Belladonna At Belstone Part 7

Luke knelt alone before the altar, palms joined, the fingers of both hands meeting all along their lengths, and held up high in the pose of submission, just as a knight placed his hands together before his lord and held them aloft so that his master could place his own hands outside and accept the oaths of loyalty. Luke's head was bowed, his whole posture that of a devout penitent, and the sight pulled at Agnes's heart.

Rather than interrupt, she glided softly along the wall, away from the candlelight. He looked so vulnerable, she thought; like a saint about to be martyred for his faith, offering up his last prayers before execution. It must have been like this when St Thomas a Becket was murdered: the gentle cleric at the altar, performing his duties honourably when the King's a.s.sa.s.sins got in. The thought gave Agnes a most undevout and yet pleasurable thrill. She wanted to call out, to make Luke start and turn around with that fear in his eyes, like a frightened stag held at bay by the hounds.

Luke finished his prayer and stood slowly, his eyes filled with what Agnes thought was almost a beggarly fixedness at the altar's cross. He dropped his head as he turned from the symbol of his religion, and as he did so, Agnes chuckled. Instantly his face went from one point to another, seeking the source of the sound.

She let him stew a moment or two before stepping into the light. "I thought you'd be able to tell where I was."

Luke gave a short grunt and rushed to her, holding her in his arms and kissing her nose, her brow, her eyes, her mouth.

The bell rang and the community stirred, all the obedientiaries leaving their work; nuns in their offices set aside herbs, food, books, inks; lay women sighed and dropped their laundry back into the water or into their baskets, others stood slowly, arching backs that ached from scrubbing floors, or reluctantly turned from the fires that promised warmth and comfort and instead made their way towards the cold church. In the men's area, canons carefully closed their books and lay brothers put their ales down or dropped their tools before heading for the church.

Denise was suddenly aware again of the pressure in her bladder.

She turned an agonised face to the visitor. "I have to go, my Lord Bishop - that's the call to Vespers."

"Yes, of course," he said.

His tone of voice surprised Baldwin. There was a generous quality, like an avuncular man talking to his favourite niece, and Baldwin shot him a glance. Bertrand was standing still, apparently watching Denise as she walked away, but Baldwin was sure Bertrand's mind was elsewhere. Once again, he wondered about the bishop's motivation. Most priests would have been only too happy to discover that there had not been a murder, that the convent was free from that stain on its reputation - but Bertrand seemed relieved to hear the death p.r.o.nounced as murder.

Baldwin covered the corpse once more, tugging the linen sheet back over Moll, gazing down at her reflectively. When he was done, he was surprised to find Bertrand had moved to his side. The visitor stood shaking his head for a while, but then went out to the cloister.

"Baldwin," Simon said, jerking his head after Bertrand, "if I was a cynic, I'd think that b.a.s.t.a.r.d was happy the girl was murdered."

"He is," said Baldwin. "But forget him for a while: this girl was suffocated, I think, and then had her artery opened to make it appear an accident. Let the good bishop seek whatever he wants. We shall find this poor child's killer."

After the service Luke watched the nuns file from the church like a line of saints. He felt the mixed calm and boredom he always experienced after a service, but today there was a particle of excitement. The visitor was here to conduct an inquest, Agnes had told him breathily, as she held him close and writhed her hips against him, grinning up at him wickedly as she felt his response. He went from the altar to the door connecting the two churches, the two cloisters. Carefully pulling it shut behind him, he walked through the canonical church to the outer door and leaned against it a moment.

So the bishop wanted to find out what had happened to Moll, did he? He'd have to dig deep - and if he wanted any help from Luke, he'd have a long wait.

Luke was a most straightforward lover. He knew that his robes excited l.u.s.t in a lot of women, and he'd always made the most of the fact. Living in a convent gave him a higher probability of success, for the women here only ever saw him, and no other men.

Not that compet.i.tion would have worried him. He was content that his sharply defined features, grey eyes, red-gold hair and easy smile would win him lovers wherever he went. His experiences generally proved him right.

