He looked surprisingly sleek and well fed for a pilgrim, and wasted no time with preliminaries. “Three sous,” he said, “for what I know about the woman.”
That was nearly twice what Justin had offered, but he was not about to haggle. Reaching for his money pouch, he said, “Tell us.”
“And if you’re lying,” Durand warned, “I’ll come back and cut out your tongue.”
The man smiled faintly. “I’ve been threatened by a bishop, friend, so your threats scare me not. Anyway, I am not lying.” Holding out his palm for the payment, he said, “There are three people missing from the hall. The woman you seek, a poor, doomed soul, and a bothersome whelp. Your woman took the cub under her wing, God knows why, and she was hovering over the ailing man earlier in the day. My guess is that you’ll find them all up in the infirmary.”
After knocking lightly upon the infirmary door, Justin pushed it open. The scent of herbs was heavy in the air, mingling with the fetid odors of the sickroom. The infirmarian was leaning over a bed, tending to a man racked with convulsive coughing spasms. At the sound of the opening door, the monk glanced over his shoulder, barking out a brusque “What?”
“May I have a word with you, Brother?”
The infirmarian took note of Justin’s demeanor and clothing, concluded that this was not one of the poor pilgrims from the almonry, but a higher-status guest, and said, more politely, “Unless you are deathly sick, it would be best if you come back later. As you can see, this patient’s needs cannot wait.”
Justin’s eyes were roaming the infirmary, his hopes and heart plummeting when he failed to find Arzhela. “I am not ill,” he assured the monk. “I am seeking a woman who came to you earlier this eve.”
The infirmarian helped the dying man turn so that he could vomit into a small basin. “That one... she’s gone.”
“Where did she go?”
“How would I know? Make yourself useful and hand me those clean towels.”
Justin did as he was bidden. “When did she leave? Was a youth with her?”
“A while ago,” the monk muttered, so distractedly that Justin saw further interrogation was useless.
The infirmarian wiped his patient’s face, frowning at the streaks of blood in the basin. Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Why do you want this woman? Need I remind you where you are? Any man who’d sin with a wench in God’s House is courting eternal damnation.” When Justin did not answer, he glanced over his shoulder again, just in time to see the door quietly closing.
“Where would she have gone, if not back to the almonry? Surely she’d not wander about with a killer on the loose!”
Durand snorted. “If you’re offering a wager, I’ll take it. I’d not put anything past that fool woman.” Fairness forced him to add grudgingly, “She did not know Brother Bernard had betrayed her, so she may have thought the danger was past.”
“And she is not alone, after all.” Justin was doing his best to sound positive and optimistic. “It seems likely the lad is still with—” He checked himself, catching a glimpse of Durand’s expression. “What? Why do you look so sour?”
“It just seems very convenient for this stripling to turn up with Arzhela at the almonry. We know nothing about him, do we? How do we know the killer does not have a partner?”
Justin stared at him. “Thank you for that comforting thought,” he said at last. “We’re accomplishing nothing standing here, arguing. Since she did not go back down to the almonry, she must have gone that way.”
With Durand on his heels, he opened the door. His lantern’s flame illuminated a small chamber, stark and simple, with an exposed timber beam ceiling and sparse furnishings: an altar, a long trestle table, several coffers, and, under an archway, a large stone bath.
“Bloody Hell,” Durand muttered. “This is where they prepare their dead for burial.”
Justin agreed with him, and since Arzhela was clearly not there, he continued on into the adjoining building, a central nave flanked by smaller bays on each side. Bitterly cold and austere, it looked sepulchral in the blanched moonlight filtering through the high windows of the nave. The men knew at once what it was—the abbey cemetery and charnel house. Here the monks would be buried until the cemetery was too full for any more graves, and then their bones would be dug up and stored in the charnel house. Some ossuaries were constructed to display skulls and skeletons as a reminder to all of man’s mortality. The charnel house at Mont St Michel was partially walled up, much to their relief. They were not squeamish about death, but the sight of bleached human bones would have been ominous under the circumstances. Justin spoke for them both when he said, “Let’s get out of here.”
