As Jeanne watched in horror, the arm fell to the floor. Stapledon forgot his anger and stared at it, but even as he realised what was happening, he felt the rocking, heard the ominous creak. His eyes met Jeanne’s as there was a loud report, and then the seat collapsed.
Simon Puttock sat gaping after the doorkeeper long after the man had left the room. When a lad, Simon had been taught by the canons at Crediton. It had been drummed into him that the Church had a sacred duty to save souls; for them to achieve their duty, all clerics were men of integrity, led by their most responsible and honourable representative. It had been rammed into him while he was a boy, and he had never quite lost the conviction that those who wore religious robes were somehow different from others.
It was hardly incredible that a nun should be guilty of giving birth to a child – Simon was no fool, and news of such incidents were all too common, if regrettable – but that the prioress of a convent should do so had never occurred to Simon. It disgusted him, as if she had openly offered herself to all the men of the village.
Simon took a deep gulp of his wine and then grinned to himself. What was more astonishing was his reaction, he realised, leaning back in his seat. The woman was hardly young, and yet she presumably had only been a prioress for a few years, since her lapse – if the story of her lapse were true. When she had been younger, she had taken a lover, perhaps only the once, and had fallen pregnant. To fail was human; surely since then she must have proved herself to be devout, and that was why she had been elected to lead her community.
Although whether they would do so again was a different matter, he thought, remembering the holes in the roofs of the main buildings and the freezing wind that whistled around the dorter.
He stood. The girl was not here. He would go and try to speak to the prioress. If Jonathan was right and the Lady Elizabeth had spoken to the girl, she herself might have heard something.
About to seek her, he hesitated, remembering Bertrand. He’d last seen the visitor hurrying towards the stables. Bertrand was supposed to be sorting out the trouble here; it was Simon’s duty to tell him about Rose. Simon was torn. He didn’t want to give Bertrand another excuse to proceed against the prioress, but at the same time didn’t feel he had the right to warn Lady Elizabeth.
Simon fretted but his duty was clear; he walked out to find the suffragan.
Baldwin groaned as the pain shot through his skull like a red-hot bolt from a crossbow. He half-expected to smell the singed hair and cooked flesh, and cried out as he tried to move his head again, but his mouth was oddly quiescent, as though it had been bound with velvet cords.
He tried to sit up, but his arms wouldn’t obey and it was only with an effort that he could force his eyelids open.
The room was red, warm, safe. He stared directly ahead of him, feeling the massive weight of his body; it felt so gross, he was sure the bed upon which he lay couldn’t support him. He felt as if he was slowly falling through the mattress, and the panic rose in his breast: he would suffocate! The bedclothes would rise up on either side and swallow him, smothering him in their warm embrace.
Even as he reached this conclusion, he forced down his fear with logic: the mattress was solid. He couldn’t fall through, it was impossible. His fear was the result of the drugs. Pillows and mattresses couldn’t engulf men. He forced himself to breathe slowly, concentrating on the flames of the fire.
A fresh blow of pain battered at his head, and he heard a low moan issue from his lips, as though it came from another person. He was not part of his body; he was near it, but somehow dislocated, a most curious sensation. However, before he could consider his state further, a shadow approached.
Immediately he was convinced that now, while he was incapable of defending himself, he would be attacked. For some reason he was sure that a hand would soon appear above him, from the head of the bed, drifting forward slowly, fingers outspread, before falling to cover his mouth and nose, extinguishing his life.
The feeling disappeared. He saw that the figure approaching was a woman in a nun’s habit. Such a person could be no threat. Dimly, he recognised Constance’s anxious but comforting eyes, and he wanted to smile back, but his mouth wouldn’t obey.
Elias had not joined his brethren for the service. He had sat in the small yard, waiting desperately for Constance so that they could talk; he had to explain why their escape was so essential, but she didn’t appear. Instead, as the singing in the church faded, he had lifted his eyes to meet the stern gaze of the prioress.
“It won’t do, young man. You cannot have her. She is already married to Christ.”
Elias fell back as if struck. Lady Elizabeth walked forward until she was at the metal screen, and Elias couldn’t meet the look in her serious face.
“Nothing to say? Well, Elias, you have misbehaved with her, but now she has partially come to her senses. She is pregnant – you knew that? Ah well, of course you did,” she added almost to herself. “That was why you wanted to take her away from here, wasn’t it? So that you could look to both mother and child somewhere. And how would you have done that?”
“I can smith – I could earn enough for us in any town or village.“
“And which town or village would allow you, a wandering stranger dragging two useless mouths behind you, to stay long enough to demonstrate your skills? Don’t be a fool! You would wander the streets, declaring your love for your wife, for such you would call her, and move from one small town to another, seeking work ever more desperately. And your child would die, of course: how could a baby live in the cold and damp for days without a roof overhead? Constance would have to give birth beneath a hedge, and she would be weak and fractious. You would love her and your offspring at first, but after days or weeks you would grow to hate them both; your child you would detest as a muling, squalling brat, a blob of vomit and excrement; Constance you would grow to loathe, for as you struggled to keep you and she alive, she would always demand more, saying that your baby needed warmer clothes, or a better shelter, or any one of a thousand things a mother wishes for her child.”
“I wouldn’t – I couldn’t grow to hate her!” Elias declared hotly.
“You would,” she stated quietly. “And you would cause the death of your baby.”
“No!”
Seeing the desperate sadness in his eyes she wanted to stop in compassion, but she couldn’t. The thoughts were all there from twenty-one years before when she had run through the same things with Rose’s father, and it all spilled out in a torrent.
“You would refuse to stay near here; you would insist on moving further away to be free from any attempt to recapture you both, from the risk that you would be taken to another convent many miles distant to ensure that you and she never thought of escaping your vows again. While large with child, moaning and complaining that she had no energy left to run, you would force her to walk on,” Lady Elizabeth continued relentlessly. “And even as she gave birth, you would be looking over your shoulder to see whether the Bishop of Exeter’s men were following you.”
“No,” Elias said, but his voice had sunk to a despairing murmur, and his head hung down as he stared at the ground.
She gave him a faint smile. “And when your child was dead, and you had buried it unblessed at the roadside for fear that any clergyman you begged to speak the words might tell your pursuers, then Constance would hate you as well. She would blame you for the death of her child, probably the only child she would or could ever conceive, and for the mortal sin of burying it without its soul having the benefit of a christening or priest’s blessing. And you would see her expression, and if you had any manhood left, you would cringe, and in a short time, yes, you would become disgusted with her…”
“No!” Elias shouted, and ran forward to grip the railings, meeting her gaze at last with conviction. “I love her, and there’s nothing you can say will alter that!“
“Love!” she sneered. “What do you know of love? You have sworn to love your God, yet you’re prepared to forsake Him in exchange for the fleshy delights of a woman’s body. How can Constance trust your promises now, eh? Not that it matters, for she will remain here. Do not bother to sit here idling, young fellow. Constance will be staying in the infirmary, for there is a badly injured man for her to look after, and she takes her work very seriously, as she should. It is a pity that you apparently do not.”
She spun on her heel and walked away, but then stopped and fixed him with a glittering look.
“But before I go, Elias, consider this: first, I shall in future ensure that all doors and grilles between the male and female convents are locked or covered over. There should be no communication between cloisters. And
