Covenant With Hell (17 page)

Chapter Thirty

Brother Thomas’ fingers left bloody streaks on the stairs and wall. Silently cursing the tiny steps to the bell tower, he clawed his way up, proceeded by the street child and followed by Master Durant and Prioress Ursell.

When he finally burst through the entrance, Gracia pulled him by the hand to the low wall surrounding the bell tower.

“There!” The young girl pointed at the priory roof below them.

Thomas saw the body of his prioress lying there. Grief may have scalded his eyes with tears, but fury dried them. In an instant, he forgot all vows and swore he would personally tie the killer’s limbs to four swift horses and let them tear the man apart. Then he heard a sound, looked down at the child beside him, and saw that she was weeping too. His heart shattered, and he could no longer contemplate violence. Squeezing her hand, he bent down and whispered words of comfort.

Prioress Ursell gestured at the staircase. “I will go back to the priory and send for help. If there is any chance that she might be alive…” She looked back at the men, clearly debating the propriety of leaving them there, then shook her head and disappeared through the entrance.

Gracia looked up at Thomas. “Prioress Eleanor may be alive, Brother. The fall is not as far as that suffered by Sister Roysia.”

Durant leaned dangerously over the wall and pointed. “Look!”

Following the direction of his finger, they saw someone stumbling along the priory roof toward the houses beyond.

“It is the murderer,” Gracia said.

Suddenly, the merchant noticed the rope dangling over the edge.

Thomas did as well and reached out for it.

“No, Brother, let me give chase. This is my particular enemy,” Durant said and grabbed the rope.

Gracia screamed at him. “It will break with your weight!”

Durant blinked, then saw the cut in the rope. “I am grateful for your warning, child.” Then he, too, ran for the stairwell entry.

Thomas followed.

“Stay here, “Durant said, putting a restraining hand against the monk’s chest. “I will seek the killer and swear to bring him to justice.” His look softened. “You have vows to keep, Brother Thomas, and a child to comfort. I promise that the end of this matter will satisfy you.” With that, he eased down on the top step. “It will be faster to slide,” they heard him say with a light jest as he vanished.

Although he knew Durant was right, Thomas clenched his fists in helpless frustration. Then he turned to seek Gracia.

To his horror, she had leapt up on the wall and was balancing precariously.

He rushed to the child and put her down on the safer tower floor. “Do not endanger yourself like that!”

“Then look at the roof yourself.” Her face was pale, but she was smiling. “I think I saw our lady move.”

Kneeling at the wall, he looked down and realized that his prioress had shifted onto her side. “She lives!”

Crying out with joy, Gracia clapped her hands.

Now he saw Eleanor struggling to sit up. “Stay where you are, my lady,” Thomas shouted. Fearing she would slip off the roof if she moved too much, he waved franticly to get her attention. “Prioress Ursell has gone to seek aid. They will come soon.”

Eleanor looked up and raised a hand.

Suddenly, a ladder rose from the street and was braced against the priory walls. Two figures began the climb. One was a man, but, to Thomas’ amazement, the other was Prioress Ursell. Even in this situation, he thought, the prioress of Ryehill was determined that there should be no real or imagined impropriety.

Unable to know whether to laugh or cry, he sat back on his heels and began to do both.

Gracia put her arm around his neck and laid her head on his. “Come, Brother,” she whispered, “let us leave this place.”

Wiping his cheeks, the monk stood, touched by her comforting when he should have been the one to ease her pain. “You have something to tell me about this.” He gestured around the narrow space of the bell tower. “While we have no witnesses near, reveal what you know and then we shall depart.”

She pointed upward into the bell tower itself. “I was hiding near that bird when she brought Prioress Eleanor up here.”

He looked up. A raven had a nest in the roof above the bell. The creature glared at him.

Suddenly, he grasped what Gracia had just said. “You are saying that it was a woman who tried to kill Prioress Eleanor?” Now that he thought about it, he realized that the figure they had just seen was very small for a man, yet he and Durant had assumed…

“I do not know her name. She is a pilgrim staying here. I saw her with our lady when she went to visit the shrines at Walsingham Priory.”

Was that Mistress Emelyne who had ridden close by his prioress’ side from the moment they met the pilgrimage group on the road from Norwich? How could she have been the one? As he recalled, she was flighty, verbose, and too eager to please someone of high rank. He shook in his head in amazement. This woman was a murderer and even the assassin?

