Chapter Twenty-Two

 

The first thing Merry did after she was led into the crowded chamber was to seek Luke. Her heart leaped with love as she beheld him, seated on the same bench as before, but this time in the company of her eldest sister and her husband. She stifled a gasp of wonder upon seeing them—aye, even seeing the Slayer. Especially seeing him, in fact, as he took up two spaces on the bench, dwarfing all those around him, and offering a stalwart sense of support.

Meeting Clarisse’s worried gaze, Merry fought for a reassuring nod. Her sister looked tense and ravaged by sleeplessness, but she smiled encouragement, her jewel-like eyes beaming with love.

A sharp tug on the rope that bound her hands again that morning drew Merry’s focus from the trio and toward the place of the accused, as it was known.

Incredibly, this time, there was a small wooden stool. Offering a silent message of thanks to whomever was responsible for this kindness, Merry gingerly sat down. Her head still ached from striking the ground, and a certain weakness remained in her knees. Resuming her focus on her husband, she sought to calm her erratically beating heart. Was it her imagination, or did he look placid, even confident?

What did he know? she wondered, reading into the steadiness of his gaze, the set of his shoulders.

Things had to go better for her this day for they could scarcely go much worse. In her mind, fainting the day before had only corroborated Owen and Donald’s testimony. No doubt the court had erupted in talk of the dark forces that had overcome her, robbing her of her own will.

Searching the crowd for the faces that would bear witness against her, she recognized only one, a peasant who worked the lands near Heathersgill. He had been instrumental in having Sarah named a witch and a murderer, for his babe had been one of the infants to die that fateful year. Merry’s optimism wavered. The matter of the dead babes was not one she was prepared to deal with—she had told Bartholomew as much.

Where was Father Moreau? The bells of terce had already tolled, yet Bartholomew sat alone on the bench of inquisitors. The bishop had taken his seat on the dais and was drumming his fingers impatiently. A sense of expectancy grew as the proceedings were delayed.

At last, Bishop Henry called for the session to begin.

“Father Bartholomew, you will have to take Father Moreau’s place. I cannot imagine what is keeping him.”

Merry’s gaze flew to Bartholomew’s closed expression. Had the priest somehow contrived Moreau’s absence? Her heart beat faster at the prodigious sign.

“Your Excellency.” Bartholomew pushed to his feet and bowed toward the bishop. “I call upon the next witness, Raudrí of Cringle Moor, a villein. Please come to the table.”

Raudrí did not appear to understand. Prodded by those around him, he rose from the bench and hobbled toward the center of the chamber. The man was bent nearly double from the arduous life of farming. He squinted at Merry through his one good eye.

“Tell the court your name and your relation to the accused,” the priest invited, after eliciting an oath of sorts, though it was little more than a grunt from the farmer.

Raudrí pointed to himself. He began to speak in the Gaelic tongue of the Scots, drawing snickers from the audience.

Finally, Bishop Henry who raised a bushy white eyebrow asked, “What is the man speaking, Cornish?”

“No, Your Excellency,” Father Bartholomew said. “’Tis Gael.”

“Have we anyone who can translate?” the bishop inquired, looking impatient.

The room was filled with courtiers, gentlemen, scholars, and a handful of merchants. Everyone looked at one another. They were quite far south for Gaelic. Sure enough, not a Scot was among them.

Clarisse and Merry stared hard at each other. Both had picked up the language of their tormentors, Ferguson and his unruly men. It had been a necessary tool of survival to avoid whatever mischief the men might be hatching. Clarisse, who had been older when Ferguson took over their keep, spoke less, but Merry had soaked it up like a sponge, the way she did the common and Latin names of plants.

“I can speak his tongue,” Merry admitted at last; after all, Father Bartholomew had already expressed his wonder at her ability when he’d learned of it during one of their talks.

His reaction now was one of exaggerated surprise.

“You?” he said. “Why is it that you, a lady, speak the tongue of northern barbarians?”

She swallowed uncertainly. “My stepfather was a Scot.” It was all she was willing to say on the matter.

With an encouraging nod from the priest, Raudrí began to speak once again. He pinned Merry to her stool with his one good eye. “’Tweren’t natural fer so many babes ta die,” he ranted in Gaelic. “Ye and Sarah laid a black spell on the babes fer it to happen.”

