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  That aside, someone had obviously thought there was a problem with Simeon or Thomas would not be here. An anonymous message with vague suggestions of even vaguer improprieties had been sent to the Abbess at the mother house in France. Thomas suspected some monk at Tyndal had become jealous of Simeon’s growing reputation, but so far he had neither heard nor seen anything suggestive. Perhaps someone was just trying to blacken Simeon’s name, or at least tarnish it a bit, so his promotion to prior at either Amesbury or Tyndal might not be considered such a foregone conclusion.

  Thomas shrugged. He had yet to persuade Simeon to show him the account rolls. In fact, despite the receiver’s frequent invitations to join him in a cup of good Gascon wine and talk about the new priest’s day with the nuns and at the hospital, Simeon seemed disinclined to take Thomas on as his apprentice as Thomas had hoped. It would have made the task of investigating the lost income so much simpler. Now Thomas would have to wait until the prioress ordered the receiver to bring his accounts to her and trust she would invite Thomas to the meeting as a man familiar with law and with contracts and grants.

  So far, she had not done so. The discovery of the mutilated corpse well within the sanctity of the priory gardens had profoundly terrified all at Tyndal. Not only did the prioress have to calm them, she had to question each, on the crowner’s behalf, to discover anything that may have been seen on the day Brother Rupert’s body was found. All this had delayed any review of revenues.

  Perhaps the postponement was just as well, for Simeon had shown no dread of presenting his accounts. This suggested that the whole problem rested, not with the receiver’s incompetence or even malfeasance, but rather with a resentful troublemaker who only wished to throw a little sand in Simeon’s face.

  Who might that be? In Thomas’ opinion, the use of anonymous and vague accusations was a weak man’s weapon. Could Theobald have finally rebelled against the man who had dominated him for so long? It would not surprise him. He had met a few others like Theobald in the higher orders. For the most part, they were harmless and vacant men, although often personable, who had been raised to positions that bewildered them. Indeed their advancements so far exceeded their abilities that even those more experienced in Church politics were often mystified by their elevation. The reason for their prominence usually involved the accident of high birth in combination with the ambition of men of lesser rank who used them as a shield to push themselves forward into positions of influence they could never otherwise reach. Such men then taught the Theobalds to say the words they themselves had no authority to speak, and if the ambitious men were competent and wise, well then, there was no harm and perhaps even some good done in the name of those who held the title. If they were not wise or were tainted with malevolence, however…

  Was Simeon a wise man as well as a skilled administrator? Thomas did not doubt the monk’s intelligence, but Simeon seemed uneasy with the new prioress and had treated her in a disrespectful manner at their first meeting. That was a surprising mistake for such a worldly and ambitious man. Perhaps it was a mere stumble. After all, the prioress had just arrived and he had had no chance to learn how to deal with a woman of will, something the Prioress Felicia had not apparently been.

  Willful women! He smiled. In truth, Thomas had met more such in the house of God than he had ever encountered in the world of men, but he rather liked at least two of them. Even the crowner, a blunt, rough man and no courtier in his dealings with either monks or women, had shown respect for Sister Anne’s logic.

  And Thomas himself liked the evident but understated intelligence of the youthful prioress. She listened to others, a tactic the wise man learned quickly if he wished to survive into old age. Those high in the Church who had successfully kept their positions over decades of endless, sometimes daily, contradictory political storms would probably agree. That she had already learned it made him feel more confident about her strength and permanence as a leader. Perhaps that was why he chose to tell the prioress about finding the wooden cross and not Brother Simeon, about whose skills Thomas was still unsure. Choosing to show her the crucifix he had found was his way of aligning himself with the prioress and whatever faction of power she represented outside Tyndal. An unorthodox choice to be sure. Had he made a mistake? Thomas had honed his instincts on who was best to follow since he was a child. He had to trust himself.

  A door creaked loudly as it opened.

