Eleanor’s hand fluttered to her heart. “My lord, perhaps we have good reason…” Her voice was as tremulous as her gesture.
“Silence, child! This is my domain, and, as I breathe, I am the lord and master here. What means this mumbling?”
Eleanor bowed her head in meek obedience. “My lord, Father Anselm has just awakened. It seems he has recovered wits, speech, and his memory.”
“That is good news!” Adam said, looking down at Geoffrey. “Perhaps he can give us a clue to the monster who is attacking good people at Wynethorpe.”
Eleanor nodded to Thomas, who stepped forward. “That he can, my lord,” he said.
Geoffrey looked quickly at his wife, his dark eyes widening.
“He saw who pushed him?” Adam asked.
“More than that.” Thomas shifted nervously and looked down at his feet.
“Out with it, man! This is no time for monkish meekness. Who?” Adam shouted.
Thomas coughed and looked sheepishly at Eleanor.
“Speak, brother. You have my permission,” she replied, her lips set in a grim line.
“He did not see who pushed him, but he did see who murdered Henry.”
Adam strode over to Thomas, put his hands on the monk’s shoulders and shook him. “Who, monk? Who killed Henry?”
“My lord, I hesitate to say.”
“Must I lock you up? Perhaps a few days in the dark of the keep will speed your decision to speak…”
“Father!”
Thomas paled. “There is no need, my lord. Father Anselm was at the chamber door of the murderer when he was attacked. The person who killed Henry was the Lady Isabelle.”
***
Isabelle’s scream rent the air.
Sir Geoffrey, his mouth open in silent horror, reached out to grasp his wife’s hand, then fell back, groaning in agony from his wound.
The Lady Isabelle stood, one hand shaking as she extended it in supplication. With the other, she clutched the fabric of her dress over her heart. “My lords…” she began in a whisper, looking in terror first at her husband, then at Adam, and then at Eleanor.
Juliana stepped forward. As she did so, she turned and caressed her stepmother’s face, tucking a loose strand of fair hair back under her wimple. “Hush, my lady,” she said in a soft voice. “You have nothing to fear.” She looked around at the staring eyes of the assembled group. “Innocent people must no longer suffer from the terrors of this mystery. I had hoped Robert would be found innocent of Henry’s murder. After the attack on Father Anselm, I thought he would be released for he could not have done such a thing from his prison cell. Then I hoped the attack on my father would gain the good man’s freedom at last. Indeed, Robert should not have suffered but for the accident of finding my brother’s corpse, and I never would have allowed him to die for something he did not do.”
Sir Geoffrey, coughing in pain, turned to stare at his daughter. “You could not know who did these deeds, my daughter. Be careful whom you accuse in your ignorance.” His voice was weak, his words hesitant.
“I speak from knowledge, my lord,” she replied. There was a calm confidence in her voice and countenance.
Time seemed to slow as Eleanor found herself thinking that the woman she was watching had the serenity of a saint and could not be the mortal Juliana she had known years ago. “Who did it?” she asked at last, her own voice rough with tension.
“It was I.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“No!” Geoffrey shouted. “You lie, daughter. You did not kill anyone. You did not stab me. You did not push the priest. You are innocent!”
Juliana smiled with serenity at her father. “Surely you know that it was not your wife who attacked you.”
Geoffrey struggled to sit up in his bed. “Nor did you!”
“How can you be so sure? You claim you did not see who did the deed.” Juliana sat carefully on her father’s bed and took his hand. “You know the Lady Isabelle is a weak woman, but you know me better, father.”
Geoffrey turned his head. “You did not do any of this.”
“I was the one who ascended trees to the very top as a child. Isabelle stood on the ground and cheered my efforts, but she could never make it to the first branch. She has always been far more womanly than I.”
“Don’t do this, child,” Geoffrey whispered, squeezing her hand.
“In our youth, when Henry turned rude, it was I who leapt upon him and wrestled him to the ground, pulling hair from his head and clouting his ears. Did he not come to you and complain of me?” Juliana laughed softly. “Do you not remember how often you had to separate my brother and me when we quarreled?”
“They were squabbles. Things that children do. They were not serious. Do not try to make them so, Juliana.”
“Henry never forgave me for shaming him.”
“You did not humiliate him in front of other boys.”
“It was all in front of Isabelle, father. He never forgot that and took revenge. As he grew into manhood and began to lose his fear of my hard blows, he told vile stories about me to all that would listen. It is hard for any woman to defend her honor when her own brother stains it. Did you not see what was happening between us?”
Tears were beginning to flow down Sir Geoffrey’s cheeks. “You had always been quicker of wit than he. I assumed you would always best him. Indeed, he had complained to me…”
“But he had stopped, had he not?”
“He and I were estranged. You knew that well, but you are exaggerating the seriousness of your quarrels.”
“Am I? The rumors Henry spread would have made any man hesitate before taking me to wife. Any convent would have been reluctant to welcome me amongst a company of nuns no matter how rich the dower. For the sake of my honor, I had reason to kill Henry. And you have just said how quick of wit I am. Then surely I would have known when you were most vulnerable to attack.” She took a deep breath. “Isabelle is innocent, is she not?”
Sir Geoffrey muttered something unintelligible.
“Speak up, Geoffrey,” Adam said. He stepped up to his friend’s side. “Was it your wife who did this to you?”
“No. Juliana is right. She did not. Even had she reason, she would not have had the strength.” He looked at his wife with great sadness.
Adam looked over at Juliana. “Then what say you to your daughter’s confession, Geoffrey. She is the only one left with motive to kill Henry and the cleverness to…”
Geoffrey swung his handless arm at his old friend. “I will not lose yet another child to this accursed trouble.”
“If it was not your wife, and we have found no other person who could have done the deeds, then your daughter’s confession must be accepted.” Adam turned to Thomas. “Call two of my guards, brother. We will escort the Lady Juliana…”
“Nay! It was not she. It was not my wife and it was not Robert!” Geoffrey shouted.
“Then who was it, my good friend?” Adam asked sadly.
The wail from the old warrior cut like a scythe across their hearts. “May God have mercy on my black soul, Adam! I murdered my first born. I tried to kill your priest, and I attempted to send my soul to Hell for both deeds by trying to take my own life.”
***
The two men looked at each other for a long time. Tears hovered at the rims of their eyes, then each blinked them back. Geoffrey turned his head away first.
“I would never have let Robert die for what I did, Adam. You must believe me. When I found he had stumbled on Henry’s body and you had imprisoned him as the accused, I did everything I could to prove he did not do the deed. I tried to find a way to show his innocence.”
Adam nodded. “Why did you do it, Geoffrey? Why kill your own son?”
“I was convinced that my son and my wife were making a cuckold of me.” Geoffrey stopped and looked at his wife’s tear-lined face. “Your complaints about his attentions were too quick, my love, too contrived after all the years you had known each other. I thought you were trying to deflect my suspicions away from the one man you were bedding, out of the many with whom you flirted openly.”