The Prioress’ Tale (28 page)

Edmund settled back onto his blankets. “Thank you, and more particularly my thanks for your help yesterday.”

Joliffe sat down on his heels to come head level with him and said cheerfully, “A pleasure. So besides being Edmund and an occasional madman, who are you?”

“Edmund Harman, a clerk to her uncle.” Edmund nodded at Joice.

“A merchant’s clerk?” Joliffe grinned with delight. “But come knight-erranting to save the lady. What you ought to be is a player, you did your madman so well.”

“What he ought to be is locked away,” Joice snapped, then demanded at Edmund, “What do you think will happen to you if Sir Reynold’s men find you out? What were you thinking of, coming here like…”—she gestured at him in a frustration for words—“like that?”

“How should I have come?” Edmund asked back. “What chance would I have had if I’d just come knocking at the gate with inquiries after your welfare? None of us were even sure you wanted help. At least this way I could wander off again, no harm done, and no one the wiser except me if that was the way of it.”

“Knew if I wanted help?” Joice exclaimed indignantly. “You think I asked to be grabbed in the street and carried off?”

“How should I know? Knowing you, you might very well have!”

Joice gasped, momentarily driven beyond words.

“So,” said Joliffe, still cheerfully, “with that settled, what do we do next?”

“You might begin with taking all this somewhat more seriously,” Frevisse said curtly. She had neither prayed nor eaten yet today, and she wanted, suddenly, simply to sit down for a while and cope with nothing. “For one thing, someone besides me has mentioned you as possibly Sir Reynold’s murderer.”

“Ah, yes.” Joliffe stood up. “Who better to blame for any new ill than the passing player, the wandering minstrel, the lordless, landless nobody? Always the favorite for anything gone wrong.” His tone was slight but his eyes were bleak and unjesting. He knew as well as she did how much danger he was in. “In other words, the question is not, am I suspected, but have you learned anything that might save my neck? And I hope you have because I haven’t. Or Edmund’s neck either, come to that, because an unknown madman who, it turns out, isn’t mad, will be first choice after me when they’re looking for someone to hang.”

“You found out nothing from the masons?”

“Only that if they’re lying, they’re better at it than I am.”

“You’re sure of all of them for all of last night?” Frevisse insisted.

“One way or another they’re all answered for.”

“Including Master Porter?”

“Seemingly.”

“Seemingly?” she questioned quickly.

Joliffe spread out his hands. “I’m always open to possibilities, but right now he doesn’t seem to be one. That leaves us all of Sir Reynold’s men, Edmund, myself, Mistress Joice, nunnery servants, nunnery nuns, your Domina Alys, and you, to be thorough about it. Have I missed anyone?”

Only if she cared to believe Lady Eleanor and Lady Adela should be suspected, too, and she did not. She slowly shook her head and said regretfully, “There’s something else that complicates matters, too.”

“Oh, good. We needed complications.”

Frevisse chose to ignore that. “Word has come that Abbot Gilbert will be here this afternoon at latest.” Sister Thomasine made a small, glad sound and clasped her hands at her breast. The others looked only puzzled. “Abbot Gilberd?” Jolliffe asked.

“St. Frideswide’s is answerable to him.”

“Thank all the saints your Domina Alys is answerable to somebody,” Joliffe said.

“But Sir Hugh means to be out of here with Sir Reynold’s men before he comes, and that takes a good many of our possible murderers away,” Frevisse pointed out.

“Always supposing it wasn’t Edmund or I. Or Domina Alys.”

“Or Joice or I or Sister Thomasine,” Frevisse added caustically. “If we don’t find out the murderer now, we may never be able to.”

Joliffe grasped her point without difficulty. “So did you learn anything of use? Did you see the wound once it was cleaned?”

“Yes.”

“Did it go straight into him or at an angle?”

“Straight into him. Straight in and all the way through.”

Joice made a small, sickened sound. Sister Thomasine crossed herself and bowed her head. Joliffe merely looked interested.

“Straight through. And just below the left shoulder blade, you said. And from the back.”

“From the back,” Frevisse agreed.

“Then it wasn’t done by Joice or Sister Thomasine. They’re neither of them tall enough. You are, of course. Or nearly.”

“Tall enough?” Edmund asked.

“Tall enough to drive home the kind of blow that killed him.” Joliffe stood up. “Directly through him, not at an upward angle. Then there’s the matter of strength enough for a blow like that. Dame Frevisse has the height, but I doubt she has the strength. The inclination probably, but not the strength.”

