assumed that was the case and questioned their intent no further. But considering that unfortunate death and the reputation of this pair, he was certain they had some other concern.

What about this girl had caught their attention?

She had certainly interested him. After his conversation with Larcher downstairs, she had followed him on his way to Walsingham Priory. Although she kept some distance behind him, she did little to remain hidden. This puzzled him. If Larcher or another had sent her with a message, she would have called out or run up to him. Had someone wanted to know who he might be visiting in the great priory, she would have been told to remain invisible, although choosing one so young to follow him was a clever trick if done with skill. He had decided to call out and beckon her to him, but Gracia had fled.

She did not lack wits, and Durant dismissed the assumption that she had followed after him to acquire another coin from his pouch. When he gave her the last one, he had looked down into two unusually intelligent eyes. There was no reason to leave her lucrative place by the inn door where many pilgrims, inclined to charity, passed. This child might be young, but the street had educated her well. To live this long by herself, she must be a clever student. Following one merchant who had tossed her one coin was unwise.

Most certainly she had not followed him to sell herself or she would not have run away when he summoned her. The innkeeper’s sense of her was probably right. Durant thought it unlikely that Gracia was a whore.

His curiosity still included the question of whether or not her survival had been helped by someone who paid her for information. Since he learned from the innkeeper that she had no living kin, she was not working on behalf of a brother, father, or uncle. That did not mean that a stranger was not dangling food in exchange for tales.

Durant dismissed the idea that she was an assassin. Had she been a young boy, he might have been more suspicious, but a dagger thrust from such weak hands as hers would do little harm to an alert man. And, no matter how clever, neither boy nor girl of such youth was old enough to have honed skills only those aged by years of treachery possessed.

Nonetheless, she had followed him for a purpose, and he had not seen her since she ran from him. She could be in the pay of an enemy to provide something, even if he did not know what it was. As unlikely as that might be, Durant never deluded himself that his opposites lacked cunning.

Now this monk and his prioress were seeking her. At least they did so openly, an argument against the conclusion that they were in someone’s pay themselves.

He smiled. Others might believe that those vowed to God rejected worldly affairs. He knew differently. Bishops went into battle wielding maces, and priests used clubs against those they deemed enemies of God. Priors and abbots were expected to own and use skills to gain influence and wealth.

The lords of heaven and earth had long wrestled together for a man’s allegiance. No man dared ignore the will of God, even kings who might blind themselves to it for a time, but men of the Church were no less able to turn with impunity from the demands of secular lords. The lesson of Thomas Becket was one well-learned.

Durant stood and began to pace. He must think more carefully about this pair. Might they be very clever, acting in plain sight so their true motives were better hidden? After all, the child had followed him on his way to visit his other spy in Walsingham Priory. Had they sent her to find out who this person was? What were their loyalties?

He felt himself grow tense with fear and willed himself to calm so he might regain his reason.

Assessing the allegiance of the Prioress Eleanor was easy enough. Her family had supported King Henry III when many thought that decision ill-advised. Around the time of that most recent barons’ war, it was irrelevant to most whether or not de Montfort secretly longed to take the throne from an inept king and his apparently feckless son. The Earl did not need a crown, only the skill to wield power effectively. But the prioress’ father, Baron Adam of Wynethorpe, had been fierce in his loyalty to an anointed king, whatever Henry III’s failures. It was even rumored that he actually liked the man.

In hindsight, Baron Adam had been right, as had been the baron’s eldest son, Sir Hugh. The brother of Prioress Eleanor had followed Edward to Outremer where close acquaintanceship with death burned away their lush dreams of youth and made the pair leaner men in both body and spirit.

Prince Edward had left for Jerusalem already aware that he must never allow the barons to believe he was a weakling like his father. King Edward returned to England with the same shifting gaze he owned as a youth but with a better knowledge of how to keep those barons from being a trial to kings. Thus Edward had become a deadly man, but he had also learned a warrior’s loyalty. Those who had fought by his side in Outremer were brothers. That included the prioress’ eldest sibling.

No, Durant decided, Prioress Eleanor would join her family in their allegiance to this earthly king. In her loyalties, God would be foremost, but King Edward was his anointed ruler. Leader though she was of her priory, the prioress was also a woman and one who honored her father and loved her brother.

