"Please come away from the sun. The season may be spring, but the light can be harsh." The woman gestured toward the door of the house. "I have but modest fare to offer you…"
"Brother Thomas praised your ale, mistress," the prioress replied.
"Your monk is kind and a man of austere tastes, my lady."
The two women studied each other for a moment, and when their expressions had shown satisfaction in what each had concluded about the other, they turned toward the dwelling.
At least Bernard had told the truth about one thing, Eleanor concluded as she stepped over the threshold. Wulfstan had spent whatever coin he might have earned from lawless men on items that would benefit his family, not on luxuries. Many squawking chickens were outside, and a hairy goat had greeted her with impudent gaze, one green weed drooping from the side of its mouth. The house was quite large, with three windows, but inside she saw little difference between this place and the home of any other poor man.
As Drifa poured amber liquid into a crudely carved wooden cup, Eleanor noted the freshly laid rushes on the earthen floor as well as the absence of clutter. Whatever his faults, Wulfstan had won himself a diligent wife and one who seemed to have loved him.
"You have been blessed with a large family," Eleanor said conversationally after expressing appreciation for the sharp-tasting but refreshing ale.
"Most of our children have lived and flourished." The widow fell silent.
"Your eldest works most diligently at whatever the priory requires."
"When my husband told Prioress Ida that Sayer could offer many skills for the wages of one man, she was pleased to hire him."
A woman of modest speech and much caution, Eleanor noted. Like many wives who have little time for chatter, Drifa's restraint was sired by thrift, not fear as had been true of her sister, Jhone.
"To have such a talented son must have given you and your husband much joy."
The widow nodded.
"I have heard that the son resembled his father in many ways." Eleanor laughed to give her words a lighter meaning. "The two must have been very close."
The widow leaned back against a pillar.
"Yet I believe they quarreled just before your husband died?"
"The whole village seems to have heard the story, my lady."
"What heavy grief that must bring you."
The sharp intake of breath might have been a sigh or a sob.
Eleanor reached out a comforting hand. "Each of us has sons, mistress. Although you got yours from your husband, God gave me mine. In our Order, a prioress may suffer as the Virgin did when she saw her child dying on the cross, yet strive to see the purpose beyond the misery of mortal flesh. Although I endured no physical pain in the bearing, God commands me to love all men under my rule as if they were truly sons of my body. With that love, I suffer as much as any mother when they fall ill or sin. You and I have some sorrows in common."
Sayer's mother said nothing.
"Please sit beside me," Eleanor said, her voice dropping into a soothing tone, "and let me offer solace as one woman to another. Are men and boys not foolish in their heated words over things that are fleeting? I, too, have grieved deeply when my monks rage on and on about some petty matter. As you yourself have done, I bear the blame when they strive one against another until their humors cool, and peace comes slowly. Thus I understand how deeply you mourn over this bitter quarrel."
Hot tears burst from Drifa's eyes and rolled down her cheeks in a flood. As she slid down onto the bench, Eleanor gently embraced her. The woman's sobs could have not been more despairing if she had just seen her child tumble into Hell's flaming maw. Stirred by the bleakness of Drifa's suffering, Eleanor herself began to weep. For an unmeasured time in that smoke-stained room, the two women clung together, finding a small amount of succor from worldly pain.
At last Eleanor whispered: "Take comfort. In death our souls lose mortal blindness and learn a more godly compassion. Your husband is wiser now and has surely pardoned your son's errors."
Drifa drew back, her red-rimmed eyes still haunted with inconsolable despair. "I pray that he has, my lady, for he claimed the lad was the Devil's spawn."
"Surely not for leading willing monks into the arms of tavern wenches? Your son repented of that, and Prioress Ida had punished the men who strayed. The wall was repaired. All that was in the past."
"Wicked though that had been, it was not the reason my husband said our son was cursed." The widow rubbed the corners of her eyes dry with the tips of two fingers. Her cheeks still shone with dampness.
"What was the cause?"
Drifa covered her face.
The prioress' touch on the widow's arm was gentle. "There is no sin Sayer could have committed that God would not wash clean. We mortals are so quick to condemn, but God is perfect love." Eleanor chanced a smile. "And I do think He grants the Queen of Heaven, a mother herself, the right to bless other mothers with some of that perfection, don't you?"
Drifa dropped her hands and looked at Eleanor in amazement, before her eyes softened with hope. "My son may have seen twenty summers, but he is still a boy, my lady. Satan has made merry with him for cert, but he is not wicked. I told Wulfstan that Sayer need only marry and earn a man's status to return to more godly ways. I thought my husband had agreed but he only hid his anger!"
"Boys do foolish things.
The mother began to cough, her face turning scarlet as she tried to catch her breath. "Wulfstan came home in a rage one night," she gasped. "He had seen Sayer near the river. Another man was swyving him like a whore."
Speechless with shock, Eleanor could only nod.
"That night I calmed him, but soon after he and Sayer got drunk at the inn. The following morning, my husband confessed that he had told our son he would geld him if he ever did such a thing again. My son had shouted that he would kill him first."
As the prioress prayed for words to soothe this woman, she begged God for an understanding she herself lacked. She was not so unworldly as to think some young monk at Tyndal might not suffer the same weakness, but she knew of none. If presented with such a man, would she face him with a mother's love like Drifa, or would she curse him as Wulfstan had Sayer?
Her thoughts raced on. Sodomy was a most unnatural vice, one akin to murder, or so the Church taught. If Sayer was guilty of this sin, might he be equally capable of killing his own father?
Eleanor took a deep breath. There was one powerful argument against this conclusion. Sister Beatrice was not a woman to suffer evil, or be deceived by it, and she had shown much tolerance for the man. Did she not know that Sayer was a sodomite? What if she did? Her head spun with bewilderment.
God must have given her tongue comforting words despite her own swirling confusion. Eleanor could not remember what she had said to Drifa, but the widow's gaze had shone with weary peace when they parted.
As she turned her steps back to the priory, Eleanor knew she would spend much time tonight on her knees, begging for understanding from the Queen of Heaven.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The smell of sizzling fat made Thomas' stomach growl. As his growing hunger began to temper the anguish he had felt in the garden, he found himself amazed at the resilience of a man's belly. God would surely punish him for his blasphemous insolence in time. Of that, he had no doubts. Meanwhile, he accepted the gift of a hot, dripping pastry from a tradesman. The first bite of that pie was a joy.
The weather for this market day was fine, a balm to the spirit, and the bounty in the stalls was a miracle to behold. To his left was a mound of purple and white carrots just picked from the garden. Fresh yellow onions, causing less torture to sensitive stomachs than those stored over winter, lay next to cream-colored turnips. Although the steam of hot fruit tarts spread a most appealing scent of spice mixed with sweet, Thomas' hunger was now satisfied.