The Prioress’ Tale (29 page)

Neither of them were using full strength. She could not have held him if he had tried to pull away from her; but it would have been difficult between two well-matched men, one of them with his death wound in him. Joliffe, playing Sir Reynold’s part, sagged back against her, as a dying man would have, and they held where they were for a moment, making sure of what she had done, before she let him go and stepped back, flipping the dagger around to hand it to him hilt-first, wanting the thing out of her hand as soon as might be, as he turned to face her.

Joliffe took it, his face grim as she felt hers was, and said as he slipped it into the sheath on his hip, “That looks to have been the way of it. A sure blow and a simple one, with hardly a chance of any outcry.”

Benet, looking sickened, said, “A coward’s blow. Sir Reynold hadn’t even the smallest chance of defending against it.”

“A practical blow,” Joliffe said. “Quick, certain, no chance of outcry and small likelihood of being caught of it.”

More steadily than she felt, Frevisse said, “That means we can guess it was done with a dagger, not a sword, by someone Sir Reynold’s height or very close to it. Someone strong enough to have held him like that long enough for him to die.”

“Then flung him down and left him,” Benet said bitterly.

“Which brings us back to Edmund and me,” Joliffe said. “And Sir Hugh, Domina Alys, and the three or four among Sir Reynold’s men who matched him in height.”

“Or one of the masons,” Benet said. “Master Porter first.”

“Master Porter was never gone from the lodge last night between supper and dawn,” Joliffe said. “Nor any of the others long enough to have come into the cloister, lain in wait on the possibility they’d have a chance to kill Sir Reynold, and come back.”

“Before anything else,” Frevisse said, “there’s the matter of the blood. There had to have been blood on whoever did it.”

“Yes!” Joice saw the point immediately. “Whoever did it, they’d have to change their clothing and wash off the blood. Without being seen.”

“And neither would be easy to do,” Frevisse said. Not in the cloister or the guest halls. For one thing, water would not be readily come by. Servants slept in the cloister and guest-hall kitchens, so there would be no having any water from there without being noticed. The wells were in the open in the kitchen yard and courtyard. The risk of being seen using either one was high. A desperate man might take the risk, but even then, even if he managed to wash clean his hands and body, what about his bloodied clothing? Wash it perfectly clean in the dark and have it dry by morning so no one would notice? Even being rid of it where it would not be found would be difficult to manage in the confines of the cloister and guest halls. Aside from that, someone wearing different clothing from what he had worn the day before would be remarked on after Sir Reynold was found, when anything noticed out of the expected would draw suspicion.

She had started on that line of thinking earlier but not followed it far enough. For whoever had done it, killing Sir Reynold had not been the end of it; and she said slowly, “Domina Alys.”

“Yes,” Joliffe agreed. “She was with him, already in the cloister, no problem there and no problem at being at his back if she was seeing him to the door and out. Afterward she would have had her own rooms to wash in, change her clothing, and who’s to know a nun is wearing something different than the day-before?”

The stairs to her rooms were beside the passage where Sir Reynold had been killed. She could have come down with him, killed him, gone back up with little chance of being seen. And she would have had Katerin to help her wash the blood off both her and her clothing, with her fire to dry her dress at afterward so that she might even be wearing it today, come to that.

And Katerin would likely have forgotten all about it by now, or shortly would. Only things that happened over and over again seemed to stay any length of time with her. Passing happenings drifted out of her mind within hours: by now she had likely forgotten there had been any anger between Domina Alys, Sir Reynold, and Sir Hugh last night.

“But it could as well have been him,” Benet said suddenly, looking at Edmund with dislike. “He was alone in the church all night and wouldn’t have to worry about changing clothing if he stripped off and went about it naked. If he was seen before he killed Sir Reynold, it wouldn’t matter. We all thought he was mad. If he wasn’t seen and he made the kill, he only had to wash the blood off to be in the clear, and he had water.” He pointed to the jug and basin left for Edmund’s necessities along the wail beyond the pallet and his blankets. “Any water he bloodied, he could dump out in the cloister garth and no one the wiser.”

Before Edmund could answer, Joice exclaimed, outraged, “He never would!”

“I might,” Edmund said more reasonably, “but where did I lay hands on a dagger? Everything I had was taken away to be burned when Domina Alys had me washed. I had no weapon of any kind.”

