The Sanctity of Hate (15 page)

“I did, but I did not mean to kill him. I only wanted to save my honor.”

“A fine hope!” He spun around and shouted: “But I cannot believe you stopped him in time.”

Gytha’s eyes widened.

“He deserved to die for destroying your chastity!”

“He succeeded only in bruising and frightening me.” Con- fusion mixed with anger sharpened her tone. “Do not make a mockery of my plight. My sin is a killing that I swear was never intended. Why shout so about a loss that did not occur?”

He shook his head.

Gytha’s face turned scarlet. “Oh, now I see what you are about, my lord. You have decided my guilt. My oath is without merit because I am a woman, and you grieve that Tostig’s sister must now be called a whore!”

“I can defend you against the murder,” he replied, “but you cannot recover…” The crowner covered his eyes.

Anger flashed from hers.

He opened his hands to plead with her. “How can I believe that Kenelm did not violate you? It is against all logic.”

She stepped back from him. “For all your flaws, my lord, I have always called you a just man. Sadly, I find that you are no different from any other, all of whom believe women are besot- ted with lust. Perhaps you have also concluded that I seduced Kenelm, then struck him so he would not tell how I forced him to couple with me?”

“I do not…”

“In truth,” she shouted, “do not all men demand that their wives bloody the nuptial sheet while they mount other women without a thought to any consequences? And should a man shatter a woman’s virginity without her consent, you, like any son of Adam, cast the woman aside, claiming that the rapist erred only in failing to pray hard enough for the strength to resist her wiles.”

“Gytha!” He slammed his fist against the wooden table and howled with pain.

“Enough!” Eleanor strode into the room. “This woman has been as loyal to me and shown as much love as any who shared my mother’s womb. For that, I respect the truth of her words and shall shield her against all who dare to point condemning fingers.” She glared at Ralf. “And you? You have known her since she was a child and call her brother your closest friend. Surely you owe her even greater loyalty than I, Crowner.” Walking over to Gytha, she pulled her close to her side. “This interrogation has ended.”

The crowner nodded and looked away.

“Leave us, my child,” Eleanor said. “He has heard your story, and we have agreed that you shall remain here no matter what he concludes. Seek peace in the cloister garth until I come for you.” Shooting a barbed look at Ralf, she added, “I must speak with this man a brief moment longer.”

Her eyes moist with repressed grief, Gytha fled the chambers, slamming the door behind her.

Eleanor was now alone with a man, against all rules. For once, she was too angry to care. “You should be ashamed, Ralf. I would not have urged her to speak with you had I known you would have treated her with such disregard. You have betrayed my trust.”

He fell to his knees in front of her.

“Oh, stand up,” she said and turned to the table. Pouring two cups of wine, she pushed one into the crowner’s hand.

He drained the cup.

She poured him more. “You, as well as I, love Gytha, yet you have deeply wounded her. My trust may have been betrayed, but your brutal words to her are the greater sin. How dare you doubt her honor and accuse her of lying when she swore she had not been raped. That was more than cruel. That was the act of one in whom God had failed to place a heart.”

He looked like a man facing an eternity in Hell.

“I must forgive the insult to me, because my vows require it, but I am not obliged to forget the wound you inflicted on a good woman.” The prioress glared at him. “Even assuming she

had been raped, surely you know that she would never marry you until she knew she would not quicken with Kenelm’s foul seed. And if proof of virginity is truly required, should she ever be willing to let you take her to the church door, Sister Anne will provide it.” She threw up her hands in disgust. “What were you thinking, Ralf! Or were you thinking at all?”

“God has cursed me with lack of wit,” he groaned. “It is not the first time I have spoken so rudely.”

“Indeed, it is not,” the prioress snapped. “This time you shall pay dearly for it.”

Silence fell between them, then Eleanor walked to him and lightly put her hand on his arm. “Aye, you have stabbed her to the heart. Whether or not the blow is fatal we cannot yet know, nor dare we take the time now to consider a possible remedy. For Gytha’s sake as well, the murder must be solved first.” Retreating to a proper distance, the prioress asked: “Do you think it possible that Gytha killed Kenelm even in the defense of her honor?”

