Justice for the Damned (29 page)

"There
are other good men in the world..."

"I
have no wish to remarry. Although the Church says I may without sin, I could
not bring myself to bed with another man."

Eleanor
glanced at Drifa, asking for confirmation of what she had just heard.

The
woman nodded and gazed back at her sister. The tears that flowed down her
cheeks glittered with both sadness and love.

"On
Judgement Day," Jhone now continued, "I will seek my husband. May God
grant that I am able to give him my hand in forgiveness. With God's mercy, I
pray he will have learned the horror of his sins. We should stand side by side
at God's throne while we wait for His verdict on our various transgressions.
For the remainder of my days on this earth, I would find chastity, obedience,
and poverty easy vows to take, although I would beg to be granted one
wish."

"And
that is?"

"Until
I die, I would like to come each day and pray beside the new grave of Eda, that
her time in Purgatory may be short. She was as virtuous as any mortal can
be."

As
Eleanor drew Jhone into a comforting embrace, the harsh silence in the lonely
graveyard of damned souls softened as if hope had entered the gate.

On
the edge of the graveyard, standing alongside Sister Anne and Brother Thomas,
Beatrice watched her niece take the woolmonger's widow into her arms. She might
not have heard what each had said to the other, but the novice mistress could
read the words writ on faces well enough. After all, she herself had been a
wife and mother, then a widow, before she became a nun.

As
she watched Eleanor comfort Mistress Jhone, Beatrice pressed a hand to her
breast to hold in the joy flooding her heart. Such pride in her niece might be
sinful, but she suspected God forgave more quickly in instances like this.

After
Eleanor had ridden back to Tyndal, she promised to confess. There would be time
enough then to deal with her mortal failings. Beatrice knew she would face the
parting with a stern will, after which she would escape to the cloister gardens
where she could weep without restraint. Life was such a fragile thing, she said
to herself, looking down at the wrinkled skin on the back of her hand. She
might never see her beloved Eleanor again.

A
few rude tears stung the corners of her eyes, and she angrily wiped them away,
willing her mind from such indulgent imaginings. Instead, she concentrated on a
butterfly hovering nearby, its delicate wings vibrant with orange, black, and
white markings. Quickly it fluttered off, landing on a yellow flower some
distance away. In its beauty, Beatrice found comfort. There was, after all,
much to be grateful for in this moment.

Master
Herbert had been buried in the dark earth, his broken body now food for worms.
Few had come to watch as dirt was cast on his bones. No one had grieved. The
village and priory were content, believing that justice had been carried out.
The vintner's soul, befouled with his murderous and most grievous sins, was
facing God's wrath, while the soul of his innocent wife had been snatched from
the Devil's claws.

Beatrice
knew she would add Eda's soul to her own prayers. After all, the priory had
erred along with the crowner in deciding the woman's body must be placed in
ground filled with noxious weeds and the rot of unrepentant corpses. We should
have known better, she thought, and must bear the greater guilt. After all,
such blindness was more heinous when committed by those who had vowed to serve
a perfect Lord.

Yet
these sad events had brought forth some happiness. Besides the release of Eda's
soul to God's hand, Alys and her Bernard would be married with Mistress Jhone's
blessing as they had long wished. The bridegroom would surely take over the
wool business, promoting one of the more talented workmen to manage it, while
he continued to design his beautiful gloves.

Beatrice
smiled as she thought about Alys and Bernard. The girl might be willful, but
she was possessed of both intelligence and a caring heart. In fact, her
spirited insistence that she be allowed to marry a man of her own choice
reminded the novice mistress of the days she herself had spent persuading a
father that the young knight she had fancied was an acceptable match. Although
Master Bernard might not be quite prepared to be ruled by his wife, any more
than her own adored husband had been, the novice mistress suspected the
glover's love would teach him just as quickly when it was wise to surrender his
will. If God granted them no more trials than any other mortal, Beatrice
believed the pair would prosper, growing old together in the glow and warmth
that love can bring in later years.