The merchant peeked back down at the road. The monk was still talking to a burly man whose thick arms suggested he was a blacksmith by trade. The prioress and her attendant had left.

Brother Thomas was a different problem. Durant need not ask if the monk’s faith was so profound that he only longed to pray, having fully embraced the priory walls that surrounded him. His efforts to hunt down murderers, rather than spend hours in a chapel, suggested that Thomas still clung to the world. The merchant had also heard how conscientious the monk had been in his covert work for the Church under the direction of Father Eliduc, a man with a reputation for choosing men with promising skill and proven cleverness. But was Thomas willing only to serve the Church and his prioress?

When Thomas was released from his duties by Father Eliduc, the monk seemed content to follow the direction of his prioress. That suggested a man who took his vows of obedience seriously, an impressive submission considering the unusual Order to which he had been assigned.

The merchant gazed at Thomas for a long time. Some mocked the tonsured men of Fontevraud’s Order, claiming they lost their manhood when they submitted to a woman’s rule, but this monk looked more like a knight with his broad shoulders and lean, muscular body. There was nothing womanish about him, unless his eyes, as gentle as a doe’s, betrayed some feminine weakness.

Durant swiftly drew back from the window. Squeezing his eyes shut, he cursed himself for letting his thoughts wander from his purpose. “What are the monk’s loyalties?” he muttered, biting the ends off each word.

Being a man who collected rumors and secrets, the merchant knew that Thomas was the bastard son of a man who unquestionably supported King Henry, but his mother was unknown and probably of little worth. The monk had never been close to his father, although the man had acknowledged his son’s talents and paid for the schooling needed to insure a comfortable future for the boy. Such a background led sons either to loyalty or to treachery.

As for owning a profound longing for the priory life, Durant knew why Thomas had become a monk at Tyndal Priory instead of an influential clerk in the service of a high ranking churchman or even the king. For this reason, he suspected Thomas owned only the common acceptance of Church teaching despite his willingness to follow his prioress’ orders. Her own adventures in pursuit of justice probably satisfied his desire for action and allowed him to make use of his singular talents as a spy.

But were there to be another rebellion in the land, Durant had learned nothing about Brother Thomas to suggest where the man’s secular allegiance might lie. It was possible that Brother Thomas had no firm opinions on such worldly matters and would choose to follow his prioress in hers. It was equally possible that he might be willing to follow the direction of another, a man who could offer him a position that was not reliant on the whims of a woman or on a legitimate birth.

Which possibility was the most likely? With no clear loyalties, Thomas made the wine merchant nervous.

Durant walked to the sweating ewer placed near his bed and poured himself a mazer of bitter ale. It suited his mood better than wine.

Savoring the taste, he set aside thoughts about monk and prioress for the moment. Master Larcher was another problem to consider.

The man had discovered nothing of use. This might be due to Sister Roysia’s questionable and untimely death. Or perhaps Larcher’s failure suggested that a fatter pouch of coin had been pressed into his hand by the other side in this delicate matter of a king’s assassination.

Durant put down the mazer and studied his hands. They trembled.

He was paid to be the cleverest one in any war between men of opposing factions. But was he? He always feared he would lose these battles, even though he had yet to do so.

Pride whispered that he must win. Humility suggested he would one day fail. His pounding heart longed to believe the former was right, yet feared the latter was more likely. To be the constant doubter was his most persistent weakness. He clutched his hands together to steady them, but his palms were sweating.

He looked up and watched a lazy fly circle the room. On a whim, he dipped his fingers in the ale and flicked some at the creature.

The drop hit his mark.

Amazed, he watched the fly fall to the floor. Believing it would die, he felt an odd grief for this thing without a soul and hoped it would meet death in drunken peace. As he stared at the fly, it began to crawl, then suddenly rose into the air and flew out the window, steering a wobbly course.

He laughed, relieved that he had not killed it, and then wondered if this was meant to be lesson for him.

Like that creature, he could not foresee everything in any given situation. There would be surprises and uncertainties. Yet he need not fail if struck with the unknown. He must simply pause, gather his strength, and take off in another direction. It was paralytic fear that killed a man, not the arrival of the unforeseen. He must never forget that the man who survives is the one best able to cope with whatever comes out of the shadows.

