“True enough.” A very faint smile touched the bishop’s lips. “But all this does not explain your lie.”
Magdalene sighed. “Well, at first I did not understand the sacristan at all. He kept roaring at me to confess my crime, and kept saying it was the prior’s fault for his leniency. First of all, I had committed no crime. Whoring may be a sin, but it is no crime in Southwark. Secondly, I would admit no guilt for anything when he made it so plain that he would accuse the prior of having caused the evil. By then, he had made me very angry and when he said murder, of course I denied it and any knowledge of it. We had done no harm to any man. All our clients were away safe—”
The bishop lifted his hand. “Yes, I see. Once having denied it, you were afraid to admit that the man had been with you.”
“Yes, but also how could I be sure the man who was dead had been with us? Brother Paulinus told me nothing except that the porter claimed the man had not come through the front gate of the priory. Thus the sacristan assumed he had come through the gate between our house and the churchyard, but I could not be sure….”
Henry of Winchester shook his head. “But you do seem to be sure. No, do not answer that directly. Begin at the beginning and tell me how it came to pass that Baldassare de Firenze visited your house.”
“Because he traveled from Rome to London with a naughty student of the priory’s, Richard de Beaumeis—”
She hesitated slightly as a black frown crossed the bishop’s face, but he waved at her to continue, and she told him the entire tale exactly as it happened, except for the caching of the pouch in Sabina’s room. In the end, she even told him about the horse and of Sabina’s stumbling on the corpse, fearing the smallest chance of a shadow on her veracity.
“And then the sacristan questioned us all separately,” she said, coming to the end of the tale, “but he was furious when none of us would admit to murder. He said he would see us all hang and—as I said before—that the evil we did was the fault of the prior. My lord bishop, I beg you not to listen to the evil he speaks of the prior. Father Benin is a good man, truly holy—”
“I am aware,” Winchester said. “And I am also aware that he suffers your presence in the Old Priory Guesthouse with more tolerance than would Brother Paulinus, who seeks the prior’s place.”
Magdalene smiled and shook her head. “I beg pardon, my lord. I should have known that you would understand without my interference.” Then she sighed. “But if Brother Paulinus should succeed, I fear I would no longer be able to remain at the Old Priory Guesthouse.”
“I know.” The bishop grimaced. “The sacristan is a fool. He has no compassion, and no common sense either. Lechery is foul in itself, but when contained in one place, it does not contaminate the whole body of society. This the ancients knew and provided relief for their young men. Horace in his First Satire advocates the use of brothels, and since men have not changed, except possibly for the worse, I cannot see that we can do without them.” He shook his head. “If such powerful and godless men as William of Ypres had no outlet for their lusts, might they not seize on innocent sisters, wives, and daughters and befoul them as well as themselves?”
Magdalene had heard this argument more than once and would not quarrel with it because it was a strong protector of her way of life, but Henry of Winchester was a very intelligent man and she could not resist giving him something to chew upon. “But whores do not lust, my lord,” she said, smiling. “To a whore, coupling is a piece of work for which she is paid as a weaver is paid for a piece of cloth. Just as an anvil accepts the pounding of the blacksmith’s hammer so, and with just as little emotion or pleasure, does the whore accept the pounding of the man who uses her.”
Winchester flushed slightly. For all his worldliness, he kept the rules: He was abstemious in food and wine; he never touched a woman. Magdalene did not know whether he had ever had a woman, but if he had, it must have been when he was very young and not yet consecrated as a priest.
“That is not according to common knowledge or theological precept,” he said.
“No.” Magdalene laughed. “That is from a whore’s own experience, my lord. I assure you I never lusted after men, and as soon as I could, I ceased from receiving them. I am afraid your authorities rest more on the desire of men to justify themselves than on the perception of reality. We are all sinners, my lord, but whores more than any others are totally free of the sin of lechery.”