Thomas stopped a few yards past the inn.
Outside her hut, old Tibia and a man were in close conversation. Not wanting to interrupt, the monk decided to wait until they were done before he delivered the sleeping potion. As he walked slowly back along the path he had just traveled, he began to ask himself what business this Will Blacksmith could possibly have with the herb woman.
The man is not known for his charity to any soul less fortunate than he, Thomas thought, so I rather doubt the visit has aught to do with alms or the offer of kind companionship.
Curious and a bit troubled, he looked back at the pair.
Tibia was sitting on a high, three-legged stool, her eyes wide and unblinking like a painted figure in a manuscript. The staff she used to help her walk lay across her knees.
The blacksmith squatted on his haunches close beside her, his mouth next to her ear as if imparting some secret.
She shook her head and turned away from him.
Will reached for her arm and roughly pulled her back.
“Monk I might be,” Thomas muttered, “but I will not tolerate any harm done to an old woman.” He hurried toward to the hut.
Tibia’s eyes brightened as she saw the monk approach. “My son!” she cried out.
Will dropped her arm and gaped at the monk as if he had just seen a ghost.
“How cruel is your pain tonight?” Thomas stopped and glared at the blacksmith.
Will jumped to his feet and gestured for the monk to leave. “Wait your turn! I have business with the herb woman.”
“Indeed?” Thomas stepped closer.
“He did,” Tibia said, then turned to look at the blacksmith, her eyes blinking in the reflected light from the inn. “But he’s done.”
“For the sake of charity, old woman, give me what I need!” Although Will addressed the old woman, he glanced back at the monk. His expression was both confused and wary, his tone pleading.
“I don’t have it. I can’t forage for such things anymore. Ask someone else.”
“Tell me what’s needed and where to find it. I’ll get it for you. You’re the only one…”
“Go away.” She waved at him. “I’m tired. Don’t want to talk to you. Come tomorrow. I’ll think about it.” Her staff started to roll off her knees, and she made a feeble attempt to catch it.
Thomas picked it up. “I think your departure would be a wise act,” he said to the blacksmith, holding the sturdy branch in a position to strike if need be.
Will’s face darkened with anger and he raised one clenched fist.
“God’ll curse you if you hit a monk,” Tibia said. “And if He does, there’s nothing I can do to help you.”
“Tomorrow, then.” With a curse, the blacksmith spun on his heel and strode away.
“Did he harm you?” Thomas asked, kneeling beside her.
“Nay,” Tibia sighed, her look growing distant. “You’re a good lad to me.” She reached out and patted his hand. “When I birthed a kind son, God did bless me.”
Thomas opened his mouth to protest but quickly thought the better of that. What reason was there to waken her from all too brief but sweet imaginings? “Are you in pain?” he whispered instead.
She looked down at him, her eyes refocusing as her mind returned to the present. “It’s now when I recall what it was like to be a younger woman, Brother, and in full possession of my powers.” Her chuckle was like a rasp on iron. “For just a few moments, I do forget suffering.”
“Then you do not need this potion?”
She reached out for the flask.
Noticing how two of her fingers were bent backward from the joint disease, he realized that she was probably in constant pain. Any relief was but the difference between the bearable and the intolerable. He gave her the sleep-inducing drug.
“I may yet awaken in the night. My pain overcomes me of a sudden.” She smiled, her mouth innocent of all but two yellow fangs and a few other teeth that had turned black. “Is it safe to take all this at once? I don’t want to send my sinful soul to God by chance, without a priest to hear my last confession.”
“Sister Anne is careful about such matters. You may take this one draught with confidence but not more.”
“Stay, if you will. For a few moments? Unless another sufferer waits for the mercy you bring.” She eased herself to the edge of the stool and rubbed a place next to her as if warming it for his comfort.
“I saved this visit for last.” He rested one hip on the stool to give her more room. “I often watch over you until you fall asleep.”
“Like my dead boy, Brother, your company brings comfort.” Tibia fell silent.
“You said he died as a young man.” Even though he could not read her expression, he heard both grief and anger well mixed in her speech. “Was it illness or an accident that took him to God so soon?”
“That man?” With a gesture of disdain, she pointed in the direction Will had disappeared. “The blacksmith?”
Thomas nodded.
“He murdered my son.”
His mouth opened in shock.
“But those wise men of the crowner’s jury claimed I raised the hue and cry unjustly and that my son died by accident. They fined me for the trouble I caused.”
“And Will?” he asked.
“Suffered nothing. Oh, a mild rebuke.”
Had grief clouded her reason in this, Thomas wondered. The men could have made a mistake, being imperfect mortals, but were not most fathers themselves? Few of them would fail to sympathize with a parent’s agony over a dead child, yet he did think the fine assessed against her most harsh. Had she been a nuisance to them perhaps in other matters? Had they wanted to teach her a lesson? And what reason could there have been to rule against her unless the evidence did unequivocally prove an accident?
In any case, he thought, the lad was dead and it no longer mattered which conclusion was the true one. Kindness, not debate, was required now. “Then I commend you for your charity to him,” he said softly, “for you spoke most civilly a few minutes ago.”
“Charity? Nay. I must be humble in the face of my wickedness. Priests tell me I’m kin to the Whore of Babylon. When I found my boy’s naked body, swinging from a tree with a rope around his neck, his eyes bulging and his face purple, villagers said I should’ve taken this pain as retribution for my sins.” Tibia’s next words came out in a gasp of labored breath. “Some even whispered that God had used Will as His instrument to punish me. I couldn’t question God.”
I most certainly would have and, in truth, did at times, Thomas thought with a shiver, and then took her hand between his two, hoping to soothe her. “Why did the blacksmith hang your son? Was it out of malice?”
“They were all boys. My son fell in love with a girl in the village. When they caught him lying with her in the forest, they mocked him, swearing he must pay for his lust, especially being the offspring of a harlot. A rope was put around his neck and he was hauled up. According to those who stood in judgement later, the intent was honest enough and meant only to scare him. A joke, they claimed, but the rope stuck in that tree. When my son began to choke, they said help was sought, but my boy died before he could be cut down.”
Thomas bent his head in silence. Had any son of his been killed in this fashion, he would have found more solace in crying out murder and railing against a deliberate killer. There was no intent in an accident, and thus a man might reproach God for lack of caring and the cruel injustice of it. Was it not better for her soul that Tibia believe the death to be murder and choose to curse a man who killed rather than God?
As if she had been reading his thoughts, the old woman added, “It takes time to strangle, Brother. My boy was beyond all help when I found him, but I saw who’d done it running into the woods.” Her breathing grew harsh with the torment of memory.
How little most mortals think of consequences when we are that young, Thomas thought. To look up and see the boy slowly strangling and the rope snagged beyond reach must have been terrifying. Although he felt no pity for bullies, he did understand the delay in action as the tragedy dawned. The crowner’s men should have demanded some punishment for such a vicious and unnecessary death, but he was not sure he would have called this willful murder either.
Tibia shook her hand free of his. “Go, Brother,” she whispered. “Tonight I’d best stay alone.” Her lips twisted into a thin grimace. “But I promise I’ll think on how well God rewards us when we turn the other cheek.”
Watching her hobble into the dark hut, Thomas knew that he had failed her.