“You are lying,” Paulinus thundered, “adding to the black sin that stains your soul. You can still save yourself from damnation, from burning in an eternal fire, by confession.”
“I am not lying,” Sabina said. “As you said, I would be a fool to lie and add to the burden of sin on my soul. This is the truth, every word. I sat alone in the garden from Compline until after the service was over, and no one came out of the house or passed through the garden with or without a horse while I was there.”
This, Magdalene was sure, was perfectly true and she decided to add her own true lie. “None of my women had friends who stayed overnight last night,” she said. “I know, because I collect the charges for their lodging.”
“If you do not tell the truth, you will all be damned! You!” He pointed at Letice. “Abandon the sinking souls of these other women. Save yourself. Tell me who followed the poor murdered man and slew him.”
Letice stared back, shaking her head.
“Contumacious woman, speak! I command you!”
“I wish your command could take effect,” Magdalene said, struggling to maintain her gravity. “But I am afraid you will have as little success as that king who ordered the tide to stay. Letice is mute from birth and cannot speak.”
“Is there no one in this house that is whole? The deaf, the mute, the blind—” His voice checked suddenly and his eyes gleamed. “And the weak-minded,” he added softly. “Where is your madwoman, whore? She will tell me the truth.”
Magdalene’s heart sank. Ella had not responded either to the ringing bell or to the voices in the corridor. She might be asleep; more likely she had heard the monk’s angry shouts and was hiding in her bedchamber with the covers over her head.
“Brother Paulinus, you know the prior has given special dispensation to Ella not to be questioned by the priest. However many years since her birth, she is still a child—”
“A child as steeped in sin as any of you!” The sacristan’s eyes gleamed and a satisfied smile pulled his lips thinner. “The prior is not here, and the priory is in my charge until he returns. Where is your madwoman kept?”
“Ella is not a madwoman and is not ‘kept’ anywhere,” Magdalene snapped, considering whether she should refuse to allow him to question Ella. She dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came to her. A refusal to let Ella answer questions about matters of simple fact—rather than complex concepts, like the state of her soul—must raise suspicion even in less prejudiced minds than that of Brother Paulinus. She shrugged. “She is asleep in her chamber. I will awaken her and bring her to you.”
“Stay!” Brother Paulinus ordered as she started to go to Ella’s doorway. “You will not put words in her mouth. I will go within and question her where she cannot see the signs you make to enforce her silence.”
Magdalene felt the jaws of a vise closing on her throat. Had she relaxed her will, she would have panted like a terrified beast. Fool, she said to herself, you have been in much worse danger. Even if Ella admits there was still a guest in the house when she went to bed, no one can prove the dead man was that guest. She began a slow gesture toward Ella’s doorway, trying to remember whether Ella knew that the guest had intended to stay the night. More frightening was the fact that they would not know what Ella had told him and he could use her words to set traps for them. Unless….
She forced her lips into a slow smile. “Alone?” she asked archly. “In a closed bedchamber with a known whore?” She lowered her eyes and found a soft laugh. “Oh, very well.” Her smile broadened. “That is her room.”
“You would not dare!” Paulinus exclaimed.
“Dare what, Brother Sacristan?” Magdalene asked blandly. “Speak the truth?”
He glared at them. Magdalene managed to look puzzled. She knew that behind her Letice and Sabrina were wearing broad grins.
“I will leave the door open, but none of you are to stand where the madwoman can see you.”
“You desire that we stand witness to your questioning?” Magdalene asked.
The sacristan snarled an affirmative and stamped through the doorway, shouting, “Get up at once. You cannot pretend to have been asleep. I know you heard us.”
The women heard Ella utter a squeak of alarm, echoed by Brother Paulinus’s cry of consternation.
“Cover yourself,” he roared.
“You told me to get up at once,” Ella protested. “Everyone sleeps naked. Why did you not look away if you did not wish to see me?”
All three women bit their lips. The danger that Ella might expose what they wished to conceal remained, but Brother Paulinus was going to discover that questioning her required a special touch.
“Where were you last night?” he asked sharply.
“Why, here, in bed,” Ella replied. “We never go out at night unless it is very hot and Magdalene lets us sit in the garden.”
“And who was with you?”
“No one.”