Merry shook her head. “Nay, Raudrí,” she soothed in his own tongue. “’Tisn’t true. I would never have done such a thing, even if I could. I have sworn here on the Holy Bible to tell true. ’Twas a scourge, an infantile disease—”

“Stop this nonsense!” interrupted the bishop. “This is certainly no way to conduct this court. Dismiss this witness at once.”

Raudrí was sent back into the muttering, amused crowd, not even given a seat on the bench where the witnesses had sat the day before.

Bishop Henry still railed, “The accused cannot be allowed to translate for a witness against her. Absurd!”

The priest hung his head, pretending—Merry realized with the urge to laugh—to look disappointed.

“Yes, of course, Lord Bishop,” he replied with a straight face. “The court calls Philippe of Poitiers and Erin McAdan.”

How Merry had overlooked the hulking Philippe was a puzzle, indeed. He rose from a bench on the opposite side of the room to her family and limped to the center of the chamber, trailed by Luke’s squire. Erin cut a handsome, if somewhat skinny, figure in a pea-green tunic, his cheeks smooth and unblemished.

At Father Bartholomew’s behest, they vowed to tell the truth, then they restated their names and made it known how they’d come by Merry’s acquaintance.

“What was your first impression of Lady d’Aubigny?” the priest asked the pair.

Erin went first. “I thought she looked much like a witch,” he said in a voice that had deepened toward a more manly tone. “Her hair, her eyes, the sharp manner in which she spoke seemed to me unnatural.”

“Did you believe her responsible when the horse slipped into the ravine on the approach to Heathersgill?”

Erin nodded gravely. “Aye, Father, I did then,” he said, looking chagrined.

“And now?” the priest prompted.

“When she appeared riding the mare, and it was standing there good as new and happy to be alive, I thought to myself, she can’t be all that bad. After all, we needed that pack horse. Then Philippe here, he crushed his leg with his own bludgeon, and I saw how kindly the lady tended him. He was in bad shape, Father. He would not be walking if not for Lady Merry.”

Merry’s heart had softened and warmed throughout Erin’s testimony. She sent him an encouraging smile, and he blushed to his hairline.

“You, Philippe of Poitiers, do you think Lady d’Aubigny to be a witch?”

“A witch, hah!” said Philippe in his thick Norman dialect. “She is an angel of mercy, she is! When I burned with fever, she made a salve that took the fever away. Her touch is gentle, her soul is kind—”

“See here,” said Bishop Henry, leaning forward, and Philippe closed his mouth on his words of adoration. “The object of this court is not to laud the accused but to investigate her crimes. I’ve heard enough from these lovesick fools. Dismiss them,” he added, glowering at the priest.

Bartholomew darted Merry an apologetic look. “As you wish, Your Excellency.”

Erin and Philippe took empty seats on the witness bench.

“Next, I call forward the renowned physician, Guy of Gascony, who will clear up the matter of the lady’s skill. Sir Guy?”

Merry frowned at the willowy, elegant man who stepped forward. She’d never seen this swarthy-skinned physician before. How could he bear witness for or against her?

As Bartholomew swore him in, the learned man looked down his narrow nose at Merry in a manner decidedly patronizing.

“Please tell the court your occupation and whom it is you serve.”

“I am physician to His Grace, King Henry,” Sir Guy intoned.

“Then you are, naturally, among the best of Europe’s physicians,” Bartholomew elucidated.

Lord Gascony smiled thinly. “Naturally.”

“Perhaps you might answer some questions that have come forth in these proceedings. Are you familiar with any spells that might result in the death of many infants?”

The royal physician looked offended. “I am a practitioner of medicine, not a sorcerer. I do not deal in spells.” He sniffed disdainfully.

“Is there any plant that might be forced into an infant that would cause it to die with no outward symptom of disease?”

Sir Guy seemed to consider. “I have heard of none,” he replied. “However, there are diseases that may steal over a population, killing only the infants and leaving the adults to live. These are not instigated by witches but are propagated by foul air and water that infect the infants’ humors.”

Father Bartholomew paused to let the bishop and the other clergy digest this information.

“Regarding the accused’s skills as a healer, could you determine the extent of Lady d’Aubigny’s knowledge in the use of plants, particularly herbs, by questioning her?”

“Of course,” Sir Guy said with another sniff.

Merry considered suggesting some rosemary tea and apple cider vinegar to unstuff his nose, but she wasn’t to speak unless spoken to.

