The Illuminator (42 page)

Henry was growing weary of this game. He removed a silver dish of minced meats from the table and placed it in front of the greyhound and then returned to his high-backed chair. He tapped his signet ring against the wood. The dog cocked her head and looked at the bishop. When he ignored her, she whined. He nodded. She began lapping greedily at the minced fowl.

“Your daughter will be provided for.”

“Will she be allowed to visit me?”

The hunger in the man's eyes was thinly disguised. Ah, at last, here was the weakness. How best to exploit it? No rash promises. Keep him off his guard. Play him like a fish. Henry might get more from this catch than art for the cathedral apse.

“I will return in a week. In the meantime, paint for me a set of playing cards—four suits: cardinals, archbishops, kings, abbots. Do you know the kind I'm talking about?”

“I played at such cards at court: kings, queens, knaves.”

At court. So the fellow was seeking to parley a little influence of his own. Good. Good. Court connections—valuable information that just might lead straight to the duke of Lancaster and his nest of Lollard heretics.

“Paint the backs, too, with my coat of arms. A bishop's miter and Saint Peter's keys flanking a cross of gold on a field of crimson.”

He kicked the silver bowl away from the hound's muzzle, gathered her tether and walked to the door. “Call the constable to carry my chair,” he shouted at Seth, who was dozing in the hallway.

“I will need a special wax to stiffen the vellum,” Finn said.

Henry undid the purse hanging at his belt and extracted a shilling. “Send the attendant to buy whatever you need. If this is not enough, just say it's for the bishop. If the vendor refuses, take his name.”

“Will my daughter be able to visit me?”

“We'll see. If the playing cards please.”

“They will be ready in two days.”

“I'll be back in a week. No need to hurry. You've plenty of time.” He drew the string tighter on his velvet purse. “By the by, do you play chess?”

“I have some small knowledge of the game.”

“Good. Good. I'll bring a board when next I come.”

Henry smiled as he closed the door behind him. A very productive afternoon. And he'd still make it back home in time for vespers.

Tomorrow, he would question the anchoress.

The mother's service is nearest, readiest and surest; nearest, for it is most of kind; readiest, for it is most of love; surest, for it is most of truth. This office no one might nor could ever do to the full except He alone.… Our true Mother Jesus, He alone beareth us to joy and to endless living …

—J
ULIAN OF
N
ORWICH
,
D
IVINE
R
EVELATIONS

W
hen Rose wasn't throwing up, she was on her knees before the little altar to the Virgin. What would her father say if he could see to what use she'd put his worktable? He wouldn't approve—she'd heard him often enough bitterly commenting on “the pious ones” who “wore their religion like fancy surcoats over filthy shirts.” But she knew he would not deny her. When had he ever denied her anything?

The little statue of the Madonna and Child was her only source of comfort now. There was Agnes, and the little kitchen maid—they were nice to her, saw that she had wood for the fire and food, but they were in the service of Lady Kathryn. And Lady Kathryn Rose no longer trusted. The little alabaster statue of the Holy Virgin in her blue robe seemed her only friend. The perpetual candle Rose kept burning on her makeshift altar reflected the
painted eyes, making them glow with compassion whenever she prayed to the Queen of Heaven: prayed for her father, prayed for Colin, prayed for the babe growing inside her. When she woke in the middle of the night with visions of Finn being dragged off in irons, the candlelight illumined the face of the infant Jesus, making it blush with color. Like a living child, she thought, kneading her stomach, like the child Colin had given her.

As she recited the Ave Maria—some of the words were difficult; her religious instruction had not been a priority—she wondered if her father prayed too. She hoped so. It would comfort him as it did her. She did not possess a rosary, but with every Ave, she stroked the cross on the silken cord tied around her neck. She'd never wondered about the necklace before. But now it struck her as odd that her father, who wore no signs of ritual piety upon his person, had instructed her always to wear the cross. It was her protection, he'd said. She needed that protection now. Her lips moved with each prayer, but the only sound in the room for a long time was the occasional rustle of her satin skirt against the stone flags and the shifting of the coals in the grate— Rose was always cold in spite of the blazing fire.

A shuffle of footsteps interrupted her devotions.

“It's stifling in here, Rose.” Lady Kathryn opened the shutter, letting in a blast of cold air. The candle flame danced. Shielding it with her hand, Rose hurriedly moved the candle away from the path of the breeze. “And it's not healthy for you to spend so much time on your knees. Colin never should have given you the Madonna. You're turning into a religious fanatic.”

Rose shivered. “Like Colin, you mean. Maybe I should go live with the sisters now that Colin has gone to be a monk.” It was an exploratory remark, meant to gauge Kathryn's reaction.

“It's a soup9on too late for you to become a bride
of
Christ, don't you think?” Kathryn frowned as she held out a cup. Rose had gotten up and was sitting on the bed. “Here. If you drink it quickly, it won't taste so bad.”

Rose gathered her shawl and her courage closer. “I'm not going to drink it at all.”

“What do you mean, you're not going to drink it?”

“I'm not… it's not healthy.” She took a deep breath. Where would she go if Lady Kathryn turned her out? “I know what you're trying to do.” Her voice was defiant but she was trembling inside.

“And what am I trying to do?” Lady Kathryn asked, her voice low and even, her gaze direct, challenging.

