Covenant With Hell by Priscilla Royal Read Free Book Online Page B

all the facts.”
    “From the start, they treated me like an unwelcome guest and ignored the simplest charity of offering ale to ease the early morning chill. Soon after I began relaying my news, the prioress silenced me, called to her priest, and they spoke together in low voices as if I were not in their company.”
    “They did lack civility.”
    “Although Father Vincent failed to provide a guard for the body, when he went to alert the priory, I remained by the nun’s corpse so that wild dogs would not despoil it. No one thanked me. Before you arrived, Prioress Ursell ordered me to say nothing about this matter, especially after my return to Tyndal. She felt obliged to remind me ‘because all monks are like children and guilty of telling tales.’ Forgive me, my lady, but I was angered.”
    “With cause.” She frowned. “They greeted me with disrespect as well. Although pride is a sin, the expectation of courtesy is not. I do not understand why it should be so, Brother, but they seem to find our presence here unwelcome.”
    “When my temper cooled, I might have excused their rudeness to a simple monk, but I could not tolerate their insult to you, a prioress worthy of the highest honor. That was unconscionable.” He bowed.
    Her face grew pink in the delicate light. “Their treatment of us both was unwarranted, yet to withhold information that was pertinent…”
    “My failure to tell all was spiteful. That I admit, but withholding a little would only have delayed the discovery of evidence they should have found. From their manner toward me, I concluded they did not want to hear what I had to say. Father Vincent asked only one question. He wanted to know if I had seen or heard anyone in the vicinity of the tower. When I suggested they examine the bell tower, lest there be more to this death than was immediately apparent, Father Vincent mocked me.” His face flushed with anger. “He seems to delight in doing so, and I find that intolerable.”
    “Set aside your anger, Brother, and tell me the entire story, including all you omitted.”
    “I respected the dead nun’s corpse but did seek the cause of her death. Her neck was broken and her head cracked open, both of which were consistent with the fall from the tower. But I doubted she was alone in the tower and was troubled that I did not hear another voice crying for help, although I had arrived shortly after she fell.”
    “Prioress Ursell said the nun in charge of ringing the bell had failed to do so on the previous night, and I understood that Sister Roysia was there to make sure the error was not repeated. Perhaps the bell-ringer had not yet arrived when Sister Roysia fell.”
    “If she feared the nun might sleep through the hour again, why did she not bring the bell-ringer with her?”
    Eleanor agreed.
    “I have not yet told you the one significant detail I did not tell them. It argues against the conclusion that Sister Roysia was the only one in the tower.”
    Eleanor raised an expectant eyebrow.
    “Sister Roysia had something clutched in her hand, a piece of torn cloth. The weave was of good quality and the color dark. This is why I doubted she had been alone before she fell. That cloth must have come from a garment.”
    Frowning, Eleanor thought for a moment. “Prioress Ursell said she had seen the body and could only conclude that the death had been a tragic accident. Yet, as you said, the piece of cloth suggests other possible deductions. It was a detail she, or the nun who examined the body, ought to have noticed as well.”
    “Yet they said nothing about it. I am bothered by that.”
    “Even if the death was an accident, the torn cloth raises questions about why she fell. Assuming she and the bell-ringer were together, quarreled, or struggled, Sister Roysia might have lost her balance and fallen.” Suddenly she froze and looked around as if she had heard something.
    “Were that the case, and there was no wicked intent, the other person would