Picking up his mazer, he walked back to the window and looked down.

Brother Thomas had left as well. Had he and his prioress learned anything that might lead them to the elusive and quick-witted Gracia?

He sipped the ale as he stared at the quieter road. He should engage Brother Thomas in his own cause, he thought. That would be a bold measure, and it did not matter what the monk thought of King Edward. If carefully directed, Durant might use the man in place of the incompetent, perhaps treacherous, Master Larcher. If he was clever enough, he could obtain the information he needed and let the monk go on his way, none the wiser about the service he had performed for the merchant and his master.

Durant smiled, feeling a rare contentment. It was a good plan.

Chapter Seventeen

Prioress Eleanor hesitated at the door leading to the bell tower, held her breath, and listened carefully. Looking over her shoulder, then down the hall, she confirmed there were no witnesses to what she was about to do.

She grasped the looped rope that formed the handle on the door and cautiously opened it. The squeaking of the hinges was barely audible, but to Eleanor it was as loud as the squealing of angry pigs. Quickly slipping inside, she pulled the door closed and began climbing the stairs.

Although the prioress was a small woman with tiny feet, the steps were too narrow for easy walking. It was a dangerous climb, and, despite her care, she slipped once. The coarse rope along the wall saved her from a nasty fall.

How clever, she thought. Castle stairs were designed to keep an enemy soldier from effectively swinging his sword at a defender standing above him. This priory stairwell to the bell tower was equally well-planned to keep any man from climbing it unless he crawled slowly on his hands and knees. If another person had been with Sister Roysia in the tower, it was unlikely to have been a man, unless there was another entry besides these stairs.

Halfway to the top, Eleanor stopped to catch her breath. For a moment, she suffered a twinge of guilt. As a guest in this priory, she had no right to abuse their hospitality by wandering about at will and prying into their affairs. It was rank discourtesy. If someone, especially Prioress Ursell, were to discover her in the tower and demand an explanation for her presence, she was unprepared to offer any.

The justification that she had taken the wrong door, and then discovered the fine view of the Walsingham shrines from the height of the bell tower, was so feeble it was an insult to utter it. Not only did everyone in Ryehill know that Sister Roysia had fallen from this place, but they were probably aware that Eleanor and her monk had the reputation for involving themselves in questionable deaths. When the prioress of Tyndal chose to go to the bell tower, she might as well have announced to them all that she believed the death to be murder and that those who ruled Ryehill were either incompetent or entangled in the crime.

Eleanor knew that she would not be here now had she not been so angered by both priory and priest. As she first told her monk, they ought not to pry into something that was neither their responsibility nor concern. Father Vincent’s actions, along with Prioress Ursell’s apparent collusion, had caused her to reverse her argument.

Anger is rarely a good reason for doing anything, she thought, but hers was born from indignation. There had been maltreatment of an innocent, or rather two. Her monk had committed no sin worthy of being reported to Rome, and she doubted Gracia had done anything to warrant curses and a slow death from starvation.

It seems Brother Thomas has been right, she thought. Although God was doing it obliquely, He was pushing them into this investigation.

She sighed and climbed higher. Prioress Ursell still had reason to be outraged if she caught her fellow prioress exploring where she had no reason to be. Were the situation reversed, Eleanor would be offended over a guest’s rude and equally arrogant presumption. Thinking about the insult to her monk and the crime against a child, however, she felt less empathy for the prioress of Ryehill.

Reaching the end of the stairs, she pressed against the wooden panel above her head. It was light in weight. She pushed it to one side, climbed out of the stairwell onto the tower floor, and looked around.

The area was not large. The bell itself was enclosed in a high wooden frame, braced by crudely cut timber. A ladder rose into the loft, presumably to access the bell and wooden headstock for repairs. Although the bell was in shadow, she noted it was a small one and easily rung by a nun. The sound would be lost amidst the deeper tones and melodies from the Walsingham Priory bells, but this bell was only intended to alert the priory nuns to the hours for prayer.

Now that she was here and had seen the space, what did she expect to learn about Sister Roysia’s death? All evidence, pointing to either fair or foul causes, would have vanished for equally acceptable or illicit reasons.