The corridor led them past the huge stone cistern, on into another chapel. By now they’d figured out where they were, agreeing that this must be the crypt of St Martin. Their guess was confirmed when they discovered they could go no farther, for St Martin’s chapel was not within the monks’ enclosure. Here, wealthy benefactors of the abbey would have the honor of being buried under the protection and sanctity of the holy relics preserved above them in the south transept of the church. This beautiful stone sanctuary did not have the same oppressive atmosphere as the funeral chapel and the charnel house, but Durand and Justin did not linger, hastily retracing their steps.
When they’d got back to the funeral chapel, they paused to plan their next move. “Damned if I know where she’s gone,” Durand confessed. “I do not see how she could have got entry into the abbey enclosure. Laypeople are not welcome in the cloistered areas, and the mere sight of a woman in their sanctum would have sent the monks into a frenzy of horror. I suppose this is neither the time nor the place to discuss the madness that drives a man to renounce the pleasures of the female flesh...”
His shrug said it all, as did the bemused shake of his head. “I admit I am confounded, de Quincy. All I can think to do is go back to the almonry, see if we can scare some of those good folk into being more forthright.”
Justin had no intention of letting Durand terrorize the pilgrims, but he was at a loss, too. “Mayhap we ought to start looking for—” He stopped, seized with a superstitious belief that to say it would make it so.
Durand read his thoughts easily enough, for they were his, too. Where was the best place to dispose of a body? The cistern? What of the charnel house? There would be a diabolic brilliance in that, hiding a murder victim under a mound of bones.
They descended into the stairwell in silence, their spurs striking sparks on the steps. How many thousands of pilgrims must have passed this way, their feet gradually wearing deep grooves in the stones. Arzhela herself had climbed these stairs; Justin was sure of it. So where had she gone? He stopped so abruptly that Durand bumped into him.
“I think I know where she is,” he said, cutting off Durand’s complaint in mid-sentence. “We went down a great flight of stairs, then up another to reach the infirmary.”
“I was there, de Quincy. I remember. What of it?”
“We were sure we’d find her abovestairs in the infirmary, so we passed it by. The chapel of Notre-Dame-sous-Terre—the holiest part of the abbey. It makes sense, does it not?”
It made enough sense to Durand that he was annoyed he had not thought of it himself. Women were partial to the Blessed Mary, all knew that. Besides, where else could she have gone? They reached the bottom of the stairs at the same time, elbowing each other for space in the narrow corridor. But they halted at the foot of the great gallery steps, their eyes drawn to the door on their right, standing slightly ajar. Now that the moment of truth was upon them, they hesitated.
The ancient chapel of Notre-Dame-sous-Terre was the very heart of the abbey. Although it had long since been replaced by the church above it, one of its two naves had been preserved. Their lantern light fell upon brick arches that had been old when Norse raiders were still plundering the Breton coast. Its original windows had been blocked up and shadows held sway, filling every corner, every cranny with the op
aque darkness that knew neither sun nor stars.
Justin’s disappointment was bitter beyond wormwood and gall. Too disheartened to speak, he stopped in the doorway, leaving it to Durand to voice the obvious. “She’d not venture into a cave like this. Not even Arzhela is that crazed.”
He turned away and Justin slowly started to follow. But he’d taken only a step or two before a memory flickered. He stood very still, scarcely breathing until the image crystallized. When they’d passed the chapel on their way to the infirmary, there had been a glimmer of light coming from that open door. Raising his lantern, he scanned the wall until he located an alcove. It held an oil lamp. The wick was unlit, but when he reached out, it was warm to the touch.
“Lady Arzhela?” His words went unanswered, echoes on the wind. Moving deeper into the chapel, he felt an impending sense of dread with every step he took. “Lady Arzhela?”