Benet glared at him, visibly casting through his mind for an answer, before saying, “You might have had one when you first came to the priory, hid it somewhere, and went out after it last night.”

“Before or after he stripped naked?” Joice asked scornfully.

Still reasonably, Edmund asked, “Where would I have hidden a dagger among those rags I was wearing when I came?”

“A small one, strapped to your side or thigh.”

“It wasn’t a small dagger killed Sir Reynold,” Frevisse said. “It had to be one of the larger kinds to do the damage it did.”

“A basilard for a guess,” Joliffe said. “It would have to be, to go completely through a man and be strong enough to cut sideways into his spine afterward.”

“How would Domina Alys come by one of those?” Frevisse asked sharply. “Or Master Harman hide one in his rags?”

“A shorter way to go,” said Edmund, “might be to ask if there’s anyone we already know who has one.”

Both Joliffe and Benet were suddenly, completely motionless, until Joliffe slowly turned his head and looked at Benet, who still did not move but stayed staring off into the air in front of him as if he were seeing something he very much did not want to see.

“Benet,” Joliffe said gently.

“Sir Hugh,” Benet said, hardly above a whisper. “Sir Hugh has one.”

Chapter 24

“He may have such a dagger,” Frevisse said, “but you said he had no blood on him when he left the cloister last night, and I’ve seen him this morning wearing what he was wearing then.”

Relief made Benet slump and almost laugh. “Yes!” Edmund was not so easily done with Sir Hugh. He had begun to shiver lightly and wrapping his arms around him for a little warmth, he said, “He and your prioress could have worked together. He could have given her the dagger to use, she killed Sir Reynold, and then Sir Hugh carried the dagger away.”

“That would leave her able to deal with the blood but with no weapon, while Sir Hugh had the weapon and no blood!” Joice said eagerly, going to pick up one of the blankets from the bed and handing it to Edmund who took it with a look of thanks that lingered on her, Frevisse saw; saw, too, that Joice’s look lingered on him and their hands were together on the blanket a moment longer than was necessary. To increase the trouble, Benet saw it, too. Frevisse could tell by the frown tightening between his eyes, and she said, “No, I can’t think they’d work together that way.”

“Why not?” Joliffe reasonably asked, and added, “It would solve a great deal,” meaning more than Sir Reynold’s murder.

Ashamed that somewhere in her she would not have minded accepting Domina Alys’ guilt for true, Frevisse said slowly, forcing her feelings aside, “Because that isn’t… like her. She might kill in a fury, on the instant, but to plan out a thing like this… and against Sir Reynold… She doesn’t plan.”

But she had planned Frevisse’s punishment yesterday. Frevisse’s back was still too aching, too hurtful when she moved uncarefully, for her not to remember that Domina Alys had thought that out in detail ahead of time. But to kill Sir Reynold…

“It would have been more possible for them, that way, than it would have been for anyone else,” Joice insisted.

“And if they did it, they can’t be rid of all sign of it yet,” said Edmund. “Isn’t your prioress’ gown made of wool? It won’t dry quickly, even with the fire. It could still be damp, still show signs of just being washed. Anything like that would make a certainty.”

“And we have to be certain,” Joliffe said quietly, his gaze fixed on Frevisse. Unwillingly she nodded, agreeing. More quietly, understanding what he was asking her to do, he said, “It will have to be you who finds out. If there’s anything to find, it will be in her rooms. A damp gown. Some trace of blood.”

Frevisse lifted her head with a thought aside from what he was saying.

Blood.

There had been blood in St. Frideswide’s yesterday, too. And yesterday, if not today, there had been bloodied clothing.

She looked at Benet.

Alys tried to rise to anger. Anger would at least be something she was used to, something better than this dead drag of grief that seemed to be all she could feel since seeing Reynold dead. Dull, aching, heavy grief that weighed down every thought she tried to have, every move she tried to make. The abbot’s letter was in her hand, and she said at Hugh, standing in her parlor doorway, refusing to come farther in, “You had no right to read this. It was to me, not you.”

“Alys, I haven’t time for this. You sent to know why we were readying to go.” He pointed at the letter. “There’s why.”

“Reynold wouldn’t have left,” she said dully. “Reynold would have stayed to help me face it out.” But Reynold was dead.

