Sorrow Without End (7 page)

Chapter Thirteen

The man from Acre slipped into the shadows and leaned his forehead against the rough wall. With a muttered curse, he slammed his fist against the stones.

How dare they bring that hell-bound corpse into a chapel and lay it before the cross? It was blasphemy! They should have burnt the rotting thing in the forest at midnight, then left the ashes for Satan’s imps to dance in.

He hit his head once against the masonry, then turned his gaze upward. Dust motes were falling slowly in the feeble beam of light from the window just above him. They reminded him of sand, of Acre, then of blood.

“The man did take the cross,” he snarled, sliding into a crouch. “He is probably in Heaven now, laughing and enjoying God’s favor, while my wife jerks and twists with the flames of Hell.”

His eyes burned with pain, and he longed to close them. His body cried out for rest. The empty place where his soul had once been ached like a festering wound. He wanted to die, but he could not.

He had given his word not to commit self-murder when they took him off the ship in Sicily and said he must make peace with God. When they finally let him finish his voyage to England, there had been days that he regretted his promise, especially when he stared back across the ship’s wake toward the land where his wife had died. Nonetheless, he had sworn an oath.

He leaned against the cold, rough-chiseled stone of the hospital wall. Turning his face away from the chapel, he watched the movement in the light from the window, his vision blurring as he stared. The specks of dust were now dancing with so much innocence and grace that he smiled in spite of the throbbing between his eyes. Nay, they were not bloodstained bits of sand, he thought. Might they not be tiny saints?

Had it not been for the man who had been kind to him in the days when he rolled in the dust of Outremer, screaming for miracles, he would not have come here at all. It was that man who promised him God was good, that He would heal him of his pain and guilt. Nonetheless, he still wondered if he might not have found a greater peace, sitting at the grave of his wife until the sun baked his body into a brittle shell and released his soul to join hers.

A tall nun walked by. She looked over at him with a questioning glance, but he shook his head and she went on into the chapel. Might she be the one who was supposed to heal him? Or was it the round one, the one with closed eyes who twisted her fat, white hands as she spoke to those soft-robed cokenays on horseback? It could not be the short one, the one who claimed she was prioress of this place.

He shuddered.

That woman’s eyes were the color of hot ashes. When she had looked at him, her eyes had reflected hellfire, burning through him with searing pain. She was no healer. He doubted that she was even prioress here. Nay, she was one of Lucifer’s minions hidden in this cloistered place to fish for weak souls. The heat of that gaze would cause any monk’s chaste vows to shrivel and his forsaken manhood to swell!

He bit his thumb and felt a chill sweat break out on his forehead. Had they lied to him? If God would let Satan send such a creature to seduce him, then He was no kinder here than He had been in Outremer. The memory of the hot-eyed woman pounded in his head like the banging of a condemned man’s fists against his prison door.

Ah, but had he not struggled well in their silent wrestling match in the courtyard? God may have given him up to be the Devil’s plaything, but he had won the fight, despite his weariness, even when she had summoned the naked apparition of his wife.

“A woman’s body is but a supper for worms,” he had roared at the hellish phantom of his wife. “Even yours,” he had howled as tears of longing fell from his burning eyes. It was then that the fiendish creature had stepped back, and his wife’s spirit had vanished.

Memory of that conflict now melted into a haze of pain. He yearned to weep, but he had no more tears to shed. Although he had triumphed over Satan’s forces, his exaltation was short-lived, and a profound sadness darkened his heart.

He knew that the vision of his wife, with her yearning look and out-stretched arms, was only the Devil’s painted fantasy. Yet he had hungered to hold her body against his, to join with her in loving passion just one more time. That had been denied him. Despite her ghostly touch, his body had remained cold, his manhood as dead as the woman he had loved.

Twisting with impotent longing, he cursed. For stealing that little comfort from him, he would never forgive that demon, the one who dared call herself the prioress of Tyndal.

Chapter Fourteen

Thomas and Ralf walked along the row of small, screened rooms just behind the dormitory beds in the hospital. The only sound, besides the moans of the suffering and the whispering of the lay brothers, was the soft crunching of their leather shoes on dried and scattered herbs.

“I owe you an apology,” Ralf said at last. “I meant nothing by my harsh-spoken questions. Surely you know that.”

