By the time the sun had risen a hand's span above the low hills, the convent was in sight, grey walls visible above the thick woods that covered the slopes below it.
"Looks quiet," Webster commented, looking around.
"Quiet before the storm," Gage countered, a prickle in the nerves along the back of his neck. "Look."
He pointed through an archway, lower on the slope and Webster's gaze followed. Through the barred gate, they could see the blackened and decomposing remains of a garden, catching a whiff of the slimy smell as the breeze shifted a little, a thick stench of rotting vegetables and decaying crops.
"Anything else that can do that in a few days?" Gage asked his partner.
Webster shook his head. "Poison, of course, acid over the plants or a toxin delivered through the water. It would take a lot."
If the Lady Eloise had been leading a coven, witchcraft could explain the blight to the gardens, Gage considered, following Webster up the narrowing cobbled path to the gates of the convent. But, by all the accounts that Donato had gathered, the coven, real or imaginary, had done no harm to its local inhabitants, not even a single report of a missing cow or pig.
Both men started as the bells of the convent began to peal, their deep, round tones filling the hillside and echoing down into the valley below. Gage glanced at the height of the sun, frowning.
"Lauds and Prime have passed, haven't they?"
"By my reckoning," Webster agreed. "It's still at least four hours till Sext."
"Maybe they just like the sound?"
"Maybe whoever's in charge now doesn't know the routine?" Webster parried, his expression drawn. "We've seen no one, yet this convent has lands and there would be work to be done."
Shrugging, Gage followed the narrow road in through the gates, and stopped at the broad, shallow steps in front of the arched doors.
"Sister," Gage called out. His partner turned in time to see a young woman hesitate by another gate, this one set into the interior wall of the convent.
"She's a novice," he hissed at Gage, turning to her. "Miss, do you know where the abbot is?"
Gage looked a little more closely at her as she took a few tentative steps toward them. The habit she wore was brown, not black, he realised. Under the concealing wimple, her face was young, no more than twenty. She was lovely, fresh as the breaking dawn, he thought, but not to his taste. When she raised her gaze to look at them, he heard his companion's indrawn whisper of breath and smiled inwardly.
"Father Martin is cloistered, my lords," she said, her voice clear but quiet and her gaze dropping again. "No one can see him until the morrow."
"Is there a Mother Superior here?" Webster asked, his normally pleasant tenor just slightly too high. Gage slid a sideways glance at his friend and ducked his head as he saw the tips of Web's ears glowing red.
"Everyone is in seclusion, sir," she told him. "Only myself and the other novices are tending to the work today."
"Perhaps then, you could help us. We are sent from Rome, here to investigate the possibilities of evil-doing in this region. My name is Gage, this is Webster," Gage said, smiling at her with every ounce of charm he possessed. "We've heard that there've been disturbances here?"
She looked from him to Webster, shaking her head slightly. "I cannot speak of -"
"Your gardens have died, miss," Webster said, moving slightly to one side and looking through the gate. "What happened?"
"I don't know," she admitted, turning to look over her shoulder. "They were fine at the new moon. Then they began to blight."
"Miss -?" Gage asked, wondering if the timing could be coincidental.
"Patience, sir, Patience Bower," she answered, a slight tint of pink coming to her cheeks.
"How long have you been here, Patience?" Web asked.
"For six months, sir."
Watching her, Gage noticed that she seemed unusually uncertain about the place that'd been her home for the last few months. He glanced at Web, wondering if it was due to a reciprocation of the interest his partner had in the girl, or if something else was troubling her.
"Have you seen anything else, Patience?" he asked. "Out of the commonplace, something you wouldn't expect."
Her cheeks coloured a little more deeply. "Uh, no, sir. Not really," she said, stumbling slightly over the denial. "The gardens - uh - we also found a number of dead birds and animals in the convent grounds?"
"Show me," Webster suggested, his gaze flickering to his partner, neither needing to speak to know what the other was thinking.