Frevisse refrained from answering that, instead said only, “So we can let go suspecting anyone below, say, your height.”

“Unless someone was seen carrying a joint stool as well as a sword around with them last night, yes,” Joliffe agreed. “Which brings us back to Domina Alys and most of Sir Reynold’s men.”

“And you and Edmund,” Frevisse said.

From behind Sister Thomasine, Benet asked, “Edmund?”

Chapter 23

He stood at the corner of the altar steps behind Sister Thomasine, looking at all of them with a puzzlement that said he had not been listening out of sight. “Edmund?” he repeated. “Who’s Edmund?”

Joice moved toward him, saying warmly as if glad he was there, “Benet, were you looking for me?”

Become a little wary, his gaze going from her to Joliffe to Edmund, slumped in on himself again, to Frevisse, to Sister Thomasine, and back to Joliffe and Edmund, he said, “I needed to see you. Lady Eleanor said you’d come here to pray?”

He made that too much a question and Frevisse tried desperately to find something to say to divert him from whatever he was starting to wonder, but it was Joliffe who said in apparent delight, moving between him and Edmund, “My lord! We’re trying to work out who could have killed Sir Reynold and who could not.”

“What? Here?” Benet asked, all the unacceptability of that answer plain in his voice.

“Where better? It’s out of the way and quiet. And your sword is exactly what we need. Thank you.”

He reached for the sword hung at Benet’s side—Sir Hugh must have given order for the men to go armed now, Frevisse thought—and Benet immediately stepped back from him, clapping a hand to the pommel, asking, “Why do you think you need a sword?”

“It had to be someone fairly tall who killed Sir Reynold,” Joliffe began, his hand still out for the sword.

“How do you know that?” Benet asked, making no move to give it.

“Because of how the blow went in.”

Benet’s other hand came around to grip the hilt, white-knuckled and ready to draw. “How do you know how the blow went in?”

Joliffe seemed not to notice, going on easily, “Dame Frevisse told me. She saw it.”

“Yes,” Benet agreed, glancing at her, his suspicion not allayed but spreading to include her. “She did.”

“To put a blow straight through a man that way,” Joliffe said, moving toward Benet as if still expecting him to hand over his sword, “it had to have been done by someone near Sir Reynold’s height. If we have a sword and someone’s back, we can maybe judge how tall the murderer was and that would limit who to be suspicious of.”

Benet fell back another step, giving himself enough to draw his sword, and countered, “Who’s Edmund?”

So much for diverting him.

“He’s no one,” Joice said.

Looking at all their faces guardedly, Benet held out his free hand to her. “Come away from here.”

“No! Not with you,” Joice said, beginning to draw back from him, and Benet moved suddenly forward, pushing Joliffe aside, reaching for her. Hampered by her cloak and skirts, Joice tried to avoid him but stumbled, and he caught her by the arm, saying, “There’s something wrong here. Come away.” She jerked to be free of him, and Edmund sprang up, ordering, “Leave her alone,” as he started for Benet, who swung Joice behind him in the same movement of drawing his sword, to bring it point up to Edmund’s throat, stopping him in mid-stride.

Unarmed, clad in only a rough tunic and hosen, Edmund froze where he was. They all froze, because the smallest movement of Benet’s sword could be Edmund’s death, until Sister Thomasine said quietly, “There’s no need.” Benet’s gage flickered her way; she came nearer to him, to lay her hand on his wrist above where he held the sword and say, “Truly. There’s no need. And this no place to shed anyone’s blood.”

Trying to sound as calm as Sister Thomasine, Frevisse said, “You’re in a church, Benet. And the man isn’t even armed.”

Benet jerked his head at Joliffe. “He is.” Joliffe promptly held his hands well out from himself, away from the dagger hung from his belt. Benet glanced at him but kept the sword at Edmund’s throat. “And this man’s been all a lie from the start. He’s not witless. He was never witless, was he? Were you?” he added at Edmund in direct accusation.

Before Edmund could answer, Frevisse said, “No. You’re right. He was never mad. He pretended to be so he could reach Joice, help her if she needed it. He’s here for Joice’s sake, the same as you are. He’s a clerk to her uncle, that’s all.”

Gently, her hand still lightly on his wrist, Sister Thomasine said, “You’re in a church.”

Benet hesitated, then lowered his sword from Edmund’s throat, turned the blade aside, but kept his gaze on him. “He could still be the one who killed Sir Reynold.”

