“Raise the matter with Archbishop Lanfranc.”
“We have been doing so for weeks on end!”
“His word has the force of law.”
“Not at the abbey.”
“You defy him at your peril,” said Hubert, lapsing into pedagogic mode to terminate the exchange. “Obedience is a precept of the Benedictine Order. That may sometimes mean an acceptance of unpalatable commands. Monastic institutions are ruled from above and not from below. Where would we be if every decision of an archbishop was flouted and every appointment of an abbot was contested? That is the high road to anarchy, Prior Gregory.
Even you must realise that.”
There was a hissing power in his rebuff which made his companion step back a pace and glower at him resentfully. Prior Gregory claimed the right to the last word.
“So be it,” he said. “I see that we have to fight King as well as cathedral. An impartial judge? You are no more than a hired lackey of the archbishop.”
Canon Hubert’s cheeks turned to ripe plums and he throbbed with righteous indignation but he had no opportunity to defend himself against the insulting charge. The angry prior was already striding toward the main gate to carry yet more bad tidings to the abbey of St. Augustine.
It had been a bruising confrontation and Hubert was left feeling both hurt and misunderstood. His discomfort was sharply increased when he saw the slim, erect figure of Prior Henry bearing down on him with a dignified tread. Christian fellowship and social niceties were swept aside by the impassive Italian.
His question was a knife at Hubert’s throat.
“What exactly did Prior Gregory say to you?”
“How did Eadgyth know where to find the grave in the dark?”
“It was beside that of Bertha’s mother, my lord.”
“When did the mother die?”
“Several years ago,” said Reinbald. “Before my time as priest at St. Mildred’s. Bertha has been an assiduous visitor to our churchyard. She treats her mother’s grave like a shrine.”
“What about Alwin the Sailor?”
“Whenever he is in Canterbury, he comes daily to pay his respects. I have watched him stand before his wife’s grave for an hour or more in the most inclement weather. It is almost like a penance.”
With four men-at-arms at his back, Ralph Delchard rode toward Faversham with his cloak trailing in the stiff morning breeze.
Reinbald was beside him on a borrowed mount which was too mettlesome for such an inexperienced horseman. The priest hung on grimly to the reins as he was bounced along in the hard leather saddle and the following escort were greatly amused by his predicament. Ralph used the journey to gather more information even if it came out of Reinbald’s mouth in frightened gasps.
“Tell me about this Juliana,” said Ralph.
“I told you all when I said that she was a shrew.”
“Not so, Reinbald. A woman is not that forward without some cause. Few are born shrewish. How did she become so?”
“I do not know, my lord.”
“Is the woman deformed or ill-favoured?”
“Far from it,” said Reinbald, trying to ignore the pounding saddle beneath him. “She and her sister both had their share of grace and beauty but their characters were as different as chalk and cheese. One was wild and obstinate while the other was soft and gentle.”
“Yet not so gentle, I hear.”
“My lord?”
“Bertha’s mother often argued with her husband. Perhaps she kept her softness only for show and turned into a second Juliana when indoors.”
“Oh, no,” said the priest. “There is only one Juliana!”
“You speak with feeling.”
“I grew up in Faversham. It is not a big town.”
“The lady bulks large, then?”
“She is certainly no shrinking violet.”
Reinbald the Priest let out a howl of pain as his horse leapt over a fallen log and treated his buttocks to the worst pummelling yet. Ralph led his men in a chorus of mirth.
“Thank God you are not married,” he said, giving the priest a slap on the back. “By the time we get there, your chances of procreation will have been cracked open like a pair of hot chestnuts at Christmastide.”
Raucous laughter took them on a mile or more. Reinbald the Priest suffered his martyrdom in agonised silence.
Eadgyth’s plight threw the whole house into disarray. Osbern the Reeve was tortured by anxiety, the servants were in a frenzy and the guests were caught up in the general alarm. Helto the Doctor came running and his immediate concern was for the baby, a lusty-enough infant but one whose nights should be spent in a warm crib rather than in a cold churchyard. Miraculously, the child seemed to be largely unharmed by its nocturnal excursion and went happily to sleep once it had been fed and wrapped in a blanket. Helto was able to turn his full attention to the mother.
Never more needed, Golde’s help was all-embracing. She committed herself wholeheartedly to the tasks in hand and was, by turns, mother, nurse, cook, housekeeper and doctor’s assistant. Having run her own household and business in Hereford, she had an easy authority. When the crisis was at its height, it was Golde who brought the calming influence.
At her suggestion, Gervase Bret took the husband aside and tried to bolster his morale.
“You may relax now,” he said. “The ordeal is over.”
“I fear that it has only just begun, Master Bret.”
“The doctor is with her. He will know what to do.”
“Yes,” agreed Osbern. “But what happens when Helto has gone?
Eadgyth is an unruly patient. She left her bed in the middle of the night to roam the city. Think of the danger.”
“It seems to have been averted.”
“This time, perhaps. What of the next?”
“There will be no next time,” Gervase assured him. “Your wife did not roam the city. She went with a clear purpose and that was to visit the grave of her friend.”
“Thank heaven she did not join Bertha in that grave!”
“Her need is satisfied now, Osbern.”
“I pray that it is.”
“She will not desert the house again.”
“I hope not, Master Bret. We cannot mount a guard on her twenty-four hours a day. This is a home and not a dungeon.”
Gervase let him pour out his heart. Osbern the Reeve was now more tormented than ever by guilt. Having concealed the truth about the murder from her, he had estranged his wife. Having kept her from the funeral, he had implanted an irresistible urge in her to visit the grave. Nothing had ever vitiated the harmony between husband and wife before. Osbern had moved from concord to chaos in one giant leap.
“Are you married?” he asked.
“Betrothed.”
“Learn from my example, Master Bret.”
“Yours is a sound and joyful union.”
“It was, it was.”
“And will be so again in no time at all.”
“Eadgyth will never forgive me.”
“She must,” said Gervase confidently. “There is so little to pardon. No husband could have been more caring toward his wife.
What you did was purely out of concern for her. Eadgyth will come to appreciate that.”
“I beg leave to doubt it.”
“Her crisis is past. Healing can now begin.”
“How can I help that process?” he asked quietly. “Helto the Doctor will tell me how to restore her bodily health but it is Eadgyth’s mind which disturbs me. To snatch our child and rush out of the house like that! It is not the act of a rational person, Master Bret. I fear for her sanity.”
“Try to understand what prompted her,” said Gervase. “Only the most powerful impulse could have made her behave the way that she did. What was it?”
“A rebellion against her husband.”
“No, Osbern.”
“A wild urge to escape from me.”
“That was not the reason.”
“A hatred of the way that I deceived her.”
“There is no grain of hatred here.”
“Then what?”
“Love.”