Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow by Patricia Harwin Page A

hedgerows full of wildflowers and dripping shrubs, toward the village church. St. Etheldreda’s is a square, stone building in the Norman style, without ornament except for rows of sharp-pointed zigzags around the front door, like teeth ready to eat you if you try to come in. From what I knew about the Normans, they were more inclined to the military than the artistic, and their churches always seem to have a defensive air. But St. Etheldreda’s is beautiful in its own blunt way. I even like the squatty tower with crenellations around the top like castle battlements, none of that poetic stuff about reaching toward heaven with a spire.
    There were cows in the field on the other side of the lane, which delayed Archie for quite a while. As I stood waiting for him, uttering an occasional “uh-huh” to his commentary on these amazing beasts, I looked all the way down the lane, at the manor house. Built, like the church, by the Norman lord who received this area after the Conquest, it was now a mixture of styles as his descendants, the Damerels, had torn down and rebuilt sections of it in the styles of their own eras. I’d been inside on a couple of memorable occasions, but I knew I’d never be invited there again. I felt a momentary sadness, thinking how violent death and desertion had decimated the family that had occupied that house for centuries. Only one of them was left behind, living there now in self-imposed isolation from the village.
    “Come on, let’s go find the cat,” I finally said to Archie, with perfect confidence that Muzzle would never let that happen. It got him toddling again, though, and I guided our expedition through the medieval lych-gate, into the churchyard.
    The enormous beeches and oaks were in full leaf now, rustling in the chilly breeze, shading the graves of Far Wychwoodians from the time of the Plantagenets to the most recent, a numbered plate in the ground where Muzzle’s old friend George Crocker lay unmemorialized. Some of us had talked about buying a headstone for him, but nothing had been done yet.
    Archie’s main interest was the low, mossy stone wall that surrounded the churchyard. I stood close by while he pulled himself from stone to stone until he stood precariously on top. At that point I wrapped the bottom band of his sweatshirt around my hand, behind where he wouldn’t see, and kept a tight hold while he teetered along to the inevitable fall. This time he hung suspended from my fist instead of hitting the ground. When I set him down and let go of his shirt, he started right back up the wall.
    “Because it’s there, I guess.” I sighed, spotting him again.
    “Ah, Mrs. Penny! You’ve brought your grandson to see the church—what a good thought!”
    Mr. Ivey, the vicar, was coming toward us in a flutter of black, his fine-boned face lighted by a smile.
    “ Catherine , please,” I said for the umpteenth time. “My married name was not Penny, and anyway I’m divorced now.”
    “Oh, I do beg your pardon.” The smile drooped into a concerned frown. “What a great shame! I can’t begin to understand the marriages and divorces and remarriages that seem quite normal to people nowadays. The comfort of a long-lasting partnership with one person is life’s most consoling gift, at least I found it so. Constantly adapting to the ways of someone new must be extremely stressful.”
    “I’m not going to remarry,” I said shortly.
    “I’m very sorry—Catherine,” he went on. “I didn’t mean to sound judgmental, that is of course one of the main things a clergyman has to guard against! It’s only that my marriage was such a source of happiness to me, I wonder how—Well, there I go again! As I started to say, it’s never too early to introduce a child to—Oh, dear! Is he all right?”
    Archie was again dangling from my grip on the sweatshirt, laughing as he swung back and forth in the air.
    “Yes, as long as I watch him like a hawk.”
    “Very good—‘watch him