Sorrow Without End (15 page)

Yet she could not help asking herself if either the knight or his servant could be a killer. A dead-weary servant with a master who was little more than a mute child? Unlikely, perhaps, but she sensed there was much Walter was hiding. Although she might hope that they were as innocent of the murder as Thomas had been, she would return if Ralf had not spoken to them. Not only did she seek a murderer, she was also losing patience with secrets.

Chapter Thirty

Anger and black humors alternately boiled inside Thomas. Despite the damp air, sweat dripped down his sides as he paced the cloister walk. He slowed, wiping his face with his sleeve. It would be unwise to catch a chill, then die with the Evil One in control of his soul.

Although his prioress had ordered him to spend this day praying for the peace she believed God would grant him, his spirit had rebelled and driven him from his knees. In the past he would have gone to clean the stables, tend the beasts therein, and bank the fires of his choler with physical labor. Unfortunately, the buildings had been expanded in his absence, and the work, deemed too much for one man now, assigned to others. That saddened him for he could no longer go there for solitude. In this foul mood he most certainly did not want company.

“What have I done?” he moaned. “Have I given Prioress Eleanor the key to secrets I have no right to reveal? And how can I make peace with Ralf without telling him some fantastic tale?” Thomas ground a wet clod of earth into muddy bits. Had he betrayed his master or had he managed to keep the fine balance between deception and truth? Everything had seemed much clearer in that cell, his decisions so right. Now that he was free, he was filled with doubt.

The thick clouds above Tyndal were the color of slate. His mood took on the same hue. Perhaps he should see if the novices were practicing. That often soothed him. “Nay,” he said, looking up at the heavens, “it may be too late for song, and with this humor I’d hear only the sour notes.” He shut his eyes. They hurt. His anger had dried all his tears to rough salt.

Melancholia swung to choler and back again. He might go as mad as the one who had given witness against him, Thomas thought. Perhaps he should search out the madman and keep him company, one lunatic in conversation with another.

He walked over to the edge of the covered walkway, watched the rain tumbling from the sky, then winced as a drop hit his eye. In his panic to escape that cell, he had almost forgotten the fellow, but now he began to wonder why the man had pointed an accusing finger at him. Had the madman not been on that same highway, he would not have seen Thomas. Perhaps this fellow was the real killer?

He had first seen the madman, not on that road, but rather just after he had fainted. When he and Ralf left the chapel, the man had danced around them, making lewd and obscure jests. Not possessed, Thomas had said to Ralf at the time, but now he wondered if the man was even a lunatic. His dancing was strange but, as he thought more on it, his speech had suggested a man of more wit, not less.

Thomas turned toward the door leading to the priory’s public lands and pulled his hood over his head as he started down the path to the hospital. He would seek out the madman and question him. If the man was truly mad, he would leave him to the prayers of Sister Christina and God’s grace. If he was feigning, however, Thomas would learn why he had cast suspicion on him. Then he smiled with somber humor. He need not bother wringing the man’s neck if he was the killer. The hangman would do it for him.

***

As Thomas reached the entrance to the men’s side of the hospital, he stopped to listen. When the light dimmed toward the hour of dusk, the sick grew quiet and the dying slipped closer to a more profound silence. In Thomas’ experience, this and the hours of early morning threatened life the most for those whose souls God might want. Indeed, all men past the heat of youth found the darkening hours ones of weariness, for it was then that the labors of the day were felt in the bones and in the soul.

He turned away from the straw beds of the open ward and walked toward the private cells. Surely that was where the madman had been placed. Was he right to seek the man out now? he wondered. The dark hours brought not only pale horsemen seeking souls but also demons casting tares of doubt into men’s hearts. Perhaps he should not speak with the madman when his own humors were so unbalanced. Could he question him fairly? Demons were known to play with a man, when one humor took precedence, and destroy his reason. How often had these imps chased him into the monks’ cloister garth to pace under the cold moon’s flat brightness until he could banish them?

“I am pleased to see you back in the hospital, Brother.”

Thomas spun around.

“Am I correct in assuming you are seeking one patient in particular?”

“My lady!” Thomas was grateful that Prioress Eleanor could not see the flush he felt rising to his cheeks in the dim light.

The prioress’ smile was gentle. “I was on my way to see this man who has led many of us in circular dances of his own construction. Now that I have met you here, I wonder if you might be the wiser choice to question him than I.”

“As always, my lady, I serve your will.”

