Chapter Thirteen

As that hour approached when God tints the sky with blues and lavenders, the time when weary creatures long for the blessing of rest after their labors have ended, Philippe of Picardy slipped out of the hospital grounds and found the path that led to the guest quarters.

Lest someone look curiously at him, he slowly hobbled on his crutch. If anyone chose to question why he was walking that particular way, he could honestly say that he was healing and the easy path let him strengthen the ankle before he traveled on. One look at his ragged attire would confirm that Philippe was too poor to pay for a horse or a ride in a cart and needed two sturdy feet for any journey.

As the sun slipped into its bed below the earth’s edge, the air swiftly cooled and he shivered. Briefly, he wondered if the world was flat, like some claimed, or round, as others averred, but quickly decided it was a question too immense for any flawed mortal to answer. All he knew for sure was that the earth was the center of God’s universe and the sun must be obedient to it. He thought it regrettable that the orb had not retained that submission a bit longer so he need not suffer this nighttime chill.

As he approached the quarters, he looked around. In that moment, there were no others to see him. He slipped to his knees and crawled into the shrubbery where he had previously found a comfortable clearing with a nice mat of leaves on which to sit and view the place where the hated priest stayed.

It was regrettable that the clerk had died, he thought. The lad was innocent, but Philippe did not overly grieve. Anything that hurt Davoir gladdened his heart, and Jean was as beloved as a son to the man. “Of which he has had many,” he muttered with sharp bitterness. Jean was but one of those the priest had begun to prepare for a career in the Church that would complement the stellar heights Davoir hoped he himself would eventually obtain. Or perhaps Jean would have been cast aside to suffer the oblivion of poverty no matter what his talent.

This time Philippe shivered for a reason besides the chilly air. Then his eyes filled with hot tears. He rubbed them away, but the pain lingered, for the heat was born of hatred. Only one thing would purify his heart of this rage, and he was feeling more confident that he could soon achieve it.

His one fear in coming to this place was the knowledge that Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas were blessed by God with uncanny abilities to ferret out guilty souls. Although he might be willing to die if he could make sure Father Etienne suffered agony enough to pay for his cruelties, Philippe preferred to escape back to France and live with the sweet peace he believed revenge would bring him.

Now that Jean was dead and a rumor was spreading that Sister Anne was accused of murder, perhaps under the direction of her prioress, he felt more certain of survival.

Even before he met her at the hospital, Philippe had heard of this sub-infirmarian’s reputation for healing and her keen eye for a suspicious death. That she had been cast into a cell was good news. And the prioress herself was under enough suspicion that she dared not investigate lest she be charged with unlawful meddling.

His heart beat with increasing joy. As for the monk, Brother Thomas had been accused of bedding his prioress, information he learned from his informant who had alerted him to Davoir’s journey here. Anything the monk did to look into the clerk’s death would also be deemed questionable. As for the local king’s man, Philippe assumed he would be as ignorant as any other without medical skills when it came to death by something other than a sword or rock.

“God wills it!” Philippe caught himself before he spoke above a dangerous whisper, but his self-assurance was growing rapidly.

With the sub-infirmarian safely locked away, another death would cast more blame on the prioress and perhaps on the monk as well. The resultant commotion would also allow him to escape, or so Philippe hoped. If any subsequent investigation proved all three innocent, so much time would have passed that he would be far away. Why should anyone suspect a poor pilgrim with an injured ankle to have any part in heinous crimes? All he had to do was discover the perfect way to achieve his desire.

He looked back toward the hospital. The darkness was now growing like a malignant shadow. Philippe knew he must return or leave himself open to questions by people who might remember that he had been gone far too long for brief exercise.

Crawling out of his hiding spot, he pretended he had fallen and dragged himself to his feet with appropriate grunts. With the sub-infirmarian gone, others might take her place in the apothecary, but he counted on them being less skilled than Sister Anne and unaccustomed to careful practices with the herbs and poisonous roots. If God truly blessed his efforts, Philippe hoped to slip into the apothecary and steal an especially fine poison to slip into Father Etienne’s food. Although he was no apothecary, he knew enough to recognize monk’s hood and make a lethal dosage.

“My mother taught me well enough,” he muttered with grim appreciation for the woman who had raised him with little love and a much-callused hand. If not monk’s hood, he thought with a smile, he would find something equally deadly.

Carefully limping back down the path to the hospital, completely distracted by his plans for another untimely death, Philippe did not see the person who stepped into the path behind him.

After briefly following the man from Picardy, the shadow stopped to watch until the purported invalid disappeared into the hospital grounds. Then the figure turned back and faded into the darkness.

Satan’s hour had come.

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