Justice for the Damned

Chapter Fifteen

Thomas strode to the library, his expression cheerless, his gaze determined, and his tongue thick as if wrapped in rough cloth. Not only did his head hurt but he ached all over after spending the night on the other side of the priory walls, passed out on the damp ground with only a grass nest for bedding.

Upon first awakening, he had kept his eyes tightly shut while images from the previous evening danced through his mind with the mocking gracelessness of gangly imps. When he dared to squint at the sky, the sun's angle confirmed his suspicion that he had missed several of the Offices. Briefly he considered whether he might still join the other monastics for Sext if he hurried, but the contents of his stomach pitched into his throat when he rose. Easing back down on his hard bed, he closed his eyes and decided a quiet musing on his transgressions might be wiser than running off to prayer. He would fast today in expiation for his wrongdoings.

The wine drunk last night was a small enough sin. When he had shed his monastic robes and grown a beard to solve a problem in York last year, his thin-lipped spy master had ordered but one full day of prayer for any sins he might have committed on God's behalf. His cause last night was a godly one as well, and he might even claim that visiting a place so full of tempting worldly pleasures was a worthy test for his soul. Robert of Arbrissel, Fontevraud's founder, would surely have approved the attempt.

Nor had he merely indulged frail mortal curiosity when he listened to Master Bernard's tales of Amesbury and the people who lived there. Fortunately, he had remained sober enough in Bernard's company to remember the details of what he was told. If nothing suggested anything of true merit now, it might later as he thought more on the stories with a sober mind. One conclusion had become apparent. If there were no strangers who had spent any time here or shown any specific interest in the priory, the source of the proposed theft must be local.

And what of the ghost? He could be truthful enough about his failure to find Queen Elfrida's spirit innocent of this most recent murder, but Prioress Eleanor might see something of note in the villagers' belief that demons hid amongst the stones on Salisbury Plain. She often saw things he could not, although time and again she generously asked for his observations.

Thomas rubbed at the grit in his eyes. His prioress was a rarity amongst women, a sex many claimed was plagued by illogic and uncontrolled lust, yet the power of her reason was surpassed by few, in his opinion, and only when she was angry had he seen her gray eyes turn hot like glowing ash.

"In this last, she is a better man than I," he muttered. He envied her ability to stand apart from the sins common to most of Adam's progeny and maintain the masculine balance in her humors while others suffered from their frailties, joyfully selling their souls in exchange for relief from the relentless agony of such weaknesses as lust. "I have not yet made a bargain with the Devil, but I understand why some do," he groaned.

This morning, when Thomas had risen from his grass bed, he had gone to the river and washed himself. Had he not rinsed away the sweat of the night, he could not have faced either Sister Anne or Sister Beatrice, both of whom had bedded men often enough in their youth. He might explain the sourness of wine on his breath, but he could not so easily dismiss the unchaste smell of sex. Therein lay his greatest sin, the least forgivable one, from his evening at the inn.

While the other monks of Amesbury had been singing the Morning Office, Thomas had been deep in dreams. In the past, when Satan's incubus came to seduce him in his sleep, it had always donned the shape of Giles. The caresses Thomas exchanged with that image of his boyhood friend were founded in honorable love, so when his flesh hardened, Thomas cursed the Lord of Fiends and did not condemn himself in the morning for any greater wickedness than a common failing of a man's sex.

Last night, however, the Devil had introduced a disquieting variation in his cruel sport. The incubus who drew the monk into his arms may have worn the body of Giles, but the face was that of Sayer. When Thomas awakened, bursting out of this dream with a rare orgasmic joy, he had lain on the ground, grateful for the physical release of dammed-up seed but terrified by feelings he did not understand.

Why had he been cursed with this strange new affliction? Were his lonely walks through the dark silence of the monk's cloister, when his sleepless nights gave fetid birth to his black humors, not penance enough for the one act of sodomy he had committed with Giles?

Other monks, when they suffered similar dark longings, took the flail to their backs to keep their souls from falling into Hell. That he knew. Some fasted until their manhood was too weak to sin. Nothing, however, had ever spared Thomas from his dreams, even when he was in prison, after he was raped, and when he once beat his back bloody.

He stopped, uncomfortably aware that he stood near the library walls. Cautiously he looked up. Sayer was not there. At least God had been kind enough to grant him that reprieve. The roofer was one he did not want to see again for a very long time.

He slammed his fist against his chest.

The smaller limbs of the tree above him moved gently in the breeze.

"If You scorn me, why give me any peace? If You do not, why scourge me with this new and fiendish apparition?"

Thomas leaned his head against the bark, but the only thing he heard was the pounding in his head. "Very well," he said, pushing away from the tree, "since God deigns no answer now, but I feel no hot breath of Hell on my cheek, I shall see to the Amesbury Psalter."

The library was tiny and combined with the scriptorium. Although there were books stacked neatly in a wood-lined recess near the door, and others presumably stored in the wooden chest nearby, Thomas saw only two tonsured heads bent over their work, their left hands holding the parchment flat while they labored to create the text with their right.

