The crackling branches spat out a merry warmth from the nearby hearth. Although he was a young man, Thomas was grateful for the heat that chased the dampness from his bones. He rose and walked closer to the fire, stretching his arms wide to embrace more of the comfort. A cup of watered wine would be welcome as well, he decided, especially if he must hear an admission of murder.
“Wine!” a voice shouted.
Thomas turned to see the steward limp into the hall.
From the shadows behind a pillar, a servant rushed off to obey.
Stevyn approached the hearth, rubbing his hand against his side.
“You have cut yourself,” Thomas said, seeing smears of blood on the robe when the man drew closer. “I should make a poultice for that wound before it festers.”
“Nay, Brother. You are kind, but it is a minor thing.” He scowled at his hand, as if it had offended him, and picked out what seemed to be splinters. “I tripped and scraped it against the rough wood of a wall, trying to keep balance. In my youth, I would have righted myself easily, but my legs buckled. Like my youngest son returning from his studies, my body often rebels against my wishes.”
Thomas smiled in response.
The servant arrived with a pitcher and two cups. Stevyn grunted and waved him away with the injured hand.
Thomas concluded the wound must be insignificant enough.
The pewter cup Stevyn handed him was of plain design but fine crafting and filled with a dark wine that turned out to be excellent. Thomas nodded with surprised pleasure.
“From Gascony,” the steward replied to the unspoken question. “Now, Brother, sit back and let me tell you a tale. Women like them to be filled with handsome knights and courtly love, but I fear this one is about a simpler fellow.”
Raising his cup, Thomas grinned. “As a monk from a priory near a seacoast village, I know more of that ilk than I do of knights, Master Stevyn.”
The steward raised one bushy eyebrow to express affable doubt, then settled into his chair, drank his wine, and began the story.
“Long ago, but near to this place, there dwelt a lad and a lass, both sinners by birth but as close to Eden’s innocence as youth can be. They fell in love, but he was a younger son of a landed knight, and his father had higher ambition for him than a merchant’s daughter. A worthy spouse with a little property was soon found for him, and the lovers were forced to part, innocent of lewdness but wounded in heart.”
He drained his own wine, glanced over at the monk’s cup, and replenished both before continuing. “The lad was now a man in possession of some earthly wealth. His new wife also owned a good soul. She prayed much, gave alms to the poor, tended to the sick, and dutifully bedded her husband for the sake of heirs. She bore one in great agony, then failed to quicken again. Indeed, bedding her husband grew so painful after that hard birthing that he took pity and ceased demanding payment of the marriage debt.”
Stevyn stopped and looked into his cup with a disappointed expression as if surprised not to find therein an answer to some question.
“He bore no fault for the pain his wife suffered,” Thomas said. “Sometimes God brings suffering to the good for reasons only He knows.” His heart always ached whenever he said this, and thus he used the argument as little as possible, but he suspected the steward would only take the words as rhetorical things.
In fact, the steward waved them aside. “There is more, Brother, much more.”
Thomas gestured for him to go on.
“Although the man did not love his wife, he honored her and sought remedies to heal her pain. When pilgrimages and trips to noted healers failed, he desperately turned to his former love. By this time, she had also married a good man at her parents’ behest and then gained some reputation as a woman skilled with herbs.”
He rose and paced without speaking, drained his cup, and refilled it. His hand visibly shaking, he spilled wine and muttered a mild curse. “Aye, a physician would have been the better choice, but the man’s wife had begged for a woman to attend her, confessing that her modesty had been offended enough by the questioning of one of the male healers.”
Thomas drank in silence.
“This desperate measure failed as well, and the man’s wife did not regain her health. As it turned out, it was a dangerous mistake. While the man’s wife prayed for relief, Satan found a fertile field in the hearts of the husband and his old love. At first they felt only comfort in each other’s company, then hellfire manifested as lust enflamed them beyond endurance. It was not long before they committed adultery, not just once but again and again.”
Although guilt colored the steward’s cheeks, Thomas briefly glimpsed something else in the man’s face. For just an instant, the wrinkles etched in his face smoothed and the brightness of youth flashed in his eyes. Did sin ever bring peace, the monk wondered before fear banished the blasphemous thought with just speed.