He found her in a small sanctuary in the eastern end of the chapel, crumpled behind the stone altar. A thick tallow candle lay on the ground near her feet; he almost tripped over it. She was lying on her side, one arm outstretched. Her pilgrim hat had been knocked off and her veil was askew, revealing several reddish-blonde strands.
Until then he’d not known the color of her hair. He was close enough now to see the darkening stain across her breast, almost black against the russet of her robe.
“Christ on the Cross.” The voice was Durand’s. Justin himself said nothing, for his throat had closed up too tight for speech. He knew it made no sense to grieve so for a woman he’d known this briefly. But his sorrow was like a physical pain, as sharp-edged as the knife that had stabbed her. He’d not realized until now, looking down at her body, just how much he’d liked Arzhela de Dinan.
Kneeling beside her, he said huskily, “By this holy water and by His most tender Mercy, may the Lord forgive thee whatever thou hast sinned.” That was all he knew of the sacrament of Extreme Unction. It was a meaningless gesture, anyway, for only a priest could absolve her of her sins. And then he caught his breath, for her lashes flickered and her eyes opened.
The blue of the sea was gone, drowned in blackness, for her pupils were dilated with the shadow of approaching death. She seemed to recognize him, though, for her lips parted and she gasped out one word. Her voice was as weak as a dying candle, and he leaned forward to be sure he’d heard her correctly. For a heartbeat, he felt her breath against his ear as her lips moved again. But when he looked into her face, the light was already fading from her eyes.
“Does she live?”
He swallowed, then shook his head. “No.” The other man said nothing, but after a moment, he made the sign of the Cross. Justin continued to hold Arzhela in his arms, reluctant to let her down onto the cold stone floor. It was then that he saw it—a wet smear upon the tiles. He stared at the limp hand, the fingers stained with red. Had she tried to write her murderer’s name in her own blood as her life bled away?
“Holy Mother of God!”
They whirled toward the sound. The infirmarian, flanked by two younger monks, was standing in the doorway of the chapel, staring at them in horror.
XIV
February 1194
Mont St Michel, Normandy
“Jesu,” Durand said softly, “we knocked over the bleeding hive.”
Justin was in no position at the moment to appreciate the metaphor, or he might have agreed it was unusually apt. The infirmarian had rushed into the chapel, a courageous act under the circumstances, but the other two monks fled and, within moments, they heard the muffled clanging of a fire bell. Kneeling by Arzhela, the elderly monk searched in vain for signs of life, shaking his head when Justin asked if he could adminster Extreme Unction.
“I am not a priest,” he said, getting stiffly to his feet and beginning to edge away from them, as if only then becoming aware of his own danger.
“We did not do it,” Justin said hastily. “We are not her killers!”
It was then that the chapel began to resemble an overturned hive. In one moment there were just the three of them standing over Arzhela’s body. In the next, monks beyond counting were there, swarming into the crypt like angry bees making ready to defend their nest. Voices were raised, accusations flung, prayers mingled with expressions of dismay and revulsion, and chaos reigned. Justin and Durand found themselves backed against one of the granite pillars, surrounded by shouting, gesturing monks. They seemed more upset by the desecration of the church than they did by the killing of a woman, at least to judge by the epithets being hurled at the two men—“ungodly,” “profane,” and “accursed” outpacing the occasional cry of “Murderers!”
Justin’s declarations of their innocence went unheeded, even unheard. By this time the male servants of the abbey were streaming into the crypt, too, as were some of the pilgrims, and Durand said, low-voiced, “It is now or never, de Quincy.”
Justin stared at him incredulously, for escape was the one option not open to them. “Are you mad? You cannot slaughter monks in God’s Church!”
“I’ve done worse,” the other man said grimly, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword. “They have no weapons but their tongues. You want to wait till they get the whole town up here, baying for our blood?”
