Belladonna At Belstone Part 20

"At least you should be able to sleep unhindered," Joan said from her chair.

Constance didn't look at her, but Hugh could see the flush colouring her cheeks, although when he glanced at Joan, she was sitting innocently enough, smiling in a friendly manner.

"Yes, Joan, if you don't wake me with your snoring."

"Me snore? I think not!" the old woman exclaimed. "Hugh, you wouldn't say I snored, would you?"

Hugh maintained a careful silence, not wis.h.i.+ng to offend either of them, and eventually Joan gave a throaty, wheezing chuckle and stood. Standing upright, she stumbled on a loose board. Hugh made a move to go to her side but she gave him a stern look. "You stay there, young man, and protect your knight. I hardly need your help to go for a p.i.s.s, do I?" And she made her way from the room.

"I was only going to help her," Hugh grumbled.

"She's fine. The only reason she's here is because the prioress fears she will suffer from the cold in the dorter at her age," Constance explained. "She isn't ill, so don't worry. She hardly needs help to go to the rere-dorter."

"I was only trying to help," Hugh said again. A thought struck him. "Could she have got up during the night when Moll was killed?"

Constance smiled at him. "Not a chance, no. I gave her so much dwale to make her sleep that not even the King's artillery could have woken her." Her gaze shot guiltily towards Cecily. "Cecily could have kept her awake otherwise," she added defensively.

Hearing a m.u.f.fled whimper, as if on cue, Constance hurried to Cecily's side. She took a cloth from a bowl of scented water and wiped the girl's brow. The invalid's eyes opened, but they were unfocused, and stared without recognition. Constance was aware that Hugh had joined her, and the two looked down without speaking for a few moments, but then the lay sister gave a cry and made as if to pull the bedclothes from her, tossing her head from side to side.

"She's not improving," Constance said, almost to herself. "If her fever grows, it might burst her heart."

"It smells, too."

She shot Hugh a look, but saw only concern in his face; and when she sniffed, she too could smell the sweet stench of rotting flesh. She put a hand out towards the dressed arm, but the girl s.n.a.t.c.hed it away, crying out as she struck a post of the bed with it. Constance was sure that Hugh was right. The girl had flushed cheeks, and her eyes looked unnaturally bright in the candlelight. Constance very gently reached out again to take hold of the arm, murmuring softly to rea.s.sure the girl, but Cecily whipped it free. Only when Hugh gripped her shoulders and held her upper arm could Constance get to the dressing, and before she removed it, she knew her efforts so far had been in vain. The smell was sickly and repellent, and as Constance took hold of the upper arm and felt the heat within the limb, she couldn't help but throw a look at Cecily's face.

Hugh, gripping the lay sister's shoulders, saw Constance's expression. It briefly reflected her sadness, her compa.s.sion - and a kind of guilt - before she set to unravelling the long strip of cloth with which the arm was bound.

Luke quietly slipped over the wall and across the yard to the western corner of the claustral buildings. From here he could look south to the church; there was no one in sight. All the nuns should by now, this late in the afternoon, be studying around the main claustral garth.

At the church, he checked along the little alley that led to the cloisters before making his way inside through the small door to the nuns' part of the church. It was surely close to time for Vespers. He walked across the nave, genuflected absentmindedly, and was about to slip through the connecting door, which Denise had left unlocked, when the door behind him opened.

He was convinced that his heart actually stopped beating for a second; certain that it was the prioress. No matter what his carefully laid plans with the bishop might be, if she should find him here, she could have him thrown bodily from the priory, and all opportunities for advancement would be gone. His career would be over, and he would be sent to some ruined abbey or parish in the worst, most rundown part of the realm.

When he saw it was Simon, Luke almost fell to his knees in thanks to G.o.d. He turned and made as if to walk to the sacristy.

"Ah, Father Luke, I'm glad to have found you. You'll be getting ready for the service, I suppose, but could I speak to you later?"

"Oh, Bailiff, I am most sorry. I was deep in thought and didn't hear you approach. You wish to make your Confession?"

"Um no. Actually I was hoping you could tell me a little about the people here. Just your general impressions of them."

Luke reflected quickly. If anyone was to enter the church, the bailiff would be giving him the perfect alibi for being in here: a questioning. The prioress would want to know how Luke and Simon had got into the province of the females, but Luke could defend himself against any charges of impropriety easily enough.

"Ask me anything - but don't expect me to break the secrecy of the Confessional, of course." Luke led the way to a bench at the wall and took a seat.

