Free Strong as Death (Catherine LeVendeur) by Sharan Newman

Too many men had commented on her hands and what they could do.
    Griselle went on. “You’ve come down a great deal since we first met.”
    Mondete picked up her small bundle and stamped her bare feet on the floor to shake off the last of the straw.
    “But I believe I’ve ascended a great deal since we last met,” she said. “And what of you, my pure Griselle, married to a man fifteen years your senior who couldn’t even give you children? Do you expect me to believe you never betrayed him?”
    Griselle recoiled as if slapped. “Saint Melanie’s stillborn son!” she exclaimed. “No, I don’t expect you to believe anything I say. Why should you? But it’s true. I never did. I never wanted to. I loved Bertran more than my life, or my soul. He died in battle, far away from me, alone and unshriven. I’m going to Compostela for the remission of his sins, not for my own.”
    Mondete’s head dipped. “Then may both our petitions be graciously received,” she said. “I would rather you didn’t speak to me again, Griselle. You’re part of a life that I would rather forget.”
    Griselle’s mouth tightened in anger. “Very well,” she said. “If I had ruined my life as thoroughly as you did yours, I would want to forget it, too. I only came to speak to you as an act of charity in the first place.”
    The voice from within the cowl was dry. “And it was only in charity that I answered you.”
     
    “You have to at least give him a Mass, Rigaud,” Gaucher told the monk. “We can’t just bury him here without a proper ceremony.”
    “I don’t care what your duties are to Cluny,” Hugh added. “You owe Norbert as well, and it’s an older obligation.”
    Brother Rigaud was backed into a corner of the narthex of the cathedral with the other two looming over him. He squirmed but could see no way around.
    “I’ll see what I can do about it,” he promised them. “What did Norbert leave to Saint Peter in his will? Did he ask the monks to say Masses for him?”
    “We’re not talking about Cluny, Rigaud.” Hugh leaned closer. “We’re talking about one low Mass from one little monk for the soul of his friend. What will it cost you?”
    “We’ll all attend,” Gaucher said. “You can impress us with your Latin.”
    Rigaud gave in. “I don’t believe that a Mass will do him any good, though,” he warned. “He still had to repent before he died.”
    “Perhaps he did, Rigaud,” Hugh said and stepped back. “He was the one who insisted we all go on this pilgrimage.”
    Brother Rigaud lifted his face to catch the cool air that found its way into the space Hugh had left.
    “If he did,” the monk said with certainty, “it wasn’t because he wanted to save your souls. If anything, it was to have one last chance to ensure your damnation.” He held up his hands at their protest. “It doesn’t matter. If a Mass won’t rescue him,
it still may help us. It would be a mockery of my conversion if I didn’t at least try.”
    “Fair enough,” Gaucher said. “The monks here will bury him, and we’ve sent word to his children. We’ll expect you to say a prayer with us tonight.”
    “You ask too much, Gaucher.” Rigaud suddenly stopped caring what they would do to him. “A Mass, yes. In my own time and place. But I won’t pray with you. I’m not one of you now. I wish to heaven I never had been.”
    They let him push his way out between them. When he had left, Hugh leaned against the wall, watching the flow of pilgrims through the doors.
    “Do you think it’s the tonsure that does it to them?” he asked Gaucher.
    “More likely the bed,” Gaucher answered. “Too narrow.”
    “If I remember rightly, Rigaud could find a way to fit two in a very narrow space,” Hugh said.
    Gaucher laughed. “But they squealed so, like pigs at slaughter.”
    He stopped laughing. He didn’t want to remind himself of pigs. It did seem that they had eluded the trickster who had been following them, but Gaucher