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  Edwardston nodded in somewhat surprised satisfaction. The Lady Sarah bowed her head modestly. Robert pulled George back into his seat as his friend tried to rise, red-faced, to protest.

  “And, my lords, you have agreed to my judgement in this matter as my most noble father has ordered?”

  “Yes,” replied Edwardston.

  “Er, yes,” said Lavenham, Robert’s elbow in his ribs.

  The Lady Sarah, who was not asked, smiled.

  “You honor me with your confidence. However, I am but a simple woman and could not judge this matter without the help of wisdom far superior to mine. I therefore propose a trial which will, with the grace and help of the All-Knowing God, reveal the truth in this controversy.”

  “No bloodshed,” Robert muttered in a hoarse voice.

  “This will be a holy trial but no trial by combat, as our father ordered, although the man who betrothed himself to the Lady Sarah would die if he were so foolish as to lie about his commitment to her.”

  A low murmur of approval and anticipation rippled through the hall.

  “Death or life is within his choice,” continued the prioress, “however, to knowingly take your own life is a great sin in the eyes of Our Lord.”

  Robert nodded public agreement but privately whispered, “I hope you know what you are doing, dear Sister.”

  Eleanor raised her hand as if to bless the assembled, and then opened it to display a small pea. “This is called the paternoster pea. It is not native to England, but perhaps those of you who have traveled to Italy are aware of its sacred properties?”

  Edwardston’s eyes lit up in genuine joy. “Indeed, I do, my lady! It is well known in Venice. While I was on pilgrimage to Rome many years ago, I saw just such a pea used at a trial I attended of an accused murderer. He ate it and died within a few hours. It was God’s judgement upon him, for God would have saved him had he been innocent.”

  “Exactly, my lord. The innocent may eat of it and live, but the guilty quickly die a horrible death. It is this pea, a tool blessed by God with His infallible knowledge, which shall determine guilt or innocence here, not I.”

  “I agree to the trial, my lady, but I would be satisfied if Lavenham married my sister.”

  “He refuses, and claims innocence of her condition, my lord.” She glanced at the pale Lavenham.

  Edwardston’s eyes narrowed with anger. “Then let him eat the pea! His death will satisfy my honor, and the exposure of his lie will give legitimacy to the child he planted in my sister.”

  Eleanor turned to George and held out her hand with the tiny pea. “Will you prove your innocence, my lord, and eat the paternoster pea, or will you claim the Lady Sarah as your lawful wife?”

  “Good God, man, take her as your wife!” Robert hissed at his friend.

  “I will trust in God’s judgement and eat it, my lady,” George said, standing and taking the pea from the prioress’ fingers, “for I am an innocent man.” With that, he tossed it into his mouth.

  “Chew it thoroughly, my lord,” the prioress said.

  His face gray, George noisily and thoroughly chewed the pea before swallowing it.

  Eleanor drew the sign of the cross over George. “And God will soon reveal to us the truth in this case!”

  “Send Lavenham to his chamber with attendants from our three households to watch him until morning. We shall then reassemble here,” Robert said. He turned to look for his sister, but she had already left the hall with Sister Anne and the Lady Sarah. Indeed, the time for feasting had ended for all but dogs, rats, and the poor who would get the evening’s scraps.

  ***

  “His soul will be in Hell now.” Edwardston lounged in his chair and looked around with a smug expression at those who chose to gather the next morning.

  Emerging from the hall that led to the chapel, Eleanor seemed to float toward the assembled men, her hands hidden in her sleeves. She was so small of stature that the Lady Sarah and Sister Anne seemed like attendant giants at her side. “You have heard of someone’s death, my lord?” she asked in a voice which carried remarkably well from one so seemingly delicate.

  Edwardston leapt up and bowed his head in the prioress’ direction. “I assume we shall hear of God’s judgement on Lavenham shortly, my lady. He would have been wiser to marry my sister than to bluff it out with God. More wine, Timothy. The rushing winds, caused by Satan’s minions taking Lavenham’s soul to Hell, have chilled me.”

  Timothy, who was dressed with a somber drabness exceeded only by that of his master, nodded. But his youthful eyes were brighter than usual this morning as he turned away from the trio of women to wait upon the men.

  A familiar voice boomed from the hall. “And some for me too, Timothy, for the winds chilled me as well. Although my soul is safe, Edwardston, I dreamed the Prince of Darkness himself came for you. Sadly, it seems both of us have been profoundly disappointed.”

  As George strode into the dining hall, Edwardston dropped his goblet, the spilled wine turning the rushes dark red. Behind Lavenham came those who had watched him overnight, including Edwardston’s priest.

  “But God should have…”

  “Struck me down? Only if I were guilty. Am I right, Lady Eleanor?”

  “Indeed.” The prioress bowed slightly in the direction of the almost speechless Edwardston. “And do we not all trust in the perfect knowledge of God?”

  “But my sister…”

  “…shall be married as duly promised to the man with whom she made solemn promise of holy matrimony, and as you, my lord, have rightly agreed she should.” The prioress stood and reached into her robe. “We have another man to test with the paternoster pea.” She turned slowly in the direction of Edwardston, stopping to look at the young man by his side. “Timothy, son of Sir Leonard?”