The royal physician approached Merry’s stool and circled it once for good measure. “How would one treat excessive bleeding of the mouth?” he finally asked her.

Merry considered the veritable garden of plants in her mind and answered with confidence, “The leaves of blackberry rubbed against the gums will bind the bleeding therein.”

Sir Guy paused and cocked his head to one side. “What about colic?” he asked, resuming his orbit of her stool.

“How old is the patient?” Merry answered. “Does he suffer from any other ailments?”

“The patient is an infant, two months old.”

“I would sugar the stalk of Angelica root and have the infant suck it until he finds relief.”

Sir Guy began to stroke his narrow beard. “Common household remedies,” he answered, as though to dismiss the success of her previous answers. “A patient suffers inflammation of the lungs as well as a fever. He suffers nervous complaints, headaches, trembling, and palpitations of the heart. What will you give him?”

Merry thought longer this time, and the bishop settled back in his great chair with a narrowed gaze. To the spectators, it appeared that Merry had been stymied at last. Speculative murmurs filled the refectory. Merry sensed Luke’s anxiety in the steadfastness of his unblinking stare.

“Valerian,” she finally decided, her voice cutting through the whispers. “The entire stalk must first be dried and an infusion thereof be made with one pinch of powder to every pint of boiling water.”

Sir Guy ceased to pace. He looked to Father Bartholomew for guidance as to whether he should continue.

“Ask her about poisons,” the priest recommended, giving the physician a tight smile. “She confessed to poisoning the prioress of Mount Grace. Ask her if she knows the antidote.”

Sir Guy looked at Merry and gestured to the priest. “You heard him,” he said simply.

“The antidote to henbane poisoning is goat’s milk, honeyed water, and mustard seed,” she replied.

“Did you have this antidote on hand when you poisoned the prioress of Mount Grace?” Bartholomew cut in.

“Aye, of course,” she replied. “’Twasn’t my intent for the Mother to die, only to suffer as she made others suffer.”

Bartholomew hesitated, his gaze drawn to something behind her. Merry turned and followed his gaze, as did Guy of Gascony, and then the rest of the audience.

A husky young man in a fur-lined cloak had entered the great hall followed by two guards in royal vestments.

An urgent whisper tore through the room like a flame to dry rushes, and everyone came respectfully to their feet and bowed their heads. With awe, Merry realized the king had come to her trial. She shot to her feet also, though she’d been told to remain seated, shared an amazed look with Luke, and then bowed her head.

“Your Grace!” said Bishop Henry, in a stunned voice.

Merry heard rather than saw the bishop rise slowly to his feet. Peeking under her lashes, she caught the young king wave a negligent hand in Henry of Blois’s direction.

“Please,” the king said. “You may rise and continue as if I were not here.”

However, though many onlookers lifted their heads and straightened slowly from their bows and curtsies, they remained silent, and it seemed to Merry that there was a collective holding of breath. Everyone, including the clerics, the scribe, and the bishop, waited to see if and where King Henry would sit. Would he take the bishop’s throne?

A scuffling sound heralded four more men wearing the king’s colors and carrying a throne. The sight of it caused the courtroom to breathe easier, and people squeezed together to allow the king’s servants to pass. Yet once in the middle of the room, the men cast about for the best place to place the king’s seat.

Merry saw at once their conundrum, for without clearing the room of people and moving the table, there was no way to get Henry’s throne down to the end of the room to place it next to the bishop’s.

King Henry himself surveyed the situation and then gestured with his hand toward Merry. She gasped and tucked her head down again, squeezing her eyes closed. She felt the brush of the men as they moved close to her with the king’s throne, and she clearly heard it placed barely a few feet behind her stool and to her right.

Sweet Mother Mary, the king of England was going to sit near her! She listened to his booted steps as he crossed the stone floor and took his seat.

““You may be seated,” he said to the entire room, and they all resumed their seats.

Merry sank slowly onto her stool and glanced at her sister, whose eyes were wide and staring over Merry’s right shoulder. She tried to refrain from turning but couldn’t fight the temptation. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed King Henry, sitting upon a throne encrusted with winking jewels, staring directly at her, much as the bishop had done the day before, taking her measure.

Turning hastily around, her cheeks cold with shock, she tried to focus on only the council and the bishop. How could she have ever in a hundred years imagined she’d be stuck between these two powerful men?

