“Perhaps Gytha knows a suitable person?”
Eleanor nodded. Her maid, now a full-grown woman of seventeen summers, knew everyone in Tyndal village. “And the priory must also show our pleasure at his return. Prior Andrew will invite him to share a humble meal with us.”
“Sister Matilda’s meals may be simple but never humble,” Anne replied.
Nodding with amused agreement, Eleanor peered into the herb basket lying on the table. “What have you harvested?”
The sub-infirmarian picked up a handful of fleshy green leaves with sharp maroon tips. “Houseleek will serve to ease any insect bites our monks and nuns have suffered with the coming of the warm weather, I think.” Replacing that, she fingered some white flowers. A strong fragrance filled the room. “An ointment from this Madonna lily may ease Sister’s Ruth’s corns.” A glee untinged by suitably pious benevolence teased at the corners of her mouth.
Eleanor turned to stare out the window as if something unusual had just caught her attention. “How fares Brother Thomas?” she asked, her tongue stumbling on the monk’s name.
“I want to try an infusion of chamomile flowers for easier sleep and a mix of crushed, sweetened rosemary to chase his melancholia away.”
“He has grown so thin and pale since our return from Amesbury. I would believe he was a ghost if I did not know otherwise.”
“Sleep, even when it comes, rarely refreshes him.”
“Brother John has found no solution? Can he offer no comfort?”
Anne hesitated as she considered how to phrase her response. Eleanor might know that the sub-infirmarian still spoke with the man she would always call husband, but the nun wished to protect the prioress from the details of how often they did meet or the particulars of these otherwise chaste encounters. “So far he has failed, much to his sorrow.”
“I thought the festering wound was caused by his father’s death, but surely there must be something else troubling Brother Thomas.”
“Brother John fears that Satan has infected our brother’s soul with some foul pestilence. If prayer, fasting, and self-mortification fail to cure him, he believes we must take more severe measures and use exorcism to cauterize the decay brought by the Evil One.”
The prioress shuddered. “May God be merciful and chase the imp away! Yet I hear a note of disagreement in your words. Does exorcism not find favor with you?”
The nun shook her head. “Brother Thomas continues to give most godly comfort to the sick and dying in our hospital. How can such a man be owned by the Devil?”
“Still, the Evil One is a clever creature,” Eleanor replied, “and Brother John does not often suggest such a remedy. For those reasons, I am disposed to take his recommendation; although it is drastic I would agree.”
“I beg you to let me try other methods first! I did persuade Brother John to wait before he came to you for permission to perform exorcism.”
“You are very much the child of your physician father.”
“I do not deny the strength of evil or of God’s grace, but I have also learned that skullcap is often useful in these matters and vervain may chase malevolent spirits away should rosemary and chamomile fail.”
“God shows grace in many ways. For this reason, I have never denied the power of the healing arts when used with His direction.” Eleanor hesitated. “I agree that a man, who continues to offer a gentle touch to the dying and spends his days in kind acts, is not likely to have given his soul into the Devil’s hand. Yet, if he has not, what could be the cause of our brother’s torment?”
Anne shook her head with frustration. “I wish I knew. When I begged him to confide his grief, he said only that his dreams were indescribable and the source inexplicable.”
“Has there been any improvement after he began this latest task?”
“I believe so. He told me that carrying medicines at night to the sick and aged in Tyndal village has brightened his spirit. If sleep fails him, he would rather help those who cannot come to our hospital, yet need the ease our herbs can offer. Bringing mercy is far better, he said, than pacing the monks’ cloister garth, which does little to chase away his own suffering.”
Eleanor did not reply, nor did her expression betray her thoughts.
“Before an exorcism is done, I would try other remedies that wise men say will chase feverish dreams away while our brother continues his nightly mercies. These methods will take time to brighten the dark shade of his humors, but they are far kinder than exorcism.”
“Your advice is always worthy. Of course, you have my permission, and I pray daily that our brother’s melancholia will be cured. Along with your herbs, his extra acts of kindness may be enough to strike Satan’s hot hand from his heart.”
“God has smiled on us for many months now. May He do so in this matter as well.”
“Aye, except for Brother Thomas’ suffering, we have been blessed with peace. I must believe that God saw how greatly we have suffered from worldly violence and mercifully blessed us with a long reprieve from so many mortal woes.”
“With one exception, I fear.” Anne grinned as she gestured toward the now firmly shut door.
“Sister Ruth may think murderous thoughts on occasion,” the prioress laughed, “but our sub-prioress loves God too much to ever act upon them.”
Chapter Two
The summer night air had never felt so thick, Brother Thomas thought as he trudged along the path to Tyndal village. Each muscle in his body ached with the effort. Had he ever loved the summer season? Perhaps in the years before he became a monk. As a boy?
How long ago that seemed. He struggled to recall something of the time but could only see a fleeting image, albeit one of flashing color. Indeed he no longer expended much effort to recapture such memories. What sickening man wants to remember pleasures he had in life?
“Sinful musing,” he muttered to himself. Brother John had told him to concentrate on the joys awaiting him in Heaven when earthly troubles bore down with crushing weight. Were he a true monk, Thomas thought, such thoughts should make his heart rejoice. Instead, they only ground a sharper edge on his anguish.
Thomas cursed the humid thickness of the still night air. His burning eyes longed for the soothing cool of autumn weather. Surely he would suffer less if he got more sleep. How many nights had it been since he had slept longer than an hour or two?
With so little rest, he had begun to see and hear strange things: naked, rampant imps dancing in the cloister garth; disembodied voices calling his name with such sweetness that he wept with longing; faces of people, some long dead, whom he had once loved.
If he did not believe that his soul would tumble into Hell, he would welcome death. But the Devil would rejoice if he committed self-murder, and Thomas was in no mood to give the fiend any more satisfaction than the creature already enjoyed with him.
At least he now had these nightly distractions. When Sister Anne suggested a new task to fill his sleepless hours, he accepted with eager gratitude. By providing aid to those who suffered far more than he, the monk found some relief. He might be the most wicked of men, but at least he could ease pain, bring comfort, and hold the hands of the dying. In addition, the walks into the village fatigued him enough to blunt the sharpness of tortured dreams when he did sleep.
Thomas exhaled a deep sigh. Poor Brother John was grieving over his failure to cure the melancholia. His confessor was a man of compassion and faith, but nothing John had suggested eased the feverish dreams, the taunting visions, or the coal-dark burden in his heart.