down here was yards deep, and the wind as it comes off the moors is cold enough to flay a man. You could ride out over the moors, they say, and before you’d got halfway, you’d have lost all the flesh from your face.”
Bertrand gave him a look of open disbelief. “Here? You jest with me.”
“No, my Lord. You can stand up on top of the nearest hill here, Cosdon, and stare out over the land, and when you look to the north you can see sunshine while where you are it is all cold, wet, and miserable. These moors have their own climate.”
“Then thanks be to God that I shall soon be away from the place!” Bertrand muttered. “It’s bad enough that I should be here again already because of the disgraceful behaviour of these blasted women, without having to freeze myself into an early grave.”
Simon listened as the bishop explained why he and Baldwin had been asked to accompany Bertrand. Gradually his mouth fell open with astonishment, and he absentmindedly took his third quart of ale as the young prostitute passed by. “So you think the prioress could have been guilty of this murder? But what of the canons in the priory? Surely murder is a man’s crime?”
“Women can be evil,” Bertrand said sententiously. “Do not forget that they are responsible for the Fall; it was Eve’s crime which drove us from Eden.” As he spoke his attention wandered over the room. Catching sight of the girl, he watched as she joked and teased the other men. When one of his guards called out to ask her fee, she stood and contemplated him, hands on her hips, before laughingly asking whether she should offer to please so young a boy free of charge for the honour of being his first woman.
The guard blushed, the girl winked and served another customer with ale, and Bertrand noted the guard’s name for future punishment.
Seeing the direction of his look, Simon glanced around. Bertrand reddened. Simon assumed it was because he was not very experienced in dealing with such girls: tavern whores were often more audacious than ordinary women, which was bound to make them alarming to a priest, he thought.
“If the priory is efficiently run it would be impossible for a canon to gain admission,” Baldwin pointed out. He had not been watching and had missed the bishop’s embarrassment.
“There are always ways for the sinful to meet the innocent,” said Bertrand shortly. “And this priory is the least efficiently run of all those I have seen.”
Baldwin nodded, suppressing a fond memory. Before he had gone through the full ceremony to join the Templars, he could recall nights when he had made the acquaintance of the women of Cyprus. Like all the novices he knew which areas of the precinct’s walls could be most easily scaled in order to spend an evening in the fleshly delights available outside the Temple. Now he was married and could once again enjoy natural, carnal pleasures, it astonished him that he had remained celibate for so long.
Simon waved the girl over again and had his pot refilled. The ale tasted stronger than when he had first arrived, and he assumed that she had fetched the house’s best in deference to the bishop. He was aware of a growing somnolence. He put the pot on the table and concentrated. It was not so easy as before, and he determined to slow his consumption.
For his part, Hugh was bored. Talk of high affairs in a convent were of little interest to him. Picking up his pot, he wandered to another bench and sat down. He had no desire to stay in the bishop’s company. Whatever was happening in the little priory in Belstone was nothing to do with him, and he didn’t want to listen to a prelate sounding off about its apparently dishonourable occupants.
Here he was nearer the entrance, and the draught was more noticeable, blowing in through the badly fitting planks that made up the door, and he yanked his fustian cloak closer about him. The local men stood silently, eyeing Bertrand, Baldwin and Simon, while some of the bishop’s guards sat nearby.
The priest was describing some of the infractions of the Rule which he had witnessed while he had stayed at the priory, then he went on to explain to Simon and Baldwin what the treasurer had told him in her letter.
“And do not tell the prioress of this,” he said, fixing Simon with a meaningful eye.
The bailiff pulled a face, scratching meditatively at his ear. “You want us to hide the fact that her most senior deputy has accused her of murder?”
“If it is true that she is guilty of this heinous felony, I shall remove her from office.”
Simon was sceptical. “You can do that? I thought a priory was more or less an individual lordship in its own right.”
“I can tell her that I shall report her action to the bishop… If she refuses to listen, I can demand to speak to the full chapter and let them know what she has done.”
“That presupposes she’s guilty,” Simon said bluntly. “And you’re asking us to conceal the disloyalty of her most senior nun.”
“I see no other way of conducting this inquest.” Bertrand held out his hands, palms up in a gesture of openness. “What would you do? Tell her, and then, if the treasurer is wrong and the prioress is innocent, wait to see what damage will be done?”
Baldwin stirred and shook his head. “I see no point in this duplicity. If, as you say, the prioress is innocent, you cannot leave the treasurer under her authority after this allegation. She will need to be moved to another nunnery.”
“I am prepared to cross that bridge when I need to. For now I intend to investigate whether the prioress herself is guilty as the treasurer claims.”
Baldwin and Simon exchanged a glance and shrugged. Simon said, “It’s up to you, of course.”
“Yes, it is,” Bertrand replied firmly. His eye landed on Hugh over by the door, idly staring into his pot. The servant’s relaxed pose sparked a brief sense of resentment in Bertrand. At that moment the visitor longed for the luxury of having no responsibility, of not having to worry.
Hugh, meanwhile, had noticed that his pot was empty, and he was looking about for the serving girl, Rose. She was attending the bishop, and Hugh couldn’t attract her attention; she was doing her job, looking after the best customers. That realisation made Hugh feel even more alone: stuck, as he was, between the local men who wanted nothing to do with a stranger, and the bishop who was so superior to him that Hugh would be lucky to receive a ‘good morning’ from him. Even the tavern’s girl had no interest in him. He was insignificant: a poor man with no wife, no child – nothing to give him any status.
One thing struck him after a while: the girl was hanging around near the bishop, as if listening very intently to all he was saying.
Agnes saw the prioress walking round and round the cloister garth, evidently deep in thought, and the sight made her pause.
Lady Elizabeth looked peevish. Despite the confident image she projected to the other nuns, it was noticeable that her familia had shrunk. There was normally a fair grouping of sycophantic nuns about her, but now they’d all faded away. Agnes was sure it must be due to something Margherita had said.
Agnes went to her desk and opened the book she was copying. The colours of the original were glorious and attracted the eye, and she sighed at the sight, knowing she’d never be able to reproduce such perfection. Resignedly she took her pumice and began smoothing her vellum. She had just taken up her bodkin to mark off the lines when she was aware of someone approaching. Looking up, she saw Lady Elizabeth.
The prioress wore the same preoccupied expression. Apparently unaware of Agnes at her table, she walked right past her and made for the dorter’s door. Agnes gazed after her; the older woman was obviously under a great deal of pressure. It was one thing to be threatened by someone like Margherita when supporters rallied round, but a different matter when old friends disappeared.
That was part of the reason why Agnes had found it so difficult when Luke had been unfaithful to her. She knew she depended more on her friends than they did on her; that was why she could understand the awful sense of being apart from others that Lady Elizabeth must feel: one of a community, but isolated by her responsibilities.
It had been terrible when she’d found him with Kate. The sight of them lying together had appalled her. In a way she wished she’d thrown something at the pair of them, or punched and kicked them, but she’d had no energy, felt numb all over. Two people she’d trusted had failed her. She could hardly comprehend Luke’s disloyalty. His treachery.
She was glad she’d got him back, though. It was a slap in the face to Katerine: poor Kate, she thought sneeringly.
