Sorrow Without End by Priscilla Royal Page A

creature. If so, the crowner might be sorely tempted to give him a taste of what the man had left others to suffer.
    Suddenly Ralf realized that the man was now quite awake and staring at him.
    “You wish to speak with me?” The man’s voice was hoarse, as if he were unaccustomed to using it or else had done so far too much. As he pushed himself upright, he pulled his cowl over his head, then quickly shoved it back with an inexplicable change of mind.
    “You are not mad at all, are you?”
    “What is madness, Crowner?”
    “I did not come to play with words. What do you call yourself?”
    The man spread his arms. “Adam? Jesus? Beelzebub? All suit.”
    Ralf grabbed the man by the collar of his robe and pulled him upright. “Do not play the fool with me. Your time for feinted babble is over. Oh, you may dance for me if you will, but, as you prance, think on this: those that dance for me usually do so at the end of a rope.”
    “Gibberish may be my tongue, but the gibbet will never be the ceiling over my head. What words would you have with me in the English tongue and under this holy roof?”
    For all his cocky words, Ralf saw fear flicker in the man’s eyes and he was pleased. He pushed him back on the bed. “Who are you?”
    “No one of note. I am a free man, a pilgrim seeking a cure for an invisible wound.”
    Aren’t we all? Ralf thought. “Surely not madness,” he said with contempt. “Why play that game?”
    “Is it madness to fear Satan’s henchmen hiding in the forests along the road or cutpurses amongst bands of travelers? I have been left in peace while others have been attacked. Knowing that, which would you say was mad?”
    Ralf visibly clenched one fist, relaxed it, then clenched it again. “What road did you take to Tyndal?”
    “The one that runs by your village.”
    “No one saw you enter the priory gates.”
    “Am I to be condemned because mortal men are blind? I am here, am I not? I did not float over the walls like some hellish imp. Satan would not want this thin soul of an honest pilgrim when there are fatter souls to fry.”
    Ralf waited. The man said nothing further. “Whom did you see between the village and the priory gates?”
    “None.”
    Ralf bent over the man, his nose almost touching the other’s. “I smell the rank stench of a liar. A man has been murdered on that road, and, if you do not cooperate, I assure you that slowly pulled teeth will hurt less than my methods.”
    The man drew back, his color now quite white. “Do not press me so, good sir! Some madness I may feign, as you say, but only to save myself from harm. Yet not all you see is false. Did I not tell you that I suffered from an invisible wound?”
    “The stench grows, knave!”
    “Have mercy!” the man whined. “If the sainted William is to cure me, I must not offend either the saint or God. Surely I would do so by pointing an accusing finger at one who may serve Him.”
    “And what mean you by that babble?”
    The man tried to turn away from Ralf, but the crowner grabbed him again by the neck of his robe. “Speak!”
    “Do not hurt me! I will tell you,” he whimpered. “A monk. I saw a monk on the road to Tyndal.”
    Despite the chill that ran through him, Ralf begin to sweat. He pushed the man back. “Describe him.”
    “You stood by him near the chapel. A tall, broad-shouldered man with hair the color of red gold. Early today, I saw him standing at the bend in the road, near the clearing.”
    “What more!”
    “The wind was howling like the screams of the damned. The monk was so tall, his hair the color of flames. I feared he was no monk at all but the Prince of Darkness himself. Fear turned my feet toward the woods and I fled, coming by accident upon the mill gate entrance. That is why no one saw me at the main gate. I know nothing more, Crowner. I swear it!”
    Ralf’s shoulders sagged, but he said nothing further.
    Slowly the man backed away, watching to see what the crowner would do.