  The young man blanched.

  “Timothy? Impossible! He is nothing, the son of a landless knight whom I kindly took into my service at the begging of his father on his deathbed. The boy would not dare…”

  Timothy coughed. “My lord, it is true. I cannot lie and damn my soul. I am your sister’s contracted husband, and she bears our firstborn now.”

  In shock, Edwardston’s mouth opened into a veritable maw. “This is a blasphemy! I will not allow this marriage.”

  “It would be a blasphemy to forbid it, my lord. You gave your sacred word before both God and man yesterday that your sister would be rightly wed to her betrothed. To marry someone other than Timothy would be bigamy and unlawful in the eyes of the Church. You are a man of his word?” There was just the hint of a question in the prioress’ voice.

  Edward snorted. “Indeed! But how do I know this isn’t a lie made up by a boy cursed with ambition above his station?”

  “Because he speaks the truth, Brother, and I swear it on my hope of heaven.” The Lady Sarah quietly walked over to the young man and gently took his hand. “When you saw Sir George coming from my chamber, you assumed what you wished. I did not have the courage to tell you the truth for fear of what you would do to Timothy. Sir George had only been passing by and heard my cries. He entered my chamber, as a gentleman, to save me from what he feared was something evil. I ordered him immediately on his way and told him nothing of what had transpired nor who was hiding behind the tapestry at my window.”

  “Hiding? This craven cub was hiding in your room while I…?” Edwardston sputtered.

  “While you looked at my clothing, the blood on the sheet, and called me whore. You assumed much, Brother, and would not hear me out.”

  “Yet for a joyous bride, you cried most piteously, madam. I still have good reason to call it rape and conclude this was no contract to marry.” He glared at Timothy.

  “Brother, you are not a tender woman who may have joy in her bridegroom, yet know pain in becoming his wife. Our mother died when I was young, and we have no near
aunts or other sisters. I had none to tell me how a man made a woman his wife. Though I pled my troth to Timothy, I knew nothing of what came after.”

  Edwardston shook his head, acknowledging a rare defeat. “I will allow the rites of marriage, but it will last as long as it takes to get the Holy Father to annul such an unprofitable union.”

  “Then bring forth your priest, my lord,” the prioress said, “and let us celebrate with public rites the lawful union of Timothy with the Lady Sarah.”

  ***

  “He will get the marriage annulled, Sister.” Robert was sitting at the head of the deserted table. From outside, they could hear the sounds of departing horses and men.

  “Not unless he is willing to pay much for it. More likely, the Holy Father will order Timothy to Jerusalem as a penance and a much-needed sword on the Crusade, but he will not waste time on a petty quarrel between minor lords. Perhaps such a judgement would be best. I fear Timothy adores his new wife most for the lands she brings, yet she loves him dearly. Perhaps the young man will never return to shatter her illusion of his love, but she will still have his child to comfort her.”

  “You seem so certain of this.”

  “As certain as we can ever be in this life.”

  “And how did you learn of this Timothy, anyway?”

  “As I said, Robert, I know the ways of women, and I know George’s taste in bed partners. It could not have been him.”

  Robert blushed. “How could you…?”

  “I am a nun, dearest Brother, not a saint.”

  “Nonetheless…”

  “The Lady Sarah told me it was Timothy. A woman will not lie to another woman about love if she knows the other will help her gain it.”

  “But when did you talk?”

  “After we left you all to the horses, the three of us rested and then went to the chapel to pray. One always speaks one’s heart in the presence of a kindly God.”

  “But what about the paternoster pea? It would have killed George had you been wrong.”

  “A simple English pea, Robert. Dried with age. I have no paternoster peas in the convent, nor access to same. As a young girl, I overheard the story of the Venetian trial when Edwardston returned from his pilgrimage. I eavesdropped sinfully in those days.” Eleanor smiled mischievously at her brother. “Knowing him well, I realized he would have cared more for the results of God’s peculiar justice than what the pea actually looked like, and Sister Anne did assure me that Edwardston would never be able to tell the difference at a distance. She also told me that one had to chew the paternoster pea to release the poison, which is why I told George to do so in case someone knew the secret of its properties. We did assume he would bring his physician priest with him, as he always does, who could confirm the nature of the deadly pea, should Edwardston doubt the word of a mere woman, however much she may call upon the results as God’s judgement.”

  “You never cease to amaze me, Sister.”

  “And may that always be the case, dear Brother,” the prioress said, as she laughed with a pleasure as earthy as the land itself.

  The Olive Growers

  Jeffrey Siger

  I published my debut novel with Poisoned Pen Press by ignoring my (now long gone) agent’s recommendation to do otherwise. After signing with Poisoned Pen Press, that novel (Murder in Mykonos) became Greece’s #1 best-selling English-language book, landed on the radar list (top 50) of The New York Times hardcover best-sellers, and presented me with the opportunity of switching to a publishing giant. But the Poisoned Pen Press family gave me what I wanted out of the writing life—unfettered time on the Greek island I called home, writing mystery-thrillers I wanted to write, and wonderful editorial support. So, I stayed, and together we’re up to eight Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis novels, with a ninth on the way. Thank you, PPP.

