rationality of the intellect. But Justin could take meager comfort in that, for the prior bore an unsettling resemblance to Aubrey de Quincy, Bishop of Chester, his father.
The prior lifted his hand and the noise stilled. “I am Clement de Roches,” he declared, investing that popular papal name with prideful echoes of grandeur. “I am prior of the blessed abbey of St Michael. Who are you that have dared to defile the sacred altar of Our Lady?”
Justin’s grief and fear gave way, then, to rage that Arzhela’s death seemed of so little importance to these holy men of God. “A woman has also lost her life, my lord prior, a good woman. Why is that less offensive than bloodstains on a tiled floor?”
“Good going, man,” Durand muttered. Justin ignored him, meeting the prior’s piercing pale eyes without flinching.
“Because,” the monk said coldly, “murder is a crime. Befouling a church is sacrilege.”
“We are guilty of neither, my lord prior. We did not harm this woman, spilled none of her blood.”
“I was told you were found kneeling beside her body.”
“Yes, and does that sound like the action of a killer? The infirmarian can tell you that I was cradling her in my arms, seeking to comfort her in her last moments.”
When the infirmarian tersely confirmed this, the prior turned his inscrutable gaze back upon Justin. “Men have been known to kill that which they love.”
“But not with an unbloodied sword.” The monks retreated a step when Justin slid his sword from its scabbard, only the prior standing his ground. “Look at the blade, my lord prior. Do you see even a droplet of blood? The same holds true for my eating knife and for the weapons of my companion.” Turning, he demanded, “Show them, Durand,” and the other man did.
“You could have hidden the murder knife,” a voice from the back of the crypt called out, and there were murmurings of agreement.
“Search the chapel,” Justin challenged. “If it is not found, that proves our innocence. Unless you are claiming that we stabbed her and fled to dispose of the weapon, only then to return to the murder scene so we might be found with her body.”
A number of the men had already begun to prowl the chapel, hunting for a dagger. When they failed to find one, some of them seemed willing to reconsider their certainty about Justin and Durand’s guilt. The prior continued to regard them impassively, though, and raising a hand for silence again, he said, “The woman was one of God’s poor-which you are not. Brother Nicolas told me that you came to the infirmary in search of her. Why? What did you want with her?”
Justin did not know how to answer this question, for neither the truth nor lies would serve them well. If he revealed Arzhela’s true identity, the prior was likely to send an urgent message to the Duchess Constance, the last one in Christendom whom he wanted involved in this. But what lie could they devise that would seem plausible to the prior? What reason could they give for seeking out a needy female pilgrim that would not sound suspicious or immoral to the prior?
“She is my sister.” All heads swung toward Durand, including Justin’s. He stared at them defiantly, daring them to doubt him. “I do not know what name she was using at the almonry, but her real name is Felicia de Lacy; her husband holds lands of King Richard, south of Bayeux.”
The prior looked down at the woman on the floor-truly looked at her for the first time. “Her coloring is similar to yours,” he conceded. “But I find it difficult to believe that a woman of gentle birth would be posing as an impoverished pilgrim.”
“Look at her hands, her nails. Do you see any calluses or blisters on her palms?”
“No, I do not.” The prior straightened up and stepped away from the body. “She has the hands of a lady,” he admitted. “But why was she here in disguise?”
“She wanted to take holy vows. She’d been trying for a year to persuade her husband to give his consent, to no avail. She finally declared that the Almighty did not want her to wait any longer and ran away. Her husband has been looking for her and I thought it best to find her first; he has the Devil’s own temper. So when I discovered that she’d gone on pilgrimage to the Mont, we came after her.” Durand glanced at Arzhela’s body, back at the prior. “We were not in time. Her husband must have found her first.”
Durand’s tale of a pious wife who’d wanted only to serve the Almighty found a receptive audience in this chapel filled with monks. But Justin kept his eyes upon the prior, knowing that he and he alone would be the arbiter of their fate.
Prior Clement took his time in passing his judgment. “There is logic in what you say,” he said at last. “Mayhap things are not as they first seemed. But it is not for me to decide what ought to be done.”
Durand cocked a brow. “Who, then? The provost in Genets?”
“No. A murder committed upon abbey lands falls within our jurisdiction and this matter must be heard in our lord abbot’s court.”
“Well, then, we’ll stay here at the abbey until the abbot returns and can question us,” Justin offered cooperatively, and the prior inclined his head.
But then he said, “Alas, we will require more than your word. A woman has been cruelly murdered and a holy place polluted with blood. This church must be purified ere a Mass can be said here again. I intend no insult when I say that you must be held until Abbot Jourdain returns.”
“Held how?” Durand’s eyes narrowed. “And where?”
“It is not necessary under the circumstances to confine you in the abbot’s dungeon. If you agree to surrender your weapons, you may await the lord abbot in more comfortable surroundings.”
“We will surrender our weapons,” Durand said, “when we see these ‘comfortable surroundings’ for ourselves.”
The prior was not accustomed to being contradicted, and did not take it well. “My lord prior,” Justin said, before he could respond, “can your monks see that Lady Felicia is treated with the honor she deserves?”
Again that proud head inclined. “She will be taken to the chapel of St Etienne, where our own brothers are prepared for their final journey.”
“Thank you, Prior Clement. Will your brethren pray for her, too?” Justin asked, and the emotion in his voice earned him an approving glance from Durand, for the monks murmured sympathetically and even the prior seemed to thaw somewhat. But Justin’s grieving was raw and real, and he could only hope that prayers for Lady Felicia de Lacy would count toward the salvation of Arzhela’s immortal soul.
The Prior’s “comfortable surroundings” turned out to be the porter’s lodge, a small, sparsely furnished hall underneath the abbot’s private chambers. It was still vastly preferable to the dungeons that lay below the lodge, accessible only through a trapdoor in the vaulting. That trapdoor served as an unwelcome reminder to the men of how narrowly they had avoided those subterranean accommodations
… for now.
The hall was deep in shadows and filled with the damp, bone-chilling cold of the tides laying siege to the Mont. To Justin’s astonishment, Durand rolled up in one of the blankets provided by the monks, remarked that lying awake would do them no good, and went to sleep. Justin did not have such icy control over his nerves, and he tossed and turned for hours, listening to the even rhythm of the other man’s breathing and the sound of the surf beating against the rocks. But he’d been in the saddle for hours in a day of turmoil and trauma, and finally he, too, fell into an uneasy doze.
When he awakened, Durand was standing over him, holding out a cup. “The monks brought us a loaf of bread and a flagon of wine to break our fast,” he said. “I suppose it is a good sign that they are feeding us. But when they opened the door, I saw they are relying upon more than our honor or goodwill to keep us here. There are armed guards outside.”
Justin took the cup, sat up, and winced, for even the body of a twenty-one-year-old was not immune to the physical abuses of the past day and night. Grimacing, he sought to wash away the foul taste in his mouth with several swallows of wine. Durand was pacing, looking as rumpled and edgy as Justin felt. When he stopped and glanced toward Justin, the younger man said sharply, “Do not say it, Durand. I do not want to hear that this is my fault for not agreeing to hack our way free. Even if we’d somehow gotten out of the chapel and then the abbey, where could we have gone? We’d still have been trapped on an island and we’d no longer be able to claim we were innocent of murder.”
