A Mortal Bane(18)

“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.”

[page]Magdalene and her women held their breath, but Ella did not, as she might well have done, go on to explain that she had wanted the last guest but that he had chosen Sabina. Letice took one of Magdalene’s hands, Sabina took the other. All prayed that Ella had forgotten.

“You must not lie to a priest,” the sacristan said, not shouting but slowly and carefully so that she would understand. “If you lie to me, you will be damned and burn for eternity, your flesh will be torn with nail-studded whips, your limbs will be broken and you will be forced to walk on them. Torments I cannot even name will be applied to you if you do not speak the truth to me.”

Magdalene’s hands tightened on those of her women and she heard Sabina muttering a litany of curses under her breath. They could hear Ella sobbing. Tears formed in Magdalene’s eyes. The poor child would have nightmares.

“I am telling the truth. I had no friend with me last night. Earlier—” She stopped abruptly, remembering that she was not supposed to speak about the men who visited them.

“So there was a man here.” There was a vicious satisfaction in the sacristan’s voice.

Magdalene edged to the door frame and peeped in, hoping that Ella would catch a glimpse of her and be less frightened. Poor Ella was trembling, and crystal tears rolled down her cheeks.

“A…a friend was with me f-for a little while,” she stammered.

“Oh, a friend? A man you do not know, had never seen before in your life, and will never see again? That kind of friend?”

“Oh, no,” Ella said, blinking with surprise. “I know him very well. He has been my friend for a long time, several years, I think. And if nothing unusual happens, I will see him again on Friday.”

There was a moment of silence, the sacristan being taken aback, but then he asked, “And your friend’s name?”

To give a name, Ella knew, was absolutely forbidden, but the question did not trouble her. She would not need to lie. She never could remember the men’s names.

“I do not recall his name,” she said earnestly. “Magdalene might be able to tell you, or she might not. Some men do not give their names. I—”