And wished she did not have to.
She rapped lightly at the parlor’s closed door, and after a pause Dame Claire opened it. Her sleeves were pushed up above her elbows; she had probably helped to strip off the befouled clothing that lay in a heap by the door and then with washing off the filth and blood that came with violent death. She had the strained look of someone who had been concentrating too long on a thing they did not like, but she and Frevisse had dealt with death together before now and saying calmly, “I thought you’d be here to see him sooner,” she stood aside for Frevisse to enter, leaving the door open behind her for more light than the rushlights they had been using.
Sir Reynold’s body was laid out on a sheet in the cleared center of the floor with Benet and Lewis kneeling beside it, rinsing cloths out in basins of reddened water. They looked up briefly as Frevisse entered but were too absorbed in enduring what they were doing to care that she was there.
Lady Eleanor was still sitting where Frevisse had last seen her, eyes shut, Margrete beside her now. Margrete nodded to Frevisse without speaking and Frevisse nodded silently back, but Lady Eleanor stayed behind her closed eyes, sitting very upright and very still. Her help had not been needed with the body, but there should be kin present while the last worldly things were done for the dead, and although Benet was kin, Lady Eleanor held memories of Sir Reynold for more years of his life than anyone else at the priory and so she had kept him company through this last while, despite what it had obviously cost her. Frevisse looked to Dame Claire, silently asking how it was with her, if anything should be done; and Dame Claire as silently answered with a shake of her head that there was nothing.
Knowing that Dame Claire would on the instant leave the dead to fend for themselves if there was aught she could do for the living, Frevisse accepted that and went to stand over Sir Reynold’s body.
Her first thought was that there seemed to be so much less of him than there had been when he was alive. It was something she had thought before when faced with the dead, but used though she was to the diminishing of death, it still disconcerted her. The soul was incorporeal, but the body was reduced to such irrelevance by its going. Did the soul, when it went free in death, come to forget the body that had belonged to it? Was that something of how it was with Sister Thomasine? Were her austerities of prayer and fasting not so much a denial of her body as simply that her soul had begun to forget her body too soon? Poor body, forgotten while it still lived.
With Sir Reynold it was the other way around-poor soul, driven out of the body before it was ready.
Benet and Lewis had nearly finished cleansing the body, the task more awkward because of the stiffness still in it. Benet was wringing out a cloth into one of the basins; Lewis was pressing another cloth, dripping wet, to Sir Reynold’s lower left chest, over what Frevisse presumed was the wound, soaking loose the blood, she supposed. She gestured at it and said to Dame Claire, “The blood was dried.”
“Dried. Darkened,” Dame Claire agreed.
“He’s been dead all night?”
“Allowing for everything, the body’s stiffening and the cold and the blood, yes, I’d warrant he was dead most of the night.”
“May I see the wound?” Frevisse asked.
Lewis and Benet both jerked up their heads to stare at her.
Dame Claire, with quiet authority, bid them, “Let her see whatever she wants.”
Lewis uncertainly drew back his hand, removing the cloth and uncovering the wound.
Frevisse took a closer look than she wanted to at the gash with its curled lips of darkened flesh reaching from beside Sir Reynold’s breastbone around almost to his side, a narrow slash but four or five inches long. A desecration of flesh.
“The wound in his back,” she said, holding her voice steady. “Let me see that, too.”
Benet and Lewis looked at Dame Claire who again nodded and carefully they rolled Sir Reynold’s body to its side and almost over, holding it for her to see the other wound.
It was much like the one in the front but with the sliced flesh dragged outward by the withdrawing blade. She had been assuming he had been struck from behind because of how he had been lying and because it was unlikely he would have gone down so silently, so easily as he must have, if he had known the blow was coming. Now she could be sure.
But she could also see now that he had not been killed by a simple sword thrust. Front and back, the wound was too wide for that. He had been run through the body, and probably through the heart in the same stroke, by a long blade, that was certain; but then the sword must have been wrenched sideways hard enough, far enough, that the spine was probably at least partly severed in the bargain. If it was, it meant someone with a great deal of strength had wanted to be very sure of Sir Reynold’s death.
“His spine, is it cut through?” she asked.
Dame Claire knelt and felt into the wound. Benet jerked his head away to stare at the wall. Lewis looked at the roof beams.
“Not completely through,” Dame Claire said, withdrawing her fingers, “but it’s deeply cut, yes.”
“You can lay him down now,” Frevisse said and Benet and Lewis gratefully did. “Thank you,” she thought to add, her mind already away to what else she might learn here.
Behind her in the doorway Domina Alys asked hoarsely, “He’s not shrouded yet?”
Frevisse faced her as Dame Claire moved toward her, saying, “No, my lady. We-”
Domina Alys cut her off, turning away. “Call me when it’s done.”
Not wanting to, Frevisse followed her into the cloister walk. She had to question her sometime; sooner would be better and it might as well be now, before she found another reason not to do it.
Father Henry and Katerin were waiting outside uncertainly, but Domina Alys was walking past them without word, back toward her stairs, moving heavily, unsteadily, as if her mind were paying too scant attention to what her body did.
“My lady,” Frevisse said.
Domina Alys turned around. In the parlor her back had been to the light and Frevisse had not seen her clearly. Out here, with daylight now fully come, her face showed haggard, hollow, as if both anger and excess words were presently drained out of her. Coldly, unencouraging, she said, “Dame.”
There was no subtle way to go about it, no way that would make it easier on either Domina Alys or herself.
Frevisse asked bluntly, “Sir Reynold came to see you last night?”
Domina Alys stared at her dully, without any overt feeling before answering, “You’re after who did this to him, aren’t you? You. Still alive while he’s dead.” Frevisse, chilled, stood still, not knowing what to answer, more chilled as Domina Alys’ look deepened to a dull glare. “But better you than some fool of a crowner. Yes, he came after Compline, when Godard was dead.”
Father Henry shifted uneasily. Domina Alys swung her head and fixed him with a stare, and he pointed uncertainly at the nuns just now leaving the refectory. Almost apologizing, he said, “It’s time for Mass.” And past time; breakfast had taken far longer than was necessary over what was always very little food, and now they were hesitating in the walk, seeing their prioress, not sure which way to go. She twitched an uncaring glance toward them, jerked a hand to send them on toward the church, and said at Father Henry, “So go. Do it.”
Not hiding his relief, Father Henry went. Frevisse wished she could go with him. Domina Alys’ coldness of control where there should have been a rage of grief was worse to face than her familiar rage would have been, and to have it over with, Frevisse asked straight out, “Was it only you and Sir Reynold last night?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Domina Alys said as if it hardly mattered whether she was or not. “Sir Hugh came with him. And Katerin was there.”
Katerin bobbed a little in pleasure at hearing her name. How much she grasped of what had happened, either last night or this morning, Frevisse could not be sure but asked her carefully, not to startle her, “Katerin, do you remember last night?”