Beatrice
sighed, a sharp regret stabbing at her heart. Although she rarely looked at her
past with remorse, she did grieve over her husband's death. He had left her
fine sons, and he had died as he would have wanted in a soldier's armor, but
her woman's soul resented that he had gone to God far from her arms and without
a last kiss. At least she had had joy of him while he lived, and for that love
she would always thank God.

Love?
Ah, what a glorious but foolish thing it was, the novice mistress thought,
turning her eyes toward a certain young monk nearby. Brother Thomas was a
handsome man for cert, and she understood quite well why her niece had fallen
in love with him. Were I in the first heat of my youth, she decided, I might
well have done so myself.

Not
that Eleanor had yet confided this passion to her, but she had seen the
blushes, the averted eyes, and the gaze that shone with adoration when the
monk's back was turned. It was a fever she had hoped her niece might be spared,
but God seemed to give these burdens to those He deemed most precious.

Several
in the Church believed that those who did not twist and groan with Job's
afflictions could never be found worthy of Heaven. Indeed, suffering did infuse
some with God's more absolute understanding. Others, however, it infected with
bitterness, jealousy, and the longing to make happier souls suffer as well. She
might hate that her niece was enduring this pain, but she knew Eleanor was not
one to grow petty with her affliction.

My
dear one is no longer a child, she reminded herself, but that cannot stop me
from worrying about her. Although she had full confidence that Eleanor was
sincere in her vows, she wondered whether this handsome monk felt quite the
same about his.

When
Sayer had come that night to warn her that the Amesbury Psalter might be
stolen, she had alerted Prioress Ida, who relayed the message on to Church
authorities. They had promised to protect the holy object and even capture the
thief, but no one had come until Brother Thomas arrived with a marked
enthusiasm to investigate ghosts. Her niece might have voiced the thought that
there could be a link between spirit and theft, but the red-haired monk had
concurred with remarkable speed.

She
caught herself smiling at this monk who was staring at the earth beneath his
feet like a scholar lost in thoughtful debate about the nature of the world.
All she had heard from Sister Anne and her own brother suggested he was an
honorable man, although one around whom some mystery drifted.

Had
his mother been of low birth, seized in the dark staircase of a castle or in
the open fields? Or was she a beloved concubine of some rank? In either case,
Beatrice knew he must have been sufficiently cherished by a high ranking
father, one who could demand placement of an intelligent but bastard son where
the boy might rise by the strength of his wits.

Had
Thomas come to the cowl with any calling? What ambitions did he now hold, and
what would he be willing to do to gain them? To whom might he be bound? Which
man's advancement would prove beneficial to his own?

As
she looked back across the cemetery of the damned and watched Eleanor walk
toward her with Jhone by her side, Beatrice knew she had a duty to perform on
behalf of a dead sister-in-law, one who had never seen this beautiful daughter
mature into such an incomparable young woman. In addition, she owed it to her
own heart that had so joyfully taken on a mother's role.

Thus
the novice mistress of Amesbury Priory resolved to learn more about this Thomas
of Tyndal, a man with the power to destroy the creature she loved most in the
world.

Author's
Notes

Amesbury
Priory did exist. This prominent daughter house of the French Order of
Fontevraud was located within a few miles of Stonehenge and next to Amesbury
village itself on the River Avon. Prioress Ida was the actual leader when my
fictional Eleanor came to visit her equally fictitious aunt. Almost nothing is
known about Ida, especially whether she had a pet of any ilk.

By
1272, the priory was old by all standards, and the land on which it rested was
an even more ancient spiritual site. There is some archaeological evidence,
based on the discovery of a nearby burial presumed to be Christian, that a
religious community might have been there in the fourth century C.E., and some
claim that Queen Guinevere retreated to a nunnery of similar name in sorrowful
penance for her sins. Whether or not that story, later made famous by Malory,
is deemed pure legend, a synod was held in a Saxon church located on the
grounds under the auspices of Archbishop Dunstan in the reign of King Edgar the
Peaceful.

