“Come,” Magdalene said softly, leading a shaking and sobbing Sabina to the bench at the head of the table. “Sit down before you fall. How did you come to find the poor man?”
Sabina drew a deep breath, straightened her back, and released the hold she had kept on Magdalene. “He asked to be let out just after the bells rang for Compline,” she said, “and of course I closed the door behind him so he would not think I was trying to hear where he went. But he had told me he would not be long, that his meeting place was near, so I thought I would wait in the garden. It was lovely, not cold, and I could hear the service being sung in the church. So after all was quiet and I was sure the brothers had gone to bed, I thought I would just step in and say a prayer.”
She had been speaking quietly, but suddenly she huddled in on herself and began to shiver. “It is forbidden! So I was not allowed—”
“Sabina,” Magdalene interrupted sharply, “do not be such a goose. Do you think God would have a man murdered just to warn a whore away from a church? That is the work of the devil, not of God. Besides, you pray in the church all the time and the place was never before strewn with dead bodies.”
Sabina, who had been crying quietly, sniffed and lifted her head. “No. But it was so horrible. I was laughing, you see. I had heard the sacristan cry out ‘Who is there?’ and then someone running and I thought it was a pair of lovers Brother Paulinus had frightened away. After I heard him close the door, I went to the porch, and…and….”
She shuddered and began to cry again, and Magdalene patted her shoulder comfortingly. After a few moments she asked, “Are you sure he was dead?”
Sabina sobbed harder. “There was a knife sticking out of his neck, and blood, so much blood, a whole pool….”
She started to raise her hands to her face, but Letice seized them and pushed them into a basin she had set on the table. The bottom was black with wood ash, and Letice used one hand to rub that over Sabina’s and the other to prod Magdalene and point to the candles. Magdalene nodded but went to check the shutters before she lit the candles. She knew the Watch kept an eye on her house and did not want them to notice lights glinting from the windows on this night.
When the candles were lit, Letice examined Magdalene carefully and helped her wash away any spot of blood that Sabina’s hands had transferred to her body. Magdalene then put on her bed gown, and she and Letice went over every inch of Sabina, her gown, her under-tunic, her cloak, her shoes, her staff, which Letice had found lying in the corridor, even the tips of her hair, cleaning all as well as they could.
“There, love, there,” Magdalene soothed. “You are clean. Your clothes are clean. Forget this. Forget the man. No one will ever know he lay with you. We are not to blame if the person he met killed him, and we must not be called guilty so that the real killer can escape.”
“But—”
“No. Put it out of your mind. There is no way for anyone to connect him with this house at all, unless by misfortune he was seen leading his horse—oh, my God, his horse! It is still in our stable.”
The three women froze. The horse. All realized that the horse could not simply be led out into the street and driven away. The clattering hooves would surely wake someone and attract the Watch.
“The beast cannot be loose in the streets while the body is on the church porch,” Magdalene said slowly. “We will have to get it into the churchyard.”
“How?” Sabina cried, shaking more than ever. “It is impossible! Oh, forget me. Let me confess that I found him and let them do what they will to me.”
Magdalene slapped her gently and then shook her. ‘This is no time for hysterics, even though you have cause enough. First of all, we do not abandon our own. Not in this house! Secondly, no one will do anything to you if you obey me.”
Letice sat down beside Sabina and put an arm around her, but with the other hand she pointed toward where the stable was, then cupped her hand and blew into it.
“Yes,” Magdalene said. “As Letice points out, even if you sacrificed yourself, you silly girl, the horse would not disappear into thin air. It would still be in our stable.” She stared at the floor for a moment, then said, “Letice, go wake Dulcie. She will have to stay with Sabina while you and I move the horse.”