“Ralf must not hear of this,” Signy sobbed.
“That, I cannot promise. If he does not hear it from me, he will hear it from others. Ivetta has detailed moles and marks on your private parts to all in the village square. The blacksmith will shout out anything else he has learned to cast suspicion of murder away from him. I cannot prevent further humiliation and shame, but the truth may protect you from the hangman.”
Signy put her hand to her mouth. As she spoke, she looked away from the prioress. “I did let Martin back into my bed some months ago.”
“Why?”
“Do not ask. I beg of you!” Her eyes began to flash with anger, although her cheeks now glistened with tears. “You would not understand what I…”
“Understand? No, I do not, nor would others who have not so vowed themselves to chastity. If, as you claim, you hated the man for a rape committed against you as a young girl, why would you now eagerly spread your legs for him again? Many would find cause to ask that, not just I.”
Shocked at the prioress’ harshness, Signy opened her mouth to reply but all speech had fled.
“You may think me cruel, but my words are far gentler than those you shall hear flung at you during your public trial.”
The innkeeper’s niece slipped to her knees. “My lady,” she said, “I beg forgiveness for what I have both said and thought.”
The prioress rose and took Signy by the hands. “Your penance shall be the truthful telling of what happened. If there is violence in your tale, I promise I shall seek some reason to beg for mercy on your behalf.”
The woman rose, wiped her cheeks dry with her sleeve, then took the mazer of ale and sipped. “Many months ago,” she began, clearing her throat, “I took a man into my bed, someone my heart adored. I believed he cared for me as I did him. Instead, he used me as casually as he would any whore.” She squeezed her eyes shut.
Eleanor gently touched Signy’s hand.
“Filled with shame and anger, I let Satan possess me. For some time I was blind to either virtue or reason, and I sought out Martin for his charming lies, although I swear I lusted after his false flattery more than I ever did his body.”
Eleanor said nothing, her silence proclaiming her skepticism eloquently enough.
Signy flushed. “You are right enough to cast that look at me, my lady. Although I did love the balm of his words, Martin is not only clever in speech but has learned well how to pleasure a woman.”
The prioress nodded but quickly closed her eyes to veil her own thoughts.
“But the secret I wished kept was not so much the wickedness of lust. I found myself with child,” she whispered. “I sought the advice of old Tibia. The babe…”
“…died?”
As if the word had been a blow, Signy’s head jerked to one side.
“Martin knew this?”
“Somehow he learned it, although I did not tell him.”
“Who did?”
“Not the herb woman. Not only did she have cause to avoid him after the death of her son, no one would go to her if she were one to tell their secrets.”
“Could another have overheard you speak of it? Think back on what you might have said, when, and to whom.”
“I confided in no one else,” Signy protested but fell silent then, frowning with thought. “Yet I do suspect someone. I would not like to say the name, lest I accuse unjustly.”
“Do not fear explaining this to me. I will decide the merit of your thoughts.”
“As I left Tibia with her remedy in hand, I saw Ivetta coming around the side of the hut. At the time, I assumed she had come for the same reason I had, but she was surely skilled enough in such matters and had no cause to seek the herb woman’s help. Perhaps she listened at the wall? There are enough holes in it that the winter wind finds little resistance.” She stopped to think further. “If she heard my plight, she would have told Martin. Perhaps she learned many other secrets at Tibia’s walls and passed them on to him. Of course! How else would he have learned so much? And he did find merriment in making others squirm when he revealed vices they thought were buried deep.”
Eleanor waited as a renewed stream of hot tears extinguished the fury glowing in the blue eyes of the innkeeper’s niece. “And did he find a way to torment you for this?”
“Aye, my lady.” Once again, she rubbed her cheeks dry of tears. “Two nights before his death, Martin accosted me in the stable near the inn. He was tiring of Ivetta, he said, and of being a bawd for an aging harlot. He wanted the inn to bring him honest wealth, a respectable business and a profitable one. I must marry him, he said, and pass the business on to his control at my uncle’s death. If I refused, he would make sure the entire village learned that I was a whore and a murderer of babies. No decent man would come forth to marry me then, and, even if my uncle honored his promise to grant me the inn, all would assume I would turn it into a brothel.”
“Thus losing the custom of pilgrims and other virtuous travelers.”
“Aye.”
“You could deny his tale as a malicious lie. Others have suffered from Martin’s vile tongue and you would have gained sympathy.”
“Only the twist he would have put on the story was a lie, my lady. What Ivetta screamed to the entire village may have been humiliating enough, but think how much more credible Martin would be since he had swyved me. My uncle has long protected me from lewd fondling. With this one exception, I have kept my lapses from chastity both rare and discreet. Hence, I own the reputation as a woman no man should approach with sinful intent. That would have ended with the cooper’s tale.”
“Your uncle is still innkeeper and able to protect you from…”
“He has never married, my lady, and believes women are either whores or virgins. Although he has been kind to me and I am grateful, his opinion in this matter is so inflexible that I wonder how he honored his mother who must have bedded with his father in order to give birth to him.”
“Does he not know about your lovers?”
“If he did, I do believe he would have thrown me out to earn my bread on my back.”
Eleanor paused while she thought about what Signy had just told her. “You do have a motive for killing Martin.”
The woman nodded. “Nor will I pretend I did not long for his death. I have not hidden my transgressions from you, my lady. On that truthfulness I do swear I am innocent of murder. To wish for the crime may be as great an offense as the act in God’s eyes, but surely He will forgive the thought sooner than the deed.”
Although the prioress longed to believe this woman’s tale, she could not quite set aside the conclusion that Signy had good cause to kill Martin. By committing the deed, she would have saved her reputation, avoided an unthinkable marriage, and kept her uncle’s protection along with the promised inheritance of a profitable inn.
Yet Eleanor knew that murder was most extreme and surely Signy would have found other solutions to the problems. She was a clever enough woman and could have twisted the tale, just as Martin might have done, to give the facts a more favorable cast. As for her uncle, surely he was not as ignorant of her lapses in virtue as she believed. Finally, as a practical matter, who else would inherit the inn? If there had been any male relative of any talent, a niece would never have been named heir in the first place.
As she pondered further, Eleanor asked herself if Ivetta didn’t have reason as well to kill the cooper. She claimed to have loved Martin and still wished to bear his child despite the hardships inherent in keeping the babe. It was true that she was no longer as attractive as she had once been. Perhaps Martin told the truth when he said he found it less and less profitable to be her bawd. If the cooper had married Signy and dropped Ivetta, how would the woman live?
Yet killing Martin solved nothing for Ivetta either. Now the woman was as bereft of support from her bawd as she would have been if he had cut her free of his control through some marriage. Was the murder done out of such strong passion that all reason fled? Was there something Eleanor had yet to learn that might make sense of why the death occurred when it did?