But for every ten who accepted him greedily, there was sometimes one who rejected him.

From the look of her, Moll was as l.u.s.ty as any other novice. She seemed to know how to excite a man without even touching him; she'd managed that with Luke. He could recall the first time he'd seen her, the vixen. She'd given him a cheery smile, head back coquettishly so she was looking at him low over the top of her veil, just like so many girls he'd known, sucking her veil against her face, emphasising her lips, when she knew he was watching her. She couldn't have done all that by accident. It was obvious from the start that she wanted him. And he wanted her, too.

In some ways Luke had a blind spot: he a.s.sumed all women desired him. The idea that one might only see his cloth and wouldn't consider him in a s.e.xual light never occurred to him.

It was Moll who taught him that some novices were truly religious. Stupid b.i.t.c.h!

Chapter Nine.

Denise was one of the first to arrive in the cloister after the service, and when she saw the three men still waiting, she felt her heart flutter within her. It was such a weird sight: males, and two of them in secular clothing. Entirely out of place. She felt the need of a pint of wine to settle her nerves.

"Sister!"

Seeing the bishop beckon, Denise ducked her head obediently, and made her way along the corridor towards them. "My Lord?" She tried not to sound curt, but her belly was complaining, and she desperately wanted that wine.

Baldwin looked her over. Above her veil she had intelligent-looking eyes, although they held a certain red-rimmed dullness which persuaded Baldwin that she habitually drank too much. "Sister, this death is terribly sad. It is dreadful to see so young a novice destroyed for no reason. Do you have any idea who could have been responsible?"

"Me, sir?" She shook her head slowly. "I can think of no one who could wish to harm her. Moll was very quieta very devoted to the church."

"She had no faults?" Baldwin pressed her gently. Denise opened her mouth but there was a tenseness about her. Baldwin smiled rea.s.suringly and nodded towards Bertrand. "The good bishop will confirm that you should tell us anything which could have led to someone wanting to harm her. We are investigating her murder, not a simple matter of taking a sister's serving of wine without permission."

As she reddened, he cursed himself for choosing so unfortunate a simile.

"Moll was a good child, I am sure." As she spoke two other novices came past, one very fair and full-bodied, the other olive-skinned and with dark, flas.h.i.+ng eyes. All three men noticed them, and Denise saw their attention waver. "Moll was like those two," she said. "Young and flighty. I think she was more fervent in her prayers, but she was a novice, and girls now aren't like they were in my day. They don't show the right reverence to the church and nuns."

"Was Moll irreverent?" Simon asked.

"She wasa overconfident. She was convinced that she was superior to everyone else," Denise said, holding Baldwin's gaze. Suddenly she found that she couldn't keep from blurting out, "She would have been happier if she could have died with the stigmata after a life of telling others how to live."

"Ah! She was a zealot?"

"Yes - a fanatic. She'd come and chastise us for what she saw as irreligious behaviour. As if she had any idea! She was too young to know anything about life or service."

"Did she try to talk to your sisters?" Baldwin pressed mildly.

Denise stiffened. His question appeared to imply that she had simply complained because of Moll's words to her. *Sir Baldwin, Moll spoke to almost all of us - novices and sisters - even, to my knowledge, the treasurer. I don't think she had the arrogance to try confronting the prioress, but no doubt she would have rectified that before long, had she lived."

"The other novices, how did they react to her?" Simon asked.

"They're like girls the world over - they often have to be chastised for their indiscipline. Their behaviour leaves much to be desired."

"They misbehave?"

"If I could have my way I'd have them thrashed! They bring dishonour upon the whole convent."

"In what way? Are they impious?"

"Some have only an outward display of piety," she agreed primly. "Forgetting their place in the world, even forgetting their vows anda"*

Bertrand cleared his throat and Denise took his warning, snapping her mouth shut and glancing down at the ground.

"I have heard talk of disobedience," Baldwin murmured understandingly.

