The monk’s eyes refocused as her question registered. His mind had wandered some distance from those matters currently under discussion. “I fear my judgment may have been in error about one person we have not mentioned.” He pulled the silver cross from his pouch. “Does anyone know the owner of this object that I recovered near our lay brother’s body?”
“Adelard, the baker’s son?” Ralf reached out to take the article.
“Are you sure it is his?” Eleanor asked. “If anyone else could have owned this one…”
“I first saw it when I was questioning him on his calling,” Thomas said.
“And I, when I sent him off to his father to prevent a fight with Master Jacob.” Ralf looked down at the cross, tilting it back and forth. When it caught the light, it glittered like raindrops in the sun. “Few in the village could afford such a fine thing. I remember hearing that his father had given him this when he first spoke of becoming a monk. Even if others might have been able to buy such a thing, no one, to my knowledge, has.”
“May I?” Sister Anne held out her hand.
Ralf passed the cross to her.
“Yet I do not recall whether Adelard was wearing it when I addressed the villagers outside the inn’s stables.” Thomas closed his eyes as he tried to remember the details. “He stood near the front, and we did speak. The sun was shining, and the cross should have caught the light.” He fell silent.
“This cross has a loop for a cord or chain.” Anne looked up from examining the dead man’s neck. “The cord used to strangle Brother Gwydo is knotted but could have fit through that loop.” She tugged a bit of the cord loose from the corpse and studied it. “This is good leather work and might complement a fine cross.”
“I found no other cord for the cross when I looked,” Thomas said.
Eleanor went to the nun’s side and stared at the loosened cord. It reminded her of the one Father Eliduc always wore around his own neck, then she chastised herself for wishing the body had been her nemesis and not Brother Gwydo. “Why did you say your judgment was faulty, Brother?”
“Adelard has his failings. He is rigid, arrogant, and spies on others to catch them in their sinning. I have found him lacking in compassion and charity.”
“And yet?” Eleanor raised her eyebrow at the annoyance her monk made so evident.
“During the riot, when I told the villagers that the Church and its saints had forbidden violence against those of Jewish faith, he grew agitated.” Thomas pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, trying to picture the scene more clearly. “He did not seem distraught because he believed I was lying to him but rather because he had never heard this prohibition before. I think he feared he had been in error about the condemnations he was advocating with such enthusiasm.”
“Indeed?” Eleanor’s eyes betrayed her amazement.
Sister Anne passed the cross to the crowner.
“And yet you found his cross near Brother Gwydo’s body.” Ralf fingered the loop on the top of the cross.
“Somehow I have misjudged the youth,” Thomas replied, “but I am not sure whether I erred more in believing him capable of attacking those he called sinners or in thinking he might be converted to reason.”
The prioress turned to the crowner. “Brother Gwydo has left the priory on a least one other occasion. On the day Kenelm was murdered, Adelard told Brother Thomas he had seen Gytha and our lay brother coupling.”
Anne gasped. “That cannot be true. Those who take religious vows are not more chaste than she!”
The prioress waited.
Ralf stared at her in distressed silence.
She decided to lessen his misery. “He may well have seen them together, but he misinterpreted what he saw,” she said. “Gytha had tumbled down the embankment on her way home from visiting her brother and hit her head. When she recovered her wits, the lay brother was beside her. He helped her to her feet and back to the priory.”
“Other evidence I found before discovering the corpse would support her story,” Thomas said. “When I took the shortcut to the village, I found a root that had been pulled up and signs that someone might have tripped and fallen over the side to the stream bank below. I went down to investigate, fearing our lay brother had been injured, but found no one.”
“What Adelard must have seen is Brother Gwydo either kneeling by her side or helping her to her feet. She was dizzy and could not do so by herself.” Eleanor spoke these words to the crowner.
“If the light was poor,” he muttered. “Adelard might have misinterpreted that as an embrace. Since Brother Gwydo was a lay brother, he was not supposed to touch women.”
“Well argued,” Eleanor said gently.
“It was an act of compassion,” Anne said.
“And not a violation of the spirit of his vows,” Thomas added.
“Why would Adelard have killed Brother Gwydo or Kenelm?” Ralf tore his eyes away from the steady gaze of the prioress. “He is now the most likely suspect.”
“He has established that he hated Master Jacob and his family for their faith and believes the blood libel and well-poisoning tales so common in the land,” the prioress said. “To his mind, Kenelm sinned grievously by protecting those Adelard condemned. As for the death of Brother Gwydo, he may have decided to render his interpretation of God’s justice because he believed the lay brother had broken his vows with my maid. For a religious to give in to lust is a profound wickedness.” Eleanor gestured toward Thomas. “Finally, his cross has been found near our brother’s corpse.”
“If he is choosing to execute those whose behavior he finds most sinful, then our Gytha is in danger.” Anne’s face turned white. “Fool that Adelard is, he believes she lay with Brother Gwydo.”
Eleanor spun around in horror.
“She must not leave your side, my lady,” Ralf said, emotion cracking his voice.
22
Jacob ben Asser knelt a short distance from Belia and cuddled their son in his arms. In this tiny stall they had little privacy with only a thick cloth over the door to keep the outside world away. Malka had just stepped outside to give the new parents time with their child, but she would not have wandered far. The riot had been quelled, but the danger of attack remained.
“You are worried,” his wife said in a low voice.
“Have I ever been able to hide my thoughts from you?”
Belia smiled. “Even in childhood, we were one in both joy and sorrow.”
“And we were fortunate that our families found our marriage to be of mutual benefit.”
Belia whispered, “My mother always loved you like a son.”
His eyebrows twitched upward. “You married me only to please your mother?”
She threw him a kiss.
He looked down at his sleeping son and watched silently as the boy blew bubbles from his mouth. “I would have lain down and died beside you had you not…”
Belia turned her face away. “The nun said I might not be able to bear more children,” she murmured.
Shifting the precious burden into the crook of one arm, Jacob reached out to touch her cheek, then quickly drew back his hand. “Do not grieve,” he said. “We have a fine son.”
“Do not say it! Our boy is a poor thing, ugly and ill-natured. To say otherwise is to tempt evil things.”
“Very well,” he replied, frowning at the child with difficulty. “Then it is well if you are unable to bear more for this creature will shame me. It seems I must also suffer the grief of having you at my side for the rest of my life.” He could jest no further and he bent as close as he dared. “I love you,” he whispered.
“You need other children, Jacob. Divorce me. Marry a woman with a fruitful womb. My mother would grieve but not stop you.”
“As your husband, I may order you to do as I wish, a right I have never exercised. Now I must and so decree that you shall never again speak of this. I have no wish to marry another. If it is meet, you may bear us more children as Sarah did in her old age to Abraham, but I will not cast you aside for another. As I was named Jacob, so are you my Rachel.”