Belladonna At Belstone Part 6

"So, Bertrand, this prioress. Tell us a little about her."

Baldwin looked away to stop himself chuckling. He knew how his old friend's mind worked: Simon and he had investigated too many cases together, and the tone of bright innocence in Simon's voice told Baldwin that the bailiff had little trust in the bishop.

"She is lazy. Look about you!" Bertrand said shortly.

"Is she young and indolent?" Simon pressed.

"Or perhaps she is too flighty?" Baldwin asked.

Bertrand sniffed. "You shall meet her," he said and stomped away.

Simon touched Baldwin's arm. "Bertrand wants us to think an ageing trout like Lady Elizabeth could tempt a youngster like that vicar into her bed?"

"You know the lady?" Baldwin murmured.

"I know almost everyone living on my moors," Simon grinned.

"I question this bishop's motive in asking us here," Baldwin said. His friend's eyes narrowed as they both watched the bishop. "He must have known that there was little likelihood of her attracting so young a priest."

"So he's looking to ruin her for another reason," Simon acknowledged. "And that is why we are here - to help him. For promotion?"

Baldwin nodded. Simon had secured his position by his own efforts and was often quick to spot another man's politicking. Baldwin spoke softly. "He's more keen on impressing Bishop Stapledon than worrying about a young girl's death."

Simon eased his shoulders. "He may not find my approach to his taste," he said happily. "For I intend finding the murderer -whatever the impact on Bertrand's prospects!"

As the two made their way to the bishop's side, Jonathan came scurrying up.

"My Lord Bishop?" he quavered.

"Where's the prioress?" Bertrand growled.

"Shea* Jonathan's voice rose to a nervous falsetto. "She apologises, but pleads her heavy workload, my Lord. She begs that you will leave her until after Vespers. Uma Perhaps I could offer you refreshments? Or maybe you would like to speak to some of the nuns?"

Bertrand opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Baldwin interrupted him. "I should first of all like to see the dead novice's body; then the place where she died. Only when we have done that can we sit and relax."

"Of course, sir."

Bertrand glanced at Baldwin, then at Simon, who maintained a diplomatic silence. "Oh, very well! But you will inform your prioress that I am most unimpressed by her lack of attendance." He lowered his head bullishly. "You will say that to her: I am most unimpressed."

Denise heard his words with a thrill of excitement. She had been about to leave the church, for her bladder was full, but when she heard the angry voice of the bishop she hurriedly threw her cloth and wax back into the aumbry and picked up a broom, posting herself near the door where she could eavesdrop better.

The door slammed and Jonathan sped past. Denise tried to smile engagingly at him, but he ignored her, and soon his hurried steps had faded in the cloister outside.

Denise sighed to herself. She would have liked the opportunity to ask him what was happening. Noticing the altar, she made an absent-minded obeisance in apology for allowing her mind to wander again, then belched.

Her thoughts gravitated to the election again. To her mind, Margherita would be the better prioress, guaranteeing that the Rule would be enforced, but she could be a bit of a tyrant, and that might not be all to the good. Many nuns had their little foibles - not necessarily vices, of course, just little lapses - like her own. Denise knew she wasn't wicked, but now she came to think about it, the treasurer might prove intolerant.

There was nothing in the Rule to say a nun shouldn't have a cup of wine or two, especially in winter to keep the chill out. Yet Margherita had presumed to try to tell her she was drunk that day; the night Moll died.

Well, it was a lie. Denise knew she could hold her drink, and for Margherita to suggest she couldn't was villainous.

Pausing and leaning on her broom she recalled the scene. She had been sitting at the far end of the frater where she often settled when she couldn't sleep. At such times she would drink a bottle or two. It was pleasant there, and when the weather was very brisk the warming room was only a short walk away, so there was always somewhere to ease her chilled limbs.

When Margherita appeared that night Denise had only had the one bottle and was considering fetching a second when she saw the shadow pa.s.s on the wall opposite. At first she was struck cold with fear. All the novices were told hideous stories of the devils who lived on the moor, and no girl who had ever lain awake in the middle of a night, cold, lonely and homesick, who had heard the breeze mournfully groaning as it circled around the cloisters, or howling down the chimneys, or shrieking as it squeezed around doors, could ever quite forget the terror.