And what did the king’s attendance signify? she wondered, her heart beating fast. Looking to Luke for reassurance, she spied a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. The message in his eyes offered only comfort. All will be well, sprite. Fear not.

It took Father Bartholomew a moment to gather his thoughts. He turned his attention again to the royal physician, who had remained where he stood.

“Sir Guy of Gascony, given your expertise in the field of medicine, what can you tell the court regarding this lady’s knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants?”

Sir Guy’s dark eyes still glittered with disdain. Yet he glanced behind Merry to the king, and his upper lip curled as if he found his own answer offensive. He gave it nonetheless.

“It is premature for me to give a response. Though she did, indeed, identify correctly the best plants for healing the ailments I mentioned, I would require many more hours of discussion with her to know for certain,” he said choosing his words carefully.

More murmurs broke out, causing Bishop Henry to thump his chair and call for silence.

“However,” the physician added, the words seemingly torn from him against his will, “if I were suddenly to be struck ill, I would prefer this woman tend me in lieu of any of the wood-headed dunces I’ve encountered here in England.”

The words had been uttered grudgingly, yet they could not be taken back. With sudden insight, Merry guessed that Luke was somehow responsible for Sir Guy’s testimony. After all, the man was the royal physician, and the king himself had come to lend credence to his testimony.

Chatter filled the chamber once more. As the bishop thumped his armrest and called for his scribe to restore order, Sir Guy took it upon himself to sit upon the witness bench, crossing his legs and closing his eyes as if completely finished with the proceedings.

“Bring your next witness,” Bishop Henry ordered the priest.

“Lord Ian, Baron of Iversly, and his wife, please approach,” Bartholomew intoned loudly.

Pleasure bloomed in Merry’s chest. She sat straight up smiling in delight to see the baron, looking quite hearty, and the baroness making their way forward. Tears rushed into Merry’s eyes as Lady Iversly stood before her, her blue eyes flashing with the same determination Merry had remarked in her before.

Father Bartholomew began to question them. Integrating mild aspersions on Merry’s character into his phraseology, his criticism carried little weight, for the couple depicted Merry as a healer in their midst, a lady who not only restored the baron to good health but also brought light and life into their stagnant world.

The tension in Merry’s shoulders eased. Her heart beat ceased to gallop for the first time that morning.

By the end of the old couple’s testimony, the clergy seated before the bishop had ceased to regard her with hostility. Combined with Sir Guy’s opinion, the clerics now appeared rather mystified as if not knowing what to make of this supposedly dangerous heretic.

“Are there any more witnesses?” the bishop inquired of Bartholomew.

Bartholomew wavered. “Er . . . there are no more witnesses, per se, Your Excellency.”

“In that case,” Bishop Henry added, “I shall—”

“Excuse me, Your Excellency,” the priest deigned to interrupt, “but there is one more person who would like to speak on behalf of the accused.” Bartholomew cleared his throat. “Lord Luke d’Aubigny, esteemed commander to His Grace, King Henry.”

A murmur followed the announcement, and all heads turned toward Luke.

“Husband of the accused,” Bartholomew stated for the onlookers and the clerics.

The bishop, who’d been prepared in advance and given his permission, merely raised his thick eyebrows as he, too, looked in Luke’s direction.

Luke stood up, giving Merry her first full view of her husband in days. The combed wool of his black shirt, layered with a rich purple tunic, delineated his warrior’s build. She longed to feel his arms around her, but simply seeing his solid form, knowing he was about to defend her yet again, she felt his strength seeping into her, like warmth from a fire.

“Are you prepared to address my court, Lord d’Aubigny, knowing your own words may condemn you for committing a crime against the Church?” Bishop Henry demanded, seemingly hoping to deter the inevitable.

“I am, Your Excellency.”

Signifying his frustration with the entire proceedings, the bishop threw his hands up. “Then do so,” he ordered.

A peaceful calm descended over Merry as Luke strode toward the center of the room. The crowd fell silent, taking in first his appearance and then his careful words. As he explained with articulate skill his reasons for scaling a priory’s walls, it became clear why the king had chosen this man as his personal representative in so many tenuous and delicate situations.

The tenor of his voice soothed the crowd while his logic persuaded them that he’d been in the right, had indeed committed no crime but sought to right a wrong being perpetrated by the prioress herself. As with all the foreign officials, petty rulers, and unruly barons whom Luke had nudged toward peace, the onlookers sensed his integrity and straightforwardness—the qualities Merry had remarked in him from the first. Nobles, scholars, clerics, and merchants alike hung on his every word, nodding at intervals to convey their agreement.