"It's worse than mere disobedience, Sir Knight. Some of these young ones appear to have no belief in their calling. Take that girl, Agnes, the fair one. I see no proof that she has a vocation, only a lord who wishes to be shot of hera*

"I think we should move on," said Bertrand quickly. He had no wish to have Sir Rodney's motives in placing Agnes at the nunnery questioned.

"Very well," said Baldwin. "Where were you on the night the girl died?"

"I couldn't sleep, my Lord. I went to the frater for something to drink," she said.

There was a brittleness to her smile that persuaded Baldwin she was often to be found down there, a pot of wine before her, long after she should have been in her bed. "Did you see anyone?" he asked. "Was the prioress about, for example?"

Her face reddening, Denise shook her head. "Lady Elizabeth wasn't around, no. I heard her in her chamber." She hesitated, then continued more slowly. "I did see something, though. An awful apparition. A shadow which crept along the wall as if hunting me."

Baldwin nodded seriously. "Show us where this was, Sister."

Nothing loath, she took them to the frater and showed where she had been seated. It was near the farther side of the room, by the screens which gave out to the b.u.t.tery. "Here," she said, indicating the door to the yard behind. "That door was open, and the shadow was flung against the wall before me."

Where she was sitting, someone walking in the yard behind the hall, outside the cloister itself, would have had their shadow thrown against the wall in front of her. The wall to the cloister. Baldwin sucked at his moustache. "Was the shadow that of anyone you recognised?"

"It was a nun," she admitted after a pause. When the silence which followed her words became too much, she burst out, "Margherita, our treasurer!"

Bertrand glanced at Baldwin, and then demanded impatiently, "What of it? Why on earth should you have been so fearful of a nun's shade?"

"Because she had a dagger in her hand!"

As she swept from the church, Margherita saw the three men standing near the frater with Denise, and she caught her breath, unsure whether to take the boar by the tusks or not. As she wavered, she saw Denise move away, and then the visitor's eye lit upon her. Stiffening her back, Margherita strode to him.

"My Lord, you have come to look into that poor child's death?"

The visitor looked less appealing now than he had when he first came, she thought to herself. Then he had been all smiles whenever he met her. Now he wore a sour expression as if he trusted no one. She felt a s.h.i.+ver run down her spine - she suddenly realised he might suspect even her of having a part in Moll's death.

He gave her a cold smile and she turned her attention on the other two men. The one with greying hair she privately noted down as being some kind of clerical a.s.sistant at first, but the other was different. She didn't like the way the bearded man surveyed her. He had keen, shrewd eyes that seemed to see through her to the political machinations within her mind.

"I returned as you asked, and we have just been studying the girl's body," Bertrand said. He introduced her to Baldwin and Simon. "And I have to say, as you thought, she appears to have been murdered. We must establish who killed her."

Margherita inclined her head. "I understand."

Baldwin said, "Do you know what happened on the night this novice was found dead?"

"I didn't witness her murder, if that's what you mean," she said sharply.

"We have already heard that you were walking about that night, that you had a dagger in your hand. Why?"

Margherita reeled inwardly but managed a smile although, had there been tool and opportunity, she could easily have stabbed Denise at that moment. Silkily she said, "I suppose you have been talking to our sacrist. Denise drinks more than she should, my Lord, and sometimes she sees things which aren't there."

"You weren't walking about that night?"

"I did take a stroll, but when I saw Denise in the frater I told her to leave the wine for the night and go to bed. I went up as well."

"Why were you holding a dagger?" Baldwin demanded relentlessly.

Margherita gave a small sigh. "If I wake in the night, I usually carry a small dagger with me: there are such awful rumours of murder and mayhem in convents these days, and the good prioress has allowed our walls to collapse in places; it would be easy for men to break in. I went down to the cloister to think, and while I was meditating there, I thought I saw a man slip from the church door and go to the dorter. Naturally I followed, and equally naturally I grabbed my knife to defend myself.

"Denise said you were out in the yard behind the cloister," Baldwin pointed out.

