The Illuminator: A Novel by Brenda Rickman Vantrease

Author:Brenda Rickman Vantrease [Vantrease, Brenda Rickman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 14th Century, England/Great Britain, Writing, Fiction - Historical, Biblical Studies, Medieval
ISBN: 978-0312331917
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2005-03-23T05:00:00+00:00

Lady Kathryn stared at the necklace. It was the one that had belonged to her mother. The same one Father Ignatius had squeezed from her on the day his skull was cleaved in twain.

“My lady’s pearls, I believe,” the sheriff said.

He held the sword out to her, the necklace dripping from its tip. How did he know it belonged to her? And why the look of exultation? Was he so eager to gain evidence against her? His eyes, usually the dead gray of lichen in winter, gleamed like wet stones.

“ ‘One string white pearls, perfectly matched, one black pearl in center clasp.’ That’s what the dead priest’s inventory said. I believe these are they.”

“Mine, yes. I don’t deny … but, how came they to be … ?”

“Exactly so, my lady. How came they to be indeed?” His voice was low, each word drawn out in menace. “How came a string of pearls listed on a dead man’s inventory to be in the possession of Master Finn? That’s a question our illuminator will have to answer for the bishop.”

Rose emitted a small cry. Finn drew his distraught daughter into a half-embrace. The sheriff gloated. The necklace had been the object of his search all along, and to find them in Finn’s quarters, a man for whom he nursed an obvious antipathy, was gratifying indeed.

“Truly, there is some mistake. I know Fi—— I know the illuminator well. He has not the temperament of a murderer!” She reached for the pearls, more to assure herself that they were not an illusion than to reclaim them.

The sheriff retracted the sword just out of reach and caught the pearls in his left hand. They drooped between his fingers. The black pearl, in its gold-filigreed clasp, glinted in the torchlight. No one moved.

A slice of moon rose through the narrow window behind them. A small cloud floated over it. No one spoke for a long moment until voices, loud, gruff, from the men below, set them back in motion like players in a mystery play.

Sir Guy unlatched the mullion pane and shouted down, “Call off the search, Serjeant. We’ve run our fox to ground.” With a serpent’s grace, and just as swift, he flashed the tip of his sword at Finn’s throat. “Come on up and bring the shackles.”

“No! You can’t.” Rose clutched at Finn’s sleeve with fingers white at the knuckles. “My father would never hurt anyone! Let him go!” Her face was the color of whey. Kathryn feared she might swoon.

“She’s right, Sir Guy,” Kathryn said, her voice rising. “In spite of how it looks. There’s a mistake, I tell you. This man is no murderer. There’s another explanation. There has to be.”

“My lady, your affection, dare I say ardor, makes you shrill. Of course his daughter pleads his innocence. What other explanation can there be? Here is the evidence that offers proof. Proof, too, that your ladyship was less than honest in former testimony. But that’s a fact which, now that we have our culprit, need not gain scrutiny.

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