“We will need a priest immediately to hear confessions, attend the dying at the hospital, and perform Mass. The crowner has been summoned,” she continued, concentrating on the rushes under her feet so as not to betray her feelings.
The prior blinked fretfully. “With all due respect, my lady, this is not a matter for the crowner. We need no such officer of a secular court to investigate and hold an inquest for our brother’s death. I will send one of the monks to examine the body, if that would allay your fears that the death might be questionable, but there is no doubt that Brother Rupert died a natural death. He was an aged man. Surely, God must have called him…”
“I did the preliminary examination with the aid of Sister Anne.”
“What!” The prior rose halfway out of his chair, his face as pale as his wispy hair. “This was not proper for…”
“Prior Theobald, as you well know, I am in charge of this priory and such actions are within my responsibility. A dead man’s body is hardly a shock or a temptation to sin.” She raised her hand as the old man opened his mouth. “Nor am I ignorant of the differences between bull and cow. Indeed, Brother Rupert did not die of age, he…”
The prior flapped his hand in the air as he eased himself back into his chair. “Disease of the lungs. Of course. Not uncommon here, but I was unaware he was so afflicted. Although I may have heard him coughing…” He glanced tentatively at the towering and well-fleshed monk standing beside him. Brother Simeon smiled down at Theobald with obsequious agreement.
Frustrated with the prior’s inability to listen long enough to hear her out, Eleanor dropped all attempts to soften the news. “His lungs were not at issue. He was stabbed and castrated.” She sat back in her chair, raised her eyes, and waited for the expected reaction, but the taste in her mouth was bitter.
“Castr…castrated?” Prior Theobald’s voice shifted up an octave in shock. He pulled his cross over his heart. “Brother Simeon! Why was I not told that Brother Rupert was troubled with such lust? Why was he not brought to me for prayer and counseling?” His voice cracked.
Eleanor blinked at this unexpected interpretation and looked over at Sister Ruth with hope that she might have some understanding to give to her. The nun looked away but not before Eleanor saw that her face was bright red.
Simeon smiled without humor and showed a few gaps in his yellowed front teeth.
“Surely, my lord, you remember when I mentioned my concern over his, shall we say, unusual attachment to…” he nodded in Eleanor’s direction and lowered his voice “…our revered Prioress Felicia? However, since her death, I assumed, in your wisdom, you had…”
Eleanor muttered a short prayer under her breath for the renewal of a patience she was quickly losing, then snapped. “Prior, he did not castrate himself. It was done to him. After death. A knife in the chest killed him, Sister Anne believes, but the blade was broken off…”
His face scarlet, Theobald leaned toward her. “How could you…”
Eleanor was about to tell him exactly how and why she could when a gentle rapping at the chamber door stopped her.
Theobald jerked upright in his chair. “Yes?” He squealed as his elbow hit the edge of his chair.
When Brother Andrew emerged from the doorway, he looked at the expressions of those in the chamber, then backed up and ever so slowly reached behind him to feel for the door. He gently pushed it shut before continuing. “My lord, the priest we have been expecting has arrived,” he said. “He is a young man as you hoped. What shall I do with him?”
Brother Simeon’s face softened as he bent to Theobald’s ear and put his hand reassuringly on the prior’s shoulders. “I suggest you bring him in to us here first, my lord. As a young man, surely he would have the energy to take over all a priest’s responsibilities with the hospital and nuns. And, perhaps, he might help our prioress settle this matter of our poor brother’s death in an expeditious fashion.”
Theobald exhaled as if he had been holding his breath and relaxed in his chair. “My thoughts exactly,” he said. “Bring him in, Brother Andrew.”
Eleanor raised her hand. “Just a moment, brother.”
The monk stopped in mid-step, but instead of looking to either Theobald or Simeon for direction, he turned to her. Perhaps, she thought with mild relief, she would not have to reeducate the entire priory.
“I have some questions before you bring him in. I was unaware we were receiving another priest; therefore, I must know something of his background and why he was sent here before I agree to his assignment as the spiritual advisor to my nuns and the afflicted. It would be discourteous to discuss this in front of him. We shall do so now.”
Sister Ruth’s eyes widened.
Simeon coughed and looked quickly in the direction of Theobald.
The prior nodded.
The interchange was not lost on Eleanor.
“In brief then, my lady,” Simeon said, “Brother Thomas has been sent by our English administrative community at Grovebury. Beyond that, we know little more except that his appointment to Tyndal has the approval of our Abbess at Fontevraud.” He smiled. “As yours has as well.”
Eleanor did not take the bait and said nothing. The silence grew long and tense as she waited for the receiver to give her the little more information she should have as head of the priory.
Simeon looked at Theobald, his forehead furrowed with irritation. Perhaps the receiver did not want to lose this battle of wills to a woman, but Eleanor noted that the prior gave him no support. Instead, Theobald looked away, leaving Simeon to flounder on his own.
Simeon cleared his throat and continued with some degree of dignity. “We had requested an additional chaplain, a young man we hoped. Many of our priests, poor Brother Rupert among them, are aging and no longer able to perform all their duties. Our few novices are too young.”
Grovebury, a tiny Fontevraud priory to the east of Amesbury, often provided monks for administrative help to the English houses of the Order. That connection alone would be sufficient recommendation to accept the new priest. The specific approval of the Abbess should suggest even higher merit, Eleanor thought, but as you well noted with such sarcastic tone, good brother, I received the same approval. How competent has that made me in the eyes of those here? The young priest’s credentials were indeed all too sketchy.
The problem of qualifications aside, what troubled her even more was the lack of sense in what Simeon had just said to her. Although Brother Rupert had that frail look not unusual amongst those who fasted often, she had not noted any remarkable physical weakness in him. That was the first inconsistency. Moreover, even if one were to assume he was far weaker than he had appeared and so advanced in age that he no longer had the energy to perform Mass or even hear confessions, how could anyone conclude that he burned with such uncontrollable lust that he would castrate himself? The whole thing was just ridiculous. It gave her no great peace of mind to know she had monks in charge of accounts and the estates who could reason no better than that.
She ground her teeth in frustration. The inability of either the prior or his receiver to think logically should be the least of her worries. She would, after all, be taking over the management of the priory herself. Of greater concern was the fact that she was not just starting her tenure with potentially incompetent monks, an inexperienced priest, and no support from her priory, she had a murdered priest in her cloister garth. A murderer had been able to enter both the outer court and the locked nuns’ quarters without being seen. The latter fact was especially disturbing.
She prayed the crowner would prove more competent than at least two of the people in the room with her and that he would capture the perpetrator quickly. She already had more to deal with than the average new prioress without having to worry about a murderer on the loose.