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But his attention was diverted towards a tall monk in the Cistertian habit, standing between the bodies, with the cowl drawn over his face. As Paslew gazed at him, the monk slowly raised his hood, and partially disclosed features that smote the abbot as if he had beheld a spectre. Could it be? Could fancy cheat him thus? He looked again.
One last look at that calm beautiful face one kiss of the cold lips, which can no more return the endearment and the dagger is pointed at her breast. But she is withheld by an arm of iron, and the weapon falls from her grasp. She looks up. A tall figure, clothed in the mouldering habiliments of a Cistertian monk, stands beside her.
He had no desire to wear the white cassock, narrow scapulary, and plain linen hood of the Cistertian brethren; neither did he possess the devoutness necessary for performing his devotions seven times a-day; and when the bell roused him at two in the morning, to what was called the nocturnal service, Patrick arose reluctantly; for, though compelled to wedge himself into a narrow bed at eight o'clock in the evening, it was his wont to lie awake, musing on what he had read or learned, until past midnight; and, when the nocturnal was over, he again retired to sleep, until he was aroused at six for matins; but, after these came other devotions, called tierce, the sexte, the none, vespers, and the compline, at nine in the morning, at noon, at three in the afternoon, at six in the evening and before eight.
"A Cistertian Prior sends a letter to a soldier of the Temple, and can find no more fitting messenger than an unbelieving Jew. Give me the letter."
Most of these were herdsmen and farming men, but some among them were poor monks in the white habits of the Cistertian brotherhood, but which were now stained and threadbare, while their countenances bore traces of severest privation and suffering. All the herdsmen and farmers had been retainers of the abbot.
He frequently visited her in the garb of a Cistertian monk, and, being taken for one of the brethren, his conduct brought great scandal upon the Abbey. The abandoned votaress bore him a daughter, and the infant was conveyed away by the lover, and placed under the care of a peasant's wife, at Barrowford.
Conrade read the letter, which was in these words: "Aymer, by divine grace, Prior of the Cistertian house of Saint Mary's of Jorvaulx, to Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a Knight of the holy Order of the Temple, wisheth health, with the bounties of King Bacchus and of my Lady Venus.
"You have seen one masque to-night; but you shall now behold a different one the masque of death." And he disappeared. Nicholas felt sure he would accomplish his task, for he had recognised in him the Cistertian monk. "Where is Sir Richard Assheton of Middleton?" inquired the King. "He left the Tower with his daughter Dorothy, immediately after the banquet," replied Nicholas.
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