Blighted plants and dead wildlife, he thought, and the novice was withholding something else. His partner had seen it as well, despite the rush of unexpected feeling he was obviously struggling against.
Gage indulged in another inward grin and nodded. Web would keep the young lady occupied for some time, and hopefully use the little-exercised charm he had on the girl to get whatever information he could from her. He should've realised the man's preferences would run to orphaned fawns and delicate flowers, he thought, watching them walk away toward the gate. Took all kinds, he reminded himself and turned, moving fast across the half-cobbled courtyard to the corner of the building.
The new moon had been three weeks before. When Donato said the coven's leader had been found in pieces, left just outside the village wall.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Walking beside Webster, Patience played nervously with the cross hanging around her neck as they passed through the gate. "Father Martin told us we must pray, that there was sin here," she said, her gaze brushing him from beneath her lashes and returning to the path.
"So there might be," Webster said absently, stopping and kneeling beside one of the beds and using his knife to dig into the soil around a blackened plant. On the surface, the dark loam looked normal enough, he thought, lifting the blade. The crumbly earth came up in a clod and he frowned as he saw the veins of white and yellow running through the dirt a few inches down. Lifting the knife to his nose, he caught two distinct scents from the soil adhering to the blade.
Salt. And sulphur.
It was little wonder the damned garden had died. Getting to his feet, he looked around. The walled garden held nothing but death from one side to the other.
"Do you know what happened?" Patience asked.
He turned back to her, trying to meet her gaze without looking into her eyes. They had an effect on him, he admitted reluctantly to himself. She had an effect on him. He had no idea how or why that had happened, but he wasn't any better at lying to himself than he was to anyone else.
"Poisoned," he told her, glad of the chance to look back at the garden bed. "You see the white, there in the soil?"
She nodded, her gaze following his hand. Had she leaned a little closer to him, he wondered, almost forgetting what he was about to say. A vagrant air moved in the walled space, and he caught the scents of meadowsweet and sandalwood, rising in the morning warmth from her hair and habit.
"That is salt," he said, abruptly aware that he'd been standing there silently. Get your mind back to the case, he berated himself, turning away from her and running a hand over his face.
The mythology had been around for centuries, or longer. He recalled the dry voice of Father Perrin, lecturing in the stone halls. Earth protected itself from the incursions of the unnatural with the pure elements found in the ground. Salt. Iron. Copper. Even gold and silver had their places.
"What is the yellow soil there, that twists among it?"
He looked back down at the soil. "The yellow powder is sulphur. Brimstone."
"How did it get here?"
"Salt rises when evil touches the land," Webster said. "Sulphur is a taint carried by those of the underworld."
He saw her mouth open, shock fill her eyes. "The un- you speak of - Hell?" she asked, her voice falling to a whisper on the last word.
"I do," he said. "Have any new priests or nuns joined the convent recently? Strangers? Or even guests?"
She shook her head. "No, there are none like that."
"In the time you've been studying here, Patience, have you noticed, uh, changes, in any here? A sudden cruelty or, uh, lasciviousness?"
Her gaze dropped. "I - I - no, sir, I haven't seen changes in anyone."
A lie, he wondered? She seemed not to be the type.
"When do you take your vows, Patience?"
"At midwinter's eve," she told him. "It takes a year."
He nodded. "I am sorry to pry like this," he said, his gaze cutting away. "My partner and I - we were called to this place, to find this evil that has risen. You've heard of what happened in the village, of course."
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Patience looked up at him, her thoughts befuddled. His eyes were like the pools in the forest, shadowy and still, green and grey and brown combined, and they drew her like those pools, tempting her to drown in them. She wanted to push the thick fall of chestnut hair back from his forehead. She could feel, faint but insistently, a tingle in her nipples as she stared at his mouth. What would it feel like if it were this man giving her the instruction the abbot had begun?