Amesbury Priory was not renowned for illuminated work, but the monastery had wealthy patrons whose educated daughters, and sometimes widows, came here as nuns. These were women who prayed with more piety in the presence of God-inspired beauty, and the priory would set any talented monk to the task of filling such a need. It was a pity, he thought, that there were only two.

As he wandered over to look at the books in the recess, he recognized some that Sister Beatrice had loaned Prioress Eleanor, works that Sister Anne had described to him in detail. Both of them had been amazed at what their prioress read. After meeting the formidable Sister Beatrice, they wondered no longer where their leader had gotten her taste in everything from the works of the sainted Augustine to La Mort le Roi Artu.

Here was an herbal he had seen, a work not elaborately illustrated but done adequately enough. When their prioress had loaned it to them, he and Sister Anne had soon memorized the details but nonetheless regretted returning the book itself to Amesbury.

Thomas walked back and stopped to look over the shoulder of one monk. The man was so deep in prayerful concentration on his illuminated letter that he was unaware anyone stood so close. His work was not skillful, but the robes of the archangel were folded with a certain grace even if the colors were muddy.

"May I help you, Brother?"

Thomas turned to see an elderly monk standing next to him.

"I am called Brother Baeda, the librarian. By your garb I know you belong to this Order, yet I do not know your name. You are from…?"

"Tyndal, Brother. My prioress has traveled here to see her aunt, Sister Beatrice, and I accompanied her. My name is Thomas."

The man's toothless grin was warm. "You came with Prioress Eleanor? I knew her when she was just a novice. A thoughtful, devout, and clever girl, she was. Surely our noble King Henry was inspired by God when he sent her to your priory."

Thomas bowed his concurrence. "I have heard about your famous Psalter and was told that Prioress Ida sent it here for repair."

The monk studied Thomas with interest. "Then you are the one to do the work? I thought it would be done by an older man who was not of this Order…"

"Nay, I am not skilled in such artistry. I came only to look at it.

"It is a fine manuscript, but how did you learn of it?"

"Prioress Eleanor suggested I take the opportunity to see it while I was here."

"Ah, she would remember the Psalter, wouldn't she? Come," Brother Baeda said and gestured for Thomas to follow him.

Thomas' eyes opened in awe when he saw the beauty of the Psalter. Although the book looked too heavy to hold comfortably in two hands, it had obviously been much used, most probably by the prioresses of Amesbury as it rested on the prie-dieu in their chamber. One corner on the right side of a page was smudged, and the edges were wearing thin. The tear in the upper left was the object of the intended repair.

What troubled him was the placement of the book on a table where anyone could quickly grab it. Other prized works had been stored carefully away. Why was this one left out?

"Forgive me, Brother," he said at last. "I have been rendered speechless by the beauty of this work. The blue of the Virgin's robe is as bright as a jewel, and the angels above her head show a divine grace." The fact that the nursing baby at Mary's breast was red-haired had much caught Thomas' attention and he did wonder at the illuminator's intent. Would Jesus have had such coloring? He looked closer. Maybe the tint was more of a brown.

"Let me show you other examples of its wonders." The monk turned over another page and pointed out a mermaid playing a stringed instrument, carefully incorporated into the "U" in Psalm 94.

Thomas raised an appreciative eyebrow. Now that was a figure Brother John at Tyndal might enjoy as much as he since they both loved music.

"And this! It is very different from anything else you will see." The librarians face glowed with enthusiasm.

The figure was a birdlike human, but unlike most sirens, it bore a man's head, covered by a round and spiked Jewish cap.

The creature strangely reminded Thomas of Sayer. He cleared his throat.

"You are familiar with the work of the Sarum Master?"

"Nay, Brother Baeda."

The man's face brightened at the prospect of telling a newcomer what others here had most probably been told all too often. "Look at the folds in the robes, how graceful and soft. He was known for this in all his works and was the envy of other illuminators in England and elsewhere."

"He is a local man?'

"Salisbury. This work was done about twenty ago and was the prized possession of a nun in our Order. See here how he portrayed her."

Thomas studied the small figure of a woman in plain robes kneeling at a gold lectern on which a book rested, open to a page inscribed with a red "B" for Beatus.

"Forgive me if I misunderstood, but I thought this treasure was here for repair and that few visitors came to see it. I do wonder why the Psalter is left exposed where it might suffer more damage."

The monk shook his head. "You did not misinterpret my words, Brother, but I have chosen not to move the manuscript more than need be, and, over the last few days, the work has drawn interest. You are the second who has asked to see it."

"Second?" Thomas' heart beat faster.

"Aye, young Sayer has visited twice and begged to view it. At first, I thought it odd that Wulfstan's son should care so much about religious works like this, but he had many good questions about it. I was pleased to answer them."

Thomas might not have been so well pleased, but he was also not quite as surprised as Brother Baeda.