Mistress of the Art of Death

“The law does not recognize him.”

The law didn’t recognize, either, that a nun whose purity of soul shone in her face could do what Adelia had said she had done.

Her prioress spoke for her…

“Like Saint Radegund, our beloved foundress, Sister Veronica was born in Thuringia,” she said. “But her father, a merchant, settled in Poitiers, where she was offered to the convent at the age of three and sent to England while still a child, though one whose devotion to God and His Holy Mother was in evidence then and has been ever since.”

Prioress Joan had tempered her voice; her rein-callused hands were in her sleeves; she was every inch the superior of a well-ordered house of God. “My lords, I stand for this nun’s modesty and temperance and her devotion to the Lord-many a time when the other nuns were at recreation, Sister Veronica has been on her knees beside our blessed little saint, Peter of Trumpington.”

There was a muffled squeak from the kitchen.

“Whom she lured to his death,” Adelia said.

“Hold your tongue, woman,” the archdeacon told her.

The prioress turned on Adelia, finger pointing, her voice a hunting horn. “Judge, my lords. Judge between that, a slandering viper, and here, this exemplar of saintliness.”

It was a pity that the dress Gyltha had brought her from Old Benjamin’s was the one Adelia had worn to the Grantchester feast, too low in the bodice and too high in color to compare well with the nuns’ sleekly sober black and white. A pity, too, that in her joyous fluster over Ulf’s return, Gyltha had forgotten to bring a veil or cap and that, therefore, Adelia, whose previous cap lay somewhere under Wandlebury Hill, was as bareheaded as a harlot.

No one except Prior Geoffrey spoke for her.

Not Sir Rowley Picot; he wasn’t there.

The Archdeacon of Canterbury rose to his feet, which were still in slippers. He was a tiny old man, full of energy. “Let us expedite this matter, my lords, that we may return to our beds and, should we find it has been raised out of malice”-the face he turned on Adelia was that of a malevolent monkey-“let those responsible be sent to the whipping post. Now, then…”

One by one, the bricks on which Adelia had built her case were examined and discarded.

The word of an eel-selling bastard minor to condemn a bride of Christ?

The good sister’s familiarity with the river? But who was not familiar with boatmanship in this waterlogged town?

Laudanum? Was it not generally available at any apothecary’s?

Spending the occasional night away from her convent? Well…

For the first time, the young man called Hubert Walter raised his voice, and his head from his note-taking: “Perhaps that does call for explanation, my lord. It is…unusual.”

“If I may speak, your lordships.” Prioress Joan stepped forward again. “Taking supplies to our anchorites is an act of charity that exhausts Sister Veronica’s strength-see how frail she is. Accordingly, I have allowed her permission to spend such nights in rest and contemplation with one of our lady eremites before returning to the convent.”

“Laudable, laudable.” The eyes of the judges rested appreciatively on Sister Veronica’s willow-wand figure.

Which lady eremite, Adelia wondered, and why should she not be hauled before this court to be asked how many nights she and the frail Veronica have spent in contemplation?

None, I’ll warrant.

But it was useless; the anchorite, being an anchorite, would not come. Demanding that she attend could only confirm Adelia’s stridency as opposed to Veronica’s respectful silence.

Where are you, Rowley? I cannot stand here alone. Rowley, they’re going to let her go.

The dismemberment went on. Who had seen Simon of Naples die? Had not the inquest confirmed that the Jew drowned accidentally?

The walls of the great room were closing in. A bailiff studied the manacles he carried as if to judge them small enough for Adelia’s wrists. Above her head, the gargoyles gibbered in glee and the eyes of the judges stripped the skin off her.

Now the archdeacon was questioning her motive in going to Wandlebury Hill at all. “What led her to that infamous place, my lords? How did she know what went on there? Can we not assume that it was she who was in league with the devil of Grantchester, and not the holy sister she accuses-whose only crime, it seems, was to follow her out of concern for her safety?”

Prior Geoffrey opened his mouth but was forestalled by the clerk Hubert Walter, still amused. “I think we must accept, my lords, that all four children died before this female set foot in England. We may at least acquit her of their murder.”

“Really?” The archdeacon was disappointed. “Nevertheless, we have proved her a slanderer and, by her own statement, she had knowledge of the pit and its circumstances. I find that curious, my lords. I find it suspicious.”

“So do I.” The Bishop of Norwich broke in, yawning. “Take the damned female to the whipping post and be done with it.”

“Is that the verdict of you all?”

It was.

Adelia shouted, not for herself but for Cambridgeshire’s children. “Don’t let her go, I beg you. She can kill again.”

The judges weren’t listening, not looking at her-their attention had been claimed by somebody who’d entered the refectory from the kitchen, where he’d taken himself a bowl of bacon broth and was now eating it.

He blinked at the assembly. “A trial, is it?”

Adelia waited for this plainly dressed man in leather to be blasted back to where he came from. A couple of boar hounds had slouched in with him-a hunter, then, who’d wandered here by mistake.

But the lord judges were standing. Were bowing. Were remaining on their feet.

Henry Plantagenet, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou, hoisted himself up on the refectory table, letting his legs dangle, and looked around. “Well?”