“Could you describe her?”

“I could not see her face at first, but she matched your prioress in height and was plainly dressed. At one point she did look up, but I was in the shadows on the ladder above the bell and wrapped my clothes around me to escape notice. It was then I recognized her as the woman who so often sought the company of Prioress Eleanor. Before she had always been bright-faced and her voice high-pitched, but when the two emerged into this place, her expression was angry. Her voice dropped so low I could barely hear her.”

He nodded. Might this widow be a man in disguise? No, he thought. A woman might pass as a beardless youth, but a grown man could not hide his beard.

Hearing voices, he looked down on the roof below. Gracia urged him to let her see as well so he held her while she peered over the edge of the wall.

Three were now on the roof. The man stood at a respectful distance while a nun worked on the prioress’ arm. Ursell stood on the ladder leaning against the house and watched.

He whispered reassurance to Gracia, then urged her to step back. As he continued to watch, he leaned over a bit more, trying to find Durant, but he could not see into all the streets. The figure they had witnessed crossing the roof was gone.

“Do not bend out so far, Brother.”

He stepped back as his heart thumped with increasing happiness. His prioress was alive and could move. Perhaps Durant had caught the attacker. Grinning, he said, “Continue with your story of what happened.”

“When they arrived, I did not know why they had come here, but I felt I should not let them know I was here too. So I watched. Then I saw that the pilgrim held a knife against Prioress Eleanor’s back.” She winced. “I was frightened and did not know what I could do to help.” She looked down at her thin body. “I am fleet if I need to run, but my teeth are too poor to bite and I have no heft.”

“There is no blame in realizing what you cannot do.” Taking her hand, he felt how fragile her bones were. She desperately needed feeding, he thought. When this matter of murder and assassination is done, he would not leave Walsingham until he had arranged a home for this girl.

“The woman said that she regretted what she must do but had no choice. If only our prioress had not found her torn robe, she would have lived.” The child looked up at the monk. “Does that mean anything to you? She held a garment in her hand. The sleeve had a piece torn from it.”

“It does,” he said with sadness. All had thought a man had killed Sister Roysia, so concerned were they over the presumed affair between Larcher and the nun. Instead, it was a woman, claiming to be a pilgrim. It grieved him that someone had traveled to Walsingham, alleging she sought forgiveness for sins but was instead intent on committing them.

“She pushed our prioress toward that pillar and ordered her to tie the rope as she directed. I wondered if I might drop on the woman’s head, knocking her to the ground, but she never came close enough. It would not have helped if I had simply fallen from my hiding place and startled her.” Again she looked at Thomas for confirmation.

“You were right. You are too small to struggle with a grown woman who holds a knife. You might have injured…” He stopped for a moment, realizing that the child had referred to Prioress Eleanor as
our prioress
. It touched him deeply. “You made the only decision you could,” he said simply.

“When the rope was tied, and the woman tested its strength, she raised her hand and hit our prioress on the head with the hilt of the knife. I think Prioress Eleanor raised her arm to defend herself but not soon enough. I saw blood flowing from the spot where she was struck.” She covered her face in her hands. “It all happened so fast, Brother!”

Thomas picked her up and held her close while she sobbed. “You could do nothing,” he repeated until the weeping ceased, then he put her back down but held on to her hand.

“She dropped the knife and pulled Prioress Eleanor to the edge of that wall and pushed her over the side. Then she tied the torn robe around her waist, grabbed the rope, and was over the side herself in an instant. It was only then that I could climb down from my hiding place.”

“It was you who cut the rope with the discarded knife?”

“I wasn’t quick enough. The rope is thick, and I did not have the strength to cut faster. Before I could slice through, I felt the rope go slack. When I looked over the wall, the woman was standing on the rooftop. Prioress Eleanor had fallen near the edge, and the woman began to move toward her. I screamed for help. She looked up, saw me, and fled. I ran down the stairs to seek a nun who would alert Prioress Ursell.”

“You saved Prioress Eleanor’s life. Had the woman discovered that our prioress was still alive, she would have pushed her over the edge of the roof onto the street. After one fall already and that blow to her head, our lady surely would have died.”

Gracia’s eyes widened. “Do you think so?”

He nodded. Assuming Prioress Eleanor was not critically injured, the child’s cry for aid might well have saved his lady’s life.

