Sister Ruth was droning. It was difficult to read the Venerable Bede’s Life of Saint Cuthbert and make it sound dull, but the good nun was succeeding with impressive skill.
Eleanor looked down from the prioress’s high table to the long line of nuns eating silently on benches in the refectory below her. This night she had invited no one to join her. She was too weary even for familiar company.
Two deaths on priory grounds had been horrible, but daily responsibilities could not be set aside. After days of talking to the nuns, monks, and lay people at Tyndal, studying the account rolls taken from Brother Simeon, and making small changes she hoped would be beneficial to both body and soul, she was exhausted, her humors out of balance. She needed to spend an evening in restorative prayer and contemplation, something she had had little time for of late. At least her ankle had healed, she thought, quickly adding something positive to offset her list of complaints.
She looked down at the trencher in front of her and smiled. The return of Sister Matilda to the kitchens had been a popular decision. Her talented cooking had also helped ease the transition to a more spartan diet than the religious inhabitants of Tyndal had been accustomed to, a necessity in view of the poor monastery harvest and reduced income from priory lands. Fish from the ponds was still plentiful, and Sister Edith had offered hope for an increase in the cooler season’s vegetables, but austerity was still required if all were to have sufficient food through winter.
At yesterday’s chapter, Eleanor had announced her personal vow to cut her own portions in half, eat no meat, and drink only ale from Tyndal’s brewery. What wine the priory had should be saved for Mass and the sick, she declared, for none could be bought until revenues increased. Eleanor had left the choice of what to surrender from meals, other than wine, to the nuns themselves, although she had warned against an excess of fasting. Thanks to Brother Thomas’ wise direction, she knew of one young novice who had difficulties with such excesses. At his order, the girl had told the head of novices about her self-induced vomiting and Eleanor had been told that the nun would be especially vigilant, not only with her but others who might exhibit similar debilitating behavior.
Ah, the good brother! He was the other reason Eleanor had given up any meat, and she meant to do so until her body ceased to respond in lustful ways to his presence. It was well known that meat heated the blood, and her blood needed no warming when Brother Thomas was with her. Brother John, her confessor, had agreed, although he had been kinder than others might have been when she told him about her adulterous feelings toward the monk. He might have suggested scourging. Instead, he had ordered her to pray alone in the chapel for one hour each night as she stretched out, face down on the stone floor. The penance had cooled her passions sufficiently in the warmer months of summer. She imagined it would utterly destroy them by mid-winter when the stones turned icy.
Eleanor took a sip of ale. The taste was bitter, watery. She grimaced as she looked at the pale color. Had the drink been urine, surely the physician would have expressed concern over the health of his patient. Even urine might have better flavor than this, she thought wryly.
Tostig had not yet responded to her offer to talk about a partnership. Although Gytha said he had thought well of the idea when she first mentioned it, all of that had been discussed before the death of the man with the black beard. With his death, a kind of silence had descended on the village in their commerce with the priory. Business, per se, continued, but only just. The comfortable social commerce which village and priory had enjoyed in the past had waned. The tension was as ill defined as a hidden cancer but, Eleanor thought, just as palpable by all affected by it.
The crowner continued to remark on the lack of cooperation from his regular sources, men who had once cared more for justice and peace than any two-hundred-year-old quarrel between Saxon and Norman. Oh, villagers still came to him when a sheep was stolen or a border marker moved, but there was a grimness in their faces that Crowner Ralf had not seen since the early days of his tenure. Tostig in particular seemed to avoid him, and that hurt Ralf most. According to Sister Anne, the two men had been friends since childhood. And the crowner was still no closer to solving the murders of the monk and the man, a frustration that did not improve his somewhat impatient temperament.
Her trencher empty and her goblet dry, Eleanor looked down on the nuns and saw that they too had finished their evening meal. With this second death in the sanctity of their grounds, the calm she had just managed to achieve had vanished. In the fear-widened eyes of these women, she saw a pleading for strength from her. She had come through for them after the first murder. Would she be adequate to their greater need now?
She rose. It was time to lead her charges to prayer and whatever peace it might bring them all.
***
On the monks’ side of the priory church, Eleanor’s orders for more modest fare were not greeted with unanimous joy, at least amongst some in the higher ranks. Or so Brother Thomas thought as he looked around him at the evening meal.
Prior Theobald was the exception to that. He seemed content enough, picking up odd bits from the half portion he had put on his trencher, but then Thomas doubted food had ever been of major interest to him. He’d probably not notice if horse piss were poured into his cup instead of wine. Indeed, considering the taste of Tyndal’s finest ale, it might have been. Thomas shoved his goblet aside and briefly wondered if even well water might be preferable.
Brother Simeon, on the other hand, looked positively gray. As receiver and sub-prior, he did no work in the fields, and the prioress had directed that heartier food and drink should be given to those who did hard labor, since they needed it most. That included the lay brothers. Thomas saw him wince at the arrival of the vegetable stew and noted that he had gone so far as to rip small pieces from his own trencher, which normally would have been passed on to the poor. However improved and quite savory the simpler meals had become of late, Brother Simeon liked his meat and wine. This would be a hard season for a man of appetite.
Even Brother John looked more somber than he usually did at mealtime. Thomas had noticed that the monk cared little more about his food than did the prior, although he did not fast in excess. His lean body and lonely midnight scourgings might point to a dedicated religious sternness, but there were clear limits to his asceticism. He usually ate what he was given with grateful appreciation, and drank wine in moderation but also with some pleasure. Tonight, however, he seemed troubled and poked absently at the food. If his grim mood was not over the meal, then it surely stemmed from something else.
Thomas was curious.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Eleanor walked slowly up her private stairs from chapel to chambers. The evening communal prayers were complete. Her own hard penance on the stone floor had been performed. The evening air was cool and no man in the moon’s chilly face peeked through the drifting clouds of the evening sky. It would be a black night tonight, she thought, as she stood in her chambers and looked out the window near her narrow cot.
As she prepared for sleep, folding her head veil and wimple neatly before placing them into the chest at the bottom of her bed, something soft brushed up against her leg, causing her to smile.
“Well now,” she said with a gentle tone, looking down at the orange cat. “I suppose you are looking for a warm bed after your hard work in the kitchens today?”
The cat looked up at her with hopeful green eyes.
“I did hear from Sister Matilda that you hunted well. She seems more pleased with your efforts than Sister Edith was. Perhaps you have improved on your presentation.”