“You're trying to poison my baby so … so it will go away. You want to punish me because I accused Alfred.” Then, with less confrontation, more pleading in her voice, pleading for her child, for Colin's child: “But I only told the truth.”

She half-swallowed the last word. Her throat was dry, sticking together, and her eyelids pricked, but she was determined not to cry in front of Lady Kathryn. “You hate me because Colin ran away. If his baby dies inside me, then you can send me away, too.”

There. She'd said it. Her greatest fears given voice.

Kathryn was standing beside the makeshift altar, holding out the cup like a poisoned chalice, her other hand resting on the Madonna. She didn't answer immediately. She traced the outline of the Jesus Child with a finger, like one who noodles an object in deep study. Rose couldn't read her expression. She looked thinner and frail, and Rose would have pitied her had she not felt so threatened by the wreck of a woman who towered over her, shadowing her. Lady Kathryn stood between her and the window. The cold light filtered through a veil of gray cloud, highlighting her pallor.

“I could send you away anyway,” she said quietly, almost as if she were talking to herself. “Colin doesn't know about the babe. Would never have to know.”

Rose thought she was going to faint.

The candle flame on the altar danced erratically. Thunder rumbled in from an unseasonal storm born far out at sea, miles from Blackingham. Lady Kathryn moved toward the window. With another gust of wind, more thunder growled, like the gut of a hungry man. Lady Kathryn paused, looked down at the contents of the cup in her hand, then looked up at Rose as though she were seeing her for the first time. Rose said nothing. What was there to say? Should she beg for the sake of the child? Would it make a difference to this woman she no longer knew?

A chilly breeze blew a strand of hair across Kathryn's face. With her free hand, she pushed it back, combed the tangled mass with her fingers. Something—a dried bit of leaf—fell onto her woolen kirtle. She brushed it away, then, with a puzzled expression, picked at a dried stain. When she looked
back at Rose, she had the look on her face of one who was awakening from a troubling dream.

She lifted the cup and flung the contents out the window.

Rose jumped at the sudden movement as though she had been slapped.

“You need not drink it anymore,” Kathryn said, then added, with a shrug of her shoulders and a bitter little laugh, “it wasn't working anyway. ”

Rose pulled her shawl tighter. She could not stop shivering. “My lady, I only want—”

Lady Kathryn held up her hand to stop her. “Nobody is going to send you away, Rose. Nobody is going to hurt you.” She glanced down at the empty cup dangling from her hand. “No harm will come to your child.”

The words rang in Rose's ears like prophecy.

“You can go back to praying if you want.” Lady Kathryn's hand went to her mouth as though she was holding back a cry. She reached up to shut the window, her back to Rose, and added in a small voice, “You might pray for me as well.”

Rose exhaled, her breath coming in a heavy, ragged sigh. “Thank you, my lady,” she said. “Thank you. I will pray for us all.”

She wanted to embrace Lady Kathryn, who was a pitiable sight with her disheveled hair and stained clothes, a shadow of the proud woman she had been. But the older woman held herself straight and withdrawn in posture, as if to say that too much raw feeling had passed between them already.

As Kathryn started to leave, she paused at the door and said without looking back, “I'll tell Agnes to send Glynis with something nourishing, a posset made with milk and eggs.” Then, almost as an afterthought: “When she comes, tell her to bring me clean linen and ointments. I need a good washing.”

Julian heard the evil tidings about Finn from her servant, Alice.

“Ye remember that Welshman that brought ye the babe that died? Well, he's in Castle Prison.” She pushed the news through the window with a steaming bowl of pottage.

Julian could not hide her shock. “On what charge?”

“He's charged with murder.
A priest's
murder!” Alice made the sign of the cross, as though the evil of which the illuminator was accused might rush
into the room and grab her by the throat. “I told ye there was something sly about him. All that Welsh anger bottled up behind those cloudy green eyes. Never trust a Welshman, that's what I always say.”

Murder! Alice had to be wrong. Idle gossip she'd picked up in the marketplace. Julian's mind whirled with questions, but out of habit she admonished her serving woman for her prejudice. “For shame, Alice, the way you rush to judgment. God created the Welsh out of the same earth he created your own Saxon flesh.”

Alice's head bobbed, ignoring the reprimand, rushing to offer details for which Julian had not asked. “He's guilty right enough. I knew he would come to no good the first time I ever laid eyes on him. In spite of all his comely manners. Mark my words. He bashed that poor priest's skull in, just smashed it like a rotten turnip.” She shivered and crossed herself again. “Brains and blood splattering everywhere.”

Julian was alarmed as she watched the violent image in Alice's mind contort her pleasant round face into a mask of ugliness. Mild-mannered Alice, who tended her so carefully! Who knew what horrors lurked in the human heart? How much we all stood in need of grace.

“Alice! Enough! Calm yourself before you scare yourself witless. We will pray on Master Finn's behalf. I'm sure of his innocence; there is some mistake, some case of wrongful identity, perhaps, or false witness.
All will be well.”

There were no more conversations with her servant about Finn's guilt or innocence, but it had not been idle gossip. Julian made inquiries through Tom. The evidence appeared damning, at least what she heard, something about pearls found in Finn's possession that the mistress of Blackingham had given to the dead priest. But no evidence would alter the one thing she knew. The man who had cradled the wounded child in his arms as tenderly as any mother, the man who had taken the blame upon himself for killing the bishop's sow to save Tom: that man was not capable of cold-blooded murder.