The last band of fear encasing Merry’s chest fell away. At the very least, Luke would save their unborn child from death. At most, he would save her also. She could not have loved another human being more than she loved him in that moment.

“Good sirs,” he concluded, earnestly addressing those seated at the clergy’s table, many of whom seemed bedazzled by the Phoenix’s presence, “you have put the wrong soul on trial here.”

At their evident confusion, he gestured to Merry’s stool. “If anyone should be sitting there, it is mine own self, as ’twas I who scaled the wall of Mount Grace, entering a holy sanctuary, and delivering this lady from wrongful death. Sadly, she was willing to burn, not because she suffered guilt for any wrongdoing but because the world had been unnaturally cruel to her.”

He paused allowing them to recall the horrors of her childhood, how she’d been blamed for the scourge that had killed the infants, even how she’d been cut off from her family by the withholding of their words of love, which he’d made sure to convey.

“A priory is a place of peaceful reflection,” he continued. “How can one find peace when one is hunted as prey?”

Turning toward the prioress, he regarded her silently for a moment. She stared back, though not as righteously emboldened as she once was.

“Mother Agnes of Mount Grace, without permission of the Holy See, prosecuted and condemned an innocent to die. Moreover, she intended for her to burn within the walls of her priory, hiding the ugliness of her vengeance from the public eye. That is what Bishop Henry will discover when he makes his inquiry. For that is exactly what I saw when I looked over the walls of the priory—a young woman tied to the stake. The crime against her was so apparent, so cruel, that I vaulted the wall and freed her, taking her into my custody in order to escort her to safety.”

Mother Agnes’ eyes glowed with rancor, but she wisely held her tongue.

“We have heard divisive testimony regarding the true nature of the accused,” Luke continued. “From those who believe her a heretic and from the ignorant who believe in superstitious nonsense and think her a witch, we have heard fantastical stories that stir the imagination. These are, nonetheless, mere stories and conjecture. Yet from more esteemed witnesses, who have personally benefited from this lady’s skill, we have been informed of her pure and healing spirit.”

The bishop spoke up abruptly. “Draw to an end. Now, Lord d’Aubigny,” he commanded.

“Yes, Your Excellency. I would mention one last event offering evidence as to her true nature. While escorting the accused to Helmsley, we were beset by rogues. This lady,” he gestured to Merry, “not only saved my life by fending off an armed attacker, she then saved it once more by fighting the grave and infectious wound that I sustained. I would surely have perished if not for her bravery and skill.”

He turned to meet her gaze, and the emotion branded on his face choked his closing words.

“How could I not desire such a remarkable woman to be my wife?”

To Merry, it felt as if he spoke only to her, and tears of love pricked her eyes once more.

“For all that she has endured, she has retained something I sacrificed years ago—her humanity. Indeed, it is she who has given mine back to me. For the sake of that humanity, I ask that you dismiss all charges against Lady d’Aubigny.”

A reverent silence filled the vast chamber. Merry wiped at the tears streaming from her eyes and sought to compose herself.

Luke bowed deeply to his king, then turned and did the same to the bishop and the council of clergy.

All at once, someone in the room began to stomp. Heads swiveled and necks craned, including Merry’s. It took a great deal of gall to make a ruckus of that sort within the chamber of such a serious institution as a bishop’s court, especially in support of an accused heretic, and it bespoke of even more brashness when doing so in the presence of the king.

Startled, Merry glanced behind her to gauge King Henry’s reaction and, to her great relief, found him smiling slightly. Catching her eye, he sent her the briefest of nods.

Heat flooded Merry’s cheeks. Gratefully, she bowed her head to him before turning away to search for the perpetrator. Others had joined in, but it appeared to be the Slayer who’d lauded Luke’s closing arguments by stomping his great boots. Soon, the entire chamber thundered with the tramping of feet.

“Silence!” called the bishop, scowling at the impropriety of it. Yet when he looked at Merry, she thought his eyes, hitherto short of patience, murky, and mysterious, now shone with relief.

The council of clerics, too, struck her as less menacing. One old priest even went so far as to send her an encouraging smile.

Merry drew a cleansing breath. She knew then, without having to wait for the verdict of the ecclesiastical court, that Luke had succeeded in saving her yet again—this time with his words alone.