Justice for the Damned (28 page)

"Might
no one have asked if his travel to Gascony was connected to the disappearance
of the Psalter?"

"Why?
The man was a respected merchant. Even honest men see only what they are led to
believe if the telling is cunning enough. Consider how quickly all decided the
verdict on Mistress Eda's death because a few were most persuasive."

Bernard
slammed a fist into his other hand. "The theft would have been the perfect
crime, had you not arranged for me to witness it." Horror washed over his
face. "And you might have died if Brother Thomas had not been there!
Surely you realized.

Sayer
winked at the monk. "Mayhap I would not have fallen."

"Mayhap,"
Thomas replied, doubt coloring his voice.

"I
have long wondered why Master Herbert claimed you had bedded his wife,"
Bernard said softly. "Surely there was no truth to that?"

"Never!
I fear the reason for his wife's murder and that accusation are found in the
same tale. As our monk here may not know, Alys grieved over Mistress Eda's
painful illness. Knowing me to be a merry rogue, she asked that I spend an hour
playing the fool to make the lady laugh. Instead, Eda burst into tears when she
saw me. When I sought to comfort her, she confessed her sorrow. She had
overheard her husband's proposal to me about the theft of the Psalter one night
when we thought she was deep in sleep. Although she could not quite believe her
husband would plan such a blasphemous act, she feared she was not mistaken. My
heart broke, and I confirmed that what she had heard was true."

"Why
had he planned the theft? Was he not wealthy enough?" Thomas asked.

"His
show of wealth was false. Before her illness, she found proof that he had sold
his vineyards. When she questioned him, he insisted she did not understand what
she had seen, that he had sold but a portion to pay debts left by his father.
Although the vintner could be most persuasive in his lies, she was suspicious
and looked further, discovering that he had followed his father's example in
acquiring debts beyond his ability to pay. Soon after, she fell ill and began
to draw away from any interest in those worldly cares, although the blasphemy
in stealing the Psalter deeply troubled her pious soul. Nonetheless, he feared
her knowledge. When he overheard us talk about the Psalter, he decided she knew
too much and killed her."

"That
does not explain how he decided you had cuckolded him," Bernard replied.

Sayer
snorted with contempt. "He knew that to be untrue. While I was holding his
wife, attempting to stop her tears, the vintner came upon us. He flew into a
feigned rage, swearing to expose us as adulterers."

"You
could have countered the charge with the tale of the theft and repented of your
agreement with him."

"With
some, Brother, any accusation has the whiff of truth. Were either of us to
speak of her discoveries or the theft, the vintner would have claimed we were
trying to hide our sin with lies. Mistress Eda was an honest wife. I did not
want her honor soiled on my account."

"Why
would any man put horns on his own head? He himself told the tale of adultery
to the woolmonger and I overheard it. Others must have as well," Bernard
said.

"The
sharpness of a cuckold's horns may be dulled by cleverness. First, he made sure
my reputation grew darker by suggesting the adultery might have been rape. His
pride, therefore, suffered a lesser wound. Next, he showed Christian charity by
defending the soul of his dishonorable wife. Can you not hear the crowds
exclaiming, 'What a noble man'? You see what a crafty teller of tales he
was."

Bernard
smiled. "You may paint yourself with the Devil's colors, Sayer, but he
does not have your conscience."

"My
selfishness has brought about two deaths. I will say nothing in my defense and
shall go to my hanging without protest."

"What
self-interest was involved in getting the vintner to confess in front of half
the priory that Mistress Eda was innocent of both self-murder and
adultery?" Thomas asked. "Nor did you have any reason to save my
life. When Herbert wanted to finish the task of killing me in the library, you
drew him away. You knew I was still alive."

Sayer
said nothing.

Bernard
sat on a stool next to the bed. "I beg you to admit the good you have done
and save yourself. Like many, you have done no more than loan your soul to
Satan."

"Let
me be."

"Sayer
needs the advice of a confessor, Master Bernard. Would you leave us?"

The
glover blinked, then quickly rose. "I will be walking in the gardens
outside."

Thomas
took the vacant seat.

"Leave
me in peace, monk. I have no longing for any priest."

"Your
guilt over your father's death and that of the librarian troubles you deeply,
but you have other reasons for wanting to join Satan in Hell."

Sayer
put his uninjured hand lightly on the monk's knee. "Do you blame me?"
he asked softly.

"Yes."

"I
have no wish to take a vow of celibacy," Sayer replied. "I will
continue to dance with the Devil."

"Dance
with a wife. Beget children. Bring the joy of grandchildren to your
mother."

"And
thus God will forgive me?" Sayer's laugh was bitter.

Thomas
nodded gravely.

"Yet
the Church will surely condemn me for the theft..."

"Bernard
will tell Sister Beatrice how you plotted to save the Psalter and expose a
killer at the risk of your own life. I will swear that you saved my life and
confirm the vintner's confession to the murder of both Brother Baeda and
Wulfstan. Brother Infirmarian and several lay brothers heard Herbert confess to
his wife's killing. Prioress Ida may even count it a blessing that you
frightened vow-breaking monks back into their solitary beds."

"My
father..."

"..
.was killed because Herbert grew greedy and tried to steal the Psalter without
paying for your help."

"The
librarian's death.

"...is
on your conscience. His soul needs your prayers. I repeat: those are not your
most troubling sins."

"For
all my sins, monk, name my punishment."

"Marry,
take on a man's responsibilities, and find joy in that."

Sayer
drew back his hand. "Did you find your own answer in God's arms,
Brother?"

Thomas
closed his eyes and turned away.

