A Mortal Bane(19)

“A friend of many years who still will not tell you his name?” He started to say he did not believe her and add to his threats about the results of lying to a priest, but Ella’s light laugh stopped him.

“I was just going to tell you. I call him Poppe, and he calls me Little Flower. He brings me pretty things. See, I will show you. He brought me a blue hair ribbon yesterday.”

The sacristan ground his teeth. “I suppose you do not know what this friend looks like either?”

“Of course I know what he looks like,” Ella said indignantly. She had never been told not to describe the men she lay with. “He has good strong thighs with hard muscles, and a little round belly. But it is not all soft and flabby; it is firm and nice to kiss, with a line of hair growing down from his navel—that is nice, too, a neat little split, not bulging out like some. And the hair around his rod is—

“Stop!” the sacristan roared, finding his voice, which seemed to have been suspended by shock. “Harlot! Whore!”

Ella said meekly, “Yes?”

Magdalene slid back out of sight, she, Letice, and Sabina pressing their hands against their mouths and grinding their teeth to hold back whoops of laughter. They were safe now. Ella’s mind was fixed on Master Buchuinte. The sacristan probably could not get her to think of anything else.

“I meant his face,” the sacristan snarled. “What does his face look like?”

“Face?” Ella repeated blankly. “It is a face like any other, not specially pretty nor specially ugly. A nice face; it smiles a lot.”

Even the sacristan could see that she was trying to be helpful and describe the man, but it did not really matter what he looked like. The detailed description she had given of his body had already eliminated the possibility that she had slept with the dead man. The corpse, washed and prepared for burial, had been lean and hard.

“A nice smile,” Ella continued brightly. “His lips are nice, too. Firm and not wet—

“Enough. Now tell me what you did last night.”

Momentarily, tension again seized Magdalene, and then Ella’s little-girl voice, sounding rather doubtful, said, “Poppe was here from about Nones until near Vespers. I am not sure I remember everything we did, but first—”

Magdalene breathed again, bit her lip again when Brother Paulinus shouted, “No, not that. I mean, what did you do after your ‘friend’ left you?”

“Oh, that is easy. I ate my evening meal and then Magdalene sent me to bed. I fell asleep right away.”

[page]There had been one danger point. Ella might have remembered flirting with the dead man, but Magdalene hoped she had put it out of her mind because she had been scolded for it. Apparently she had. Now there was only the possibility that the sacristan would not believe her and would tell her that another man had been there and ask more specific questions. But their luck held. Brother Paulinus had had enough of questioning Ella. She heard him mutter, “Stupid bitch,” and then the swish of his staff. Ella cried out, and Magdalene leapt into the room and seized the staff as he raised it again.

“Ella has done nothing to deserve being beaten,” she cried. “She answered your questions as well as she could. You cannot beat her because she did not say what you wished to hear.”

Paulinus yanked at the staff, but Letice and Sabina had also laid hold of it, and the sacristan’s breath drew in sharply at the expressions on their faces. The mute began to twist the staff, the blind woman following her motion. With a gasp of mingled rage and fear, Brother Paulinus let it go before they tore it from his hand. He pushed past them, then past Dulcie, who was about to enter the room carrying a large, heavy pan with a long handle.