"I wouldn't dream of doing that," Simon protested. "But I am intrigued about this place and how the women all get on together."

"It's much like anywhere else where women congregate, I imagine."

"No. Not at all. Rarely do you find women jockeying for position in such a flagrant manner, all racing to win the prize -Lady Elizabeth's position."

Luke forced a sad smile to his face. "It's hardly a surprise, is it? Just look at the state of things here: two girls dead, the fabric of the buildings falling apart, the rumoursa* he hesitated 'a rumours of incontinence among some of the novices, and nuns too. It is said that they occasionally take men to their beds."

What a hypocrite! Simon recalled Rose's words about Luke but held his tongue: he didn't want to lose the young vicar's a.s.sistance yet. "And who would you think could be involved in such goings-on?"

"There are many rumours, Bailiff. One shouldn't make too much of them. I believe there have even been malicious stories spread about we!"

"What sort of stories?"

"Untruthful stories, Bailiff. The sort of things that girls, nuns, and even some of the old women in the canonical cloister would discuss. You can't trust such gossip, it is all too prevalent. I've heard tales of almost all the men, and according to the stories, they are constantly making love with every nun in the cloister. There is one thing common to all the men and women in this place: frustration. The men know the women are here, and vice versa. It is bound to create tension, isn't it? And when there is little else for people to talk about, it is easy to see how they turn to imagining things."

"So you think that there hasn't been any sort of misbehaviour between the s.e.xes?"

"If there has, I am sure that Lady Elizabeth will resign."

"Are you?"

"Bailiff, she would have to. She is already condemned for the amount of damage done to this place - look at the roof above you! - but if any of her women were actually fornicating, that would really be the end of her."

Simon considered. This was more complicated than he had antic.i.p.ated. Every person he spoke to hinted at misdemeanours, but none was prepared to give full voice to their suspicions. "Can you think of anyone who would have wanted to murder Moll and Katerine?"

"The very idea is ridiculous. No, in short. The pair of them were lovely things, delightful. Moll was so endearing, especially with her constant search for the holy in everything. She would ask a question, and fix those lovely eyes upon you, and you felt nearer to G.o.d by her presence. And Katerine was different, but no less wonderful. She was always trying to improve things. Often she would come to me to suggest something that others hadn't noticed. She was a sweet girl."

Simon was unimpressed. He noted that all Luke had said so far corroborated Rose's suggestion that he could be enjoying an affair with a nun. Out of sheer malice, Simon then asked, "And what do you think about Agnes?"

"Agnes?" Luke's voice took on a haughty distance. "She seems to be a very serious-minded and sensible young novice. Of course, I could hardly claim to have spoken to her often, but she confesses to me regularly, and appears penitent."

He was clearly not going to elucidate. Simon could almost hear the lock snapping shut when Luke closed his mouth. Instead the bailiff attempted a different tack. "And what of the treasurer? She strikes me as very dedicated."

"Dedicated?" Luke repeated with a frown. "Yes, certainly that. Although she has her own troubles, I fear. Largely the result of her background."

Simon listened carefully while the priest told him of Margherita's birth and the disappearance of her mother. It struck him how similar Margherita's story was to that of Rose. "I wonder if she knows," he muttered aloud, and when Luke glanced at him, he waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing. Thinking out loud. But tell me, do you think Margherita could help save the convent? It seems to me that everywhere I look the place is falling apart."

"Which I suppose reflects badly upon the prioress," Luke said off-handedly. "I mean, Margherita could hardly do a worse job, could she?"

"Do you think Margherita could have prevented the murders?"

Luke looked at him coldly. "Bailiff, if those two poor girls really were murdered, surely it must be due to the innate sins of the convent." Luke was rather proud of his words. His p.r.o.nouncement sounded stern and pious, just as a cleric's statement should. "If Margherita was in charge, I am sure many of the sins would not have occurred, which would mean that the murders would not have happened."

There was the ringing of the bell calling the obedientiaries to the next service, and Luke stood abruptly. "I've got to prepare for Vespers - and you will have to return to the canonical side of the church Bailiff."

"Thank you for your help. I am most grateful. And now I am going to visit my friend," Simon said, and set off towards the door. However it opened before he arrived and the prioress walked in. She smiled at him politely, but then she noticed the priest. Simon saw that in her hand, Lady Elizabeth held a large key.

While he waited near the exit, she walked to the door separating the two halves of the church and tested it. When it wouldn't open, she stared at Luke, but the priest ignored her, and merely went to the sacristy to prepare for the service.

