Sword of Shame (33 page)

‘I was with Dame Pauline,' said Sister Rose with a triumphant smile. ‘There is
my
alibi.'

‘Except the hour she spent asleep under a tree,' countered Joan spitefully. ‘I rode past her, but she did not wake. And there was no sign of you.'

‘I was resting my aching bones,' snapped Pauline. ‘But I
did
see you–you were alone, too.'

‘Ha!' exclaimed Rose. ‘And you and your husband argued bitterly last night. Do not deny it–Pauline heard you when she came to collect the priory's eggs.'

‘I did,' agreed Pauline. ‘And I also heard William berating Sir Philip about the cost of the parchment used to write all these wills.'

‘I did recommend prudence,' admitted William stiffly. He addressed Michael. ‘I am obliged to pay for the stuff myself, and as a scholar, you do not need me to tell you that it is expensive.'

Pauline continued. ‘And Askyl took William's side in the row, which Sir Philip did not like.'

‘Lymbury was in the wrong,' stated Askyl dogmatically. ‘All men disagree from time to time–it means nothing. Do not tell me you never squabble with your Corpse Examiner.'

Pauline was not finished. She turned to Dole and pointed a finger. ‘And I heard
him
antagonizing Sir Philip over that sword. Dole said he should get rid of it, because it brings bad luck.'

Dole shrugged. ‘It ended up in his innards. I would say that was bad luck.'

 

Joan offered Bartholomew and Michael a room in which to sleep that night, but she did so with such bad grace that neither was inclined to accept. They left her fluffing up cushions behind Askyl's head and plying him with pastries. Hog and James helped William carry their master's body to the church, while Dole slunk away on unspecified business of his own.

‘We shall stay at the convent,' announced Michael, after checking that their horses had been properly stabled. ‘I am a Benedictine, and it is a house of my own Order. They will welcome us.' The tone of his voice indicated there would be trouble if they did not.

‘You can ask the prioress for Michaelhouse's ten marks, too,' suggested Bartholomew.

‘In the morning,' said Michael. ‘She might be less inclined to generous hospitality, if she thinks I am about to make off with her money. Here come Rose and Pauline. They can lead us there.'

‘We have a cottage for visiting monastics,' said Rose, hips swaying under her tight habit. She walked more quickly in order to speak to the monk alone, leaving the hobbling Dame Pauline behind. She rested a slender hand on his arm and smiled into his face. ‘But, when the weather is cold, we let
special
visitors share the fire in our own dormitory.'

‘Is that so?' said Michael, unmoved. ‘It sounds improper. Should I tell my Bishop about it?'

Rose pouted, not liking her flirtations disregarded. ‘I was only teasing, Brother.'

‘You were not,' said Michael. ‘You were attempting to use your wiles on me. Why? So I will not look to you as Lymbury's murderer?'

Rose grimaced. ‘I forgot you are a scholar, and therefore view everything with cold logic. If you must know, I was hoping you would agree to be discreet about my liking for Sir Elias. Since her predecessor was deposed, the prioress has been fussy about what she calls licentious behaviour, and I do not want her to stop me from going to the manor-house.'

‘Why not?' asked Michael. ‘Your visits there are clearly leading you along the path to sin.'

Rose gave a heavy sigh. ‘Because how shall I ensnare Sir Elias in marriage, if I never see him? I do not want to be a nun–and I refuse to let Joan beat me to the post. If you say nothing about my intentions to the prioress, I will name my first child after you.'

Michael regarded her askance, and when he made no reply, she fell behind to walk with Pauline. Bartholomew heard them muttering, and supposed Rose was trying to make a similar arrangement with her chaperon. From the gleeful expression on the elderly nun's face, the offers were being greeted with rather more enthusiasm than the response elicited from the monk.

The sun was setting in a ball of orange, although Pauline claimed her aching bones told her there would be rain by dawn. People were returning from the fields, spades and hoes over their shoulders. They stared at the strangers, but still declined to trade smiles and comments about the weather.

‘They are not very friendly,' remarked Michael.

