"I won't ask why you were on the library roof, Brother, but I suggest that there are easier places to talk to God."
Despite the throbbing in his wound, the monk chuckled. "Sayer was showing me some of the skills needed to repair the slate."
The infirmarian raised an eyebrow. "Indeed," he said, resuming with an application of salve. "Is your priory at Tyndal so poor that monks must be trained to do such work?"
"We have lay brothers enough, but, since Sayer is only rarely on the ground at this priory, I had to climb closer to Paradise to offer consolation for his father's death. He continued his labors while I did."
Brother Infirmarian reached for a binding. "His grief must be sharp. A sad thing to quarrel with your father and have him die before you can settle the matter."
"Had it caused so deep a rift between them?"
The monk shrugged. "Sayer is a bit of a rogue, much like his father when he was younger, but I think Mistress Drifa would have forced them to make peace."
"Then the dispute involved nothing that would cause either to harm the other?"
"Oh, you heard that Sayer swore he would kill Wulfstan?" The infirmarian laughed as he finished the binding and sat down beside Thomas. "I wouldn't put much credence in that, Brother. I once told my father I would kill him and he survived four score!"
"And what was your disagreement about?"
The man's eyes twinkled. "There was a girl I wanted to marry. My father was opposed. It was then I threatened him."
"How did you resolve the matter?"
"My beloved died before we could wed, and I took the cowl. With a repentant heart, my father cursed his obstinacy and begged forgiveness. I promised him daily prayers, and we wept together in each other's arms. Fathers and sons have ways of making peace. Had Wulfstan lived, I have no doubt that he and Sayer would have done the same."
"Do you know the cause of their quarrel? If so, I could use that knowledge to bring a more effective comfort to the son."
"Although I listen to gossip like any other wicked mortal, I put little faith in it. True or not, the stories are often entertaining, but I do not repeat what I hear. The Fiend loves those who spread scandal."
Thomas hoped he hid his regret at the infirmarian's admirable restraint. "You are wise not to repeat it," he said. "I grieve that many are not so hesitant about telling tales and pray that no one has spread damaging lies about Sayer and his father."
The monk looked away.
The gesture told Thomas that some story must be abroad. All he had to do was find a man willing to tell him what it was.
As he walked through the garden of the monks' cloister garth, despondency dropped over Thomas like a sodden cloak even as questions raced through his mind. A cawing distracted him. Looking up, he saw the dark shape of a crow. It circled overhead before flying off, perhaps to the nest near the library.
Had Sayer returned to his work? Even if he had, Thomas knew he would not seek him out there. He could not. His face turned hot with an emotion he did not want to name, and he forced his thoughts back to the recent discussion with his prioress and Sister Beatrice.
He hoped he had not betrayed his shock when Prioress Eleanor suggested that someone might be trying to steal the Amesbury Psalter, yet he had also felt relief at her joining the pieces in that way. Even though he could not speak of his own commission from the Church in this matter, he could now count on her cleverness and support as he had longed to do. Of course, he was pleased that he had won this small victory over his spy master. He might owe the man gratitude for saving his life, but he did not always respect his judgement and resented the power the man wielded over him.
His small pleasure quickly soured. Was Sayer the thief Thomas had been sent to catch? Was Drifa's deft-witted son a brutal killer? His heart still rebelled against any conclusion that Sayer might be involved, even though he knew there was cause enough to believe it. A man's reason ordered him to acknowledge that the roofer was implicated in the crime. In this they had all agreed, but another emotion, devoid of logic, shouted otherwise to him.
For Thomas, the world had turned upside down since that night at the inn. Sister Beatrice and Prioress Eleanor bore women's bodies, but their souls housed a man's solid reason. He was afflicted with a woman's perceptions. That these had served him well in the past did not soothe him now. Indeed, he cursed them. When had the Prince of Darkness stolen his manhood and given him a woman's soul? If men became women and women men, he snarled, the end of the world must be close to hand.
Nay, it was his soul that was in disarray, not the world. The novice mistress and her niece were holy women, given strengths beyond their sex by their vocations. On the other hand, God had surely given him to Satan for his plaything.
Even Sayer had taunted him about suffering womanly fear when he sat on the roof. Womanly, was he? The monk uttered an oath. Yet he had reached out for the roofer's hand like some maiden begging a knight to save her from distress. Thomas' stomach roiled with disgust at himself.
That his logic was weak and he had shown cowardice at that great height were less terrifying than the betrayal of his body. He could argue that an incubus had put on Sayer's features when he had swyved the roofer in his dream, but Thomas could not ignore how he trembled on the roof like a virgin on her wedding night, longing for the embrace while fearing the loss of her maidenhead.
"I am no man at all," he cried out. "I am a creature made in the image of Satan with a man's sex and a woman's breasts!"
Amidst the bursting buds and flowering shrubs of that silent monastic garden, he fell to his knees, bent his forehead to the earth, and wept. His howls of pain were as sharp as the wailings of one damned beyond any hope of forgiveness, and he beat his head against the ground as if one torment could numb the other.
At last the roaring in his soul diminished and his sobbing subsided. Gulping air like a man who has almost drowned, he sat back on his heels and swiped angrily at his damp cheeks. "Why have You done this to me?" Thomas raised his eyes heavenward.
The light became too bright for his reddened eyes. He covered them.
"You cannot deny it," he whispered angrily into his hands. "The Prince of Darkness may have sent this cruel affliction, but You allowed it. Did You not let Satan plague Job, jesting that he would never turn his face from You no matter what he suffered? Perhaps Job did not do so, but I am not he. I curse You for this!"
Thomas uncovered his eyes and bent down to touch the uneven particles of earth while he waited for God's hot wrath to destroy him. Terror of eternal torture for his blasphemy numbed him, but he could not retract his words.
A hush in the gentle wind and a silence that held neither condemnation nor peace were all that greeted him.
Thomas looked up. He was alone in the gardens.
"Torment me as You will then," he said in soft voice, "but surely You cannot hate me more than the one who murdered two innocent men, two unshriven souls howling for justice."
That said, Thomas rose unsteadily to his feet and set off in the direction of the village.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A small shadow edged across the garden to the place where Drifa knelt, pulling young weeds from the dark earth. She jumped to her feet.
"My lady!"
"I did not mean to frighten you," Eleanor replied. Was the pallor of the widow's face the result of grief, or was another visit from the priory cause for fear?
Drifa rubbed the soil from her fingers as color returned to her cheeks. "Forgive me, but my thoughts had fled elsewhere. Your visit is most welcome."
There was gratitude in her tone. Looking around and seeing no one else about, Eleanor guessed the reason. Solitude was often a traitorous fellow, eager enough to open Heart's gate to the cruel assault of Sorrow.