“And I seek your opinion, Brother. If this man is guilty of something and believes he has cleverly cast blame upon you, he might say something useful out of fear if he sees you free. If he is innocent, then it matters not whether you question him or I do. In either case, I am a better witness to anything he might say since you are the one he claimed knew more than you would say.”

Thomas bowed. “As is most often the case, my lady, you have the right of it.” Indeed, his compliment was spoken with sincerity.

“Then I will hide behind the screen where I can listen to you both but where he cannot see me. Let us go quietly.”

***

Thomas moved the screen aside and stood in the entrance to the small cell. What an odd motion, Thomas thought as he watched the fellow sway in absolute silence. This was neither a courtly dance nor some common man’s caper. As strange as it looked, there was a grace in the movement, albeit an alien one.

“Peace be with you,” Thomas said softly.

“Ah, the red-haired monk!” the man replied, his body twisting easily from side to side. “Sinfully conceived while his mother suffered her monthly courses, methinks.”

Thomas ignored the insult. “You have recognized me, it seems, but I know you not. Who are you, good sir?”

“Cain,” he replied, running one finger across his broken nose. “Or Abel, perhaps, for Cain may be Abel and Abel can be Cain. Does it matter to you which I might be?”

“So much wit is rarely found in lunatics.”

“Perhaps I am a fool then. Fools may be mad. Or not. In this sinful world, are madmen and fools so different? Might they not be born of the same mother?” He rubbed his nose again. “Perhaps God marked me so he could tell me apart from my brother. Is God all-wise, do you think?”

“More than either of us or we would not be having this discussion.”

The man’s eyes twinkled with laughter. “Was God wise when He sat under the apple tree and made both maid and man?” He threw his arms up. “Oh, a pun! God be praised! You are right, good brother, I have not lost all my wits!” Then he bent double with an exaggerated gesture of sadness. “But I fear they are of little use.”

Thomas lost patience with the game. “Wit enough, methinks, but enough of this foolery. Why did you say you had seen me on the road to Tyndal?”

“The road to Damascus, I think, Brother. We were fellow travelers there, although you did not see me. I thought you might be the one God chose to throw from the ass and render sightless with His knowledge, but you left the road and went into the forest of night. It was I who was left to find the blinding light.”

Surely there is sense in these words, Thomas thought, struggling to find what it might be. “You were travelling behind me?” he began.

“Aye, but you left before you were granted the salvation He gave me.”

“You saw me leave the road and go into the forest.”

“Aye.” The man began to sway once again.

“What did you see on that road to Damascus?” Thomas asked, deciding to enter into the man’s feigned, or unfeigned, imaginings. This talk of Damascus might be odd, but he suspected there was some logic to it. If the man was only pretending madness, perhaps he was afraid of something but was trying to give Thomas a riddle to untangle without endangering himself. If mad, well then, there would be no harm in spending a few minutes humoring the fellow.

“What could a man like me see? God blinded me with the brilliance only a poor man can see. Afterward, I found this place.” He waved his hands in circles above his head and moved his feet to the music of a harp only he could hear. “And that was enough.”

However strangely the man might be phrasing it, Thomas was now convinced he had not told any more than the truth. The man had seen him on the road, something he could not condemn the man for saying, but the madman was not claiming Thomas had anything to do with a murder.

Had the madman himself seen the murder? What was this light of which he spoke? A vision? A flashing sword? What did he mean? “What blinded you, my friend?” he asked in a kind tone.

“Nothing more than I could have wished, then a safe place to lay my head. I did follow your path through the woods. You should be comforted that you did His will in leading me here, monk. More than that, you need know nothing else.”

Thomas studied the man dancing in front of him. The man had not been upset at the sight of him nor did he see in the man’s eyes the kind of evil capable of brutal violence. Such a conclusion might be called illogical by many, but he did trust his instincts when logic had nothing on which to lay hold. What would the prioress make of this strange conversation, he wondered?

The man must have seen something, however. How could he not have seen the corpse, even the murderer? He must have gone farther than Thomas had. Was the blinding light, of which he spoke, madness brought on by the grisly sight of the corpse? Or could the man not remember what he had seen because his madness would not let him? Or was he clever enough to deny all knowledge because he knew he would be the easiest suspect, a man of no rank or wealth who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time?

“A dead man? Did you see a corpse?” Thomas asked with intentional directness, watching for the man’s immediate reaction.

There was none. “La, la!” the man sang in a low voice, repeating himself like a child who has just discovered a delightful word.