  —J.S.

  ***

  I never knew my mother, and she barely knew my father.

  I knew only public orphanages, shunned warehouses for society’s unwanted children of the poor and the damned. Places where you measured your life by how well you survived as prey or thrived as predator.

  I learned to respect predators and expected them to return the honor. Those who did not were a threat to be dealt with swiftly, for surely that was how they would deal with you.

  I never wanted to kill. I warned those older boys to stop raping the younger ones, the ones who’d turned to me for protection. They refused. They disrespected me. They left no choice.

  That’s when I received my first lesson in political justice.

  The government apparatchiks charged with overseeing the institution saw widespread rape within its walls as a far greater scandal than an isolated murder, and portrayed the killings to the nation as the unprovoked slaughter of two exemplary young men by an unhinged, ruthless savage.

  But at twelve, I was too young to go to prison, though not to be unrelentingly vilified in the press and ordered to spend my next five years alongside other minors deemed in need of reformative measures. The system succeeded in making me a celebrity among my aspiring criminal peers, and utterly unemployable in the outside world.

  Everyone knew my name, and no one dared hire me. Only the military wanted me. They refined my predator skills, trained me for tasks they asked few to perform, and praised me for my service. But once back in civilian life, I found the same shuttered minds each time I sought work in my own name. That’s when I went to work for my childhood associates, doing jobs consistent with my reputation.

  And when they called me, they did so by a different name. One charged with respect for what I did. They called me Kharon, the same name the ancient Greeks used in speaking of the mythical ferryman of souls from the place of life to one of death.

  But now a decade has past, and much has changed. I live along the slopes of Delphi’s Mount Parnassus, amid the mountains, valleys, and seemingly endless olives, myrtle, and pines of an omnipresent spiritual essence far greater than myself. Tens of thousands of hundred-year-old olive trees spread out for miles in rows running from the Gulf of Corinth’s harbor town of Itea, northwest to the town of Amfissa, and northeast to the picture perfect village of Chrisso. Here, in a broad fertile valley of endless green, I grow my olives in peace and anonymity, and live a different life.

  Harvest time is coming. That means readying the olive press, not just to process the fruit off my trees, but the olives of my neighbors who come to me to turn their crops into oil. I’m always busy at harvest time because I charge a fair price, and my press is the only one left in the valley that does.

  The other press owners sold to foreigners who came to take advantage of Greece’s collapsing economy. With taxes doubled, redoubled, and doubled again, and banks no longer lending or renegotiating old loans, they sold to save what they could. Many growers did the same, selling their trees to the same foreigners.

  A foreign owner tried buying me out a few years back, but I wouldn’t sell. Then he asked me to raise my prices to match what he and the other foreign owners charged the growers. I take a traditional fifteen percent share of the grower’s crop, while they charge twenty percent. He said I’d be a fool not to charge more. After all, what choice did the growers have but to use us? I told him I viewed things differently: those who worked the land deserved a fair shake from those of us who profited off their labor.

  When I refused to raise my prices, the foreign owners tried luring away my customers by offering to press olives for a third less than I charged. Their lowball scam didn’t work, so they went back to charging their higher prices and began bad-mouthing me, saying my old-fashioned pressing methods turned my customers’ olives into inferior oil. As proof, they pointed to the premiums their processed oil drew on the market relative to mine.

  That last part got a little tricky and I lost a few customers, until word got around that the foreigners secretly reimbursed the oil bu
yers out of their five-percent-higher processing fees, and growers got a bottom-line better deal from me for their olives.

  Yes, it could be frustrating at times, but my true frustration lay not with my competitors’ hardball business practices. Mob-like as they were, they’d never tried strong-arming me. They only wanted to monopolize the market, and between the trees they owned, and the additional oil their buyers acquired at pressing time from local growers, they already controlled most of the valley’s crop.

  No, my frustration came from my countrymen in the valley. They should be creating their own unique brand, their own packaging facilities, and their own foreign markets. Instead, they allowed foreigners to acquire their oil at wholesale and ship it to Italy to be packaged under Italian labels and sold off at premium retail prices into Europe, America, and other lucrative markets.

  They plodded along as they have for generations, seeing their only path forward as through the past, and offering one excuse after another for maintaining their old ways—even as they sold their birthrights to practitioners of the new.

  They needed a leader. But don’t look at me. I am not about to jeopardize my anonymity in service to a cause no one else is prepared to champion. I am secure in my life. I have my trees, my press, and sufficient assets to survive whatever may come. And, should worse ever come to worst, I still possess unique skills very much in demand at a very high price.

  ***

  “Kharon, are you inside?”

  “Yeah, what is it? I’m busy.”

  “It’s Niko. I have a favor to ask of you.”

  At least he’s upfront about it. “Gimme a few minutes.”

  “Okay, I’ll wait in my truck.”

  I wonder what he wants? Maybe credit? No, he’s one of the more successful growers in the valley. Fifth generation, though he doubts his son will come into the business. The son’s moved off to Athens to make his fortune. Good luck with that.