The Abbot's Agreement by Mel Starr

laundry, I would like to know if she has seen anything out of the ordinary in recent visits, or heard some whispered conversation.”
    I wished to know other things as well, but thought it not the moment to mention this. Mistress atte Pond turned to the interior of the house and bawled out Maude’s name. The woman was clearly accustomed to obedience, for three heartbeats later, no more, the lass scurried into view from a side chamber. The maid approached with her eyes downcast, and, it seemed to me, nearly flinched as she came near her mother.
    “These men wish to speak to you about your work for the abbey,” the woman said, then folded her substantial arms and awaited my questions and her daughter’s replies. The interview was not going according to plan.
    “I would like for Maude to show us the path she customarily follows when she walks to the abbey laundry and returns,” I said.
    If the mother had any wit she would have recognized the subterfuge, but I needed to get the maid away from her mother, and this ploy was the first thought which came to my mind.
    I led Maude from her front door to the abbey gatehouse, with Arthur following. From the gatehouse we circled past the guest house and the monks’ dormitory, then approached the eastfishpond. All this time I said nothing but to tell the lass to follow. I glanced at Maude as we passed the laundry house and saw a tear fall from her eye. Perhaps she perceived where I led her, and why.
    I stopped at the place where Arthur and I had found boot and pouch. As there had been no rain, the dry, hardened footprints were yet visible. I told the maid to place her foot beside one of the smaller prints, which she did without protest. Here, I thought, was a lass who had been taught to obey, and from the way Maude shrank from her mother when she came near her I could guess how the lessons were administered.
    Maude’s shoe matched the small footprints in the mud. Arthur glanced toward me and nodded knowingly.
    “How many times after Lammastide did you meet the novice John Whytyng here?” I asked.
    Maude did not soon reply, but cast her eyes about as if seeking upon the dried mud some explanation for the match made by her shoe when placed alongside the smaller footprints. I thought she was about to deny the accusation, and indeed, other than the similar footprints and John Whytyng’s boasting, I had little evidence for the charge.
    “Thrice,” Maude finally whispered. “Must you tell my mother of this?”
    “Not if I have the truth of matters from you. Where else,” I said on impulse, “did you meet the lad?”
    She raised her eyes to her father’s holding some two hundred paces distant, and said, “The barn, when it rained.”
    “Last week, when you met the novice here by the pond, your father followed, did he not?”
    “Oh, nay, sir.”
    Arthur and I exchanged frowns, and Arthur said, “Told you she’d say that.”
    “John Whytyng was slain that night, while he was here with you. If ’twas not your father who did murder, who was it?”
    “Don’t know,” Maude said softly, and tears began to flow copiously down her cheeks.
    “You were here when he was struck down, were you not?”
    “Over there,” she pointed to the nearby wood. “John told me to hide myself in the shadows,” Maude sniffled.
    “Why? Did you hear some man approach?”
    “Aye. I came to this place first, an’ John came soon after. A moment later we heard someone coming near. John whispered that he must have been followed, that I must conceal myself among the trees, and he would remain, so that whoso followed him would find him alone.”
    The maid’s tears flowed freely as her thoughts returned to the night John Whytyng was slain.
    “Did you see who approached?”
    “Nay. ’Twas too dark. There was no moon.”
    “Did they speak? Were you close enough to hear?”
    “I hid behind yon beech tree,” Maude said, and pointed to a tree twenty paces distant. If John Whytyng and whoso followed