“That’s very important,” said Edward, addressing Theodosia also. “Not a word of this can come out.”
“You have my word.” Benedict sat as directed. “Faith, it’s a shock to have heard it. I’m not sure my mind can make sense of it all.” He bowed his head with the others as Edward said grace, then poured out goblets of wine for himself and Edward. “Indeed, it was a shock to me also,” said Edward, “but a good lesson in finding out that people may not always be who they seem.” He poured water for the women.
Theodosia stared at her piece of bread, appetite gone. How could they all carry on as normal? Talk. Smile. Exchange pleasantries. When her sinful lie of a life had brought death to Canterbury. A liar’s death for Thomas. The words beat like a drum in her head.
“Tell me, Edward,” said Benedict, mouth full as he chewed, “why do you think Theodosia and Sister Amélie are safe to come with us to see the King?”
Edward took a thoughtful sip of his wine. “We have heard Amélie’s story. It’s corroborated by items I found in Archbishop Becket’s papers. Add to that our eyewitness account. You, Sister Theodosia, and I were all there, Palmer. His Grace needs to know that the arrest went wrong, that murder was committed in his name by brutal knights who’d lost control.” He looked round the table. “This is our chance to set the record of history straight and to ensure the King’s name is cleared. That is our God-given duty, isn’t that so?”
Amélie and Benedict murmured their agreement.
“Sister Theodosia?” Brother Edward’s searching green gaze rested on her.
Duty it might be. But no longer God-given. Only by sinful man.
Amélie’s gaze rested on her too, drawn by her silence.
She couldn’t form words, not now, not to them. To anyone. “Of course.” She managed a whisper.
Satisfied, they turned their attention from her and began to talk through the whole wretched story once again.
CHAPTER 24
Theodosia lay abed in the shadowed, quiet room and watched the pattern of stars change slowly in the small window. Every muscle in her exhausted body ached for sleep, for oblivion. But it would not come. Not like all the times she’d lost her battle against sleep in her cell, slumped forward over her Psalter in the early hours. Her regret afterward, the knowledge of her weakness. Now, when she would welcome sleep’s dark forgetfulness, it would not come, and she knew why.
She’d been taught to look on her bed in the same way as she did her grave, as if she were entering it for burial. A clean, washed body. She had done that earlier. A clear conscience also, to grant her scared rest.
Her conscience had never been so disturbed. Her mother’s account of her birth whirled through her mind over and over. All she thought she’d been had been broken to pieces. Her life, based on truth, on holiness, had been revealed as one gigantic lie. A lie of which she hadn’t even been aware.
She turned over yet one more time, willing her body to relax into unconsciousness. Her sore limbs refused, tensed as if they had life of their own. Across the room, her mother slept in the second bed, her slow breaths a reflection of her deep, peaceful slumber.
The sleep of the just. With a sudden wave of fury that sickened her to her stomach, Theodosia sat upright. How on earth could Mama rest so? Mama’s calling to the holy life had been a lie, a lie to conceal a wrong passion and to continue it while her husband became betrothed to another. Mama’s gift of her, Theodosia, as an oblate: another falsehood. Worse, a falsehood that had cast her away as if she were of no importance, her child’s heart broken in the process.
She bent up her knees and hugged them, willing her rage, her grief, to subside. But it did not. Her mother slept on, her form still beneath neatly tucked sheets.
Her mother had given her life, the most precious gift there was, but through her selfish desires had brought death knocking, calling to her daughter, over and over again during the past, terrible weeks. Theodosia tightened her grip. Not only to her. To innocents like Becket, Gilbert, the nuns.
And Benedict. The man who had faced death with her, had shielded her over and over again from its hideous embrace. His thanks had been her constant rejection of him, her desire to be rid of him, so she could reclaim her calling as an anchoress. A good, good man put aside so she could follow a calling as empty and false as the painted lands on the stage of a miracle play.
Her limbs trembled with the tightness of her own angry embrace. She had to lose some of this wrong emotion or it would consume her. She slipped out of bed, the bare wood floor chilly beneath her feet. Arms crossed, she walked the short distance from bed to door and back, over and over. If she had to pace all night, she’d do it.