Gently, he withdrew the temptation. “A fine creature,” he replied to the goatherd.
“She may give the best milk, and my wife has made some excellent cheeses from it, yet this one’s a brazen thing. Sorry if she’s troubled you.” The man’s expression was polite, but hints of laughter lurked in his words. A symbol of lust, a goat chancing on a celibate religious was an encounter rife with lewd implications.
“May the tale of this meeting between beast and monk bring you pots of warming ale on these cold nights.” Thomas winked, then gave his blessing.
Slapping the creature on the rump to send her off, the goatherd bowed with sincere respect and left to tend his beasts.
The goat cast Thomas a flirtatious look before pushing her way into the midst of her fellows.
The monk stepped back and let the rank and raucous herd pass by. Now that he was pulled out of his musings, Thomas felt the insidious damp and began to shiver with its chill, but his mirth over the goat had chased away much of his melancholy.
Some evil in this place had truly cast spells on them all. He himself had gotten into a fight with Sir Hugh, a violence he regretted. Not once, until now, had he struck another in anger since becoming a monk. A man with other allegiances would have been justified in defending his honor, but Thomas served God. Although his faith was a lesser thing, he had still vowed service to Him. When he returned to the priory, he would beg severe penance from Brother John.
The last goat bounded past him. As he watched the shaggy beasts move toward the gate, Thomas saw a solitary horseman emerge from the nearby stables. It was the baron’s nephew, edging his horse through the crowd of milling people and animals. He was alone. That is puzzling, the monk thought.
Hadn’t the knight told Prioress Eleanor that he would take a party of soldiers with him to find Sir Hugh? The monk saw no armed men. Where was the promised protection in case Raoul was cornered and turned violent? Or was the nephew going elsewhere?
Uneasy, Thomas pushed his way through the crowd. The press of men’s bodies against the horse had slowed the rider, but the monk was able to weave through them and close enough to see that the knight was dressed in chain mail. He also carried a small crossbow along with sword and dagger. The man’s purpose must be to find Raoul. He was too well prepared for a fight.
Once more, the monk glanced over his shoulder toward the stables. No other soldiers, mounted or not, were visible. Thomas doubted Leonel had sent them ahead. There had not been enough time to summon a company and also give orders.
Turning around again, he saw that the knight was approaching the gate that led to that rocky finger of land linking castle to coast. The monk decided to follow. Amidst the throng of merchants, servants, and craftsmen, Thomas found an orderly line of people headed to the gate as well, and he joined them.
Sir Leonel was a man of much beauty and great charm, Thomas thought, yet he was curiously unmoved by either. Not entirely, he reminded himself, but his lust had been as brief as a lightning flash. Although he might never be free of his yearning to lie in another man’s arms, the incident last summer involving the young man named Simon was too fresh. The memory was like ice on his groin. He sighed with bitterness and relief in equal measure. In truth, he disliked Sir Leonel.
As he continued to follow the knight over the drawbridge, Thomas forced his mind to honesty and asked if his aversion had been formed out of thwarted desire more than reason and experience. As he well knew, men often draped their coarser lusts with the soft cloth of moral rectitude.
Thomas stared at the rider now some distance ahead of him, then shook his head. Other men, since he had come to Tyndal, had tempted him more than this knight, yet their memories brought him the occasional dream of comfort and release. Looking at Sir Leonel, he felt only disgust.
As he thought more on it, he realized that the most likely cause was found in the knight’s treatment of Prioress Eleanor just a short while ago. Going over the details of that encounter, he remained convinced that Sir Leonel’s speech to her was filled with a mix of sweet honey and the musk of seduction. How dare he treat a woman of her rank and vocation with such dishonor!
Realizing that he had clenched his fists in anger, Thomas stepped out of the moving crowd, shut his eyes, and took a deep breath to calm himself.
The cold air ached in his chest and shocked his wits back into balance. He opened his eyes, fearing he had lost sight of Leonel, but the knight was not far ahead, still riding along the narrow road, his pace slowed by carts coming into the castle. Thomas hurried after him.
Something else about the encounter between his prioress and the knight bothered him. Unlike that meeting with the sheriff at Master Stevyn’s manor over a year ago, she did not greet Leonel’s shameful behavior with indignation. Instead, she had become timid, an attitude he had never before seen in her. Although she sometimes exhibited feminine humility in the company of powerful men, he had learned that this particular meekness was always accompanied by a tightening of her jaw. Unless the matter was inconsequential to her, she never brooked any obstruction to her will.
Had she actually been tempted by this imp in mortal dress?
From his first meeting with Prioress Eleanor, he had concluded she was a woman fiercely dedicated to God’s service. Unlike some who took vows, she neither feared the world nor, despite her youth, was she much tempted by it. He also knew she was a woman of honorable passions, fiercely loyal to family, friends, and her priory. She had shown flashes of anger, directed against those who violated God’s law, and often sorrow, when cruelty wounded mortals beyond healing. He had never known her to lust after a man.
Horrified by the thought, he skidded to a stop so abruptly that a merchant ran into him.
The fellow cursed loudly, then realized he had struck a monk. Appalled by his offense, the man stuttered a rambling plea for pardon.
Waving him off with distracted forgiveness, Thomas forced himself to consider the shocking possibility that this woman of masculine mind and iron will might have betrayed the spirit of her vows. Then compassion slowly numbed the sting of his astonishment.
All mortals are weak, he reminded himself, and women deemed the most fragile. Yet he was a man, possessed of reason, and he had committed the same sin-and more than once. What right had he to cast any stone of condemnation against her? Although his vows had been made with no true vocation, he respected them. Since she had come to God with a purer heart, she would surely fight against temptation far more forcefully than he. And if anyone could send the Devil howling back to Hell, clutching his wounded genitals, it would be Prioress Eleanor.
He grinned.
Or, as was also possible, she had not lusted at all but was infected with that strange enchantment that seemed to plague them all in this place. He had lashed out at Sir Hugh. Even Sister Anne, who always retained both a merry heart and sound reason, had grown distracted and moody. With forced charity, Thomas assumed that his prioress’ brother was a kinder man by nature. Only Master Gamel seemed untouched, but then the monk did not know him well enough to judge.
Thomas realized he had been standing distracted on the road for too long. Leonel had disappeared into the sea mist that swirled over the narrow ridge.
He walked on as swiftly as he dared in the slippery mud. Ignoring the crashing waves on either side of him and the stinging mist enveloping him, Thomas willed himself to continue across the narrowest part of the land bridge in pursuit of the baron’s nephew.
When he told Prioress Eleanor that they might not recognize the face of the Prince of Darkness because they had been blinded by his beauty, he had meant it as a metaphor to explain their inability to find the murderer. Now that he thought more on it, he wondered if he had been more astute than he had realized. Did Leonel own those dazzling features of Satan?