  Thomas froze. He heard the sound of steps and whispers. From the tone of their voices he knew the men who had just entered both wanted and expected to be alone. Thomas slipped to the ground and crawled quickly out of the dimly lighted chapel to a pillar in the dark nave closest by him. He had learned long ago that it was prudent and useful not to be seen by those who whispered together in darkness.

  Thomas waited until the voices came no nearer, then carefully looked out from the shadows. At some distance away, he could see two men kneeling and facing each other. Neither was identifiable in the gloom of the monk’s choir. Their words were muffled. Then one began to sob, neither child nor quite a man by his voice. Thomas watched as the other man reached out and drew him into an embrace.

  Then the youth pushed the man away, leapt up, and, covering his face with his hands, ran through the nave to the sacristy.

  With a hoarse cry, the man jumped up and raced after him. As the monk passed through a pale stream of moonlight from the window over the high altar, Thomas saw his face. It was the grim and green-eyed monk who had summoned him to Brother Simeon.

  Thomas got to his feet and followed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Eleanor finished her prayers. She opened her eyes and looked toward the high window over her small altar. The early morning sunlight shone down with a damp but welcome warmth, and, as she rose from her prie-dieu, she could hear the sounds of the awakening, hungry livestock from the stables and pens across the southern branch of the priory creek. The light rain had finally stopped and sunshine, weak as it was, lifted her spirit.

  Today she had vowed to fast and drink only watered wine. Perhaps that would help quell the unwelcome and distracting emotions the new priest had inspired. Thomas was indeed a handsome man, but she had met his like in earlier days without feeling more than a fleeting interest. And those days had been before she became a bride of Christ. If those longings had been but negligible aches of transient lust, now they surely qualified as the more serious sin of infidelity, in thought at the very least. She had prayed the feelings would pass just as quickly as they had before.

  They had not. Like an incubus, his image came to her at night, promising earthly pleasures to match those of Heaven, and when she fled from his illusory caresses into the safety of wakefulness, she found her body wet with the very worldly sweat of passion. Her raw fatigue was hindering her ability to concentrate on the needs of Tyndal, and she had been remiss in dealing with problems that demanded immediate attention, like the accounts. She knew she had to put all this behind her, confess, and seek counsel. But from whom? Once again she longed for Amesbury, the wisdom of her aunt, and the understanding confessor Sister Beatrice had found for her young novices.

  “The priest I choose for my own confessor cannot be Brother Thomas,” she said, grinding her fist into the curved wooden railing. “Nor Brother Simeon, that boisterous and arrogant man. And certainly not Prior Theobald. I believe a rock would have more understanding of either God or man than he. In all of Tyndal, surely there is just one priest to whom I can speak freely!” Eleanor rubbed her hand as she closed her prayer book, turned away from the small prie-dieu, and glanced up at the wall hanging covering the stone masonry just in front of her narrow bed.

  The tapestry of Saint Mary Magdalene sitting at the feet of Christ fascinated her. A beautiful piece of work, she thought, walking over to touch the fine embroidery as she often had since her arrival. When she was first shown her new quarters, Eleanor had commented on its beauty.

  “What is the origin of this piece?” she had asked Sist
er Ruth.

  The older nun hesitated. “I do not know such details, my lady,” she had mumbled with some irritation. “Prioress Felicia commissioned it not many years after coming to Tyndal. Now let me show you where you will receive guests.” With that terse comment, Sister Ruth had quickly led her from the room to the public chambers.

  It was a curious luxury, Eleanor thought, looking around at the austere private room with its simply carved prie-dieu and even more spartan bed. The choice of subject for the tapestry was understandable enough. Mary Magdalene was the patron saint of hospitals, and other than maintaining the parish church and providing a hospice for the few travelers to this dank coast, Tyndal’s main purpose was the care of the sick. As she felt the skillful, even stitches and admired the finely dyed yarns, Eleanor now looked at the faces of both Jesus and Mary Magdalene more closely.