“If it wasn’t for Reynold, it wouldn’t have to be faced at all,” Hugh said coldly.

“And you,” Alys said. “You, too. You’re in this as much as he was.”

“And you before any of us,” Hugh returned, and turned to go, not interested. “I have to have the men out of here.”

“I didn’t know what he was playing at!” Alys said desperately, trying to be angry but only aching—-aching as if something had broken in her that she could not find or mend. Forcing the desperation because she needed to feel something more than pain, she cried, “I didn’t know how he was using me!”

Hugh swung half around to look at her and said disgustedly, “Maybe not, but you knew full well how you were using
him.”

She had known, but it had not mattered. What had mattered was that she had been glad of him being here. Using him had been only part of it, and so it had not mattered.

But if he had not been here, he would not be dead now. Dead without time to repent or be absolved of his sins and maybe gone to hell because of it.

She tried to drag her mind away from that, from the aching circle it had been in all morning now. Reynold was dead. He had no business being dead, leaving her only Hugh to be angry at, and she said, “You’re using the abbot’s letter for excuse, nothing more. You want to be gone without promising me you’ll carry out what Reynold said he’d do.”

“I’m not promising you anything,” Hugh said impatiently. “I’ve told you that.”

“Reynold promised—”

“I didn’t and I won’t.”

“He swore he—”

“It doesn’t matter what he swore! It’s odds to evens whether he would have kept his word anyway, being Reynold. At least with me you know where you are. I’m swearing to nothing and you can expect nothing. Grasp it, Alys. Whether Reynold lived or not, you would have been on your own before long, and he wouldn’t have cared that he’d played you for the fool along the way.”

“He wasn’t playing me for a fool!”

Reynold would never have played her for a fool. They had understood each other. No one had ever understood them except each other.

Hugh made a contemptuous sound. “Reynold played everybody for a fool.”

With her aching rousing toward outright pain, Alys flung
back at him, “Including you?”

“Including me. The only difference was that I
let
myself be played for the fool. That gave me a choice in when it stopped. Unlike the rest of you.”

A shout and confused sounds from the yard below jerked him around toward the window. “Now what?” he said and came back, past her to the window. Leaning to look out, he swore and turned for the door again, saying, “It’s your damned abbot. He’s here before his time and some fool has opened the gate to him.”

Alys had followed him to the window, was still there, looking out, seeing what he had not; and with laughter sickened behind her words, she said, “It’s more than ‘my’ abbot. That’s Walter Fenner with him, if I know anything.”

Hugh spun and came back to her side, swearing.

“No going now, Hugh.” She did not try to keep her great, grim satisfaction hidden. “There are Fenners and abbot’s men together down there. You’re going nowhere.”

Hugh threw her a savage look. “Your people were told to keep the gates shut!”

“By Reynold,” she answered.

“And by me this morning!”

“But not by me,” Alys returned sharply, still looking at the mounted men now crowding full the yard. She could guess that the man foremost among them, richly dressed in Benedictine black with fur-edged sleeves and collar and a man behind him bearing an abbatial crozier the way a lay noble’s man would carry his lord’s banner, was Abbot Gilberd. Sir Walter Fenner, riding close beside him, she knew all too well by sight, and… she made a raw sound that was as close as she could come to open laughter. “There’s why they opened the gate. That’s Roger Naylor there.” Her erstwhile, cursed steward. He had gone and betrayed her to the abbot, the first chance that he’d had.

“Fenners! A score and more besides your damned abbot’s men,” Hugh snarled. He stepped back from the window, rigid, considering possibilities and discarding most of them before he grabbed her arm. “You come with me. We’ll face this out together. We blame it all on Reynold.”

She went unresisting. Reynold was dead, and everyone and everything was turning against her, except for Katerin, who came out of her corner behind the door, a little crouched with fear, but following as Hugh pulled her down the stairs, ordering as they went, “We can blame it all on Reynold. Everything. I’ll back you on how you knew nothing of what he was doing and you’ll back me that I was against it all the way and set on having his men out of here as soon as he was dead, because, like you, I didn’t think that they should be here. They may not believe us, but they can’t disprove it. If we can find a way, too, to lay blame for his death on that madman you’ve in the church, that will be better yet. He’s likely, so why not use him?”