“Not a trial, my lord.” The Bishop of Norwich was as awake and fluttering as a lark now. “A convocation, merely a preliminary inquiry into the matter of the town’s murdered children. The killer has been identified, but that”-he pointed in the direction of Adelia-“that female has brought an accusation of complicity against this nun of Saint Radegund.”

“Ah, yes,” the king said, pleasantly, “I thought our lords spiritual were somewhat overrepresented. Where’s De Luci? De Glanville? The lords temporal?”

“We did not wish to disturb their rest, my lord.”

“Very thoughtful,” Henry said, still pleasant though the bishop quailed. “And how are we getting on?”

Hubert Walter had left his place to stand by the king, holding out his parchment.

Henry took it, putting down his bowl of broth. “I hope nobody minds if I make myself familiar with the case-it’s been causing me some trouble, you see; my Cambridge Jews have been incarcerated in the castle tower because of it.”

He added mildly enough, but, again, the judges shifted in discomfort, “And I’ve lost revenue accordingly.”

Scanning the parchment, he leaned down and took a handful of rushes from the floor. There was silence as he read, except for the beat of rain against the high windows and a contented gnawing from one of the dogs, who’d found a bone under the table.

Adelia’s legs were trembling so much that she didn’t know whether they’d hold her up; this plain, casual-seeming man had brought a directionless terror into the refectory.

He began murmuring, holding the parchment to a candelabra on the table in order to see it better. “Boy says abducted by the nun…not recognizable in law…hmm.” He put one of the rushes he was holding down beside the light. Absently, he said, “Splendid broth, Prior.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“The nun’s knowledge and use of the river”-another rush was laid beside the first-“An opiate…” This time, the rush was put across the top of the other two. “All-night vigils with an anchorite…” He looked up. “Has the anchorite been called to witness? Oh, no, I forgot-this is not a trial.”

Adelia’s legs became weaker, this time with a hope so tenuous she hardly dared entertain it. Henry Plantagenet’s rushes, neatly crisscrossed as if he were going to play spillikin with them, were multiplying with each piece of evidence she’d brought against Veronica.

“Simon of Naples…drowned whilst in possession of tallies…the river again…a Jew, of course, well, what can you expect…” Henry shook his head at the carelessness of Jews and read on.

“The laywoman’s suspicions…Wand-le-bury Hill…maintains she was thrown down a pit…didn’t see who…tussles…laywoman and nun…both injured…child rescued…local knight responsible…”

He looked up, then down at the pile of rushes, then at the judges.

The Bishop of Norwich cleared his throat. “As you see, my lord, all the charges against Sister Veronica are unsubstantiated. Nobody can incriminate her because…”

“Except the boy, of course,” Henry interrupted, “but we can’t give any legal weight to him, can we? No, I agree…all circumstantial.”

He looked once more at his rushes. “Hell of a lot of circumstance, mind you, but…” The king puffed out his cheeks, blew hard, and the rushes scattered. “So what did you decide to do about this slanderous lady…what’s her name? Adele? Your handwriting is pitiable, Hubert.”

“I apologize, my lord. She is called Adelia.”

The archdeacon was becoming restive. “It is unpardonable that she should level calumnies such as these against a religious; it cannot be overlooked.”

“It certainly can’t,” Henry agreed. “Should we hang her, do you think?”

The archdeacon battled on. “The woman is a foreigner; she has come from nowhere in company with a Jew and a Saracen. Is she to be allowed to slander Holy Mother Church? By what right? Who sent her and why? To sow discord? I say the devil has put her amongst us.”

“It was me, really,” the king said.

The room was silenced as if an avalanche of snow had muffled it. From the door behind the judges came the sound of shuffling, splashing feet as Barnwell’s canons groped their way through the rain along the cloister to church.

Henry looked at Adelia for the first time and exposed his ferocious little teeth in a grin. “Didn’t know that, did you?”

He turned on the judges, who, not having been invited to sit, were still standing. “You see, my lords, children were disappearing in Cambridge and so were my revenues. Jews in the tower. Trouble in the streets. As I said to Aaron of Lincoln-you know him, Bishop; he lent you money for your cathedral-Aaron, I said, something must be done about Cambridge. If the Jews are slaughtering infants for their rituals, we must hang them. If not, somebody else must hang. Which reminds me…” He raised his voice. “Come in, Rabbi, I’m told this is not a trial.”

The door from the kitchen opened and Rabbi Gotsce entered cautiously, bowing with a frequency that showed he was nervous.

The king took no more notice of him. “Anyway, Aaron went away to consider and, having considered, returned. He said that the man we needed was a certain Simon of Naples-another Jew, I fear, my lords, but an investigator of renown. Aaron also suggested that Simon be asked to bring with him a master in the art of death.” Henry bestowed another of his smiles on the judges. “I expect you are asking yourselves: What is a master in the art of death? I know I did. A necromancer? A species of refined torturer? But no, it appears there are qualified men who can read corpses and, in this case, might gain from the manner of the Cambridge children’s murder an indication as to the perpetrator. Is there any more of this excellent broth?”

The transition was so fast that it was some minutes before Prior Geoffrey roused himself and crossed to the hatch as if a man in a dream. It seemed natural that a woman’s hand extend a steaming bowl to him. He took it, walked back, and proffered it to the king on bended knee.