“Nay,” he said without hesitation and swallowed the remain- ing wine. “Nor, as you told me, does Sister Anne.”

“Neither do I.” She pointed to the jug. He hesitated.

She smiled and poured again. “Someone cut his throat. I did not mention that detail to Gytha. She claims that she only hit him with a rock and that must have killed him. There is no reason for her to hide another wound when she has already confessed to the murder.”

He agreed, then sipped with moderation.

“As we discussed before you were summoned to the riot, there was blood in the ground above the mill. According to Sister Anne, a man bleeds only before death.”

“That means that someone discovered Kenelm still alive, dragged him to the mill, slit his throat, and threw the body in.” “Or perhaps found him after he dragged himself inside the gate and then cut the man’s throat. That is probably a minor difference, so I say we are in agreement. Unfortunately, we have only Gytha’s confession about striking the man. Unless we find

the true killer, suspicion will continue to cloak her.” She raised a hand to stop him from speaking. “Even if she is found innocent because of the circumstances, Ralf, some will always condemn her for the violence unless another is hanged for the murder.”

“That cur, Adelard, will never shut his mouth about it,” the crowner growled.

“As Gytha’s tale points out, there is one more element in this vile tale that must be resolved.” Eleanor’s expression was grim. “Brother Thomas is seeking Brother Gwydo now. When he brings him to me, I will ask why he was outside the priory, how he discovered Gytha, if he saw Kenelm or anyone else, and what he did after her took her to the mill gate.”

“Do you think the lay brother killed Kenelm?”

“I cannot conclude anything before I question him, Ralf.” “And you must do so without me.”

“He is under my leadership and the Church’s rule.”

The crowner bowed his head. “I know you will share with me whatever you discover, my lady.” He took a deep breath. “As for Mistress Gytha and the wrong I have done unto her…” “When this other crime has been solved, Ralf, I shall do all I can to bridge the chasm between you. It is a wide one,” she said, then shook her head. “But differences can often be resolved and loving hearts bonded more firmly with the wisdom learned in the struggle. Pray, as shall I, that this may be true for you both.”

Chapter Twenty

Frowning, the young lay brother leaned on his hoe. “Nay, I have not seen Brother Gwydo since yesterday.”

Thomas was now worried. “Did you speak with him then?” “I told him what I knew about the riot in the village. Did

you not hear the shouting?”

“I was there,” the monk replied. “How did you learn of it?” “I pulled myself up on the mill gate and asked a passerby on the road.” The youth flushed. “On the vows I have taken, Brother, I swear I was only a hand’s breadth outside the wall.”

But curiosity still sparkled in his eyes. “What more have you learned?” the youth whispered. “Were the Jews killed?”

“No.” Thomas had neither the time nor the inclination to give details. “How did Brother Gwydo respond?”

The lay brother looked suffi chastened. “He was unhappy, saying that this violence was a wicked thing. When I asked why he was so troubled by it, he said nothing more but left and walked back toward his bees.” The lay brother shook his head. “Why would he have said that? Hadn’t he gone on pilgrimage to Outremer to recover Jerusalem from the infidels? Are Jews not infidels?”

Thomas was even less eager to repeat his sermon to the villag- ers on the rights of the king’s people than he was to trade tales. He had to find Gwydo. “I will send for you later and explain the Church’s position on those of Jewish faith.”

The man’s expression suggested less than enthusiastic anticipation.

Leaving the lay brother to his struggles with the garden weeds, Thomas strode down the path that led to the mill. Where had Gwydo gone?

He had already searched the priory. The man was not in the dormitory, nor had he fallen ill and gone to the hospital. Only Brother John was in the chapel, a man who constantly begged God to pardon frailties he could never forgive himself.

Reaching the mill pond, Thomas slid down the embankment and found a full pottery jug left in the water. He pulled himself back up to the path and walked toward the skeps. As the buzzing grew louder, he looked around. No one was tending the bees.

“What do I even know about the man?” Thomas asked him- self as he left the clearing. Had Gwydo been married, and did he have children? Where was he from, and what was his parent- age? He did have a singing voice the seraphim would envy, and Thomas felt at ease with him.

