Valley of Dry Bones

Chapter Six

Eleanor was deeply troubled. Either the heat had chased away her reason or her heart did have cause to pound so.

Realizing she was panting with exertion, she slowed her determined rush along the path to the hospital and put a hand over her breast. As she took in a deep breath of hot air, the prioress willed her heart to a softer thudding. Then she abruptly halted. Looking across the priory grounds, familiar landmarks shimmered.

Were her eyes bewitched, or was she was going to faint? “You shall not,” she commanded, and her body stiffened like a reprimanded soldier.

She changed direction and left the path, walking at a more moderate pace toward the monks’ cemetery. A visit to the sick might not be wise until she had calmed sufficiently to think more of their needs than her own concerns. Just because Father Eliduc was an unexpected member of the queen’s company, she should not feel such turmoil.

Of course she had cause to distrust him. After discovering how he had lied about the true nature of his visits to Brother Thomas, with piteous tales of the monk’s dying kin, she grew outraged. It was such shameful abuse of her compassion.

She had seen the priest once thereafter and sent him on his way without the slightest tremor of unease. That day, her only emotion was unrepentant glee when she told Eliduc that her monk could not travel this time to care for some sick relative. Brother Thomas had vowed to become the hermit of Tyndal and emulate a desert father because the weight of his sins had become unbearable. Today, the arrival of the priest had inexplicably frightened her.

Eleanor was not so naïve as to think she had ultimately chased him away after his last visit, nor was she so foolish as to conclude that this devious man was less skilled in clever ploys than she. She should not be shocked he had come back to Tyndal. Instead, she must ask the significance of his inclusion with these envoys from the queen. Perhaps the priest’s influence was more extensive than she had imagined. If it extended to the new king and his consort, both she and her family must be wary.

As Eleanor pushed through the tangled grasses, she recalled she was not the only one to react with shock when the queen’s envoys arrived. Prior Andrew had stumbled backward, when the members of the party dismounted to greet Tyndal’s religious, and had even cried out.

Although he claimed to have stepped awkwardly, Eleanor noticed his eyes bulge and his face pale as if he had seen Satan himself. A man who fought at Evesham and survived a near-fatal wound would not respond like this to some lightly sprained ankle. The cause must be deeper. Terror seemed likely.

Unless a man’s secrets posed some threat to her priory, Eleanor was inclined to leave them to the ears of confessors. Andrew might explain later and in private. She doubted it and suspected the reason for his lie was more than an attempt to conceal pain from a lame leg.

Was his reaction also caused by seeing Father Eliduc, or was it brought about by something else? Did Prior Andrew even know the man? She tried to recall if he had met the priest. While still a monk and porter at the gates of Tyndal, he had probably greeted Eliduc. It was odd that the prior had never mentioned this to her.

As she reflected more, there was one incident that seemed unusual. When Father Eliduc came to tell Brother Thomas that his father had died, just before the journey to Amesbury two years ago, Eleanor had offered him the hospitality of Prior Andrew’s quarters. Eliduc quickly refused, claiming another obligation required him to leave Tyndal that day. Since the hour was late and other accommodation some distance away, his excuse struck her as odd. He might have told the truth. Eleanor believed it more likely he had lied.

She would be wise to consider whether the two men did know each other and had cause to keep their acquaintance secret. As she thought more on this, she feared she might have to seek the truth behind Prior Andrew’s outwardly simple lie today after all.

“May God have mercy on me,” Eleanor murmured as a frightening idea struck her. “Surely the good prior is not another spy in my priory.”

She had now arrived at the low stone boundary wall of the cemetery. Before entering, Eleanor banished her new worries about the loyalties of priors and the worldly schemes of priests. These were temporal matters, and she had a vow to honor, one made for the good of her immortal soul.

***

The graves of Tyndal’s monks were simple things, some gently rounded and others sunk into the earth. Few were marked, perhaps as a final act of humility, although those who had loved the dying found ways to remember where they were put in the earth. As the prioress continued on, she noted an apothecary rose, planted long before she had arrived to honor a monk whose name she had never learned.

Briefly she wondered how all the loved ones would recognize each other at the Resurrection. She had been taught that every one of the dead would rise aged thirty-three, reflecting Jesus’ years on earth at the time of his crucifixion. “One of God’s many miracles,” she murmured and set the question aside.

For an instant she stood with eyes closed, savoring the tranquility of the moment. The grass was so green here. How quiet it was as well. Perhaps this peace was how God’s earth honored the bodies it held in trust until the Day of Judgement. The thought was most certainly pleasing.

Since she had come in search of one particular burial place, she continued walking toward a corner near the far edge of the cemetery. There, under a shrub half-dead from the sea air, the grave lay. It was marked by a roughly rounded stone on which three words were chiseled in shallow, crude lettering.

Ora pro me.

In obedience to that supplication, Prioress Eleanor fell to her knees in the thick undergrowth, reverently folded her hands, and began to pray.

In the distance, mews cried out to each other, odd and amusing with their shrill, querulous ways. Insects buzzed and clicked in soothing rhythm close by. When her prayers were finally ended, Eleanor kept her eyes shut. A sighing breeze brushed against her cheeks.

“Ah, Prior Theobald,” she whispered to the sunken grave in front of her. “After the term of my vow ends, I shall continue to pray for the relief of your soul. When I do so, I remember how quickly we forsake humility and charity, called a greater virtue than faith, and cling to sinful arrogance. How often have I assumed that I knew best? How often do any of us fail to beg for enlightenment before we condemn out of ignorance? Thus do we blind ourselves to our own wickedness by assuming we know better than God.”

