Tyrant of the Mind

Chapter Nineteen

“Henry raped you?” Eleanor stared at the woman in front of her. A torrent of feelings, horror and sorrow mixed, flooded her heart.

Isabelle nodded her head once. The fire of her anger banked, she sat hunched and wizened on her stool.

With gentleness, the prioress reached over and took her companion’s hand. “Was there no one you could have told?”

Isabelle shook her head.

“Would you care to tell me more of the story?”

Isabelle said nothing.

“You may find some peace in the telling.”

Sir Geoffrey’s wife shook off the prioress’ hand, then began to draw lines with one finger across the puddle of wine on the chest. “I had long known of Henry’s wish to marry me,” she began in a hushed tone. “The family hoped to retain the income from my lands, of course, but he lusted after me as well.” She hesitated. “Many told me how fortunate I was that he longed for the woman as well as what wealth the woman would bring to him, and I would nod in agreement. Indeed, he is handsome enough to the eyes of other women. Or so some have said. Nonetheless, I dreaded the very thought of his touch, and I sickened at what I must endure on the wedding night.”

“He knew this?”

“How could I tell him? And what difference would it have made? I knew that I had little choice in this marriage so prayed that I would come to feel…nothing instead of loathing when his fat fingers groped me.” Isabelle grabbed Eleanor’s arm with a ferocious strength. “Can you understand this at all. At all, Prioress? Bedding with Henry was like bedding with my natural brother! It was as unnatural and sinful to me as incest.”

That Eleanor could indeed understand, yet she knew there was more to come. She nodded in silence. She did not want to stop the flow of the story.

“At first, his attentions were almost charming, childlike and innocent, but, as time went on, he began to plague me with incessant demands. I allowed the occasional kiss, but I could not bear his hand on my breast. My flesh froze at his touch, and I began to push him away when he fumbled with my clothes. I hoped he would take my hesitancy for maidenly modesty, but he became angry at my refusals. One day, he found me alone in the garden and would not stop with a kiss. He covered my mouth so I could not cry for help. Swearing I would now spread my legs for him whether I wished to or not, he pulled me to the ground and raped me.”

“You could have told your priest.”

“What an innocent you are, Prioress,” Isabelle sneered. “Are you so removed from the world that you are ignorant of the assumption that any woman who quickens with child from sexual contact must have found pleasure in the act and thus may not cry rape? If you are, let me assure you that many of your cherished monastics accept that theory even more than those who remain in the world. Now tell me how could I claim rape when my courses ceased and I began to vomit every morning?”

“Indeed, Isabelle, not all believe that pregnancy equates to pleasure in the act. My Aunt Beatrice thought such a conclusion odd for she knew women who begat many yet remembered feeling no pleasure in the begetting, while others who had felt great joy in the act never had children.”

“Your aunt was not in residence at Sir Geoffrey’s estate.”

“I might then understand why you hesitated to say anything after your courses had ceased, but surely you could have spoken before…”

“It is well that you did escape the world, Eleanor. You are too innocent to have long survived outside your convent walls.”

“Not all in the world are without compassion, Isabelle.”

Isabelle ignored her, then looked around, her mouth twisting with anger. “How can you breathe in here, Prioress? The air cuts like ice crystals.” She looked over at Eleanor. “But then Wynethorpe Castle has always been a bitter place, especially when the winds howl and bring snow to this horrible land.” Great beads of sweat began to break out on Isabelle’s forehead and her face turned a pallid green. “Have you never had a dream that haunted you?” she abruptly asked, her voice dropping to a whisper as if she feared someone might overhear her words. “I have.”

Eleanor blinked at the suddenness of the question, then quickly said, “Tell me about it.”

“It came to me after the rape.” Her eyes glazed over as the memory of the dream took hold of her. “I was in a meadow, naked, and the sun’s gentle warmth flowed over me. A breeze, soft as baby’s breath, caressed my body. As I glanced down, I saw that the silkiness under my feet was a tapestry of wildflowers: flecks of white, dots of lavender, bits of yellow hiding under green leaves as if shy of any notice. With a sigh, I bent my knees, extended my arms, and slid into the petals as if I were slipping ever so slowly into a tranquil pond. The flowers were as soft as angel feathers against my breasts.”

Eleanor watched with fascination as Isabelle became bound with the spell of her dream.

“As I breathed in the comforting fragrance from the undergrowth, I remember thinking how foolish I had been to suffer so when the solution to all my problems was right before me. Indeed, I realized, the problem was no problem at all. Then a feeling of great peace coarsed through me. I closed my eyes and just lay there, listening to the sweet twittering of the birds in counterpoint to the delicate hum of insects.

“Then a gentle voice began to sing. The song was ancient, the voice long unheard but so dear I ached to hear it. Nay, I remember thinking, there was no need to feel the old pain. The singer’s arms were open at last, and I could seek the refuge I had longed to find these many, many years. With a cry of welcoming joy, I turned on my back, stretched out my arms, and…” Isabelle closed her eyes. Her face glistened with sweat.

“The body that fell upon me was hard as castle stone. The man’s jagged nails scratched my breasts like dull knives.” She curled one hand between her legs as if protecting herself. “His rough hand bruised me here when he forced my legs apart.” She opened her eyes wide, her gaze shimmering with horror.

“All I could see was black hair, hair heavy with encrusted knots that stung my face like nettles. The man cursed, then grunted as he rammed his sex into me and began to rasp away as if he would cut my body in half.”

Eleanor reached out a hand to comfort her.

