Forsaken Soul by Priscilla Royal

have done, either sheriff or the churchman.
    As for Ivetta, she had good reason to assume that any representative of the king’s justice would treat with little kindness those who plied her trade. Her expectation that a crowner would simply cart her off to some dank place, where she might rot of the damp long before she ever came to trial, was not unreasonable. Thomas had expected Ralf to calm her fears, at least long enough to get her tale, even if he suspected her of murder. Instead, he had rained abuse down on her head, effectively stopping any attempt at defense she might make or willingness to give information pointing to a killer.
    On the other hand, Ivetta and Ralf had surely known each other from childhood. Thomas had come but recently to Tyndal. Perhaps the crowner had reason to assume her guilt—and maybe she had cause to mistrust him. Whatever the truth, Ralf had been gentler to the innkeeper.
    Since the monk had stayed last night to assure the crowd outside the inn that the Devil had been permanently routed back to his home in Hell, Thomas heard the outraged roar from the merchant when he was told that the room upstairs must remain untouched, corpse included, until further notice.
    “Do you have any idea how this will affect my purse?” the innkeeper shouted.
    In the past, Ralf would have had little patience with anyone who worried more about coin than solving a murder—and taken less care to hide his contempt. Instead, the formerly gruff crowner eased the man into agreement with smooth grace.
    Had his friend chosen to learn the delicate skills of diplomacy during his time at court? Or had his nature changed? Was there a side to the man that Thomas had never seen, one that others, who had grown up with him, knew well?
    If the crowner did have a part touched by the Devil, why had Tostig remained his devoted friend—or Sister Anne for that matter? The brewer of ale might be called a good man, but the monk believed the sub-infirmarian to be most saintly.
    Thomas frowned in perplexed thought as he trudged along the path to the hospital. “None of this is my worry,” he concluded at last. The murder may have sent a spirit to God’s judgement uncleansed, and he might even pray for the cooper’s soul, but the crime itself was a matter for secular justice.
    “Nonetheless, I am uneasy,” he whispered, “although I do not understand why.”
    Thomas turned and gazed back at the dark-stoned church he had just left. Although the shimmering white sun had not yet reached its zenith, the air was growing thick with damp heat. The black curtain in Sister Juliana’s anchorage window barely moved with the weak sea breeze, and the white cross emblazoned on it almost sparkled in the sunlight.
    What was she doing? he wondered, distracting himself from his troubling thoughts. Was she in prayer, or had she sought rest on her stone bed after her night vigil?
    Ever since he had met the woman at Wynethorpe Castle, he had felt both attraction and revulsion whenever he was in her presence. These warring emotions were complicated by his inability to decide whether she was simply mad or truly touched by God. Even his astute prioress might have no answer to this debate either, or so he suspected. She and Juliana may have been girlhood friends, but Thomas guessed much had changed between them in the intervening years.
    Whatever his opinion of her, Sister Juliana had arrived here in the spring and was permanently entombed as an anchoress. Soon after the last rites were performed to symbolize her death to the world, and the door to her small cell slammed shut, the distressed from the village began arriving at her window.
    This was not unusual. Anchoresses often received those tormented by their sins, but they did so primarily during the daylight hours. This anchoress received only at night.
    He had learned of this quite early on. When he had grown weary of his nocturnal pacing around the silent walkways of the monks’ cloister garth,