The summer night air had never felt so thick, Brother Thomas thought as he trudged along the path to Tyndal village. Each muscle in his body ached with the effort. Had he ever loved the summer season? Perhaps in the years before he became a monk. As a boy?
How long ago that seemed. He struggled to recall something of the time but could only see a fleeting image, albeit one of flashing color. Indeed he no longer expended much effort to recapture such memories. What sickening man wants to remember pleasures he had in life?
“Sinful musing,” he muttered to himself. Brother John had told him to concentrate on the joys awaiting him in Heaven when earthly troubles bore down with crushing weight. Were he a true monk, Thomas thought, such thoughts should make his heart rejoice. Instead, they only ground a sharper edge on his anguish.
Thomas cursed the humid thickness of the still night air. His burning eyes longed for the soothing cool of autumn weather. Surely he would suffer less if he got more sleep. How many nights had it been since he had slept longer than an hour or two?
With so little rest, he had begun to see and hear strange things: naked, rampant imps dancing in the cloister garth; disembodied voices calling his name with such sweetness that he wept with longing; faces of people, some long dead, whom he had once loved.
If he did not believe that his soul would tumble into Hell, he would welcome death. But the Devil would rejoice if he committed self-murder, and Thomas was in no mood to give the fiend any more satisfaction than the creature already enjoyed with him.
At least he now had these nightly distractions. When Sister Anne suggested a new task to fill his sleepless hours, he accepted with eager gratitude. By providing aid to those who suffered far more than he, the monk found some relief. He might be the most wicked of men, but at least he could ease pain, bring comfort, and hold the hands of the dying. In addition, the walks into the village fatigued him enough to blunt the sharpness of tortured dreams when he did sleep.
Thomas exhaled a deep sigh. Poor Brother John was grieving over his failure to cure the melancholia. His confessor was a man of compassion and faith, but nothing John had suggested eased the feverish dreams, the taunting visions, or the coal-dark burden in his heart.
John himself believed in self-flagellation, but Thomas had stopped the practice when he found it gave him a troubling pleasure, a feeling he distrusted and disliked. On occasion, he found some spiritual ease when he lay face down on the stone floor of the chapel, but the moment he began repeating prayers, his soul filled with noise and peace took flight. God must flee the chapel at the very sight of me, Thomas had decided.
Nay, Brother John was innocent of failure. He could not staunch a hidden bleeding when Thomas was incapable of pointing out the lesion from which it flowed. Lust, especially for another man, was sinful. That simple thing he might have confessed, as he had done once. What he could not explain was the sweet tenderness woven into his physical longing for both Giles and the man at Amesbury. Wise men knew that God drew battered souls with tender gentleness while Satan lured a man’s soul with glittering lust. For this reason, the combination of purity and transgression in his heart confused him.
His shoulders fell with despair’s cruel weight. Maybe his confessor was right about the cauterizing effect of exorcism. As matters stood now, Thomas’ soul was dying of putrefying wounds.
As he approached the edge of the village, he stopped and rubbed his eyes. These questions inevitably circled back on themselves while God refused to give him answers. Perhaps he should be grateful for small mercies. Lust had ceased to bother him, except in dreams, and his current disinclination to sleep limited those occasions. While he was awake, he was blessed, as it were, with impotence.
“Very well,” Thomas laughed. “Hasn’t God graced me with some benevolence then? It seems I must be content enough with that.”
He continued on to the village.
The path from the priory into the village of Tyndal now merged with the more traveled road from the west, one that was uneven and deeply rutted by the wheels of lumbering wagons. Thomas focused on keeping a steady pace without stumbling and dropping the vials he carried.
For the most part, the village was dark, whether the rude dwellings of the poor or the windowed houses of more prosperous families. No one here wore furred robes, but a few earned more than subsistence required. Whatever the nature of their daily labor, most were weary enough to sleep when the moon gained supremacy. Candles rarely flickered long after the sun had set.
The only brightness came from the inn at the fork in the road, one of the branches leading to Norwich with its great cathedral, relics, and abundant herring for those partial to the fish. Travelers from the west, on pilgrimage to Norwich’s shrine of Saint William, brought profit to the inn, but the most business nowadays came from visitors to the priory’s hospital. That was due to Prioress Eleanor. The inn had been a paltry thing until she arrived and lent her support to the healing skills of Sister Anne.
Before that time, East Anglian fishermen, and those that farmed the damp land in this remote area, rarely had the coin for decent ale, and never wine. The hospital had brought demand for finer craft and more trade. As a consequence, Tyndal village had grown richer, hosting a regular market day as well as attracting merchants who catered to those who sought cures for gout, bad digestion, and other ills of leisure. Sister Anne had many remedies for the afflictions that plagued courtiers, and they were willing to pay for them, afterward finding solace in the pleasures offered by a well-appointed inn.
Thomas’ destination was just beyond it. Although it was not his nature to be sanctimonious, he lowered his eyes to avoid seeing the lewd glow. Inns held too many memories he wished to forget, and he increased his pace to pass quickly by. Joyous shouts and loud singing assaulted his ears. Shuddering despite the muggy heat, he muttered a plea for protection against the lure of worldly delights he had enjoyed in the past.