Before Justin could respond, there was a sudden movement in the wall of bodies encircling them, men moving back, clearing a path. The newcomer was a man no longer young, tall and almost gaunt, with silvered hair that had once been flaxen. He was clad like the others in a simple, black habit, but upon him it had a certain stark elegance. Justin guessed at once that this was the prior, Abbot Jourdain’s second-in-command. Everything about him proclaiming an authority sanctioned by God, he was the veritable embodiment of dispassion and the cool rationality of the intellect. But Justin could take meager comfort in that, for the prior bore an unsettling resemblance to Aubrey de Quincy, Bishop of Chester, his father.
The prior lifted his hand and the noise stilled. “I am Clement de Roches,” he declared, investing that popular papal name with prideful echoes of grandeur. “I am prior of the blessed abbey of St Michael. Who are you that have dared to defile the sacred altar of Our Lady?”
Justin’s grief and fear gave way, then, to rage that Arzhela’s death seemed of so little importance to these holy men of God. “A woman has also lost her life, my lord prior, a good woman. Why is that less offensive than bloodstains on a tiled floor?”
“Good going, man,” Durand muttered. Justin ignored him, meeting the prior’s piercing pale eyes without flinching.
“Because,” the monk said coldly, “murder is a crime. Befouling a church is sacrilege.”
“We are guilty of neither, my lord prior. We did not harm this woman, spilled none of her blood.”
“I was told you were found kneeling beside her body.”
“Yes, and does that sound like the action of a killer? The infirmarian can tell you that I was cradling her in my arms, seeking to comfort her in her last moments.”
When the infirmarian tersely confirmed this, the prior turned his inscrutable gaze back upon Justin. “Men have been known to kill that which they love.”
“But not with an unbloodied sword.” The monks retreated a step when Justin slid his sword from its scabbard, only the prior standing his ground. “Look at the blade, my lord prior. Do you see even a droplet of blood? The same holds true for my eating knife and for the weapons of my companion.” Turning, he demanded, “Show them, Durand,” and the other man did.
“You could have hidden the murder knife,” a voice from the back of the crypt called out, and there were murmurings of agreement.
“Search the chapel,” Justin challenged. “If it is not found, that proves our innocence. Unless you are claiming that we stabbed her and fled to dispose of the weapon, only then to return to the murder scene so we might be found with her body.”
A number of the men had already begun to prowl the chapel, hunting for a dagger. When they failed to find one, some of them seemed willing
to reconsider their certainty about Justin and Durand’s guilt. The prior continued to regard them impassively, though, and raising a hand for silence again, he said, “The woman was one of God’s poor—which you are not. Brother Nicolas told me that you came to the infirmary in search of her. Why? What did you want with her?”
Justin did not know how to answer this question, for neither the truth nor lies would serve them well. If he revealed Arzhela’s true identity, the prior was likely to send an urgent message to the Duchess Constance, the last one in Christendom whom he wanted involved in this. But what lie could they devise that would seem plausible to the prior? What reason could they give for seeking out a needy female pilgrim that would not sound suspicious or immoral to the prior?
“She is my sister.” All heads swung toward Durand, including Justin’s. He stared at them defiantly, daring them to doubt him. “I do not know what name she was using at the almonry, but her real name is Felicia de Lacy; her husband holds lands of King Richard, south of Bayeux.”
The prior looked down at the woman on the floor—truly looked at her for the first time. “Her coloring is similar to yours,” he conceded. “But I find it difficult to believe that a woman of gentle birth would be posing as an impoverished pilgrim.”
“Look at her hands, her nails. Do you see any calluses or blisters on her palms?”
“No, I do not.” The prior straightened up and stepped away from the body. “She has the hands of a lady,” he admitted. “But why was she here in disguise?”
“She wanted to take holy vows. She’d been trying for a year to persuade her husband to give his consent, to no avail. She finally declared that the Almighty did not want her to wait any longer and ran away. Her husband has been looking for her and I thought it best to find her first; he has the Devil’s own temper. So when I discovered that she’d gone on pilgrimage to the Mont, we came after her.” Durand glanced at Arzhela’s body, back at the prior. “We were not in time. Her husband must have found her first.”