Chapter
Forty

The
grave was little marked. The dirt once mounded over the pit had sunk, leaving
only a small rise in the earth, but new growth sprouted there with a particular
vigor.

In
contrast to the lime green of young grass, the dress of the kneeling
woolmonger's widow was dark as a night without stars. Her fingers curled like
claws as she covered her face. Yet when she uncovered her somber eyes and
looked up at the bright heavens, her face was not as aged as it had seemed only
a few days ago. Her features now held a hint of youth and even a certain
beauty.

Drifa
helped her sister rise, but Mistress Jhone gently shook her hand away and stood
motionless, quite careless that her robe was stained with sodden earth. A soft
cry escaped her lips as she looked down at the little grave, and she stretched
forth an open hand as if longing to grasp something only she could see. Weeping,
she pulled her arm back against her breast and shuddered. Then she let her
sister take her into her arms where she sobbed with all the force of pent-up
grief.

"Eda
is at peace, mistress. God has rendered justice," Eleanor said, her voice
as soft as the breeze against their faces.

"She
will be reburied in holy ground?" lomorrow.

"She
is no longer in Hell?"

"I
doubt she ever was," Eleanor replied. "The Prince of Darkness may
have blinded the crowner and his jury with ignorance and hardened hearts, but
God would have known the truth."

Drifa
wiped Jhone's cheeks with an elder sister's love. A smudge of dirt remained
under one eye, but tears quickly washed it away.

"I
came here every day to pray," the woolmonger's widow whispered.

Her
sister took her hand and pressed it.

"Most
would not have done so, mistress. This is the burial ground of condemned souls.
Many fear the contagion of their wickedness," the prioress said.

"I
knew she was innocent, my lady. We had been like kin from the day we could
first walk. I owed her a friend's steadfastness," the woman replied with
simple, unwavering belief.

Eleanor
glanced at the uneven ground surrounding them and so many graves of the damned.
The silence of this unholy place made her shiver, yet she caught herself
wondering how many more innocents were buried here, condemned by
men
but
never by God.

Mistress
Drifa kissed Jhone on the cheek and once again pulled her sister into the
comfort of her arms.

In
silence, the prioress watched the two sisters and smiled at the tenderness
between such resolute women. Would she herself have been able to show such
bravery, kneeling on this cursed earth and persevering in the belief that a
friend was innocent when a community might well rebuke her? Would she, like Drifa,
continue to see goodness in a son who kissed the Devil's hand? The actions of
these two had raised questions that she knew she would ponder long after her
return to Tyndal.

"My
lady, I have much to thank you for," Jhone suddenly cried out, throwing herself
on her knees before the Prioress of Tyndal.

Eleanor
gasped. "You have no need..."

"I
have another favor to beg."

"Ask
it but do not kneel to me." Eleanor raised the wool-monger's widow to her
feet.

"My
sins have been grievous ones! Like my husband, I was blinded by Master
Herbert's well-crafted cloak of wealth, but God has now torn that pall from my
eyes. My daughter shall marry her glover, a man I might have found worthy
enough had it not been..."

Although
Jhone turned her face away, Eleanor saw anger flash in her eyes. Was the cause
her husband's inability to see Herbert's true nature or her own unthinking
complicity in a decision that would have forced her beloved daughter into the
arms of a murderer?

"And
you shall have grandchildren to make your life most joyous," the prioress
quickly said. The image of plump children racing around their grandmother,
graced with Alys' loving determination and Bernard's gentle nature and pink
cheeks, was a sweet one.

"I
want to end my days in the priory."

"Only
Prioress Ida has the authority to grant that plea!"

"But
she would listen to you!"

"Seek
instead the counsel of Sister Beatrice, a woman far wiser than I and one whose
voice the prioress of Amesbury respects."

"As
you will, my lady, but there is no reason to doubt my longing to leave the
world. I owe God a long penance. I married for lust and fell into a cruel
bondage with a husband who had always been an angry man. He beat me when I
smiled at the butcher or did not cook his meat the way he liked it. When he
struck me so hard that I lost the one son he gave me, he took to drink. As a
good wife must, I turned my head away from his growing iniquity and honored my
vows of obedience until his death. As a good wife still, I pray daily for his
soul, but it will take many years before I can forgive his wickedness toward
the innocent even if God does so."

Eleanor
looked over at Drifa. Wulfstan's widow was weeping.

"Yet
I, too, committed great wickedness when I tried to force Alys into a marriage
with a malevolent man. My husband may have been fooled by the vintner's fine
show of competence and prosperity, but I bear fault enough myself. In my youth,
I failed to heed my parents. When I saw Alys set her heart on the glover, I
feared she was as blinded by lust as I had been once. Although she, unlike I,
chose a good man, I did not note the differences and was determined that she
follow the path I had refused." Jhone's face darkened with grim
determination. "Like Moses, I should not cross the Jordan and taint the future of my child and the innocence of her children with my knowledge
of wicked ways."

"Mortals
do evil things, mistress. It is our nature. Your mistake was born of reasonable
fear, but there was no cruelty in your heart. Seek penance and remain in the
world where Alys and her babes can bring you joy. Help your sister with her
fatherless children. You can bring all these young ones the wisdom learned from
your errors so that they may avoid the same faults."

"I
fear that the Devil has not let me go," she whispered, "and I would
only lead the innocent to calamity as I almost did my daughter. Nor would I
burden Bernard with my care. He has proven himself a worthy man, and, despite
my cruel words to him, I believe he would be forgiving and generous to me. It
would be kinder if I did not accept a place at his table. Nay, after paying my
dowry to the Order, the remaining wealth and the business must go to him and my
Alys' children."