  It was their expressions that surprised her. Indeed, the saint did sit humbly at the feet of Jesus and her hands were raised in the standard attitude of chaste adoration, but Jesus looked down at her and she at him with a gaze of deep understanding and mutual appreciation. Sister Beatrice had pointed out to Eleanor similar looks in the faces of long-married couples who came to Amesbury to provide for their burial together.

  “These know the fullness of love and thus are halfway to Heaven already,” she had said to Eleanor. “They have suffered much together and have grown close in a way quite unimaginable in youth. Without sharing passion, grief, and loss with another, we can never understand the true meaning of love or attain the peace which is its highest manifestation.”

  That was one of her aunt’s many teachings that Eleanor had locked away in her heart to think on at a later time.

  Yet surely it must be blasphemous to suggest such a thing between the two in the tapestry, Eleanor thought with a shake of her head, and once again wondered why Prioress Felicia had had such a design made.

  A rustle at her feet brought her back from her distraction and she looked down. The orange cat, now ennobled with the name of Arthur, stretched first with front legs extended and then the back. Having finished this exercise, he sat down in the rushes, looked up at her with round, green eyes, and began to purr.

  “And I suppose you want something to break your fast?”

  The volume of purring rose significantly.

  Eleanor laughed. She had known of prioresses, indeed abbesses, who had lap dogs. Although the practice of keeping pets was much frowned upon, censure rarely followed the discovery. She herself had never before felt any desire for such a thing.

  “Yet I seem to have acquired you, haven’t I?” she said to the eagerly rumbling, young bundle of fur in front of her. “But I’ll have no pampered pet here. You’ll work for your meals. Is that understood?”

  Eleanor would have sworn the cat nodded.

  “Very well, then. Let’s see if I still have some fish left over from last night.”

  That was a rhetorical statement. There was far more than a scrap of fish left. Eleanor had been unable to eat the undercooked fish brought to her, setting it aside with rarely felt disgust. In fact, she now wondered if her vow to fast today wasn’t more a wish to avoid unusually unpalatable meals than a true penance for her sins. True penance might be to eat what was placed before her, she thought, but after a questioning glance heavenward, quickly decided otherwise.

  Arthur, however, had no such problems with the spurned fish. Eleanor watched with affection as he devoured his morning meal with little growls and joyful feline snorts.

  Although the cat might have no problem devouring the results of Sister Edith’s kitchen leadership, Eleanor knew she had to find a way to improve the fare. Simple meals in the priory were to be expected, but inedible ones were a waste and an insult to God-given bounty. And then there was the state of what little bounty Sister Matilda had wrested from the priory gardens under her less than tender stewardship. Here lay another problem to address before the growing season was completely gone and Eleanor was forced to purchase food for the coming winter.

  Thus her thoughts came round to the accounts she must review with Prior Theobald and Brother Simeon before even more time had passed. Her discussions with the nuns about what they might have seen on the day of Brother Rupert’s death had been fruitless, although her attempts to calm each about the threat suggested by such a horror had been more successful. The economic disarray at the priory demanded immediate attention. She would send a message this morning that she wished to meet with both men tomorrow afternoon on the subject. And should her fast today fail her and the naked incubus in the shape of Brother Thomas appear tonight to destroy her rest, she would will herself to bore the vision into an impotent state with a detailed discussion of tithes, hides, and grain production.

  She shut her eyes tight and forced herself to think upon Prior Theobald. What had he been like as a young man, she wondered. It was hard to picture him as other than an old man who hadn’t had a thought of his own in years behind those bushy eyebrows. Had he always hidden behind others more competent or stronger than he? How sad that a man should grow old with nothing better to recommend him than his skill at speaking the words and thoughts of others.

  Theobald might be dismissed. Simeon could not. Now there was a conceited boor for cert. First impressions were hardly fair judgements, as she well knew, and she had been far too distracted by the arrival of Brother Thomas to deal at once with the receiver’s rudeness, as she should have. She would not invite Thomas to the review of priory finances tomorrow, she decided. She did not need the distraction, and his presence was not critical. A long meeting where she could study Simeon with care and listen to his reasons for decisions made was too important. She must decide whether Simeon was still a competent receiver or whether he was to blame for the current financial crisis. Perhaps his value to Tyndal lay in some other position. Her mind must remain alert and agile so that her decisions would be, above all else, practical.

