7 The Prioress' Tale by Frazer Margaret

Author:Frazer, Margaret [Frazer, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: __Fixed, _BIG_FIXUP, Britain, Convent, England, Fiction, good quality scan, Great Britain, Henry VI; 1422-1461, Historical, History, Medieval, Mystery & Detective, Nuns, Traditional British, Women Sleuths
ISBN: 9780425159446
Google: LrQBAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 0425159442
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 1997-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

From inside the church, Domina Alys’ general fury, if not her actual words, was audible beyond the west door, and Frevisse for once wished her joy of her rage.

Joliffe was partway down the nave, the madman slumped to the floor beside him and Dame Perpetua confronting them both indignantly, with Lady Adela close behind her, intent on missing nothing, and Sister Thomasine, drawn from her prayers, rising from her knees below the altar. Apparently in answer to a challenge Dame Perpetua had made him, Joliffe was saying, “He needs sanctuary. I’m asking it for him.”

Dame Perpetua returned stiffly, sounding set on letting them come no further, “He has to ask sanctuary for himself. If he wants it, he has to ask for it.”

Joliffe started to answer her, stopped, and bent to take hold of the madman’s chin instead, forcing his head up. What the man had briefly shown of wits when he ran was gone now. He was back to being only a dirty heap, his hands clutched to his head, not resisting or, probably, comprehending as Joliffe demanded into his face, “Do you claim sanctuary?” The madman’s eyes did not even focus on him, and when Joliffe let him go, his head dropped and bobbled loosely; but Joliffe turned back to Dame Perpetua with, “You see? He nodded. He’s asking.”

“He never asked anything!” Dame Perpetua protested. “You did that.”

“He can’t ask,” Frevisse said as she joined them. “He never says anything, never makes a sound. But he does need sanctuary until we can find a way to be sure of having him safe away from Sir Reynold’s men.”

“So I’ve been told.” Dame Perpetua sent a displeased glance toward the west door and granted, equally displeased, “Yes, of course he may stay. It’s not as if it were a thing we can refuse, is it, if he needs it. Unless Domina Alys says otherwise,” she added for warning. She looked at the madman with unconcealed distaste. “But he’ll have to be washed somehow. We can’t bear that in here.”

Frevisse agreed with that readily enough. The madman’s stench—still principally pigsty muck but with undersmells of sweating horse—was thicker with being indoors. It was only by fighting her own disgusted urge to keep her distance from him that she went to take him by the chin and lift and turn his head, to be sure of what she had glimpsed there on the side away from Joliffe: a wide brightness of blood beginning to ooze through the matted hair and encrusted filth above his ear and between his fingers clutched to his head.

“He’s bleeding,” she said.

“That fool with the dagger.” Joliffe shifted so he saw it now, too.

Dame Perpetua made an annoyed sound and pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, holding it out toward Frevisse without coming nearer, while ordering, “Lady Adela, go find Dame Claire and have her come. Tell her hot water and soap and a cloth and a towel are needed as well as her medicines. You bring them for her.

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