That I did not, Thomas thought, then replied with greater composure than he felt. “I did not think you were accusing me of murder, Ralf, or of lying for that matter.” He had imagined just that, of course, but the crowner need not know why this thought had leapt to mind.

The two men continued on without speaking until a scream from a man nearby startled them. The force of another’s most mortal agony chased Thomas’ own fears aside, and he realized there was something else that had troubled him about the crowner’s remarks, something perhaps more important than his prison memories. He laid a hand on his friend’s sleeve.

“May I be frank with you, Ralf?”

“We are both honest men, monk. There is no need for evasion.”

“When you asked if I was returning to the hospital to hear a confession, whose did you think I came to hear, and what did you think it would be? Was it a woman’s? A particular woman? I knew from your tone that you did not mean any confession I might hear as a priest.”

Ralf turned his head away as if he had been struck.

“Anyone who has said that the relationship between Sister Anne and me is less than chaste is a fool,” Thomas said. “If there is sin in respect and friendship, we are guilty of it, but only of that.” Looking around, he dropped his voice. “As we both well know, the only man Sister Anne has ever loved was the one she called
husband.
That has not changed, my friend.”

Ralf’s weather-roughened face turned an uneven red. “Truly, I have never thought otherwise,” he replied, his hoarseness betraying swallowed tears. “When you told me you had come to the hospital to see her, the arrow of jealousy did strike my heart. I quickly plucked it out and know full well that there is nothing untoward between you.” He cleared his throat. “As you might guess from what I have just told you, I have loved this woman since before her marriage. Only you and she know this, monk, for I have long hidden my feelings.”

Thomas struck his friend’s shoulder with affection. “Your secret is safe, Ralf.” He did not believe, however, that the crowner’s love for the sub-infirmarian was as unknown as Ralf thought it was.

“Nor do I doubt that you honor your vows, Thomas, although I confess I have never understood what called you to the religious life. You do seem a most unusual monk.”

“Do you think Brother Andrew’s calling strange as well?”

“He was a soldier. I understand his vocation.” He studied the monk. “Have you ever been in battle, Thomas?”

“Nay.”

“But you have bedded women.”

Thomas nodded.

“Then you will understand when I tell you that war is like a skillful whore. Some return to her again and again until they die in her arms, exhausted with sated longing. Others may ride her with joy for a few hours, only to flee her embraces to save their souls. No man, however, ever rises from her bed without some mark to show he has lain with her. I see the mark on your porter. I’m sure he sees the same on me.”

A fine speech from a man better known for a rough manner and even rougher language, Thomas thought, with surprised admiration.

As if he had just read the monk’s mind, Ralf grinned. “That was childish babble. What I mean is that I understand why a former soldier is here, and I respect Brother Andrew for his choice. What I do not comprehend is why a lusty young man like you should have taken to the monkish life.”

Thomas fell silent, choosing his words with care. “Perhaps, Crowner, a worldly life and war are both wily whores, seducing men with pretty promises of adventure and excitement. Each does mark any man that lies with her.” Thomas hesitated, looking steadily into the crowner’s eyes. “Some the whore kills. Some escape. Many she drives to the edge of madness, robbing them of all happiness with her cruelty. Among these are men who seek the monastery. Others may fall over that cliff, their souls breaking on the rocks where they remain, convulsing until they die.”

Ralf said nothing, then nodded.

For a moment, the two men looked at each other, agreeing without words to ask nothing further: the one having no desire to speak more about his feelings for a now-encloistered woman; the other not wishing to explain his love for another man.

Of course the crowner was right to be suspicious of his calling, Thomas thought with some bitterness. Had he not been caught in the act of sodomy and thrown into prison, his body tortured, his spirit broken by suggestions that an influential man of God wanted to burn him at the stake, he would not be here. That no man had yet been burned in England as a sodomite was irrelevant. Supporters of the punishment were growing in influence and favor. One day, Thomas believed, someone would burn; he had had no reason to think it would not be him.

Thinking back on the horror of his prison time, he wondered if he had finally retreated from madness or if he was still at the brink. When he first arrived at Tyndal, he knew that he wavered on the edge. With night’s darkness came the demons. Some bore the guise of his jailer who had raped him. Some were but voices, the worst being that of Giles, mocking his love. Now he did sleep most nights, but all life had fled his loins. Mad or not, he might as well be a monk. Aye, the edge of the cliff was still visible, but he did think he had stepped back.