She opened her eyes and glanced to her left. Just outside the hallowed ground, so close against the wall that it might almost seem to beg for entry, lay another grave: small, unmarked, and covered with noxious weeds.

Brother Simeon was buried there, a tortured man in life whose cries from Hell she often thought she heard, especially when icy winds from the north pushed black storms across the sea.

Prayers for the damned were useless, as Eleanor well knew. Nonetheless, she did sometimes beg God to grant some small mercy to the dead monk. No matter how wicked Simeon had been, she found pity in her heart for the boy who had become such a man. Although God might ignore her pleas, her woman’s soul felt better for having made them.

“Despite your failings,” Eleanor said, turning her attention back to the grave of the man who had been prior when she first arrived, “you were humble enough about your sins. When you begged to be buried, face to the ground, outside the church with the common monks, many here were outraged. They cried out that a prior must be buried in the chapter house, on his back and prepared to rise with the virtuous on the Day of Judgement. Despite their roaring, I honored your plea with one difference. Although you may have been a weak man, your heart longed for God and was never cruel. For this reason, I ordered that your head must face the church altar. May my successor find me worthy of the same mercy when my soul flies to His judgement.”

Her prayers finished, Eleanor leaned back on her heels and let her thoughts return to worldly problems.

The rumbling of the mill wheel now grew louder, drowning out melodic birdsong and humming insects. Even the grass looked more wilted in the summer heat than it had but a moment ago.

The prioress sighed, then gazed beyond the cemetery wall to where the new guest quarters had been constructed. At least she was confident all was well there. By now, the lay brothers should have curried the company’s horses and would feed them when the beasts had cooled down from their long day’s journey. The guests of rank had jugs of wine for refreshment. As for the company’s armed escort, those men had been sent to lodge in the nearby village inn.

Signy, who inherited the business after her uncle died from a virulent winter fever, had continued his practice of providing good food and drink for reasonable cost. Although the young woman now draped herself in simple, dark robes to mourn her uncle’s death, she could not hide her beauty. Even after the guards discovered that her virtue was as stunning as her face, Eleanor knew they would be far happier in Signy’s care than they would be in any priory.

Calmer now, Eleanor stood and turned away from the grave of Prior Andrew’s predecessor. “I have overreacted to the arrival of Father Eliduc,” she firmly admonished herself. “Considering the rank of his lord, his inclusion in this mission should not have caused me either undue fear or surprise.”

It was the rest of the company that merited more of her attention if her priory were to gain anything of value from this proposed visit. Rather than worry about one priest, she would be well-advised to recall what she knew or had observed about others, beginning with the leader of this group.

Sir Fulke had voiced all the right phrases when he greeted her, even if he seemed in bad temper, almost rude, and definitely impatient to get on with some matter or other. At least she had Ralf’s word that his brother bore her no ill-will and would be vexed solely because he was too far from the king’s side. “If God is merciful, and I am both brief and pithy,” she said, “the sheriff should prove agreeable rather than petty over the comforts Tyndal has to offer.”

As for Lady Avelina and her son, Eleanor had learned their history from her own father. When she saw the lady on arrival, the prioress felt much sympathy for her, although little for the pouting Simon. The woman’s face had been grey with fatigue. Instead of showing filial concern, the young man had abandoned all care of his mother to her mute servant.

The prioress shuddered. Was his name Kenard? Something about the man made her uncomfortable. Many would conclude his muteness was an indication of God’s condemnation. Although she did not always concur with common reasoning, he did remind her of some hellish cauldron, bubbling with tension. Maybe it was just his eyes, hooded like those of a bird of prey, which made her uneasy. Or was he truly cursed?

“In any case, the man servant is not my concern,” she reminded herself, “nor is the thoughtless youth. It is Lady Avelina who will have the most questions about the queen’s comfort in the priory.”

Eleanor felt reasonably confident she could convince the lady that Tyndal was worthy. After all, Sister Matilda could cook almost anything to taste like manna, and Sister Ruth would make sure the beds felt as if they were stuffed with angel feathers.

Baron Otes was the last problem, and she doubted he cared much about anything here. In his eyes, she was only the leader of a minor priory with little enough income to interest such a courtier. Perhaps he had come on this journey simply to prove he had the king’s favor. She hoped his presence did not mean he was using the time to extort something from another member of the party who held some sad secret. Her father has told her about this as well.

Continuing along the path, Eleanor noticed that the breeze coming from the sea had shifted. Inhaling, she felt a cool moistness, then saw the clouds growing thicker as they scudded across the sky. “All bodes well for showers,” she murmured, “something that would bring some relief, however brief.”

Her spirits began to lift, and she firmly resolved to banish all remaining fear of Father Eliduc. Perhaps he had come with some special demand involving Brother Thomas. Once again, she must refuse to be manipulated by whatever lies he had concocted.

With grim amusement, she imagined his expression when she told him that Brother Thomas remained a hermit and unable to attend the deathbed of any putative kin. Not even a priest would dare tear an unwilling hermit from his hut, although she suspected a man who served the Church’s more secular interests might still attempt to do so. Were Eliduc to try, she would delight in describing the certain force of God’s wrath should he persist.

Eleanor found herself looking forward to such an encounter.

Then she saw Brother Beorn coming down the path toward her, the lay brother’s somber expression even darker than usual.

With fresh trepidation, she paused until he reached her side and then granted him the requested permission to speak.

“Baron Otes begs an audience, my lady,” he said. “Shall I send for our sub-prioress to join you in your chambers?”