A cutting wind attacked from the northeast and bit with the sharpness of a dagger through her woolen habit. Backing away, she sought shelter in a protected corner, and then looked behind her just in time.

The wall there was only waist-high. Falling to her knees in terror, she edged closer and looked straight down into the street. The trembling that struck her had little to do with the cold wind and much to do with the realization that Sister Roysia must have fallen from this spot.

Quickly, she crawled back and braced herself against the tower containing the bell. Closing her eyes, she tried to banish the image of the horror on the nun’s face as she fell to a certain death. The soul might long for the afterlife, but the mortal body was terrified by the process of dying.

She opened her eyes. Had she heard a noise other than the wind? But as she peered around, she did not see anyone who had joined her in this place, and the sound of the coming storm muted noise from the road below.

“Surely that was only a welcoming tower rat,” she muttered. The weak jest did calm her, but she was certain she had heard something and decided to see if it had come from an inquisitive rodent or a curious mortal.

The wooden panel leading to the staircase was where she had left it. If a nun had climbed to the tower, she could not have left so quickly, nor would she likely have done so without speaking. Yet the prioress grew more convinced that someone was nearby.

Remaining on her knees, she crawled slowly and silently closer to the open stairwell entry. She held her breath and swiftly peeked over the edge.

A girl was sitting just a few steps down. Seeing the prioress’ face, her eyes widened as if she had just seen a ghost. “Forgive me, my lady! I meant no ill.”

“Nor did I think you had,” Eleanor said, trying not to laugh with relief. “I am not a nun of this place but rather a pilgrim to the shrines here. My home is Tyndal Priory on the North Sea coast where I am prioress.”

The child shifted uneasily. Despite the wind and fresh air, her movement sent a waft of foul odor from her long unwashed body.

“You have nothing to fear from me, for I have no authority here, but I would learn who you are and why you have come here.” She smiled. “Is it the view?” She hoped the jest would calm the child.

“When I saw you, I thought you were Sister Roysia, or else her shade for I know she is dead.” She wrapped her arms more tightly around her bony knees.

“I doubt the good nun’s spirit would have any reason to do you harm. I have heard she was a good woman.”

The child stared at her, and then asked, “Are you alone, my lady?”

Eleanor glanced around and nodded.

“I meant to ask if you were accompanied when you came to Walsingham.”

“One monk. Brother Thomas is his name. We arranged to come with a party of other pilgrims.” The prioress suddenly looked on this girl with new interest. The approximate age is right, she thought, and the girl’s eyes shine with quick wit. “Is your name Gracia?”

The child slipped down another few steps as if to flee, but then she stopped and looked back up at Eleanor. Her expression suggested a mix of uneasiness and curiosity.

“Brother Thomas has told me of your plight, and we have been seeking you.”

“For what reason?” The girl’s eyes took on the look of a cornered animal.

“You deserve an honest reply, but I beg you return the favor before I give it,” she said, making no move toward the child but instead sitting slightly back of the entrance.

The girl studied her, her gaze swiftly taking in as much as she could see of the small woman sitting above her. Then she nodded.

“Why do Father Vincent and Prioress Ursell dislike you so?” She held up a hand. “I know the story of the merchant’s rape, but God demands we succor those who have been wronged. He is the defender of all who have no one else in the world to protect them.”

Gracia folded her arms but said nothing.

As the silence lengthened, the prioress let the girl stare. Others would have grown impatient with the delay, or deemed her behavior uncouth, but Eleanor suspected that this child was taking in every nuance of her expression and listening again to every word the prioress had uttered. The experience was unsettling, but there was neither threat nor true discourtesy in the study. Gracia was simply assessing danger, her skill honed beyond anything a child of such youth should need.

The prioress’ heart ached.

“You do not believe I am the Devil’s spawn?”

“When Father Vincent questioned you, you claimed the man forced you to lie with him. Is that true?”

Gracia slipped up two steps closer, pressed her back against the wall of the stairwell, and bent her head before murmuring, “I told the priest that my entrails bled, and then I asked him why I would willingly suffer that.”

This was more than Eleanor could bear, and she stretched her hand toward the girl. Tears began to flow down her cheeks.