“You are deep in thought?” Ralf’s voice broke through the musing.

Grateful to be dragged from his bleak memories, Thomas grinned. “A rare enough thing, you’d say. Still, I fear that others may suspect that there is something unchaste in my friendship with Sister Anne. I would not be the cause of any shame for she is a most honorable lady.”

“Nay, Thomas. Her honor is safe. Not once have I heard ill rumors about either of you. Were they even started, Prioress Eleanor would put a firm stop to them for she trusts and respects you both. As do we all.”

After her cold reception, Thomas was no longer sure that his prioress either trusted or respected him. He shook his head.

“You do not believe me?” Ralf put his hand on the monk’s shoulder and looked at him for a long time.

“I do, Crowner…”

“I have good sources from inside Tyndal, Thomas. To prove that, I will tell you that I know about your cleverness in the matter at Wynethorpe Castle last winter.”

“Then you have an unreliable resource, Ralf. My part was modest. A man must find something to do, stuck on the Welsh border in the middle of a snowstorm. Having a murder to solve might have kept my blood from freezing, but it was our prioress who led us to the truth, not I.”

“Careful what you say about my source, monk! Tostig is not one to cross, and his source is his sister. He believed everything Gytha told him. So do I, for she is a most honest woman.”

Thomas laughed. “If Tostig and his sister told you those tales, I would not say otherwise, although I might suggest that they were too generous...”

“A spy could not have better informants.”

Thomas winced at the reference. “Let us go to the chapel and view your rotting corpse.”

Ralf stopped near the entrance to the chapel and winked at his friend. “After the effort of caring for your brother, this murder may prove as much a potion for you as the one in Wales.”

“Then let us go in, Ralf,” Thomas said with a laugh, then looked around his friend into the chapel. “Sister Anne awaits.”

***

When she heard the two men enter, the sub-infirmarian covered the dead man, then turned around and smiled at the crowner. “How thoughtful to bring a corpse, just fresh from his killing, to greet our brother on his return,” she said.

Ralf stepped back as if she had slapped him. “Annie, this was not of my planning!”

“Nor did I think so. Peace, Ralf, I was but jesting.”

The crowner was quite stricken into silence.

“Yet a corpse there is,” Thomas said to Anne, “and Ralf may have brought me to see it, but it is your opinion he hopes to get. I fear I might not remember the man even if we did pass on the road.”

As he watched her looking at the crowner in silence, Thomas saw a strange look race across her eyes and wondered if he had been wrong in what he had said to Ralf. He was certain that Anne had loved her former husband, as she did the welfare of her soul, and had seen proof enough that she still did. Nonetheless, there was something between Anne and Ralf, something more than what lay between a woman, who was kind, and a lover she had rejected. Perhaps she had loved him once? Not that it would make any difference. Thomas had no doubt that Sister Anne was now quite firmly wedded to the religious life.

“He should hear from both of us, Brother,” she said, her voice soft with whatever memories had just come to her. “As we learned last winter at Wynethorpe, your observations are most thorough.”

With that, Anne beckoned them to come closer and view the corpse.

***

On a trestle table lay the body, hidden by a rough cloth. Despite the chill, an over-sweet stench thickened the air.

As the men came forward, Anne carefully folded back the cloth that had been placed over the face of the murdered man. She could not have been gentler if the man had been sleeping.

When Thomas looked down at the gray face of the corpse, mortal time slowed like the heartbeat of the dying. The man might be dead, he thought, but he would have sworn that the widened eyes of the corpse were turning, turning to stare at him.

He blinked.

The man’s mouth twisted into a snaggle-toothed grin, and the tip of his tongue seemed to flick in and out with lewd suggestiveness.

Thomas gasped and staggered back.

“By all that is holy,” Ralf cried out, reaching for his friend. “What is wrong?”

Ralf’s words sounded as hollow as speech heard from the depths of a pond. Thomas’ head began to spin, his legs lost all feeling, and he knew he was slowly sinking into an ever-growing hole. “God help me!” he whispered as velvet darkness slipped over him and he lost consciousness.