Briefly, he hesitated. Did he not hear that Crowner Ralf had recently returned and might his friend be at the inn? Thomas turned to look back. He had grown fond of that rude but honest man. The former soldier and the unwilling monk had become friends before the crowner had deserted the village for the court. Thomas had missed him. Should he not seek him out, share some ale, and welcome him home?
Nay, I shall not, he said to himself. I would not be cause for any wicked rumor to reach Prioress Eleanor. I am no minor clerk, rather a monk, and have no cause to be drinking ale at any inn. Firmly bowing his head, he gripped the sleeping draught he had brought for old Tibia and hastened away.
The woman’s hut was but a few yards further on. The dwelling looked quite dark as the monk approached. No window fronted it, but there were spaces enough in the walls to show any light if a candle had been lit. Was Tibia fast asleep without this potion? Or was she gravely ill and in need of aid? Fearing the latter, his heart began to pound.
He tried the door. Although the alignment was askew and the door caught in the hard earth, it finally opened to a firm pressure from his hand.
“Mistress?” he said, his voice rising above the noise from the inn. “Are you ill?”
Nothing.
He began to ease himself inside.
“Careful, Brother. Wait for me. I don’t want you to trip over some pot.” It was a woman’s voice, roughened by age, the tone flattened with an effort to disguise pain.
Thomas leapt back and turned.
“You’re wondering that I am not in my bed?”
The woman limped closer, a dark shadow outlined against the light from the inn. Pulling herself forward with a thick bough, her progress was slow. Her back was bent so cruelly that Thomas was doubtful she could see much beyond the earth under her feet.
“You think I should lie still on my straw, waiting for my fate because I must die soon?” She hissed these words as she stopped in front of him and then laughed. The sound was sharp like the snapping of twigs.
Thomas drew away from the over-sweet foulness of her breath. “Nay,” he said, “yet I wonder that you can do otherwise.” Not a kind statement, he realized and chastised himself for his thoughtlessness.
She waved impatiently at him. “For God’s sake, Brother, step aside. I can no longer stand.”
He moved away from the open door.
“Nay, not inside.” She pointed with one trembling, gnarled finger. “Help me to sit. That stool. There.”
As he eased her down, he marveled at the lightness of her body.
“Ah, he is so youthful,” she sighed.
Thomas quickly understood that she was not speaking to him. Had her wits wandered? Did she imagine some long dead companion sat beside her, or a sister, maybe a husband?
“The young see in themselves only the beauty they’ll lose.” Tibia chuckled as if sharing a joke with her invisible friend. “And us? We’re just crones to them, as if we’ve never been else. But we know better.” She began to rhythmically tap her hand against her knee. “When we see these wrinkled faces in rain puddles, we can still see the shadows of proud breasts and straight limbs in all our drooping flesh. Isn’t that so? And white teeth, too, in these empty mouths.”
Thomas shivered. “May I bring you something to eat or drink?” he asked, eager to recall her wits if nothing else.
Turning her head, Tibia looked up at the monk. Her narrow-set eyes blinked nervously as she struggled to remember who he was.
To ease any fear she had, he grinned like the foolish youth she had just described.
“Signy fed me bits of softened meat at the inn,” she replied, the unseen companion now forgotten, or else dismissed back to the spirit world. “A good woman. Some claim she holds her head too high for a tavern wench. I wouldn’t. She comforts me. Why not find kindness when she lays a gentle hand on my arm? It’s a rare enough thing,” she cackled, pointing her twisted finger at him. “Old women know how cruel men can be.”
Was this woman a witch or simply mad? What should he make of her words? Thomas grew more uneasy and bent forward to look at her sharp-featured face, hoping to learn something from the look in her eyes. The angle of her head made it impossible. All he could see was white hair that provided but scant covering to the top of her head.
“Aren’t you the silent one, Brother! Am I so disgusting? Or do you think me sinful for feeding this…” She brushed one hand lightly over her breasts. “…decaying flesh? Should I have prayed instead?”
“You may be old but are not yet dying,” Thomas replied. His words might have been innocuous, but his tone was sharp with irritation. She was no witch, he thought, just a troublesome hag. He bit his lip in repentance, cursing the weariness that made him impatient and harsh to a querulous old woman in pain. “As for the innkeeper’s niece, I do not listen to mean-spirited gossip,” he added quickly.
“Ah, charity! That’s always the greatest virtue, isn’t it? Never hope. Why’s that? I’ve always wondered.” Tibia laughed but there was no joy in it. “Ah, Brother, forgive me. You came here with warm compassion, and I burn your ears with blasphemy. I confess it. I have sinned. Will you forgive me in God’s name?”
“God forgives everything.” Thomas extended his hand. “Would you not go inside and seek your bed? Sister Anne has sent a sleeping draught.”
Briefly, Tibia struggled to stand, then gave up with a loud gasp. “Lift me, if you’re willing. Take me to my straw pile,” she whimpered. “Were my son alive, he’d have made me a softer place to lie in and stayed while I fell asleep…”
Thomas felt a twinge of guilt. “Then after you drink this, let me wait in his stead until you sleep,” he said, bending to pick her up.
She uttered a sharp cry as he set her on her feet, and then pushed weakly at him when he took one arm to steady her. “You’re most kind, Brother,” she hissed in pain. “Please sit at my side. As you offered. Tell me of God’s grace. That would bring comfort. I must think on dying.”
With that, she slipped through the small opening to her dwelling.
Thomas followed her into the darkness.