He might be a tradesman over fond of his success, Eleanor thought, but she liked his show of consideration for the needs of his new family. A man not without compassion, she decided, glancing up at him.
"Were you coming to see Mistress Jhone and her daughter as well, Master Vintner?"
"It would be wiser if I came later," he replied, his lips twitching with presumed humor. "My purpose was to woo, but I fear that might not be seemly when the Prioress of Tyndal visits. Would you not agree?"
With grace, Eleanor laughed.
Herbert bowed, accepted the blessing of the young monk in attendance, and dropped something into his hand. A moment and he was gone.
Eleanor slid her hands into the sleeves of her robe and watched him walk away. Their meeting had been too brief for more than a hasty assessment, although she acknowledged that she had enjoyed the man's clever and blunt speech. What she found troubling was his attire: a soft woolen robe, with nap so new it was still long and had never been brushed; fur-trimmed, and decorated with gold pins. All this suggested vanity and excessive pride in worldly gain.
She was a nun, of course. Having rejected even the simplest feminine ornament, she knew that she might be disposed to see sin in any blatant display of wealth; but she had also learned to distrust men, when it came to business matters, who preened like peacocks. Unlike Tostig, her direct-dealing partner in the ale trade and a man who cared more for the beasts he also bred than any personal adornment, these well-clad merchants often tried to hide less than honorable practices behind the blinding light of their gold jewelry.
Nevertheless, there were always exceptions to any rule amongst mortal men, and Master Herbert had jested about pride himself, a quality she found refreshing. There was something else she liked about the vintner: his desire to care for what was left of a sadly bereaved family. That had touched her heart. Maybe the man truly was just a new widower, awkward in his courting of a girl not much more than half his age who he must know was in love with another man.
To Eleanor, albeit an old woman of twenty-two summers and not of the merchant class, Master Herbert was agreeable in appearance, with a head full of dark hair and lean enough in body to suggest he did not spend too long at table. Besides excellent teeth, he had taut, clear skin on his face that argued against a greater fondness for his wares than was wise. Eleanor realized with mild surprise that she might not have minded giving her troth to such a man had she been the affianced.
The image of a certain red-haired monk now flooded the prioress' heart with dulled but still palpable pain. Nun she might be, she said to herself, but she was a daughter of Eve and knew how reason melted in the flames of a woman's passion. Nay, had she been told to marry this vintner when her heart and body longed for another, she would be as distraught as Alys. A more rational man might find it easy to view this situation with cool logic, but Eleanor of Tyndal understood all too well how the young woman felt in this matter.
The prioress leaned against the house and vigorously shook the image of the handsome monk from her head.
"Are you ill, Sister?"
Eleanor jumped away from the wall and quickly turned to face the speaker.
Standing in the doorway was a gray-fleshed woman, dressed in robes of equal drabness, who looked much as Alys might when she had reached near two score years.
Chapter Fifteen
Thomas strode to the library, his expression cheerless, his gaze determined, and his tongue thick as if wrapped in rough cloth. Not only did his head hurt but he ached all over after spending the night on the other side of the priory walls, passed out on the damp ground with only a grass nest for bedding.
Upon first awakening, he had kept his eyes tightly shut while images from the previous evening danced through his mind with the mocking gracelessness of gangly imps. When he dared to squint at the sky, the sun's angle confirmed his suspicion that he had missed several of the Offices. Briefly he considered whether he might still join the other monastics for Sext if he hurried, but the contents of his stomach pitched into his throat when he rose. Easing back down on his hard bed, he closed his eyes and decided a quiet musing on his transgressions might be wiser than running off to prayer. He would fast today in expiation for his wrongdoings.
The wine drunk last night was a small enough sin. When he had shed his monastic robes and grown a beard to solve a problem in York last year, his thin-lipped spy master had ordered but one full day of prayer for any sins he might have committed on God's behalf. His cause last night was a godly one as well, and he might even claim that visiting a place so full of tempting worldly pleasures was a worthy test for his soul. Robert of Arbrissel, Fontevraud's founder, would surely have approved the attempt.
Nor had he merely indulged frail mortal curiosity when he listened to Master Bernard's tales of Amesbury and the people who lived there. Fortunately, he had remained sober enough in Bernard's company to remember the details of what he was told. If nothing suggested anything of true merit now, it might later as he thought more on the stories with a sober mind. One conclusion had become apparent. If there were no strangers who had spent any time here or shown any specific interest in the priory, the source of the proposed theft must be local.
And what of the ghost? He could be truthful enough about his failure to find Queen Elfrida's spirit innocent of this most recent murder, but Prioress Eleanor might see something of note in the villagers' belief that demons hid amongst the stones on Salisbury Plain. She often saw things he could not, although time and again she generously asked for his observations.
Thomas rubbed at the grit in his eyes. His prioress was a rarity amongst women, a sex many claimed was plagued by illogic and uncontrolled lust, yet the power of her reason was surpassed by few, in his opinion, and only when she was angry had he seen her gray eyes turn hot like glowing ash.
"In this last, she is a better man than I," he muttered. He envied her ability to stand apart from the sins common to most of Adam's progeny and maintain the masculine balance in her humors while others suffered from their frailties, joyfully selling their souls in exchange for relief from the relentless agony of such weaknesses as lust. "I have not yet made a bargain with the Devil, but I understand why some do," he groaned.
This morning, when Thomas had risen from his grass bed, he had gone to the river and washed himself. Had he not rinsed away the sweat of the night, he could not have faced either Sister Anne or Sister Beatrice, both of whom had bedded men often enough in their youth. He might explain the sourness of wine on his breath, but he could not so easily dismiss the unchaste smell of sex. Therein lay his greatest sin, the least forgivable one, from his evening at the inn.
While the other monks of Amesbury had been singing the Morning Office, Thomas had been deep in dreams. In the past, when Satan's incubus came to seduce him in his sleep, it had always donned the shape of Giles. The caresses Thomas exchanged with that image of his boyhood friend were founded in honorable love, so when his flesh hardened, Thomas cursed the Lord of Fiends and did not condemn himself in the morning for any greater wickedness than a common failing of a man's sex.
Last night, however, the Devil had introduced a disquieting variation in his cruel sport. The incubus who drew the monk into his arms may have worn the body of Giles, but the face was that of Sayer. When Thomas awakened, bursting out of this dream with a rare orgasmic joy, he had lain on the ground, grateful for the physical release of dammed-up seed but terrified by feelings he did not understand.