Stevyn sat back down and shook his head. “Unlike Huet, I tell tales badly, Brother. Let it be said, simply enough, that the wife learned of her husband’s sin and, like a true Christian, forgave him. God cursed him, however, and the good wife grew increasingly weak and finally died, leaving the husband so befouled with wickedness that he lost all reason. Blinded by the Devil, he turned selfish and took a young wife, whom he neither loved nor ever learned to respect, but whom he could swink at will like a boar in rut.” He closed his eyes, the illusion of story-telling grown as sheer as worn cloth.
“And when he learned that she was swyving another?”
Stevyn’s face turned a wine-red hue as he slammed his cup on the wooden table.
“Might he not have killed her because of the horns she put on his forehead? Many men have done just so and few have condemned them for it.”
“Someone else has done this, Brother. As I now think on it, the crime ought to have been done by me. For the sake of my honor, I confess I might even wish that it had been, but I have learned something from my sins toward my first wife. I…”
“…chose to forgive?” The question was dutifully asked, as his vocation demanded, but Thomas knew well enough what the reply would be.
Stevyn snorted. “Nay, I am not a man inclined to turn the other cheek, no matter how often our priest reminds us of that duty. I contemplated sending her to a convent for her sins, with a dowry large enough to guarantee acceptance and everlasting enclosure behind thick walls, but never did I want to kill her. And if you doubt me, Brother, as you most certainly have reason to do, I ask that you consider this. Why would I have publicly strung her up naked for all to see her shame, which is mine as well? That is an act of someone who must have had cause to wound both my wife and me.”
Thomas nodded. For a husband to stab an adulterous wife in bed with her lover, or to suffocate her without leaving plain evidence of killing, were more common methods. Yet he was puzzled about one thing. “When did you learn of the adultery? I have heard it continued for some time.”
“You are a young man, devoted to God. This may be difficult for you to understand.” The steward shifted uncomfortably, then reached for the pitcher and poured himself another full cup.
Thomas refused the offer of more. This was not the time for a wine-dulled mind.
“It became obvious to me that she bore my swyving as a despised duty.” He smiled, but his eyes closed from the shame of the admission. “She was a lusty young woman, but her body was as dry as a desert after I tried to please her. Even the Church says a husband must give his wife joy in bed, but I failed and, in truth, she soon began to bore me.” He tilted his head to one side, some pride returning to his look. “Isn’t it odd, Brother, that I should find more joy with a woman who is beyond child-bearing and can never give me sons? Yet I have, although no man ever has sons enough. My wife’s adultery came after I had left her bed for that of another. If I learned late of my wife’s betrayal, it was because I was lying in the arms of the woman I have loved for far too many years.”
“Is your beloved now free to marry?” Thomas asked, a chill shuddering through him despite the warmth in the hall. Was he wrong in thinking the murderer must be a man? Might it be a mistress who longed to take this man as lawful husband at the church door? Although the Church frowned on marriages between a man and his mistress, it was a prohibition ignored often enough amongst those of lesser rank.
“Aye, she is, but, before you ask the question, Brother, I swear to you that she did not kill my wife either. A gentle woman, she has told me that she is willing enough to remain my leman. I have found great peace, lying in her arms, and her company soothes my angers and renders me a kinder man. I do not understand how this is possible, considering our great sin. Perhaps you can explain it to me?”
The monk chose to ignore the question for the moment. “You believe this woman did not kill your wife, but did she have the opportunity to murder either Tobye or Mistress Luce?”
“I cannot address the night of Tobye’s death, because I had fallen into chaste enough sleep by my wife’s side. But the night of my wife’s murder, I was in my lady’s arms.” Scowling, he leaned forward, his arms resting on his thighs. “Surely the one who killed my groom also attacked Hilda and murdered my wife. Why would there be two—or three—such evil men at large?”
Thomas turned his head away. The question was valid, but could he believe the steward’s protestations of innocence? Inclined though he was to do so, he also knew how fortunate it was that the man and his leman should be together on the night of Mistress Luce’s murder. Neither would admit that the other was ever out of sight. Either or both together might have killed.
And how convenient that Luce, the one able to provide the steward with a reason to be far from the stable the night of Tobye’s death should now be murdered also. As for the testimony of servants, they would never speak against the master either.
A movement caught the monk’s attention, and he looked up to see a man at the entrance to the hall.
“How much have you heard?” Stevyn called out to the figure, and then gestured for him to come forward.
“If you choose to recount any of this story, Father,” Huet said, “you had best tell all of it.”