A Killing Season

Chapter Four

The wind bit like a nipping dog, but the morning sun struggled to bring warmth, albeit with a feeble touch. The scudding clouds, a mix of white and dark, promised uncertain weather.

Brother Thomas grasped his thick cloak and pulled it closer, then bent forward to look down into the cove through one of the crenels along the curtain wall near the entry gate. “I am glad we were surrounded by mist when we arrived yesterday,” he said, gazing at the narrow path leading to the drawbridge.

The cliffs on either side of the road were steep and bristled with sharp rocks. Watching the surf batter at the narrow promontory, he believed it was a miracle that even that vestige of land-bridge remained between mainland and island. Not that it would be long before the castle was irrevocably separated, he concluded. The edge of pale rock against which the drawbridge rested looked precarious, although the castle itself was settled on very solid ground.

Growing numb with the cold, he walked on, keeping close to the stone wall to avoid the full force of the wind. When he reached the protective mass of the watchtower, he paused and looked down again.

Now that the storm had abated, he could see that the cove was a rounded bay, protected from the full might of gales. There was even a sandy beach. In the summer, fishermen’s boats might be dragged up on shore to keep them safe, he thought, although the dark markings on the cliffs suggested that very high tides would render that impossible on occasion. Looking more carefully, he saw the boiling of riptides.

“No wonder the place is called Lucifer’s Cauldron,” he muttered. “There may be safety from the winds, but the incoming tides must be fierce.”

Perhaps fishermen did work along the coast in the milder seasons, he thought. When the castle was finally separated from the mainland by too great a distance for a drawbridge, provisions could be brought in by boat. For a moment, he amused himself by trying to imagine how supplies might be lifted from the bay before deciding there must be some location on the island that would prove better suited.

In this weather, he had no wish to seek it out.

A wind gust whipped around the tower and struck the monk with such force that he momentarily lost his balance. Reaching out for the wall, Thomas righted himself and then scurried toward the wide, stone staircase leading to the courtyard below. As he descended the stairs, he was passed by soldiers on their way up to take a turn on watch. He pitied them on such a bitter day.

Emerging into the bustle of castle life in the bailey, he was grateful for that comparative warmth provided by humans and animals crowded together. As he walked back to the keep, he avoided the thickest mud, mixed with manure from the various herds of long-horned goats, grunting swine, and lean-sided cows.

Briefly, he stopped to talk with a man mending a harness. Although the fellow’s fingers were red and swollen with the cold, he owned a cheerful disposition and was eager for a bit of idle chat.

When Thomas finally reached the stairs to the keep entrance, he felt a sharp pain and stopped to look at his hand. The palm was scraped from his fall against the stone wall. He shrugged. A little blood, but the wound was minor-unlike what that poor man suffered yesterday, falling from the high window.

Thomas shuddered with sympathetic terror.

He gazed up at the walls of the baron’s residence. Tilting his head, he studied the few narrow windows of the keep. How had the man fallen?

Whoever had built this fortress understood the coastal storms, as well as defensive concerns, and considered both in the design of those windows. The worst winds might drive mist, snow, and rain into the corridors of the upper halls, but the narrow windows were mostly on the leeward side, and the outer curtain walls gave the keep some additional protection. Those walls were also several feet thick.

With the thickness of the stone, the small openings and the position of the windows, Thomas could not imagine how any wind had caused the man to lose his balance. Even if he had slipped on the wet stone floor, the windows were at least waist-high. Considering all, it would be very difficult for a conscious, healthy man to accidentally tumble through the openings to his death.

Thomas knew the man might have jumped. No one had suggested such a thing when they took him to the corpse, laid out in the chapel, and asked that he do all he could for the man’s soul. If the family had suspected self-murder, none would have dared to mislead a priest about such a matter. God would know the truth. Fearful for their own souls, few would risk a lie.

Or the man could have been pushed.

Thomas hesitated, shocked at his reaction to this possibility. He ought to be distressed that the man might have been murdered. Indeed he was. He was also intrigued.

“I should be ashamed,” he muttered.

He wasn’t.

“If I long so for violence, perhaps I ought to have gone to Outremer as a soldier on pilgrimage to wrest Jerusalem from Muslim hands or become a mercenary. I am no peaceful servant of God,” he whispered to the wind, but he knew he had never truly yearned for horse and armor.

Not once had he ever wished to kill others for glory, profit, or even to serve God. If he hadn’t been caught in bed with Giles, he might have been content to remain a clerk to some high-ranking churchman.

He shook his head at that option as well. If he had stayed a clerk in minor orders, he would have become quite dull-witted with boredom. Instead, he had been forced to take monastic vows and was sent to the remote priory of Tyndal where he found himself in service to a woman. No man rejoiced at the chance to bring God’s justice to those who murdered more than Prioress Eleanor of Tyndal, a tiny woman who never let Thomas’ wits grow fat for want of exercise. Few other liege lords could have filled his life with quite so much adventure.

He smiled. “Since I am in her holy service, perhaps I need not rebuke myself too much,” he said, lowering his gaze to the muddy steps, “yet I should assume the baron’s son fell by accident and be prepared to offer what consolation I can to the family. Surely, this is what my prioress will send me to do.”

Holding firmly to that thought, he entered the keep and climbed the steep, curved stairway to his small room. Once the chamber of the family priest, recently deceased, it was near the small chapel where the current heir cowered for protection near the altar. Knowing the frightened Umfrey would appreciate soothing words, Thomas decided to go to the man after the next Office.

As he opened the door to his guest quarters, Thomas looked back over his shoulder and down the dark, narrow corridor that led to the family chapel. Despite good intentions to set thoughts of murder aside, he could not easily shake his doubts that any man could have fallen from those windows without assistance.