Margherita froze a moment. "Ah, yes, she was quite correct. I had been here in the cloister, and saw the man therea* She pointed at the door to the church. "He slipped, as I thought, along the church wall and out along that alley." Where the nun indicated there was a narrow way leading along the church's outer wall, away from the cloister. "It gives out to the kitchen garden behind the cloister. From there a man can walk up, past the kitchen and out to the back of the frater here. It occurred to me that he would avoid the cloister itself, where he would be more likely to be seen." She indicated another alley between the frater and the next building. "From there he could gain access to the dorter, where the nuns were all asleep in their beds."

"So you tried to ambush him?" Baldwin asked.

"Yes. I went up this alley and waited at the top. When I didn't see him, I walked along the outer wall of the frater, but still saw nothing. Then I noticed that Denise was sitting alone in there again with a pot of wine. I confess I was angry to see her awake so late, and ordered her to return to her bed. Soon after I went up to the dorter myself, wondering if the man had already got there somehow. I went up, but I saw no stranger."

"Does the door to the dorter lead to other rooms?" Simon demanded.

"Yes - to the infirmary. But I knocked there and Constance, our infirmarer, told me no one had entered before me." Margherita glanced down at her hands. The infirmarer had been quite rude about it, forcing the treasurer back from the room and closing the door behind them, snapping that Margherita should not trespa.s.s on her domain when she had the sick to protect.

"By now Denise had gone to her bed, so I did likewise and soon I was asleep. I was very tired - I suppose it's the work I do, making sure that the account-rolls are up to date." She was keen to appear helpful to this serious-looking knight. "When the bell tolled, I woke and went to church."

"And at this stage there was no hint that Moll was unwell?"

"Constance, our infirmarer, is a very diligent woman," Margherita said in a voice that brooked no argument. "She saw that her charges were sleeping before going to church for Nocturns. She would hardly have missed the wound inflicted upon Moll."

"So it couldn't have been a nun," Simon exclaimed. "They were all at church."

Margherita tilted her head with a grimace. "Constance first went to the laver. She woke and realised that her hands were dirty, so between her leaving and the nocturn bella*

"I see," said Baldwin. "Who was in the infirmary with the girl?"

"Joan, one of our oldest nuns, and a lay sister, Cecily, who fell down a rotten stair and broke her wrist. And Constance herself, of course, in her cot next to the infirmary."

"Does she always sleep there?" Baldwin asked.

"When she has patients to look after, yes. And in a place the size of this, there is usually someone who has been bled, or a lay sister who needs to recover from her efforts, so I suppose she spends much of her time out there," Margherita said shortly, beginning to feel a trifle acerbic at his questioning. "When Matins were finished, she'd have gone back to her patients. That was when she saw Moll's vein had opened again."

"Yet someone thought that there might be another explanation, rather than an accidental nick in an artery. Someone thought it was murder."

"Well, some of us wondered," Margherita stumbled, looking to the visitor for aid.

Bertrand tried to sound conciliatory. "Come, Sir Baldwin. We are concerned only with the death itself."

"Quite right, and to investigate that I need to know what suspicions people have, why they have them, and who else shares them."

"Why?" Bertrand asked.

Baldwin turned to him, an expression of puzzled enquiry on his face. "My Lord Bishop, I am here to a.s.sist in this matter, but I really must be permitted to conduct my questioning in my own way."

"Oh, very well," Bertrand agreed, and gave Margherita a smile as if in apology.

"Now," Baldwin said. "Why did you a.s.sume this was a case of murder?"

Margherita gave the impression of being uncertain. She dropped her eyes and muttered as if unwillingly: *It's the money."

The knight blinked with surprise, and she could see she had his attention. Before he could ask her any more questions, she clasped her hands before her and held his gaze, putting all the conviction she could into her face.

"You see, our buildings are all in such a state. As I said, poor Cecily fell and broke her wrist because of the condition of the stairs from the laundry; look at the roofs of the church and dorter. Both wrecked. And it's all because of the prioress."

"Explain," Baldwin ordered.