There, sitting all alone in the frater, she had felt the force of the tales return, and as she watched the ma.s.sive black shadow leap across the wall, she couldn't restrain a squeak of horror: it was coming for her!

Instantly she heard the rea.s.suringly angry voice of Margherita. "Denise? Is that you?" She strode closer and wrinkled her nose. "Have you been drinking again? Yes, you're drunk, aren't you?"

"I'm not, I was just having a little wine to keep the cold out. It's so bitter in the dorter."

"You're drunk, Denise, and you should get straight to bed. What would the novices think if they found you asleep down here snoring in your cups as they came back from Matins? No, not another word: go to your bed!"

Cowed, Denise had obeyed. After all, obedience was one of the threefold oaths, together with poverty and chast.i.ty.

Yet she couldn't quite forget the sight of that shadow, not even now in the daylight. It wasn't the petrifying, creeping movement it had seemed to make, nor the att.i.tude, as if preparing to pounce, that got to her.

Denise shivered and began sweeping more urgently as if trying to sweep away her memory. No, it wasn't the shadowy figure itself; it was the sharp outline she had seen. The pointed outline of a long dagger in one hand.

Chapter Eight.

Simon's discomfort grew as the angry bishop walked to the door dividing the nuns' cloister from the canons*. He could see that Baldwin was unaffected; the knight was perfectly used to wandering about religious grounds, and Bertrand was beyond any feelings other than his own pique at what he perceived as a slight from the prioress.

But Simon knew no such comfort. To him, walking about this place was almost sacrilegious. It was a place of worship for those who dedicated their lives to G.o.d; not somewhere for the likes of him to idle about unhindered.

It was a curious sensation for him. Usually the bailiff was hard-headed and impervious to such fine perceptions, a truly secular man. Raised and bred in Devon, living almost all his life out at Crediton, he had always prided himself on his commonsense. Not, of course, that that prevented him from a certain amount of what he thought of as sensible superst.i.tion.

But Simon knew that his place was in the towns and wastes of Dartmoor, not in a convent, and especially not one in which nuns lived. If he had any choice in the matter, he'd have left right now. He was an instrument of secular law, responsible, through his Warden, to the King himself; but if a nun had committed an offence - even murder - he had no authority.

That knowledge was frustrating in its own right. He knew, just as everyone did, that England's stability was on a knife-edge, with barons up and down the realm joining forces to get rid of the upstart Despenser family. Simon was glad that he was ent.i.tled to leave his wife and daughter within Lydford Castle if they needed the security, for otherwise, with the country in the state it was, he'd not have left Lydford, suffragan Bishop Bertrand or no. If he had to leave Lydford, there were things Simon could have been doing to help secure the kingdom, raising money and a.s.sessing men-at-arms for the war which he had little doubt was shortly to come. Yet here he was, in a place where he could achieve nothing. Nuns fell under Canon Law; they were safe from prosecution in a civil court.

What was the purpose of his presence? Simon wondered as he trailed unhappily after the bishop.

Bertrand opened the connecting door Jonathan had used up near the altar and stalked through. Simon swallowed his feelings as Baldwin disappeared, and then followed them.

For the first time in his life he was in a nunnery; the experience wouldn't fulfil the occasional erotic dreams he'd enjoyed as a youngster. There would be no pleasure for him here.

Hugh missed the table with his elbow, and carefully lifted it again, sure that no one would have noticed his slight clumsiness. It wasn't as if he was drunk, after all; he was just drowsy. He needed refreshment after a long ride like that.

Elias leaned with his back against the wall opposite. He made no sign of seeing Hugh's near tumble as Hugh rested his chin on his hand, frowning with concentration. "So she comes up here to visit each night?"

"Not every night," Elias laughed. "Just now and then."

"Wha* - sort of once a week?"

"Yes, I suppose." The smith nodded, then belched. "Last time I saw her wasa* he went vacant a moment 'a oh, when poor Moll died - yes, that was last week."

Hugh absorbed this. "But why doesn't the prioress stop her?"

"Prioress has better things to do," said Elias, and tried to tap the side of his nose. His finger shot past without connecting.

"What could be more important than stopping a wh.o.r.e in a convent?" Hugh demanded.

"It's more important she keeps it quiet," Elias said knowingly, and grinned at his pot as if sharing a secret with it.

"You mean she'sa?"