Chapter Twenty-Two.

Bertrand walked slowly to the church, anxiety clutching at his breast. All his plans had gone awry: he had intended Margherita to replace Lady Elizabeth and now Margherita herself appeared no better. For once he was prepared to accept his own limitations. Today he felt in desperate need of a.s.sistance from G.o.d.

There was no doubt: he had been over the figures time and again.

Only the one hand had written in the book - Margherita's - but the figures she had entered for the bailiff from Iddesleigh were wrong. Seven-eighths of it were missing. Bertrand himself had witnessed the man giving the money to her, had seen the treasurer herself scribble down the amounts. Bertrand was left with the unpleasant certainty that the woman was embezzling money.

He had backed the wrong horse. While trying to get rid of the prioress, he had hitched his cart to another just as corrupt: the whole place was tainted!

Entering the choir, he walked to a quiet stall in a dark corner and bowed his head reverently. Surely there was a way out of this mess. He had the blackmailed Elias on his side. Elias would allege that he had been going to forswear his oaths because he was so disgusted about the running of the priory. That testimony, embellished and wisely used, could spell the end of Lady Elizabeth's rule.

But if her replacement was a spendthrift or thief, things could only get worse.

If only Margherita had merely miscalculated. But she hadn't. He had been there, he had seen the money. There was no chance of Margherita making an error.

Then there were the two deaths. One from a bleeding - the sort of thing that could have happened anywhere; the second girl had been messing about on the roof, probably, and just fell. The bailiff wanted a sensational story because his friend had been hurt, but these things were almost always pretty mundane.

Once the prioress had gone, the deaths would soon be forgotten. Much more important was the future good management of the priory, and Bertrand knew that one excellent way of seeing to its protection was to ensure that there was enough money coming in to keep the place going.

A thought struck him: if no one found out about Margherita's stealing, all would be well. Lady Elizabeth could be removed, Margherita put in her place, and Bertrand could present a decisive and successful result to Bishop Stapledon - one which could only reflect well upon him and help him towards his own bishopric.

Sir Rodney would be pleased that the treasurer was in charge; Stapledon would be pleased that Bertrand had acted correctly in removing the prioress; and if any problems occurred later, Bertrand would be far away, hopefully already a bishop in his own right, with his own episcopal see. Safe.

As the service began, Bertrand allowed himself to smile.

Cecily almost leaped from the bed when the last bandage had been soaked from her arm, and then Constance set about cleaning the red, inflamed flesh with a cloth soaked in a refres.h.i.+ng infusion of herbs.

Hugh couldn't watch. The whole limb was swollen and discoloured, covered with blisters weeping pus. Cecily was delirious, and each time the sc.r.a.p of linen touched her forearm, she screamed and thrashed about, trying to escape the pain. He glanced at the old woman at Constance's side.

While holding the basin in which Constance dipped her cloth, Joan mumbled prayers. She had taken up her place by Cecily's bed on her return from the rere-dorter; in her eyes was a concerned sympathy, the expression of one who has witnessed many deaths in her life and to whom the pa.s.sing of one more soul was of scant note, although there was a kind of measuring quality to her observation, as if she was a.s.sessing how different her own end would be - an end which surely couldn't be far off.

At last the arm was bare and clean. Constance stared at it anxiously. She had no medicine adequate for a wound of this kind: the flesh was already putrefying.

"It should be cut off," Hugh stated.

Constance looked up, startled. To her surprise Hugh was glowering down at the lay sister as if bitterly angry that Cecily had dared allow herself to grow so ill.

"It'll never get better, that arm. Can only get worse. You need a surgeon."

"We don't have anyone near."

"She'll die, then. Surely there's someone."

It was Joan who answered. "Perhaps there is one."

Simon walked from the church into the nuns' cloister and stepped straight into a pile of faeces. He curled his lip as the smell struck his nostrils. Ugh! It was that d.a.m.ned b.i.t.c.h Princess, no doubt, c.r.a.pping all over the place. Baldwin liked dogs, but as far as Simon was concerned terriers that spent their lives snapping at one's ankles and s.h.i.+tting all over the place were among the most useless of all creatures.

In fact, the mutt's deposits were all over the precinct, in the nunnery and the canonical half as well. There was no discrimination.

Simon wiped his boot on the gra.s.s of the garth and studied the sole. Almost clean. It would do. He set off for the door and climbed the stairs.