“Yes,” Frevisse agreed. “But so could others. That’s what we’re trying to learn.”

“I still say him for choice. Or you,” Benet added at Joliffe.

“Indeed? Me?” Joliffe said, as if the thought took him completely by surprise.

“Or you, Benet,” Joice said fiercely. She pulled free from his slacked hold impatiently and moved to stand well aside from both him and Edmund. “Why not you instead of them?”

“Because I had no reason to!” Benet protested.

“How do we know that?” Frevisse countered. “How do we know that for certain about any of us or anyone else?”

Benet was momentarily without answer to that, but Sister Thomasine said quietly, “He’s not tall enough.” All of them, including Benet, looked at her questioningly, and she nodded toward him. “See? He’s not tall enough,” she repeated.

“She means you’re shorter than Sir Reynold by almost a head,” Frevisse said, catching up to her thought.

“Here,” Joliffe said, turning his back on him. “I’m near Sir Reynold’s height. Take your sword and see if you could give me the kind of blow that killed him. Straight through below the left shoulder blade.”

Benet hesitated, looked around at all of them watching him, and raised his sword; then raised it higher, to bring its blade parallel to the floor, its point level with Joliffe’s back below the left shoulder blade. In that position the hilt was nearly level with his chin and his elbows were thrust awkwardly out to the sides. “This won’t work,” he said.

Joliffe craned his head around to see. “You couldn’t put much force into a blow from there,” he agreed.

Benet dropped his elbows, cramping them together below the blade. “Nor if I held it this way either.” He changed his grip to one hand above the hilt, one below. “Or this way either. My shoulders are too cramped.” He shifted his hold and dropped the hilt below his waist, the blade angled up at Joliffe’s back. “If I were striking a man from behind, it would be this way.”

“Try it one-handed, as if it were a lighter, shorter sword,” Frevisse suggested.

Benet shifted his body to an angle with Joliffe’s back and raised the blade again and thrust. Although he pulled the stroke up short, it was clear there could have been enough to drive it in if he had chosen to, and lowering his arm and blade, he said, “I could probably thrust from there strongly enough.” But he was frowning, dissatisfied over the thought. “The difficulty would be in thrusting true, to strike cleanly enough for a quick kill, there in the dark and with Sir Reynold moving.”

“There’s something else,” Frevisse said slowly. “Even if you had the skill or luck to put the blow just that way, why didn’t Sir Reynold cry out? He would have, wouldn’t he, even dying, from a blow like that?”

“He would have,” Joliffe said grimly. “Very likely. Likely enough I wouldn’t have cared to risk giving him the chance, risk someone hearing him if I was trying to do a murder.”

Tentatively Joice said, “He might have been knocked over the head first, knocked down, unconscious.”

“And if he were lying flat on the floor, driving a sword down into him would have been no problem,” Edmund said, then added more hesitantly as he realized the complication that caused, “For almost anyone.”

“I handled his head when we were readying him,” Benet said. “There were no signs of any blow. Not to his head or anywhere else on him.”

That could be checked with Lewis, Frevisse thought, or on the body itself, if she had the chance, but she did not think it mattered because: “Judging by the wound, the blade went fully through him,” she said. “The gash in his chest wasn’t a slight rip made by a sword’s point. It was as wide as the one in his back. It looks as if the blade was thrust all the way through him, then wrenched sideways with enough strength to partly cut into his spine. The tip of a sword blade grounded on the floor wouldn’t have done the kind of damage there is.” She held out her hand to Joliffe. “Give me your dagger and turn around.”

With a wry look but not questioning what she meant to do, Joliffe gave her the dagger and turned his back on her. Shaking back the loose sleeve of her outer gown to clear her arm, she moved up close behind him. “If it were done to Sir Reynold this way, it was done swiftly but I’ll do it slowly, so please just stand still.”

Joliffe nodded, and rising a little on her toes to compensate for his greater height, Frevisse reached around to clamp her left hand under his jaw, forcing his mouth closed and his head back as she drove the dagger toward just below his left shoulder blade, turning her hand aside so it was her knuckles instead of the point that she shoved against him. If she had not, the dagger would have gone straight into him, between the ribs, through the muscle and lung and heart. And moving slowly but with strength, she followed through on the blow, shoving her fisted hand against him, so that his body bowed out away from her and he would have staggered forward except she kept her grip on his chin, dragging his head back beside her own, holding his mouth shut against any sound beyond a strangled grunt.