‘Lymbury was always telling them how many Frenchmen he had killed at Poitiers,' explained Pauline. ‘And they live in constant fear that the French king will descend on Ickleton to avenge the slaughter. They will be all beams and pleasantries tomorrow, when they hear Lymbury is dead. They are not naturally sullen.'

‘So Lymbury was unpopular with his people,' mused Bartholomew, exchanging a significant glance with the monk. Here was yet another motive for the man's murder. ‘Was there anything that made him especially disliked?'

Rose shrugged. ‘Just his unsettling tales about killing so many men who might have vengeful kin. William the Vicar gave a sermon on “an eye for an eye”, you see, which started them thinking. I doubt it was what William intended them to do, but there is no telling what simple folk might believe once a seed has been planted in their minds.'

Bartholomew glanced sharply at her, and wondered whether she might have done a little sowing herself, although he could not imagine what she might have gained from doing so.

‘Here we are,' she said, bending to retrieve a black garment from under a bush. When she shook it out and pulled it over her head, she was transformed from a woman in a tight black dress to a nun in a baggy habit. A white veil was donned to hide the gold hair-fret and, with her hands folded in her wide sleeves, she looked the picture of demure modesty. ‘Do not forget, Dame Pauline–a jug of wine if you say nothing about my chasing after Sir Elias today.'

‘Two jugs,' countered Pauline opportunistically. ‘Or my conscience will prick me about the fact that I left you alone for so long.' She grimaced at the slip, and glanced at Michael to see if he had noticed. ‘I mean
alone with Askyl. And
I
was with Joan. I do not mean either one of us was unaccompanied and in a position to commit murder.'

Michael said nothing, and allowed the two women to usher him through a door and into the convent, Bartholomew trailing behind. While Rose fetched the prioress and Pauline limped to the kitchens for something to eat, the physician looked around him.

The priory was tiny and clearly poor. The main part comprised a wooden chapel and a two-storeyed hall–the upper floor was a dormitory and the lower one served as refectory and chapter house. There was a separate kitchen block and a massive barn for storing grain, all enclosed within a double ditch and a bank. A bell rang for vespers, and the sound of chanting drifted towards them. The smell of newly cut grass and warm soil mingled with the scent of incense. It was a peaceful scene, and rather more what Bartholomew had expected when he had left Cambridge that morning.

It was not long before a woman with a grey face came scurrying across the yard. Worry lines bit deeply into her forehead and cheeks. ‘Rose tells me you know the Bishop,' she said unhappily. ‘Are you here because I allow her out from time to time? Lymbury often demands her company–or he did, before his friends arrived from France. Now he summons her less frequently. She minds terribly.'

‘Lymbury used to spend time alone with Rose?' asked Bartholomew, not sure what the prioress was saying in her gabbling rush of words. ‘But now he does not?'

She paled even further. ‘Oh, damn my loose tongue! I have just told you something the Bishop should not know, and I do not want to be deposed like my predecessor. Chaplain Dole is always telling me to think before I speak, but it is so very difficult. Do you not find, Brother?'

‘Not really,' replied Michael, amused by the question. ‘Such a failing would be somewhat inconvenient in a scholar–it would see him savaged in the debating halls.'

‘Oh, yes, of course. I am Prioress Christiana. But you have already guessed that, I suppose. Rose tells me you are from Michaelhouse, which probably means you have come to demand the ten marks Lymbury gave me.'

‘We shall discuss it tomorrow,' said Michael. ‘After a good night's sleep, preferably in a decent bed. And we have been travelling all day, so a little bread and meat would not go amiss, either.'

‘You cannot have meat, Brother,' said Christiana, startled. ‘It is a fish day.'

‘So it is,' said Michael in a voice heavy with resignation. ‘I had forgotten.'

 

The guesthouse was a tiny cottage on the edge of the convent, separated from it by a line of apple trees. Birds trilled sweet and clear as the sun disappeared in a blaze of copper, and there was a contented lowing as cows were milked and settled in their byre. Bartholomew smiled at Prioress Christiana, who was distressed because the door had been left open and a goat had eaten the blankets.

‘This is a lovely place,' he said sincerely.