Since the nuns were all attending Vespers the place appeared deserted. With any luck the prioress had left the terrier in her room so it couldn't disrupt the service.

Simon reached the landing and was about to turn in to the infirmary, his footsteps echoing crisply on the bare wooden boards, when he heard the terrier begin to snarl and yap. Simon recalled being told that the dog hated men and barked at them.

"Shut your row!" he muttered, continuing on his way, but at the door to the infirmary he stopped dead. In his mind's eye he saw again the piles of dog mess in the canonical cloister and the nuns' garth; he recalled Lady Elizabeth telling him that her dog had been unwell the night that Moll had died, and that was why she had been murmuring endearments when Margherita had listened outside her door.

It wasn't unknown for a draw-latch to poison a dog in order to remove a household's most ferocious guard, but who could have got to Princess? Sadly, Simon realised that almost anyone could have. The little devil wandered between both cloisters, so Simon couldn't even reduce the potential suspects to either male or female.

But it corroborated Lady Elizabeth's story. And since the terrier only barked at men, it was a safe bet that only a man would have poisoned it.

Elias went to the church for Vespers but remained standing in his stall when the others left the choir. When all was still within he stepped forward to kneel before the altar.

He had no wish to be the agent of Lady Elizabeth's destruction, but he couldn't see how to escape. Bertrand had made the choice very clear: Elias could either refuse to implicate the prioress, in which case he would be accused of seducing a nun and attempting to persuade her to commit apostasy, or he could agree, in which case his own guilt and that of the nun herself need not come to light.

Elias covered his face with his hands. Was it so wrong to wish to see his own child? To want to honour his love as a husband should? Yet Constance had already rejected him, apparently. Lady Elizabeth had told him so.

Struck with a sudden desperation, he threw himself before the altar, arms outspread, praying to see Constance one last time.

At that moment he heard a sound. Quickly he pushed himself to his knees again, and peered about him. He saw the door to the nuns' side of the church open and Luke slip through. Luke was with a nun, and from her slurred speech Elias guessed it must be Denise: all the canons knew her weakness for wine. Something made Elias slip backwards so that he was concealed behind a tall pillar, and there he listened as Luke negotiated.

"Look, three quarts of my best Guyenne red is almost all I have left. I'll not be getting any more from my merchant for at least five weeks. I can't offer you more."

"I want them all," she mumbled obdurately.

"Wouldn't two be enough?"

"Three. You want to go and exercise your filly, you'll have to pay*

"All right, then, three."

"And I want to see them when I let you back in," she said greedily.

Luke gave an exasperated exclamation. "When you let me in? You think the prioress wouldn't notice me coming into Compline with six pints of wine about me? Or perhaps you think you could hide them within your habit and drink during the service! Be sensible, woman - I shall bring them to you tomorrow once you have kept up your side of the bargain, and that is to let me in. After Compline, make a show of relocking this door, but in reality leave it open for me. Will you remember?"

Sulkily the woman repeated his instruction and when Luke nodded, satisfied, she pulled a sneering grimace and defiantly bit her thumb behind his back, making the nail crack against her upper teeth. Moving back a pace, she swung the door shut and soon after Elias heard the lock snap shut. Slowly he turned back to the altar, and wonderingly but fervently, offered his grat.i.tude.

As night fell, Simon sat in the infirmary watching over his friend. Hugh had gone to fetch wine soon after Vespers, and since then Simon had heard the bell for Compline. The nuns had attended this last service of the day, and now all was silent in the place.

It was a relief, for Simon felt the need of time to review all he had heard. Especially since Hugh had grimly told him of Agnes and Luke.

Every now and again he glanced up as Cecily feverishly moaned and whimpered, but Constance had managed to drop a little of her magical syrup between the lay sister's lips, so at least she slept. Joan had complained that she couldn't sleep, and rather than use more of Constance's precious dwale, she had returned to her old bed in the dorter.

Constance herself was asleep on a stool at Cecily's side, her head resting on Cecily's mattress and setting her wimple awry.

She looked like an angel in the glow of the candles, Simon thought. The light gave her features a pink tint, highlighting the high cheekbones, and making her lips appear more full and rose-coloured. With the movement of her headpiece, a tress of her hair had come adrift and now it moved with her breath, near her cheek. Although she was clearly a mature woman, her face seemed so innocent and youthful that Simon felt a paternal fondness for her, just as he did when he glanced over at the truckle-bed at home and saw his own daughter asleep. There was something incredibly attractive in a sleeping girl, he thought.