A Mortal Bane(15)

That prayer was not answered. Soon after Prime, the bell by the back door began to ring and ring, and went on ringing until it pierced Dulcie’s deafness. She crawled from her pallet, unshuttered a window a crack, and peered out. A tall, lean monk with ascetic hollows in his cheeks and dark circles under his eyes, carrying a staff, was yanking on the rope as if he wished to tear it down. Dulcie opened the shutter all the way.

“It be too early,” she cried. “The ladies be asleep.”

He shouted something at her, but Dulcie was sleepy and angry and did not try to make sense out of what was a dull cacophony to her. She shook her finger at him. “You should be ashamed ‘f yourself, monk that y’ are, t’ carry on so. If y’ be so hot y’ cannot wait till th’ ladies wake, hold it in yer hand or go down th’ street t’ th’ common stews.”

The monk’s face turned crimson and his eyes bulged from his head with fury. He rushed toward the window, waving his staff as if he would strike Dulcie with it. She drew back and was about to slam the shutter shut when Magdalene came into the room.

“Who is—”

By then, the monk was leaning in the window, holding the shutter back with one hand, and screaming that he had never touched a whore and never would.

“Brother Paulinus!” Magdalene exclaimed. “What is wrong? Wait. You will hurt yourself. Let me open the door.”

“Don’ y’ do it, dearie,” Dulcie cried, shoving on the shutter. “He’s been locked up too long, he has. He’s gone all horny in th’ brain.”

“Hush,” Magdalene said, barely choking back a laugh and putting her fingers over Dulcie’s lips. Then she added loudly, “Brother Paulinus is very holy. He does not wish to use our services.”

Dulcie looked at her inquiringly, but since Magdalene had said what she did to pacify Brother Paulinus, she made no attempt to explain, only rushed to open the back door. As soon as she saw the sacristan, she had remembered what had happened the night before, which, half asleep as she was, had at first slipped her mind. It did not happen, she told herself, pretending to fumble at the lock with the large key. Last night was a night like any other, quiet. We worked; we talked; we had no guests. I am frightened only because the brother is so angry, because I do not understand what could have brought the sacristan of the priory here at this hour.

[page]The lock gave. Magdalene pulled at the latch and the door flew open, almost striking her. She jumped back with a cry.

“I am so sorry Dulcie misspoke to you,” she gasped. “She is deaf and did not understand what you were saying to her. What can I do for you, Brother Paulinus?”

“What can you do for me? Nothing, you filthy whore! To save your own soul, you can confess your crime and prepare to pay for it!”

Magdalene’s jaw snapped shut. Despite many encounters with the monk over the years she had lived and worked in the Old Priory Guesthouse, and the fact that he was not alone in insulting her because of her profession, she could not quite come to terms with Brother Paulinus. Good intentions never held in his presence, and she never managed to act properly submissive. She did not know why others who said virtually the same things did not irritate her half as much.

“Crime?” she repeated, raising her brows. “Everything I and my women do, including eat and breathe, is a crime to you, Brother Paulinus.” Only, this time there had been a crime, a real, terrible crime, not one of Brother Paulinus’s imaginary lewdnesses. Ignoring the sudden, cold hollow that formed under her breast, Magdalene kept her voice calm and indifferent. “Whoring may be a sin, but that is upon my soul; it is not a crime in Southwark.”