Pulling Gracia into his arms, he hugged her. “May God give you all blessings,” he said. “Poor mortal that I am, I shall beg His mercy comfort you for all eternity because of what you did.”

As if he were her father who had just returned from a long journey, she snuggled closer to him.

Chapter Thirty-one

Thomas eased himself slowly down the stairs while Gracia followed, reminding him to take care and that his injured hands would need tending. It was a good lesson, he thought, that she, who lived her own life on the edge of death, cared about the needs of another mortal.

When they reached the bottom and entered the hallway, he saw a nun waiting by the door, her head bowed. He recognized her as the one who had rushed to summon Prioress Ursell with Gracia by her side. Thomas put his hand on the child’s shoulder as assurance that he would protect her if there was any dispute about her continued presence.

“Sister?”

She looked up.

“You are weeping,” he said. “What grieves you?”

“My sorrow includes the violence done to Prioress Eleanor, Brother, but begins with Sister Roysia. Is this tragedy part of hers?”

“I fear it is,” he replied, “but the slander hurled against the good nun has been proven wrong.”

“Are you Sister Roysia’s friend whom she called her most beloved?” Gracia suddenly asked.

The nun flushed, then nodded.

“There is a message I vowed to deliver to that nun, Brother.” The girl looked up at him with a worried expression.

He reassured her that there was no offence in this.

“Sister Roysia remained true to her vocation,” Gracia said, turning to the nun. “She swore me to silence about her meetings with the craftsman but feared for her life. If she should die, she said I must tell you that she did this to save the life of God’s anointed king. Each time she met with this man, excluding the first, I hid in the bell tower so she might not be alone with Master Larcher.”

The nun gasped.

“Were you there the night she died?” the monk asked.

Gracia shook her head. “I knew nothing about this last encounter. The decision to meet must have been made after the hour when I walked by the priory to see if the front door was open. I found it locked and assumed Sister Roysia had not been able to find a way to let me in so I might sleep safely in the tower. That night, I found shelter in the streets.”

The young nun reached out and hugged the child. “Thank you for telling me this!”

Thomas waited while the two talked, but finally his growing concern overcame him. “Have you heard anything about Prioress Eleanor?”

The nun’s face was almost luminous after the news she had just received from Gracia. “Forgive me, Brother, for my selfishness. The infirmarian has gone to attend her, and the messenger told her that your prioress is injured but alive.”

He almost leapt with joy but restrained the impulse as unseemly. “Then I shall go to her as well.” He glanced at the vagrant child and urged her gently toward the nun. “Will you take this child and make sure she is fed, Sister? I have heard that Prioress Ursell denied her scraps, but this girl saved my prioress’ life.”

The young nun looked down into Gracia’s eyes and a smile tickled the corners of her mouth. “No one would dare deny her sustenance now, Brother.” She looked at the monk. “Prioress Ursell must certainly agree.” She reached out a hand and took the tiny and very grimy one in hers. “Come with me. There is soft bread and cheese in the kitchen.”

Thomas bent to whisper in Gracia’s ear that he would come for her soon with news, then he smiled at the nun and rushed out the priory door.

***

A crowd surrounded the ladder from which Prioress Eleanor had been lowered off the roof, but Thomas edged his way through the men and women with ease, whispering that he served the lady lying on the ground. Many simply honored his calling, when they saw him, and stepped aside without hesitation.

As he reached the empty space at the center, he saw Prioress Ursell pounding her staff of office into the earth as she stalked the perimeter and glowered at any who dared move closer. Oddly enough, she reminded him of Moses with the shining face after he had climbed down from the mountain in Sinai. It was a strange image, but he meant it as a compliment.

Looking around, he did not see Father Vincent. That did not surprise him.

As he walked toward Ryehill’s prioress, she stopped. Her look changed from that of a mighty prophet to one of a mortal filled with shame. Honoring her office and taking mercy on her humiliation, he humbly bowed to her. “May I have permission to go to Prioress Eleanor’s side?”

Biting her lip, she nodded. “Most certainly, Brother. She will welcome your comfort.” Her voice was tense with a rare excess of emotion.

As he approached the small figure lying on the ground, he saw a lean nun kneeling beside her.

The Ryehill infirmarian glanced over her shoulder. With a look of gentle understanding, learned from many years caring for the sick, she nodded. “Welcome, Brother Thomas. Our lady was just asking for you.”