Isabelle swatted it away. “I tried to scream but no voice came forth, only a hot liquid flowed from my mouth, metallic and bitter on my tongue. It was blood, blood coming from my mouth. Once again I tried to scream for help. Once again there was only the mockery of silence.” Her voice began to rise in pitch like a woman screaming in her sleep.

“Isabelle…”

“The man jerked, then collapsed on me and was still. I lay without moving. He did not move. I pushed at his body, then tentatively pushed again. He was motionless, his weight heavy as lead and his flesh cold as river ice.” She took a deep breath. “Finally I was able to push him away, and I turned to see his face.” The sweat was now dripping like water onto her robe. “The blood in my mouth was not mine.”

Eleanor turned cold, suspecting what would come next.

“The man’s skull was crushed, you see. The hair I had thought was black was dyed dark with his blood. It was his blood that had flowed from that grisly wound, over my face, and into my mouth.”

Eleanor felt bile rise in her throat. She swallowed hard.

Isabelle closed her eyes again, then bit her lips. “I knew I was cursed. I knew that everyone would blame me for what had happened. And I knew they would hang me for it. Hang me until my tongue turned black as that man’s blood. Hang me until my neck cracked, ever so slowly, in two.”

“But…”

“No!” Isabelle shrieked. “Please, my lords, I did not do this!”

“It was but a dream!” Eleanor shouted, reaching out to grasp the woman’s arm.

At the prioress’ touch, Isabelle blinked as if suddenly awakened. “Don’t you see? I knew then that no one would ever understand. There would be no help, not for me.” Then she laughed with a sound so sharp it cut through the air like a sword. “I lay abed for days after that dream. All I could think about was the pain of my ruptured maidenhead and shattered honor. Soon I had a fever no one could diagnose. It was a taste of hellfire for my carnal sins, I suppose, yet I wanted to die, eternal damnation or not. When the fever left me and I finally did rise from my bed, the pain was supplanted by shame. I lost my will to speak. If this was the pleasure I was supposed to feel from the union of Henry’s seed with mine, then I could understand why many women like you chose the convent.”

Eleanor was still reeling from the shock of what she had just seen and heard. “Henry would have married you,” she said without thinking. “Had you been willing, a lawful union would have banished shame.” Instantly she regretted her words. She should have remained silent.

“And he would have, but do think on this, my lady prioress. Would you have married such a man?” She wiped the salty sweat from her eyes. “I think not. Even you could not spend enough time on your knees in prayer to avoid having to lie on your back when he commanded it.”

Eleanor struggled to regain her calm. “So you would not marry the man who had violated you, a man you had once found too much the brother to be a bed partner and now regarded with repugnance for what he had done to you. That, I can well understand.”

Isabelle shrugged. “How kind of you,” she said, but there was little sting in her retort.

“What I do not understand is why you decided to trick Sir Geoffrey into thinking the child was his. If you would not marry Henry because you thought of him as a brother, how could you bed a man who had reared you like a father?”

“In truth, Eleanor, I meant him no ill. You must believe me. Sir Geoffrey is a good man. He took me into his family as an orphan, and his first wife became the mother I had lost to that horrible fever. Indeed, I love this family, and the lands I brought with me could stay with the Lavenhams for all my caring.” Isabelle’s words were slow, hesitant. “Nor did I expect much bedding. I had overheard tales aplenty about his impotence and much jesting about his feeble rubbings against servant women after his lady wife had died. Whether grief or age withered his manhood, I do not know, but I hoped he would think the child his own and marry me out of gratitude for one night of renewed virility. After a few failures in bed thereafter, I did not think he would demand a husband’s marital rights, but I did hope the child would give him some happiness. Thus I could stay with the family I had grown up with but not have to endure Henry’s coarse assaults…”

“Yet you lost the babe…”

“…to the grief of both my lord and me. It may have been Henry’s child, but it was the only gift I had to give my husband in exchange for my protection. Odd as it sounds, even to my own ears, I loved the babe that grew inside me. Indeed, I had come to think it my child, not Henry’s.”

“You have gotten the chaste marriage you hoped for, however.”

“Indeed, Sir Geoffrey’s nights of tilling fields are quite finished.” Her eyes gazed without focus into the distance, then, turning to the prioress, she hit herself sharply in the breast with her fist. “The plowman’s plow has broken and this field of his must remain forever fallow, it seems.”

As true as that might be, she was a field that cried out for seeding and desperately at that. How tortured a mortal’s life could be with so many contradictory desires, Eleanor thought. She considered Isabelle’s lewd playing with her brother the day before compared to her expressed desire to marry an impotent man. She surely hated the rape, but she did not hate the child and resented her current barrenness. She had lied her way into a safe but loveless marriage yet wanted to give Sir Geoffrey some joy for marrying her. Eleanor shook her head. The world was not as black and white as we are taught it should be, nor are decisions so easy to make.

Suddenly one more twist to this already tangled tale came to mind. “Did you not realize that any such marriage with the father would be found void if it became known that you had had sexual relations with the son?” She waited for a reaction.

It came sooner than she expected. Isabelle rushed to the chamber pot and, with hacking gasps, vomited sour wine.

With a touch gentler than some of her words had been, Eleanor wiped the pale face of Sir Geoffrey’s wife with a dampened cloth that lay next to the bedside basin of water. Although she had asked nothing about the murder, she knew that Isabelle was no longer in any state to talk. Indeed, she had gotten all she probably could from the drunken woman for now, but she did wonder if Isabelle knew she had just made herself a suspect in Henry’s death. Had Isabelle’s nightmare come true?