“It was my husband who…”
The crowner’s face reddened. “S’Blood, woman! ’Twas you, not that sexless, bloodless thing you called husband.”
“Ralf! You forget yourself and where you are.”
The man turned and bowed to Eleanor. “Perhaps. Forgive me, my lady. Sister Anne has reminded me that I have strayed from my task. You had observations you wished to share?”
Eleanor smiled in spite of herself. However crude the crowner might seem, his blunt speech and ill manners seemed based more in choice than nature. Indeed, she could understand impatience with hollow gestures when something important had to be done. She struggled herself with them at times, she realized, remembering her recent encounter with Prior Theobald. Then she noticed that the crowner was looking at her with some intensity as he scowled. He isn’t just staring, Eleanor thought with surprise; he’s studying me.
“Sister Anne discovered him,” she said quickly and nodded in the nun’s direction. “She should tell you what she noted. Brother Thomas and I came to the site later. If need be, we will confirm or add to whatever she says.”
As Ralf looked at the tall woman beside her, Eleanor caught a fleeting look of sadness in his face. Something must have happened between them before Sister Anne left the world, she thought. Indeed, the entire interchange between crowner and nun had intrigued her.
“He’s been moved since his death, Ralf. That coloring on the body you can see for yourself, but his clothing has also been changed. There was no tear from the entry of the knife into his garment, nor was there blood on the ground where we found him. And little staining on the inside of the robe near the chest wound. None near his genitals. In fact, as you see, there is but little blood around the mutilation itself.”
The crowner had been listening intently. Suddenly, he laughed. “So you did not clean up the corpse. I wondered when I found it so neatly placed here in the chapel with little evidence of bleeding where I most expected it and a fresh robe.”
“Our prioress forbade the washing until you had been here to examine the body.”
Ralf acknowledged Eleanor with a slight smile. “And did you all examine the earth around as well?” he asked.
The three nodded.
“And did none of you find blood?”
The three shook their heads.
“Nor any dagger hilt?” He touched the spot where the knife had entered.
“None,” the trio said, almost in unison.
“Well, now, what have you left to tell me?”
“One thing,” Thomas said, pulling the crucifix from his sleeve and handing it to the crowner. “I found this near the sacristy door on the path to the monks’ quarters yesterday afternoon after I left the garden. The ground may have been stained with blood. I couldn’t quite tell and was interrupted before I could confirm my suspicions.”
Ralf turned it around in his hand and held it up to the light. “Blood stains on the cross itself, and I’d say the cord was soaked with it. You were wise to pick it up, brother. Given last night’s summer downpour, any trace of blood in the earth will be washed away, and the rain might have cleansed this as well if you hadn’t taken it.” He looked around. “Can any of you confirm if it belonged to him?” He waved at the corpse.
“Look at it, please, sister. You would know best,” Eleanor said.
Anne reached out, and the crowner dropped the thing lightly into her hand, carefully not touching her. She looked at it for a moment, her eyes closing as she briefly shut her hand over the cross.
“It was his, my lady. He carved it himself. ‘A simple cross for a simpler man,’ he said to me once.” Then the tears began to trickle down her cheeks. “He was a good man, my lady. A very good man.”
Thomas and Ralf looked down at the floor.
Eleanor reached out for the nun’s hand and squeezed it. “Who did not deserve what was done to him,” she whispered.
Anne wiped the moisture from her face. “We must find who did it…”
“I will that, Annie. I promise you.”
“Then hear this as well, Ralf. I believe the person who killed him was left-handed and either did not think about what he was doing or was in a hurry.”
The crowner raised one eyebrow.
“If you were gelding a man, you would hold the genitals in your left hand as you cut with your right.” Sister Anne held up her left fist as if she had just done it.
Ralf swallowed and nodded.
“And then you would take your victim’s left hand thus and place them in his grasp so it would appear he had done it himself.” She demonstrated, using Eleanor’s hands as an example.
Ralf blinked. “Aye?”
“But Brother Rupert held his severed organs in his right hand.”
“He did indeed.”
“Brother Rupert was right-handed. If the murderer wanted us to believe our priest had done this act himself, he would have put his genitals in his left hand, a natural enough thing to do if the murderer is also right-handed, but not if he is left-handed. Come now, Ralf! Don’t look at me with such doubt. If you were going to geld yourself, wouldn’t you hold your balls in your weaker hand and cut with your stronger one?”
“That I would!” he said.
“Well, our murderer forgot.”
Chapter Eleven
“Please join me in some refreshment before you go back to the hospital, sister.”
Eleanor put her hand on Anne’s arm. The unusual animation she had seen in the tall nun’s face during the exchange with the crowner had faded back into her habitual look of sorrow.
Anne glanced down at the ground. “My lady, I overstepped my bounds today and I beg forgiveness.” Her voice was soft.
“Come.” Eleanor gently squeezed her arm. “Explain what you mean. After that, I have some questions for you.”
“You are too kind, my lady.”
Eleanor looked over at Thomas. “Brother, please take the crowner to the cloister to examine the spot where Sister Anne found the body and answer any questions he may have. Should either of you need me,” she nodded to the men, “I will be in my chambers.” Then the prioress gestured to Anne to accompany her down the nuns’ choir to the private steps leading to her rooms.
“Do you mean I am too kind when I offer wine after your trying encounter with our gentle crowner?”
Anne gave her a faint smile. “It was not trying. I have known Ralf since childhood and understand the good heart under the dark looks and singular manner. No, I meant that you were kind to tolerate my outspokenness in front of you and Brother Thomas.”
“I asked you to speak your mind.”
“You asked me to tell what I saw, not what I had concluded.”
Eleanor frowned. “I do not understand. Your observations and conclusions were astute. None of us noticed the details as you had, or put together the facts as well as you did. I must believe you made the crowner’s task easier.”
Sister Anne looked away. “I must tell you that our late prioress found my ways arrogant and chastised me often for lack of humility.”
Eleanor stopped and in silence looked up at the ceiling of the long choir. The simple triangular design of dark wooden braces and supports, repeated along the length of the pitched roof, was soothing in its geometrical certainty. If the minds of mortal men were so formed, as many believe they should be, we’d have no cause for dispute, she thought, then prayed briefly for greater wisdom than she possessed.
“It is true that although we are made in the image of God, we must never forget we are flawed. In that, Prioress Felicia was right,” she said, “but to ignore inspired insight is also a sin. I saw no sin in your words. I saw unusual perception, a gift from God surely. Would my predecessor not have agreed?”
“As you say, my lady.”
Eleanor caught a fleeting smile of amusement on her companion’s face. Perhaps the older prioress had not appreciated the questioning intelligence and independent mind of the sub-infirmarian. These were not qualities that fit easily and amiably into a standard conventual life, but Eleanor had not grown up with meek and spiritless nuns at Amesbury. Sister Beatrice was not the only religious who believed mindless humility often suffered from its own form of sinful pride.