Elias glanced up, and then gave Hugh a very old-fashioned look. "I won't talk about the prioress."

When Hugh studied him, he thought the lay brother could only be some twenty-five summers old, no more, and yet his expression was as forbidding as a moorland farmer who had lived forty years on the bleak and inhospitable land.

Elias continued, "I'm a lay brother. I may not be a priest, but that's only because of my education. I'm not going to be disloyal to my prioress."

"Sorry, I didn't mean anything," Hugh said hastily. There was an edge of truculence to Elias's voice that promised violence, and Hugh had no wish to be arrested for quarrelling in a convent. He hurried on soothingly, "Look, though - all those lads seem happy enough to take her. Are they all just unreligious or something?"

Elias glanced over Hugh's shoulder to where other brothers sat drinking. Rose had gone into the little room at the back with one of her clients, out of view of the rest so that those who wanted to stick to their vows wouldn't be quite so sorely tempted. "They're religious enough," he said sadly. "But you don't realise how hard it is to obey the Rule all the time, every day. Sometimes the men who've been serving longest just have to break free. Don't condemn them for being men." He took a gloomy sip of his drink.

"I can't blame them," Hugh agreed. "How could I? She's a lively little thing, that girl. She could tempt Christ Himself with those bright eyes of hers."

Elias nodded. It was hard suffering the torments of l.u.s.t, especially as a man who had sworn his life to the service of his G.o.d. Whether a man could love his Lord so perfectly when he desired a woman - well, the answer was easy, wasn't it? The Rule said that any fornication was wrong, and the lay brothers must put aside lecherous thoughts. Not that it was easy when every day they knew that just a few yards away, over the wall that ran down the centre of the church, were women: some old, some young, and surely several of them as l.u.s.ty as any of the men on this side.

"You must be very G.o.d-fearing to be able to resist her charms, that's all I can say," said Hugh affably. He rose unsteadily. "Well, I'd best be getting back to my master's room. Thanks for the ale."

"You're most welcome."

Elias watched Hugh walk slowly and cautiously to the door, and then out into the darkening yard. And as he watched the servant, Elias could feel tears p.r.i.c.kling in his eyes.

"Who are you?" Bertrand barked.

Denise dropped her broom and fell back a step, her mouth working with alarm.

Baldwin touched Bertrand's arm and stepped around him, smiling rea.s.suringly. "Do not worry, Sister. This is the visitor, here to speak to your prioress about the death of the novice. My friend and I are both a.s.sisting him."

"I am the sacrist, My Lord Bishop," Denise said breathlessly. "I am sure that Lady Elizabeth woulda*

Bertrand waved his hand dismissively. "I'll see her later. For now, tell us where the poor girl's body has been put."

Baldwin walked at Simon's side a short way behind the visitor. Bertrand was rushing at this affair like a maddened boar, he thought. The man had no idea of subtlety. Even now he moved along at a cracking pace, hands clasped behind his back, withered left hand grasped in his right as if there was need for urgency. Baldwin was convinced that there was not. As far as he was concerned, the first thing to clear up was whether or not there had been a murder. No matter what the treasurer's letter to Bertrand had said, deaths could often look suspicious. Especially if someone wanted things to look odd, and from the allegation the treasurer had made, she clearly thought something strange was going on. No, Baldwin hoped the whole matter had come up because of an accidental death; if so, then so much the better, for then they could all return to their homes.

But if the treasurer was right and there had been a deliberate killing, Baldwin wasn't sure the hot-headed bishop would want to solve the crime. He felt no personal animosity towards Bertrand, other than the automatic dislike for a Frenchman of the cloth based upon his Order's destruction, but he had a wish to get back to Furnshill as quickly as possible in case war should break out. In any event, no matter what Peter Clifford had told the bishop, enquiring into a murder in a convent was work for a priest, not a Keeper.

Denise brought them to the eastern wall of the cloister, and now she hesitated at the door to a small room. Baldwin thanked her before he stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, and then he saw the body lying wrapped up on a trestle at the far side beneath a window.

"Could you fetch us light?" he asked, and Denise gave him a doubtful look before she nodded and went back to the church.

"Come, Simon."