Gracia hesitated, then placed her bony fist into this strange woman’s palm.

“If you told the priest that,” Eleanor said, her voice rough with emotion, “why does he treat you with so little charity?”

“Because I knew that he helped Master Larcher meet in this tower with Sister Roysia.”

Shocked, Eleanor almost drew back but stopped herself. She did not want the child to think she had been offended. “Will you tell me more?”

Keeping a firm hold on the prioress’ hand, Gracia scrambled out of the stairwell and tugged at Eleanor until the prioress followed her to the opposite side of the tower. The girl stood near the low wall and pointed downward. “Look there, my lady.”

Frightened that she would be greeted with another sight of the dizzying void, Eleanor edged slowed forward.

“It is not so far.” The child smiled and raised her other hand. “You may take both of these to steady yourself.”

Eleanor almost said that she was too small to pull a grown woman back should she slip, but Gracia’s offer revealed a kind heart. She murmured gratitude instead.

And so the prioress knelt by the wall, calmed her fears, and carefully peered down. To her surprise, the distance was not so terrifying. The priory roof was just below. The distance was great enough to cause injury, if a man were to fall, but unless he rolled off the roof, the fall should not prove fatal.

As she gazed across the roof, she noticed how close the houses on the other side of the street were to the priory. If she judged correctly, a man might safely jump the short distance between house and priory roof. The question remained how he might climb the tower. Taking courage, she looked down at the stones of the tower. There was nothing to give a foothold for climbing.

She stood up and pointed toward the roof and houses. “Please explain what this means.”

“One of those houses is empty, my lady. The family died in last summer’s fever.” Gracia pointed to a house. “In the back of that house, there is a ladder that rises to the roof. From there, a man can easily reach the top of this priory.”

“But from the priory roof to here?”

“A rope,” the child replied. Then she urged the prioress to follow her back to a corner of the tower and pointed out a coiled rope lying there.

Eleanor knelt to study it. “Sister Roysia knotted this well enough so he could climb from the roof to the tower?”

The girl nodded. “Sister Roysia left it here, claiming it was meant to replace the one for ringing the bell should that one fray. When she arranged to meet Master Larcher, she secured it to a timber brace inside the bell tower itself and tossed the rope over the wall. The badge craftsman had strong arms and hands. He had no difficulty climbing it.”

“Then the story is true that they met for an unchaste purpose.”

Gracia firmly denied it. “They talked,” she said.

“And why are you so certain?”

“I was here when they met.”

Eleanor looked around in amazement. “How did you get up here?”

“Ryehill Priory has few nuns and no servants. I had sometimes seen the front door open and crept in without being caught, then hidden in this tower. But Sister Roysia once saw me outside and, having heard the story of the merchant’s rape, suggested I might henceforth find the priory entry unsecured and unattended while the nuns prayed at night before their rest. It is easy for me to swiftly climb the stairwell, and I could sleep in safety. I hid in a dark corner when the nun ascended the stairs to ring the bell. She never tarried when the wind was pitiless.”

“But Sister Roysia and the craftsman must have remained longer, and surely they saw you.” The prioress gestured around the tower. “There is no place so dark that a sharp eye could not penetrate.”

“For someone of my size there is, my lady. As you discovered, it is easy to remain just below the tower entrance and remain unseen. I know of other places for concealment as well.”

“And did you observe them often?”

“They met only a few times, my lady, but I was here when they did with but one exception.”

This is quite extraordinary, Eleanor thought. Although she once allowed a nun to meet with a monk, who had been the woman’s husband in the world, and was confident that their encounters were chaste, she remained doubtful about Master Larcher and Sister Roysia. Yet this girl was not ignorant of sexual matters, being both poor and abused. “What did they talk about, child?” The answer to this question should give her a better idea of the circumstances.

Gracia shrugged. “Stories that Sister Roysia overheard from those who visited Prioress Ursell. I could not always hear details but understood the intent. The first time they…”

Suddenly they heard a sound like a door slamming.

Eleanor froze, but no one emerged from the entrance. She walked over and looked down the stairwell. It was empty. Perhaps she had not shut the entrance door firmly enough, and she prayed this happened often enough with such an ill-fitting door that a passing nun would think nothing of it if the wind sucked it shut.