Valley of Dry Bones Read Online Free PDF

this devious man was less skilled in clever ploys than she. She should not be shocked he had come back to Tyndal. Instead, she must ask the significance of his inclusion with these envoys from the queen. Perhaps the priest’s influence was more extensive than she had imagined. If it extended to the new king and his consort, both she and her family must be wary.
    As Eleanor pushed through the tangled grasses, she recalled she was not the only one to react with shock when the queen’s envoys arrived. Prior Andrew had stumbled backward, when the members of the party dismounted to greet Tyndal’s religious, and had even cried out.
    Although he claimed to have stepped awkwardly, Eleanor noticed his eyes bulge and his face pale as if he had seen Satan himself. A man who fought at Evesham and survived a near-fatal wound would not respond like this to some lightly sprained ankle. The cause must be deeper. Terror seemed likely.
    Unless a man’s secrets posed some threat to her priory, Eleanor was inclined to leave them to the ears of confessors. Andrew might explain later and in private. She doubted it and suspected the reason for his lie was more than an attempt to conceal pain from a lame leg.
    Was his reaction also caused by seeing Father Eliduc, or was it brought about by something else? Did Prior Andrew even know the man? She tried to recall if he had met the priest. While still a monk and porter at the gates of Tyndal, he had probably greeted Eliduc. It was odd that the prior had never mentioned this to her.
    As she reflected more, there was one incident that seemed unusual. When Father Eliduc came to tell Brother Thomas that his father had died, just before the journey to Amesbury two years ago, Eleanor had offered him the hospitality of Prior Andrew’s quarters. Eliduc quickly refused, claiming another obligation required him to leave Tyndal that day. Since the hour was late and other accommodation some distance away, his excuse struck her as odd. He might have told the truth. Eleanor believed it more likely he had lied.
    She would be wise to consider whether the two men did know each other and had cause to keep their acquaintance secret. As she thought more on this, she feared she might have to seek the truth behind Prior Andrew’s outwardly simple lie today after all.
    “May God have mercy on me,” Eleanor murmured as a frightening idea struck her. “Surely the good prior is not another spy in my priory.”
    She had now arrived at the low stone boundary wall of the cemetery. Before entering, Eleanor banished her new worries about the loyalties of priors and the worldly schemes of priests. These were temporal matters, and she had a vow to honor, one made for the good of her immortal soul.
    ***
    The graves of Tyndal’s monks were simple things, some gently rounded and others sunk into the earth. Few were marked, perhaps as a final act of humility, although those who had loved the dying found ways to remember where they were put in the earth. As the prioress continued on, she noted an apothecary rose, planted long before she had arrived to honor a monk whose name she had never learned.
    Briefly she wondered how all the loved ones would recognize each other at the Resurrection. She had been taught that every one of the dead would rise aged thirty-three, reflecting Jesus’ years on earth at the time of his crucifixion. “One of God’s many miracles,” she murmured and set the question aside.
    For an instant she stood with eyes closed, savoring the tranquility of the moment. The grass was so green here. How quiet it was as well. Perhaps this peace was how God’s earth honored the bodies it held in trust until the Day of Judgement. The thought was most certainly pleasing.
    Since she had come in search of one particular burial place, she continued walking toward a corner near the far edge of the cemetery. There, under a shrub half-dead from the sea air, the grave lay. It was marked by a roughly rounded stone on which