  Today, however, she would visit the hospital and had sent a message to Sister Christina that she wanted to meet with her. Despite Anne’s assurances that Christina was a good choice to head the hospital, Eleanor still had her doubts and had yet to see how the young infirmarian performed her task. Although she agreed that prayer was critical to the wellbeing of souls, she wondered if the young nun spent too much time in chapel to be an effective administrator.

  Even Sister Ruth might be a better choice, Eleanor thought. Despite her rigidity, the dour nun had shown flashes of compassion with Sister Christina and at Brother Rupert’s burial. She had also gained sufficient respect amongst the nuns to be elected prioress before Eleanor’s arrival. That suggested the nun had demonstrated some competence and leadership to her fellows. She shook her head in frustration. How best to handle that particular and stubborn adversary of hers continued to elude her.

  The unfortunate experience Christina had had with Crowner Ralf in the chapel reminded Eleanor that she needed to assure the young woman that she would not have to face the rough invader again. “Peace of mind is tenuous enough at Tyndal these days with all my charges,” she said with a sigh. “May there be a quick solution to the crime!”

  The death, nay, murder of Brother Rupert had not only grieved the nuns, it had understandably terrified them. Death was never a stranger to any of them, but murder in a house of God was unthinkable, an abomination, a violation that permeated each soul with a feeling of uncleanness as well as personal dread.

  If Eleanor had been greeted with skepticism and contempt at her first chapter, the mood of her charges had changed by her second. When she had called them together the afternoon of Brother Rupert’s death to announce that their beloved priest had been hideously slaughtered, she could see growing hysteria in the pale faces and unblinking eyes staring back at her. Then they had looked to her for wisdom and calm leadership. Again and more fervently, Eleanor had prayed to be equal to their needs.

  “Armageddon is surely coming,” she had heard some mutter. “Why else would our sanctifi
ed ground be so befouled?”

  “Satan is an assassin and has surely killed our priest,” others suggested. “Only the Prince of Darkness could have breached our walls.”

  She had not shied away from telling them the truth of what had happened that day, but just as quickly she had turned their thoughts from that horror to the story of Cain and Abel. It was a comforting tale of the inevitability of justice, of Good prevailing over Evil even in a sinful world. God had not only seen Cain in the unimaginable act of killing his brother but had also justly punished him for it, she emphasized, and, with an unwavering voice, she announced she had certain confidence that God would lead the crowner to the perpetrator quickly. Justice would prevail.

  Many had visibly relaxed after her speech, their burning eyes shutting in weary relief. Those still undecided had nervously looked about them; but seeing others take comfort in her words, they took solace in the general shrinking of the atmosphere of terror. A few, like Sister Anne and Sister Ruth, seemed never to have feared that Armageddon was imminent. Eleanor had expected such of Sister Anne, but seeing the same calm strength in the abrasive Sister Ruth pleasantly surprised her.

  Once calmed, a simple certainty that the vile murderer had been from the world outside Tyndal’s walls and that he would be captured soon infused most of the priory inhabitants:

  “Someone forgot to lock a gate,” one had said.

  “Not likely to happen again if we have guards,” a second nodded.

  “Carelessness. A lay brother must have…”

  Eleanor had encouraged this conclusion, promptly announced her plans for improving the security of all walls and gates, then quite visibly oversaw strict compliance.

  “I may not afford myself such blithe assumptions, however,” she said to the cat, which was licking his paws. “Murder done by a member of the priory, by a soul committed to God, might be unthinkable to most, but it is an eventuality I have to prepare for. If the culprit is a member of Tyndal, the Church will take him from the secular crowner’s hands for ecclesiastical trial. Depending on how that situation is handled, the reputation of Tyndal might be tarnished for years to come.”