The reluctant bailiff followed him to the body and the two men began unwrapping the linen shroud. Simon disliked this task; he always found it unpleasant but this case was particularly difficult, for the girl was only a little older than his daughter Edith, and she had a similar build. As he helped pull her yielding body over to tug the shroud from her, he found himself contemplating his feelings, were he to see a man do this to his own little Edith. His imagination took hold of him, and for a moment he almost believed that when the covering was lifted he would see Edith's sightless face looking up at him. The superst.i.tious vision conjured in his mind almost made him stop and step away.

Moll was naked. Her tunic had been saved for another novice. It was a relief to see that the woman they were exposing was a brunette and not a blonde like Edith.

"Here's the surgeon's mark," Baldwin said. There was a small cut in the arm, just as any blood-letter would make. "It is hard to believe that so small a scar could cause death."

"It's like I said, Sir Baldwin. The phlebotomist is known to me. He wouldn't make an elementary mistake like that."

"So you say," Baldwin agreed absently. He was pulling the linen away from the corpse's face. As the last of the covering came away, he stood a moment studying her carefully.

It was clear that she had been a pretty little thing. Here in the dimly lit chamber, she appeared to have almost a pale glow about her, and in the cool atmosphere there was none of the unpleasant stench that was the usual concomitant to death. Even Simon was little affected, Baldwin saw. Baldwin was used to Simon retreating as a corpse was revealed, his stomach rebelling. With her eyes shut, this dead novice had the appearance of a girl asleep, and as Baldwin surveyed her, he was almost persuaded that there was a smile upon her face.

"Surely this child wasn't murdered. She seems so relaxed," he said.

Bertrand gave him a sharp glance. "You sure?"

"No, I am only going on my first impression, but her face shows no signs of fear or pain."

Denise returned carrying a large stand with three fat candles, only one of which was alight. "They all blew out," she said anxiously. "I had to return to light one."

Baldwin smiled his thanks, and used the one still burning to relight the others. Then he set the stand by Moll's head. "Her features are definitely relaxed, but we have to see that there is no other wound on her body, if you want to be certain." He looked enquiringly at the bishop, who waved his withered hand in a.s.sent.

Holding the candle high over her body, Baldwin surveyed the whole of her torso, her limbs and face. There was no obvious wound. With Denise's and Simon's help he rolled the corpse over, but her back displayed only the darkening to be expected on a dead body left to lie. Blood, as Baldwin knew, tended to drain downwards in a corpse. Then he went to her head and squatted down, carefully feeling the whole of her skull, parting the locks in his search for any sign of blood, broken bones or bruising. He had once missed a crushed skull, proof of murder, on a child, and was keen not to repeat that error.

At last he stood and peered down at her face, candle held nearby.

"Nothing, is there?" Simon said softly.

"No," said Baldwin, but as he spoke his eye caught sight of what looked like a swelling on her lip. He leaned closer, then crouched, staring at her profile. There was no discolouration so it didn't look as if she had been punched or beaten, but her upper lip protruded too much on one side.

Baldwin held the candle to her face and lifted her lip gently. He stood peering at her teeth and the inner surface of her lip. The teeth had been mashed into the lip, puncturing it in places, and weakening the teeth themselves, as if someone had held something over her face.

"Well?" Bertrand demanded. "Can you see something there?"

Baldwin set the candle back in its holder and stood lost in thought. Then he raised her eyelids and peered at her eyes. The irises were very small, something he had seen before in men who were drugged. Baldwin went over each of her limbs once more, but this time more slowly and methodically. When he reached her upper arms he slowed, going from one to the other, peering closely.

At the front of each of her biceps was a yellow-brown bruise. Baldwin wondered whether a cord had bound them, but rejected the idea. There would have been a circular mark all around the arm if she had been tightly bound. He stood back: bruising; swollen lips; her teeth beneath slightly loose, as if she had been stifled; the cut in her arm from the blood-lettera Baldwin took the candle up again and looked carefully at the slash, pulling the edges apart gently, probing into it. A phlebotomist always made one cut, a quick slash over the vein. This girl had suffered two cuts: one over the veins, the second at a slight angle to the first, and deeper.

There could be no doubt.

"She was murdered," he breathed.

It was twilight when Agnes left the treasurer's side and made her way out to the cloister nearest the church. Here she hesitated, agonising whether to enter or not, but her caution was overwhelmed by her recollection of Luke's face and she quietly opened the door and slipped inside.

Her heart started pounding with mixed nervousness and excitement when she saw him.