three, he held them under Baldwin’s nose while he singed them with the flame.
Baldwin coughed, groaned, his eyelids fluttered, and he winced, before retching and bringing up a small gobbet of vomit.
It was then that Godfrey shrugged. “He’ll be fine.”
The relief made Simon sag on his stool. Suddenly he realised how exhausting the last hours had been. He managed a grin and stood. “I’ll leave him in your care.”
Outside the sun had decided to escape its confinement behind the clouds. The garth was filled with a renewing warmth. Simon stood, eyes closed, soaking in the energy.
“Perhaps you should yourself be resting.”
“Constance, I think I shall have to.”
She walked over to a stone bench, sat and folded her hands in her lap. “Why don’t you sit?”
He took his place at her side, sitting down heavily. “It’s lucky Joan confessed,” he said quietly.
“Yes. Otherwise we might never have known who was responsible.”
“Except she couldn’t have killed Moll.”
Constance shot him a look. “What do you mean?”
“I know little about dwale, but I do know this: the older the person, the faster it will act. And you told us that Joan had taken her dwale.”
“I can’t have given her enough.”
“You think so?” he asked. “You don’t really, do you?”
“The prioress said Joan confessed to the murders. Why should she lie?”
“Simple. To protect someone else. Someone she wanted to protect.”
Constance blanched and gazed at him fearfully. “I swear I had nothing to do…”
“I didn’t mean you, Constance. Joan believed someone else had killed Moll: Margherita.“
“But why should Joan want to protect her?”
“Guilt, perhaps? She had killed Margherita’s mother Bridget, after all. Forever after she was Margherita’s closest ally. She certainly seemed to want her to win the prioressy.”
“Why did she kill the other girls?”
“I think it’s easy to speculate. Moll could read and add, and she saw Margherita embezzling funds. Margherita was a powerful lady here, and Moll wouldn’t have dared to confront her directly. Instead, she went to a woman she trusted – Joan. You all used to go to her with little problems, didn’t you? Or perhaps Moll did dare – yes, that’s it! She told Margherita what she knew, and Margherita refused to confess in chapter; that was when Moll spoke to Joan.”
“So Joan did murder her?”
“No. But when Moll died, Joan was convinced it was Margherita. And when she heard Katerine telling the same story, spreading it among the novices, Joan decided to protect her candidate for the prioressy by killing off the story at its source.”
“What about Agnes?”
“I think Joan was mad. She couldn’t bear to see her priory being ruined, and she thought that the place was falling about her ears; she wanted Margherita to take over Lady Elizabeth’s job. That way, she thought, Belstone would be protected. But Agnes was a threat. If news of her behaviour with Luke should get out, Sir Rodney wouldn’t dream of supporting the place.”
“Surely Sir Rodney would take a more pragmatic attitude? He wanted a place for his bones, and at least St Mary’s is near his home.”
“He would be very pragmatic, I think. He’d think only the priest can hold Mass over his chapel; Luke, a man who has been subverting novices and enjoying their bodies. Surely the least desirable priest in the country.”
“So Joan thought she should kill Katerine and Agnes to protect the convent?”
“And to protect the woman she loved.”
Constance shook her head in slow disbelief. “So you think Margherita…”
“No!” Simon said. “She was innocent; she swore that on the Bible, although she wouldn’t swear a lie about taking the money.”
“Then who?”
“What happened on the night Moll died?”
“I gave out dwale before Compline.”
“To all your patients? Did you do that every night?”
“Not usually. But Elias was coming to see me.”
“Was it the same mixture you gave to all?”
“All of my patients had the same.”
“What then?”
“Elias arrived some time after, and when I went to the door, he made a sign to be silent. He had heard Margherita behind him. Soon she was there, but she stood on the landing for some time before knocking at my door.”
“She’d have been listening to see if the man was in with Lady Elizabeth.”
“After a while she came and banged on my door. She was so noisy.”
Simon drew in a breath. “Where was Elias?”
“In my chamber.”
“Margherita didn’t see him?”
“I blocked the door and pushed her out, talking to her on the landing.”
“And then?”
“I told her not to be so silly and went back to Elias,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “I had to tell him about our child, and he hugged me and began planning our departure from the convent.”
“Did he leave you then?”
“No. We were together all the time. I didn’t sleep,” she asserted with a maidenly blush. “When it was near the time for the bell we rose and went down to the cloister; he needed time to get back to the canonical cloister, and I had to wash.”
“Moll was alive then? So you left him when you went to the laver?”
“Yes, but I’d seen him go to the church already.”
“What would have stopped him turning and returning to the infirmary?”
“There was no need!”
Simon looked away. “What if Margherita’s noise had woken Moll, for example, and she saw Elias there?”
Elias sat alone on a bench near the frater. Simon saw him from the church’s door and crossed the grass to him.
“Elias, Joan is dead. She confessed to the killing of Katerine and Agnes.”
“I had heard. News like that gets around quickly.”
“I thought you could help me with Moll’s death.”
“Me?” Elias attempted a surprised note, but only succeeded in sounding peevish and fearful. “Why me?”
Simon stared at his boot. “Because you were in the room with Constance. Joan was asleep – the dwale – and Margherita knocked on the door but was turned away by Constance. But Margherita made a lot of noise. I think Moll woke and saw you.”
Elias closed his eyes and let his head fall into his hands. When he looked up it was with a kind of resolution. “I saw her eyes widen. You don’t know what she was like! She stored up anything to threaten other people. Any sort of information; it didn’t matter what, so long as it served to make her look holy.
“Margherita banged on the door and Constance kept her from entering. I think Margherita was pleased Constance was alone because it confirmed her thoughts about the prioress. When she’d gone, that was when Constance came back and told me about our child. That was when I realised how much of a threat Moll was. If she was to tell the prioress, we’d be separated for ever. Constance would be sent away to another convent, and I’d be shipped to a strict monastery in Scotland or Ireland. I’d never see my own child.