Trying to maintain a properly somber mien, he knelt close by and swallowed his tears of relief.

“I shall be a short distance away,” the infirmarian said. “She is weak and needs rest. If I may advise, please do not stay here long. We would like to take her as soon as possible to the priory for the complete care she needs.”

This infirmarian was older than Sister Anne at Tyndal, but she reminded him of his friend, a woman who cared more about healing than judging any sin that might have caused the illness. He swore to keep his visit brief.

As the woman rose and walked away, he wondered how many nuns went to her for comforting when discipline and the harsh life at Ryehill grew too hard to bear.

“I am grateful you are here, Brother.” Prioress Eleanor’s voice was surprisingly strong.

“God was kind to us all at Tyndal Priory, my lady, when He kept Death from snatching you away.” Her arm was in a small splint, he noted, and bound close to her body. Blood still stained her face. He hoped the infirmarian had used comfrey for better healing.

“Your prayers would give much comfort to this frightened soul,” she said with warmth.

“I offer them with all my heart,” he replied, “but I grieve that you suffered this and I was not there to protect you.” She was pale but had smiled at him as if he truly was the one person above all she longed to see. He swatted at an errant tear on his cheek.

“You are Tyndal Priory’s own Galahad,” she said, her eyes twinkling. Then she grew more serious. “Has anyone seen Mistress Emelyne? It was she who killed Sister Roysia and confessed it to me. I found her torn robe in the chest where I had stored herbs sent with me by Sister Anne. The widow carried that robe when she took me to the tower. Perhaps she dropped it there? I think we might compare the hole with the cloth found in the nun’s hand.”

He shook his head. “I fear she may have escaped, my lady. We saw her on the roof, and a wine merchant sped off to capture her.”

“A wine merchant?”

Thomas felt his mouth go dry. He cleared his throat. “I was on my way to speak with Master Larcher and met Master Durant on the way. Since he had some questions of theology, we walked together. It was he who found that the craftsman had been—”

“I heard he was killed. That, too, was done by Mistress Emelyne.” She winced. “I realized she planned to murder me as well when she grew eager to brag about the details of her cleverness. She is the assassin waiting to kill the king, Brother. You must send word.” Again she winced, clenched her teeth, and uttered a moan of pain.

A figure cast a shadow over Thomas. He looked around and saw the infirmarian.

“Brother, your prioress is in pain. I beg that you let us take her to the priory so I can offer her a soothing draught. She needs to sleep and suffer less so the healing can occur more quickly.” She smiled. “And, lest you fear otherwise, I used both comfrey and mallow leaves on that wound.”

He looked back at Eleanor.

“We shall speak soon, Brother. Pray for me.”

“I shall.” Giving her a blessing, he rose.

The infirmarian motioned for the bearers to come forward. Gently lifting the litter, they carried the prioress away. At the head of the party was Prioress Ursell, her staff of office glittering in the pale sun. The infirmarian followed behind, watching to make sure the trip was accomplished with as much gentleness as possible.

Thomas looked up at the sky. Late in the season though it was, he wondered if the hazy light meant a late snow. He hoped not.

“Brother Thomas!”

Master Durant ran to his side. The man was sweating, and his eyes were dark with anger. “The killer has escaped.” He spat out the admission as if it were rotten meat.

“Prioress Eleanor said that it was a woman and her name is Mistress Emelyne, a merchant’s widow of some means from Norwich. Gracia also recognized her as the pilgrim who accompanied my prioress on the visits to the shrines. The widow was a member of the same party we joined when we came on pilgrimage.”

Durant raised an eyebrow. “I find it strange that she claimed she came from Norwich and owned such wealth. I know her not, Brother, and I should.”

“She confessed much to Prioress Eleanor before she tried to kill her. My lady says she is the assassin you seek.”

“How diabolically clever to use a woman,” Durant said and suddenly looked weary. “The king shall be told.” He fell silent and his gaze grew distant with thought. Murmuring something Thomas could not hear, he bowed and abruptly walked away without another word.

Thomas watched him disappear and suddenly felt bereft. If this was the last he would see of the merchant, he would have preferred a different parting. Then he shook away such thoughts.

He had prayers to offer for his prioress’ recovery, and he turned toward the road leading to Walsingham Priory. He would never again kneel at the Shrine of the Virgin’s Lock.