Father Vincent’s face had become apoplectic at the very mention of the tiny beggar. “An imp from Hell,” he shouted, pointing a trembling finger at his feet. “You have fed Satan’s whore who dares to use the name Gracia! Is it not blasphemy for a demon to call itself Grace?”
“Nay, Father, a child, not a woman. This one is a little girl.”
“I caught her some weeks ago with a merchant. She had dragged him into this chapel to sate her unnatural lust.” Father Vincent shook like the last leaf clinging to a barren tree. “Into this sacred place! She dared-”
“Weeks ago? You are confused about the beggar I mean. This one bears no signs of a woman’s body. She cannot be the whore of which you speak.”
Father Vincent’s nostrils flared with contempt. “You are sadly ignorant of the Evil One’s cleverness, Brother. After I had found them coupling like dogs, the merchant wept in contrition and confessed the Devil’s dark hand had covered his eyes and blinded him. He swore he did not know what he was doing until I awoke him from the terrible enchantment. This man is generous to the shrine and well-respected here. I have good cause to believe that he had been put under a spell by an imp in Eve’s form.”
Thomas was horrified, but the priest had not finished.
“She, on the other hand, claimed she had committed no willful sin and was innocent of any wrong. When I later caught her in the street, she showed no remorse for the sacrilege she had committed. Instead, she swore it was the good merchant who forced himself upon her. Nor has she come to me since for confession and penance.”
“And why did you not believe her? She is a tiny thing and starving. The merchant, you say, is a grown man and surely well-fed. Which was more likely to force the other to sin?”
Holding his hands out as if they were balances, Father Vincent nodded at his right hand. “Here we have a man of proven charity who grieves over his crime.” Then he indicated his left. “There we have a whore who blames another for her wickedness.” Raising the left hand to suggest the proper answer, he glared at Thomas like a master with a dull pupil. “Her brazen refusal to confess her guilt in the wickedness proves she is Satan’s creature. As the merchant claimed, she bewitched him.”
Thomas squeezed his eyes shut. “Perhaps she was telling the truth,” he replied through clenched teeth. In prison, he had felt no culpability when his jailor raped him, and he had been a grown man. Surely a child must bear no blame at all.
Father Vincent stared at the monk in disbelief. “An honest Christian confesses his transgressions. The Devil’s handmaid denies all sin. Surely you see the difference.”
At that moment, the only thing Thomas could see was blind rage. He did not understand how this priest could casually dismiss the terror this girl must have felt, but he saw no point in arguing further. Before he forgot his vocation and struck the priest, he willed himself to deliver a curt nod, and escaped into the street.
Once there, he looked for the child, but she had disappeared. With sorrow, he realized that he could do too little for her. He was both a stranger and a visitor to this place. When tears slipped down his cheeks, he did nothing to stop them.
***
Hours later, the anger had still not diminished, and it was the sparks of renewed fury that chased away all hope of sleep. There was no help for his misery except to walk until exhaustion forced him into uneasy dreams. At least, Thomas thought, the priest was not in his bed. He was not sure he could remain courteous if the man were to awaken and speak to him.
The monk adjusted his robes, then walked through the opened door into the empty chapel, his soft footsteps disturbing the profound stillness of night.
A few cresset lamps flickered in niches along the stone walls, causing shadows to dance with eerie grace.
The whoosh of wings rippled through the silence. Thomas looked up. Some flying thing had been disturbed in its resting spot near the roof.
As he approached the altar, he paused and knelt to pay homage to the small box containing a few hairs from the Virgin’s head.
He was surprised that Father Vincent was not here either, since he was known to revere this relic he had worked so hard to obtain, but Thomas remained grateful that he need not meet the man. Muttering his complaints to God about the priest, Thomas had little doubt He might share this outrage. Whatever quarrels he had with God, the monk never doubted that He expected compassion from the creatures He had made in His image.
Rising, Thomas looked around in the uneven light but still failed to see the priest anywhere. Perhaps Vincent wished to avoid him as much as he did the priest. If I were charitable, Thomas thought, I would conclude that the priest suffers remorse over what he said about the beggar child and cannot bear to face me after his cruel words.
His mind insisted the supposition was possible. His heart dismissed it.
Thomas walked toward the chapel door and emerged onto the road. Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm himself. The chill night air did begin to soothe him.
He would be wiser to set aside this anger, he decided, and devote his wits to bringing succor to this girl. As he watched his breath grow white in the darkness, he acknowledged that fury was as useless as it was consuming. “Let God deal with Father Vincent,” he muttered and leaned back against the chapel wall.
For a pilgrimage route that attracted many faithful from abroad as well as England, this road grew surprisingly quiet once the sun had set. Noise came from the nearby inn, but the massive stone priory lay between this chapel and the inn, dulling the sound. The major shrines of Walsingham were also located at the other end of this road. Pilgrims, so burdened by sins that they must seek powerful relics after dark, would walk away from Ryehill Priory and the chapel attended by Father Vincent, leaving this part of the road empty.
The night air nips like the taste of a tart apple, Thomas thought, and then chuckled at that image coming to him so quickly. When he had first arrived at Tyndal, he disparaged the coastal reek of fish and other earthy smells. His upbringing had been in towns, castles, and with soldiers. Swords and battlements came to mind sooner than fruit, but rural things were now his life. That was a good change, he thought.
Stretching, he felt a little peace slipping into him.
A woman’s scream shattered his newborn calm.
It seemed to come from the other side of the priory, near the bell tower. Thomas ran in that direction, fearing the woman had been attacked by a band of ruffians or drunken men from the inn.
The street between chapel and priory was narrow, as was the one that led to its bell tower. The darkness was almost palpable, and the houses were so close that only two men might walk side by side. But he met no one on the way.
When he reached the base of the bell tower, he spun around, seeking a glimpse of a fleeing shadow and listening for running footsteps. He saw nothing. The only sounds, apart from the inn’s muted joy, came from water dripping out of the mouth of a stone gargoyle high above him and the sigh of an intermittent breeze.
Then he noticed something on the ground.
He knelt and reached out. His hand touched warm flesh. As his eyes grew used to this gloom, Thomas knew he had found what he feared most. He bent closer.
It was the body of a woman.
He checked for breath but felt none. Quickly, he searched for wounds. Her skull was soft, likely shattered, and her neck was certainly broken. If he could do nothing to aid a living woman, he could at least give ease to her soul, and he whispered God’s mercy into her ear.