After a few moments, convinced that he had done what was required, the great tabby squirmed out of her arms, leapt to the floor, and returned to the aforementioned bed where his recent nap had been so abruptly interrupted.
Eleanor picked up her aunt’s letter, and then held the item at arm’s length. “He is still a traitor,” she said to the missive, her voice brittle with scorn. “I am a weak woman, Eve’s child, created as an afterthought from a mortal man’s rib. Brother Thomas, on the other hand, is Adam’s descendant, the creature He made first as His more perfect reflection. As the superior being, blessed with logic and reason denied women, shouldn’t Brother Thomas have understood that he could not serve two masters? Did he not understand when he came to Tyndal that he owed me protection and obedience just as the beloved disciple was commanded to do for Our Lord’s mother? He should have known better than to commit such a heinous transgression! How dare he be so deceitful?”
Or was he? And, if he was, should she assume that he was truly disloyal to her?
Eleanor carefully reread her aunt’s letter. Sister Beatrice had not, in fact, condemned the monk for duplicity. While praising him for his dedication to God’s work in ferreting out those who plotted against Church power, she had also carefully emphasized his loyal service to Eleanor and her family at Wynethorpe Castle and more recently in Amesbury Priory.
The prioress walked over to her window and stared out at her priory lands. Was her aunt suggesting that his fealty to any spymaster might be weaker than the oath he swore to her as the leader of this priory? To say so directly would be dangerous, lest the letter fall into the wrong hands. In fact, as she went over the phrasing again, she smiled. If a certain man of significant religious rank read this missive, he might have been quite amused by the naiveté of one woman finding joy in the discovery that her niece’s monk had such a high-ranking patron.
Eleanor chuckled with almost wicked delight. The man was a fool if he thought her aunt was no wiser than some wide-eyed child. But aunt and niece knew well enough how to read the other’s meaning in cautious phrasing. Surely Sister Beatrice had meant to give her practical solace to ease the news of Thomas’ deception.
“He has shown unquestionable loyalty,” Eleanor conceded, “especially at my father’s castle when he had no real cause to do so. If I handle this matter with wisdom, I may yet bind him more firmly to me. Although I’d be foolish to assume he would serve my interests first, should his spymaster’s demands conflict with mine, I have been forewarned in time to prepare for that trial of wills.”
Then she gazed down at the shards from the broken jug and sighed. “Meanwhile, I have sinned by letting the Devil infuse me with the flames of wrath, thereby melting all logic with searing rage. Of course I must choose carefully when it is best to fight and secure my right to his loyalty. There are times I shall concede defeat, but my brother Hugh used to say that any successful warrior will retreat if that means winning the ultimate victory.”
She cleaned up what pieces of the shattered pottery she could find and laid them on the table next to the reprieved platter. Gytha should not have to pick up what she had so wickedly destroyed, the prioress decided, and swore to do penance for this act.
Then Eleanor sat at the edge of her bed and rested her hand on the sleeping cat. “Nor should I let my ungodly lust for the man give the Fiend cause to prance about. My aunt’s advice last year at Amesbury should be burned into my soul. ‘Love and its chaste expressions are not the sins. Vice comes from the selfish greed of mortal flesh when a man and woman couple’,” she repeated. “Since then, when lust burns through me like hot metal, I have found some cooling comfort in her words-and in her assertion that Brother Thomas would ever be my liegeman.”
“My liegeman?” The pain from those words pricked tears in her eyes again, and she swallowed them as anger returned. “That he shall be, for cert! I may never bed him or bear his child, but I have the right to demand a far higher devotion from him than that of husband. He is my monk!”
“My lady?”
Startled, Eleanor spun around.
A pale-faced Gytha stood in the doorway. “Are you well?”
“Aye, well enough.” Eleanor said, raising her chin with recovering dignity. After all, no matter what happened with Brother Thomas, she did still have a priory to run.
“Crowner Ralf begs an audience, my lady, but I will send him off if you…”
“Nay, bid him enter. I would never turn our friend away.” She glanced through her window at the position of the sun. “And bring something to hush his stomach for I do recall that its roaring often mutes any message he brings!”
***
When Gytha opened the door and gestured for Ralf to enter the public chambers, the prioress nodded for her to stay. The maid placed food and drink on the table and retreated to a distance sufficient to allow conversation but still provide proper attendance.
“I am grateful you would see me, my lady.”
“You are always welcome at Tyndal Priory and have been much missed.” The prioress’ eyes grew sad. “When we got word that you had buried a wife, we longed to offer consolation. I have prayed for her soul and that your heart may heal in good time.”
Ralf’s brow furrowed.
It was an expression Eleanor knew well. “I would love to see your daughter,” she said, quickly changing to a happier topic. “How is she?”
A grin broke across his face. “Fat, pink, and beautiful, my lady!”
“Then she is nothing like her father,” Gytha interjected, then flushed with embarrassment at her impertinence.
Ralf stiffened for an instant, and then turned to Eleanor’s maid with a softened look. “She has my lungs if not my face. In this way, my paternity has cursed her young life, but on balance she has found a most adoring father in me.”
“Then she has exposed the soft heart you have taken much care to hide,” Gytha replied, an impish glow in her eyes.
Ralf grinned like a boy.
“What do you call her?” Eleanor asked.
“Sibely. It was her mother’s name. I wished to honor my wife for bringing me such a joy at the sacrifice of her own life.”
As if remembering a task, Gytha jumped up and disappeared into the prioress’ private chambers but not before Eleanor noted moisture on her cheeks.
“I know you came to us for some reason, Crowner,” she said. “How may we help?”
“I have a corpse…”
Eleanor threw open her arms. “And when do you not? Ah, Ralf, I jest, but forgive this frail woman and give me your news.”
“A poisoning, methinks, a deed I need confirmed…”
“…by our sub-infirmarian who was once an apothecary.”
Ralf nodded.
“Should I know the dead one’s name? Perhaps there are kin in need of comfort.”
“Martin, the cooper, my lady.”
Eleanor frowned. “Without doubt, he was not a godly man, but neither did he have wife or children, or at least none that he would claim. Would you prefer to send the body with Cuthbert? I can report back to you on what Sister Anne observed.”
“Nay, I must hear what she says and ask what I need to know.” Ralf lowered his eyes. “My absence from this coast has been long, my lady. Much has changed.”
Eleanor considered his words for a moment, then nodded. “Very well, I shall let our sister know that you will be bringing her a body for examination.”
“I fear that the favor I beg is greater still.”
The prioress gestured for him to continue.
“As a former soldier, I know violent death well, but I have little understanding of poisonings, a form of murder more common amongst those of higher rank methinks.”