That last thought gave him pause.

He rarely let down his guard with others. Oh, a few to be sure, but they shared his feeling of not quite fitting into the world as most did. Prior Andrew, for instance, had fought on the wrong side of the de Montfort rebellion. Sister Anne had followed her beloved husband to the priory, despite having no longing for the cloister herself. Never did he have cause to doubt Gwydo’s sincere faith and calling, but he had sensed a profound sorrow hiding deep in the man’s soul, a feeling he himself understood well.

He continued through the mill gate and walked into the road. For want of a better destination in his hunt, he decided to visit the place known as the hut of Ivetta the Whore, where he had spent almost a year as a hermit.

The sea breeze was soft and carried a welcoming coolness to the land. Had yesterday not brought a village near riot and a family close to death, the world might have been as sweet and innocent as it was only a day after God finished creating it.

Thomas shook his head. This illusion was surely the Devil’s mockery. A man’s throat had been slit, and the stench of hatred was still in the air. Slipping into the forest, he stepped over a rotting log and found the short-cut to the hut.

He had not walked far before he saw where someone might have tripped and tumbled down the embankment. Kneeling on the ground, he found a root pulled up, the earth still damp where it had been buried, and the surrounding vegetation flat- tened or broken. He bent over the edge and concluded that the distance to the stream was not far. There were many rocks and some tree trunks that could break any fall but which also might break an arm or injure a head.

Was Gwydo lying wounded and helpless below? He eased himself down to the water’s edge.

A brief search of the area revealed neither lay brother nor anything else of note. Thomas sighed with frustration and climbed back up.

He loved this forest, a place apart where he had often mused without interruption in his days as a hermit. Of course it held danger as well. There were often rumors of lawless men, although he had never seen them, and near the stream below he had once found a body. Here too, Gytha and the lay brother had been seen by Adelard.

Of course he was certain that the prioress’ maid was inno- cent of any intentional sin. As for Gwydo’s reasons for being outside the priory, blameless or culpable, Thomas worried that his ignorance of the man’s past kept him from grasping what the lay brother’s true involvement was.

The first question to consider was whether or not Adelard was correct in believing he had seen the lay brother and Gytha coupling. Had the current situation been less dire, the monk would have laughed at the absurdity of the allegation. After all, he had known the prioress’ maid from the time she was just past childhood.

A woman vowed to God could not be more chaste. It was common enough for young village women to lie with lovers,

often bearing large bellies to the church door as an additional witness to the joyful union, but Gytha had not done so. Her fondness for the crowner and his little daughter was well-known, but Ralf had never tried to take advantage of that either, despite loving her in return. All of Tyndal knew how he felt. Some had even wagered on when he might finally ask her to marry him.

Why, then, would she lie with Gwydo? Or had he raped her?

He entered the small clearing where the hut stood and paused for a moment, feeling a twinge of sadness. Prioress Eleanor had taken permanent possession of this small bit of land for the priory and ordered it tended until another monk begged for a hermit’s retreat. Thomas wondered if she was thinking of Brother John, who was steadily withdrawing from the mortal world.

In the meantime, he was pleased that his old vegetable garden was still being cultivated and the hut kept in good repair by a man in Tostig’s employ. He took a deep breath, taking the opportunity to draw in some of the peace he still found here. Then he sat on the wooden bench he had built and pulled his mind back to Gwydo.

Was the man likely to have raped any woman, let alone the prioress’ maid?

Although Thomas never claimed his opinions were infallible, he strongly doubted the former soldier had done so. One of the reasons he was comfortable in the company of this lay brother was the man’s profound gentleness. Gwydo may have been a soldier, and surely killed men in battle, but he had often said that war had given him a calling for peace. Clenching his fist with the agony of memory, Thomas was quite aware that rape was a violent act. Whatever Gwydo had done in battle, he had come to Tyndal seeking tranquility. Such a man was unlikely to defile a virgin.

If none of this occurred, had Adelard lied or simply misinter- preted what he had seen? The young man had faults enough, but he had shown willingness to listen yesterday, despite his initial enthusiasm for killing the family in the stables. That suggested