"Why did you and your father quarrel?" he asked when it arrived.
"That was between my father and me."
"There are those who say you, not some ghost, killed your father."
Sayer pointed to the inn door. "You saw the last man who suggested that to me, but I would not strike a monk. I earn bread for my mother and kin from the priory."
"I did not say you had done the deed, only that others have claimed it. My curiosity is not idle, nor do I accuse. I ask only for the truth. Do you not think the priory that gives you work has the right to know? If you do not answer me, another may well demand it and with less kindness."
"Two pitchers are on your bill." The young man tossed back his ale and poured again. For a moment, he said nothing, then looked at Thomas with unfocused eyes. "My father did not approve of some of my ways," he slurred. "Is that enough for you?"
"Was that disapproval reason enough for you to threaten murder?"
"Ask yourself why I would kill him. Might I not prefer to find a wife and start my own family rather than support my mother and my siblings?"
"Yet you were heard to say…"
Sayer shrugged with evident annoyance. "I no longer recall the exact cause of our fight. He was drunk as was I, a condition that offers sweet forgetfulness after days filled with the questionable joys of unrelenting soberness."
"Had he enemies?"
"All men do."
"I grow impatient with evasion. You know well enough what I mean, and, if you are innocent, you would serve your cause better by speaking the truth."
Sayer rubbed at his eyes. "Although I accused the ghost after seeing my father's corpse, no such creature had any cause to harm him. Queen Elfrida would not have cared what my father did as long as his labor provided her monks with enough food to sustain their prayers on her behalf. At that he worked hard, although he sometimes spoke ill of the priory's religious when his back ached."
Thomas nodded.
"As for Mistress Eda's spirit, my father agreed with my mother that she was wrongly accused, thus her phantom had no reason to harm him. The vintner's wife was honest and caring in life. Even after suffering the agonies of the damned, her soul would be incapable of murdering anyone so foully."
"You loved her?"
"Even rogues may honor goodness."
"There are tales abroad that you bedded her."
"You say such a story is about?" Sayer's face darkened with anger. "A fool told that lie, Brother, and a greater one believes it."
"Then I must ask again about old enemies. Did your father have them, perhaps from the days when he performed service to men who broke the king's law?"
Sayer gave the monk a meaningful look as he poured the remaining ale into his mug.
Thomas waved for more drink.
With a thud, the serving wench set another jug down on the table.
"There is no truth…"
Thomas growled a warning.
Sayer drank deeply, poured, and drank again. "I knew the stories well enough from others, but my father never spoke of those times. Most of the men either died long ago or else returned to more lawful pursuits, as did he." The roofer fell silent.
Compassion battled against suspicion inside Thomas' heart as he watched Sayer clutching his cup like a shipwrecked sailor holding onto a floating spar. "Why did you two fight?" he asked at last, his voice soft. "You remember well enough. Do not feign addled wits with me and claim your reason has grown rotten with ale. Your words have been too quick."
Sayer looked up at the ceiling, his mouth quivering with barely controlled grief. "Brother, ask not why we fought." His voice hoarsened with tears. "This I do swear to you on any holy relic: I did not kill my father. My soul may be so black that even God in His mercy would turn His countenance away, but I loved the man who sired me!" With that, Sayer began to weep.
Thomas reached out to touch the man with a gesture of sympathy but his hand froze. Instead, he quickly slid from the bench and found a serving wench. "Here is coin," he said, gesturing back at the roofer. "Make sure he has what he wants to drink, plus food and a bed for the night, should he need either."
The agony he had seen in Sayer's eyes was an emotion he himself had hoped to set aside one day. Now he doubted he ever could. Filled with his own confused fears and sorrows, Thomas hurried from the inn.
Chapter Thirty-One
"Prioress Eleanor! What a pleasant surprise to chance upon you here." Master Herbert bowed with grace. "Are you on your way to visit Mistress Jhone and her daughter?"
"I am returning to the priory," she replied, praying that her tone concealed the dismay she felt at this meeting. After the recent discussion with Wulfstan's widow, then Master Bernard, she longed to return in time for the soothing prayers of the next Office.
"I fear that you think ill of me," the vintner said, blocking her path.
Eleanor cast a covert glance at the sun and then heard the bells. Even if she left now, she would be late for prayer. Maybe God had sent the vintner to speak with her and He would bring her that understanding later when she knelt alone in her chambers. With a quiet sigh, she surrendered to the circumstances and inclined her head with an encouraging gesture toward the merchant.
He smiled. "I do understand why Alys might prefer a tender boy to this man with hints of hoarfrost on his brow…"
Silver-headed was not a word anyone would use to describe this still dark-haired and well-favored merchant, Eleanor thought, and she found that unsubtle plea to affirm his manhood mildly offensive. Swallowing her irritation, she gestured sympathetically.
"… but I had hoped to win her over in time. Such a union is in both our interests, and I am not so aged that she would have any reason to complain of me."
"You do not long for the lady herself?" The prioress shaded her question with the tone of one who understands the merits of mutually profitable marriages.
"It would be rude of me to suggest I fancied only her dead father's business." He stroked the thick nap on his robe. "A business I need not, but one I am most willing to take on for a wife able to bear sons. Of course, I do find her most comely."
Eleanor looked at him askance. "A woman worth bedding, but will you treat her kindly even if she does not bear those sons?"
To his credit, the vintner looked abashed. "My lady, I would never treat her ill."
"Would your first wife have agreed?"
Herbert's brow furrowed deeply. "Who has accused me of cruelty?"
Eleanor shook her head. Although the vintner clearly expected her to continue, Eleanor remained silent, hoping he would feel obliged to say more himself.
"I am confused by your question, my lady. My wife was a most pious woman, and we bedded only for sons. It was our share of earthly grief that none lived, but I treated her with respect as a man should his wife and did my best to persuade the crowner that she died by accidental drowning. No woman who spent so many hours in prayer would have killed herself." He shrugged. "Do these actions point to a thoughtless husband?"
How very strange, Eleanor thought. Once again she was faced with a man who tells another that his wife cuckolded him, then shows forgiveness by arguing against any verdict of self-murder. Although she should have respected him for his Christian charity, she felt oddly uncomfortable with it.
"You testified at the hearing?" she asked.
"Grief tried to keep me away, but I spoke on her behalf most passionately."
Herbert's story of Eda's piety and his defense of her manner of dying certainly matched that of the glover. Even if she heard a hint in the vintner's words that he might have preferred a more eager bed partner than he found in Eda, she detected nothing that fostered suspicion that he had been harsh to her. Alys' fears seemed to have less and less basis.