Thomas asked again, then again, and finally threw up his hands. He wanted to shake the tale out of the man but restrained himself. Perhaps the prioress could see the truth hidden in the man’s strange story. Whatever had happened on that road and whatever the man may have seen were locked away in the mind of a man who was either mad or clever enough to pretend he was.

Thomas watched the man for a moment longer, then left.

On the other side of the screen, Eleanor was waiting for him. After they had walked some distance in silence, Thomas asked, “What think you, my lady?”

“I would not have dismissed him as a suspect as quickly as our crowner did. Whether he is a murderer may remain a question, Brother, but I do believe he is guilty of something.”

Outside in the damp-laden air, the church bell dully tolled for prayer.

Chapter Thirty-one

Shivering with misery and cold, Ralf hastened toward the stables. Just above the horizon, a band of brilliant light lay between the North Sea and the black clouds that promised a coming storm. That glow reminded him of intense, dazzling days before the autumn frosts, days that deceitfully suggested brighter times than could ever come to pass. Tonight Ralf had no patience with false hope. Tonight he was going to get drunk.

As the crowner walked to where his horse awaited him, the dark stream flowing nearby mocked him with its babbling. Silently, he cursed its tactless joy. Lights from rushes and flickering candles began to dot the darkness that now cloaked the priory. At least they made no pretence of conquering the gloom, Ralf thought, then turned his mind to murder.

That dagger still haunted him. Sister Anne had confirmed, as Brother Andrew had suggested, that the script was Arabic. The porter had scoffed at the idea of a murdering Assassin, suggesting that a man like that could not easily escape notice in East Anglia. Anne had more earnestly considered the possibility, then decided against it as well. Should he, a rational man, dismiss the presence of any Assassin except as a fantasy useful only in scaring children into eating their peas?

“My dear brother would love the idea of an Assassin loose on English soil! He would make much political coin with that, calling for increased tallage or heavier fines on the Jews, there being no Saracens in England to tax.” Ralf snorted.

Sister Anne and Brother Andrew must be right. Fear of the alien, the strange, should not blind him from reason. No Assassin had done this, but the killer must have wanted to leave a message for any finder of the corpse. What was meant? he wondered. Had it been intended to wreak havoc by sending men, like his brother, down the road to false retribution? Or had it a narrower significance, a more individual one? Whatever the truth, the murderer was still free. Somewhere near, the man must be holding his sides, laughing at Ralf’s failure to find him.

He picked up a rock and threw it with anger in the direction of that merry stream, then squeezed his eyes shut. Mixed with the rain on his cheeks was the burning salt of his tears. With no one around to hear him, Ralf yelled at the dark heavens, “Rational I might be, but I am not made of iron.”

Fear he had dealt with for years, both as a mercenary and as crowner. As any other mortal, he had suffered failure, and he had also learned to live with emptiness in his heart. Since the discovery of the dead man, he had suffered all these things in equal proportions and more than he could endure. He was weary of fighting his battles alone. “Satan can take that cursed corpse,” he swore. After all, why should he not have what other men had to soothe them when burdened with difficulties? Why could he not have the comfort of a woman’s arms?

He loved Anne. He had always loved her. There was no reason to think he would stop doing so. Most times he could set his longing aside. Tonight, he could not. Tonight he ached with it. He must find himself a woman, any woman who would hold him against the warmth of her breasts and make him forget everything for a few hours.

“And I shall,” he said, shaking his fist against chill melancholy.

But it was not any woman he wanted. He wanted Anne as his wife.

“May Satan’s balls fry!” he shouted into the misty quiet around him. Aye, he would go to the inn and get drunk, swyve any wench whose name he could forget and pretend he was content. If he were lucky, he would awaken the next morning alone, his head and stomach protesting against the abuses forced on them, and he would rise, throw water on his face, and pour out his foul mood on someone who deserved it.

Perhaps he’d find the seller of fake relics and make him swallow the saint’s toe, the Virgin’s nipple, or whatever fraud he was trying to pass off on the innocent. Better yet, he might find the poor soldier’s killer. If that happened, he would take joy in making him beg for the rope. After all, a rotten mood should never be wasted when there were men of evil acts around.

Despite the deepened darkness, Ralf found his horse, saddled it, and mounted. If nothing else, he could always make life miserable for that sheep thief his sergeant was hunting, he decided. His grim humor growing ever blacker, the crowner rode off in search of the bright inn.

As he did, he failed to see two shadows emerging from behind the stables.