She wrung her hands. ‘It is a grave responsibility, and my predecessor's fate is never far from my mind–Dame Pauline sees to that. She is always talking about what happened to Alice Lacy, and how she was sent to the priory at Chatteris in disgrace.'

‘Chatteris,' said Michael in a sepulchral voice. ‘A dreadful place, set deep in the desolate wilderness of the Fens. I have never been, mind you, but I have heard tales of its bitter weather and the way snakes lurk in its mattresses.'

‘Oh, really, Brother,' said Bartholomew, watching the prioress's eyes open wide in shock. ‘It was rats in the bedding, not snakes.' He saw he had not helped when Christiana's hands flew to her mouth in horror. Rodents were apparently held in greater terror than reptiles.

‘I do my best,' said Christiana in a wail. ‘But it is not easy when there are women like Rose and Pauline under my care. The others are good, devout souls, but those two are a trial, and Pauline is always challenging my authority because I cannot read. She objects to managing the accounts, but she also complains when I try to relieve her of the burden. I can do nothing right. And now there is trouble with a powerful Cambridge College and a monk who knows the Bishop. What shall I do?'

‘We shall talk tomorrow,' said Bartholomew kindly. ‘I am sure we can reach some arrangement that suits us both.'

‘Such as you giving us our ten marks,' muttered Michael. He spoke a little more loudly. ‘Did you like Lymbury, Mother?'

‘Pauline said he was murdered today,' Christiana's eyes filled with compassionate tears. ‘He was a difficult man, but generous in his way. He was fond of Rose, and I felt compelled to let her go to him when he asked, because we need the eggs he always let us have. Rose was always happy to oblige.'

Michael's eyebrows rose. ‘I am sure she was.'

‘But I did fear he wanted her for immoral purposes,' confided Christiana unhappily. ‘Especially later, when I learned he only invited Rose to the manor-house at times when Lady Joan was visiting her mother. What would the Bishop say if he found out? But, of course he
will
find out now–you will tell him, because I have just told you. Damn my clacking tongue!'

‘We already knew,' said Michael. ‘Rose is not discreet. How long has this been going on?'

‘For about a year. But it faltered in the spring, when Askyl, Dole and William arrived. I suppose Lymbury was too busy with his friends for romantic dalliances.'

‘Did Joan know about her husband and Rose?' asked Bartholomew.

Christiana shrugged. ‘She might have done–perhaps she was relieved that he had foisted his attentions on another woman, because she did not love him herself. But I must go and say prayers for his soul, or he may come and haunt us. And he had a nasty sword that he liked to show off. I would not like to meet a ghost wielding such a vicious, sharp blade.'

 

It was soon too dark to do anything except go to bed–the cottage was not supplied with candles. Bartholomew lay on a mattress near the window, enjoying the cool breeze that wafted in. It was a sultry night, and he felt thunder in the wind–Dame Pauline's predictions had been right. Michael complained about the fleas in the bedding and the meagre supper he had been served. Then he moaned about the open window, claiming that a dangerous miasma might enter during the night and poison him.

‘I am not sleepy,' said Bartholomew, waiting for a break in the litany of grumbles. He settled with his hands behind his head, staring up at the stars and thinking about Ptolemy's notion that the universe comprised a series of spheres. ‘What do you think of the contention in the
Almagest
that eccentric and epicyclic circles account for the observed variations in the distances of the planets?'

Michael sighed. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about, and it sounds vaguely heretical to me. Does God have any place in these spheres?'

‘I do not envy you your position,' said Bartholomew, concluding the monk was not in the mood for scholarly
debate. ‘Rose and Pauline were right when they said their priory is poor, and they are fellow Benedictines. But Michaelhouse is equally desperate and you owe us your loyalty, too.'

Michael sighed a second time. ‘That is why I have decided to take you up on your offer and let you decide the issue. I do not want my colleagues at Michaelhouse
or
my brethren at the abbey clamouring favouritism at me, so I am passing the responsibility to you. I wash my hands of the whole affair.'

‘Very well–as long as you do not argue with me once I have made up my mind.'

‘I shall argue if I feel like it–you may do something foolish. Langelee said we were not to return without his money, and he may not let us back in if you are generous to a handful of penniless nuns.'