Edgar's
widow, Queen Elfrida, is credited with founding a Benedictine abbey on the site
of that church as penance for her suspected role in killing her stepson, Edward
the Martyr, in 978 C.E. Although Elfrida was buried (circa 1002 C.E.) at
Wherwell Abbey, she made sure that the relics of Saint Melor, a boy allegedly
killed under circumstances similar to those of Edward the Martyr, were housed
in the new abbey of Amesbury. When those bones actually arrived is unknown.
They may have been in the original Saxon church at the time Elfrida founded the
abbey, or she herself may have possessed the relics and wished to build them a
proper shrine. Along with all other items of value, Saint Melor's bones
disappeared many centuries ago, possibly into the hands of either the Seymour family or King Henry VIII.

There
is an interesting side note to Elfrida's story. The facts of Edward the
Martyr's murder are cloudy, although his successor quickly claimed his
half-brother was a saint, thus deflecting any suggestion that he himself was
involved in an apparent coup. Indeed, Edward might have been rather a brutish
fellow, given to insane rages, whose death brought a great sigh of relief to
many. Or else he was a rightful king slaughtered in cold blood. To add to the
confusion, some now believe that the queen was innocent of any involvement in the
assassination. Whatever the truth, her stepson's death brought her own son,
Athelred, to the throne—a monarch now commonly and erroneously nicknamed the
Unready.

Up
to the reign of King Henry II, Amesbury remained a Benedictine nunnery under
the rule of an abbess. Whether or not assertions of monastic irregularities
were manufactured by Henry II, who needed to found or re-found three
monasteries to fulfill a vow after the murder of Beckett, Pope Alexander III
did send two reform-minded bishops, Bartholomew of Exeter and Roger of
Worcester, to investigate allegations of immoral behavior there in 1177.

After
their visit, Abbess Beatrice was pensioned off (she was rumored to have borne
three illegitimate children, although there are allegations that Henry made up
that story to get even with her for some act of insubordination many years
before), and the other nuns were offered the choice of staying or going to
other houses. None stayed.

King
Henry soon invited the Order of Fontevraud to formally accept Amesbury as one
of their priories, the rededication celebrated in May 1177 when the abbess of
Fontevraud Abbey brought twenty-five religious to repopulate the place. Henry paid
all travel expenses for the arriving nuns and gave them twenty barrels of wine,
a gift that might have helped soothe any lingering effects of their hazardous
journey across the Channel from Anjou.

Amesbury
Priory quickly became a favorite place with high ranking families and quite
wealthy as a consequence. Eleanor, widow of Henry III, retired there in her
later years and was buried on the grounds. (The location of her grave has been
lost.) A daughter of Henry III (Beatrice), two daughters of Edward I (Mary and
Eleanor), a great-granddaughter of Henry III (Isabel of Lancaster), and a
daughter of Piers Gaveston (Joan) all lived or took vows there. Catherine of
Aragon stayed at Amesbury before her ill-fated marriage to Prince Arthur.
Although the fortunes of the house waxed and waned over subsequent centuries,
it remained active until December 1539 when Prioress Joan Darrell reluctantly
surrendered the priory to Commissioners of King Henry VIII at the Dissolution.

There
is little left of the old priory today, although the architecture of the
remaining church provides some tantalizing clues to what has vanished. In
addition,
The Amesbury Millennium Lectures
(edited by John Chandler and
published by the Amesbury Society) as well as
A Short Guide to the Abbey
Church of Saint Mary and Saint Melor Amesbury
do much to suggest what a
magnificent Fontevraudine monastery this must have been. For those who value
history, the disappearance of this historic priory, in all its evolutions from
a single gender monastery to double house, is a tragic loss.