Bone of Contention (30 page)

The other three sat looking at Bell in silence. Finally Magdalene said, “There can be only two reasons that I can see. First, Lord Waleran does not want to be connected with this betrothal—and that would mean this whole thing was a deliberate plan to damage William of Ypres and involved the king himself through his clerk—”

“My God!” Niall breathed. “I would not have believed—”

Magdalene gestured at him to be quiet. “I do not believe it either,” she said briskly, “and for very good reasons. Raoul de Samur told us that Waleran is giving not the smallest thought to William—even allowing that William is quartered in the castle near the king while Waleran himself is staying in the town—because he is neck-deep in something involving Count Alain of Brittany. Moreover, William is sure he is safe from any attack by Waleran’s men because it may be necessary to take Salisbury’s castles by war, and Waleran would prefer that William do that dirty work and earn the enmity of the Church assign him to the task.”

Niall breathed out a heavy sigh of relief and nodded. “True enough. It would be stupid to involve Lord William and perhaps have him dismissed when the king might need him.”

“You said two reasons,” Bell remarked, smiling at Magdalene. “What is the second, since you deny the first?”

“The simplest in the world—that Lord Waleran knows nothing at all about St. Cyr’s plan to marry Loveday.”

Now all three sat silent, looking at her.

Magdalene smiled sweetly at them. “I doubt the king’s clerk thought that the matter of a minor heiress available for marriage was a deep secret. In fact, we know he carried the tale to at least two men: Lord Waleran and Lord William, and garnered a prize from both. Perhaps he told even more. In any case it is likely that he simply told Lord Waleran about the matter in his Hall. A Great Hall is never really empty. There are servants, guards, idling men-at-arms…all sorts of people about. Why could not St. Cyr have overheard the clerk’s message himself or had it relayed to him? Being bolder and more inventive—and mayhap because he did have a friend in high places—”

“Yes,” Bell interrupted. “Do I not remember Samur saying that he noticed St. Cyr off in a corner with one of Alain of Brittany’s men?”

“You are right. I remember that, too,” Magdalene agreed. “Perhaps St. Cyr appealed to his friend to get the document, possibly offering payment or repayment from the coffers of Noke. That might be why Count Alain’s name and that of his guest Lord Hervey appear on the document.”

Loveday nodded. “There was no pound of silver in the purse. If there ever was, it went elsewhere.”

“Then why did St. Cyr go crying to Sir Ferrau about his loss?” Niall asked indignantly.

“I do not think that much of a problem,” Magdalene replied. “It is barely possible that he was so muddled, given Niall’s beating, drunkenness, and William’s throttling him, not to mention what Florete’s men may have done before they dumped him, that he honestly forgot he had paid for the document with it. A far more likely reason is that he thought he could pressure Niall into paying something to silence him.”

Bell nodded. “And Count Alain, having heard St. Cyr demanding Ferrau’s help in getting the purse back from Niall and fearing the betrothal was in it, bade Ferrau to retrieve it.” He stood up. “I must leave for Wytham now, but I would like you to wait for me to return to Oxford with you. I do not know whether Ferrau will have gone to the count, but he may well tell him that Niall will be bringing the purse tomorrow. Count Alain will understand at once that Niall is more likely to take it to Lord William than give it to Ferrau.”

“Do you think it likely he will set an ambush to take it from me?” Niall asked.

Bell pursed and pulled back his lips. “Not likely, but why take a chance? If there are two of us…”

A brief conflict showed in Niall’s face. Pride bade him say he could take care of himself, but his service with Lord William had taught him caution. Any man could be taken down by an arrow that struck just right, such a hit on two men would be near a miracle. Instead of refusing Bell’s offer, he said, “What of the women? Is it best we leave them here in Noke?”

“No!” Magdalene exclaimed. “I must go back to Oxford to warn William that it is entirely possible Lord Waleran knew nothing of this.”

“And I must go to present my petition to the king,” Loveday insisted. “It is my best chance to reach King Stephen himself. If Lord William is going to bring Niall to him to prove his innocence, he might as well also present the cause of the quarrel—me.”

Bell looked from one to the other and shook his head, but he said nothing until he had risen to his feet and belted on his sword. Then he looked at Niall.

“I leave to you the dubious pleasure of convincing them that you can give the warning to Lord William and present Loveday’s petition. I will see you between Prime and Tierce tomorrow, and depending on the dean’s instruction may also see you at Court.”

Magdalene, lips thinned with determination, rose to accompany him to the door, but they both stopped to listen to a mild disturbance in the bailey. A moment later, Loveday’s steward hurried in, an anxious frown on his face.

“There is an armed man at the gate, Mistress Loveday. He says his name is Manville d’Arras and that he is heir to Aimery St. Cyr. He said he wishes to speak to you about your betrothal.”

Niall leapt to his feet. “Just keep him at the gate until I pull on my armor,” he said to the steward, who hurried out. To Loveday, his face red with rage, he said, “I will see him away from the gate and off these lands in a way that will convince him the only thing being St. Cyr’s heir will get him is a sound beating.”

Loveday also got to her feet, biting her lip, but Magdalene hurried back to Niall and laid a hand on his arm. “Yes, go and arm,” she said, “but don’t drive him away before I can speak to him. I have heard from several sources that the man is a halfwit. Still, he was much in St. Cyr’s company and it may be that he can tell us who St. Cyr’s high-born friends are. Since that is the man most likely to have killed St. Cyr—”

“Who? Why?” Loveday and Niall asked in chorus.

“Go and arm,” Bell said to Niall. “Magdalene will tell you the whole tale of what we have discovered after we have questioned Arras. She is right. It is important to find out what he knows.”

“Then I will go to the gate and invite him in—” Loveday said.

“No! Wait until I am armed,” Niall exclaimed, hurrying toward the back of the Hall, where a rough framework had been built to support his armor.

Since speed was necessary, Niall did not bother to remove his good tunic and don his gambeson. Bell followed to help him slide into the heavy metal shirt, and as soon as it was seated on his shoulders, Loveday went out. Magdalene watched from the doorway, holding up a hand to discourage the men from showing themselves.

“The servants are all around her,” she said softly, “and he is threatening no violence.” Then she added urgently, “Back! Into the privy chamber. Loveday is bringing him into the Hall.”

The three of them hurriedly passed up the length of the Hall to a partitioned-off chamber where Loveday’s bed stood next to a table holding heaps of tally sticks and a box of rolled parchments. There they all huddled in the doorway, hoping Arras would not notice them.

Loveday brought Arras to the benches near the hearth and gestured for him to sit—with his back to the partitioned-off room. “You cannot inherit people,” she was saying, “except, of course, slaves, and you know I am no slave.”

“But the will says everything.”

The tone was puzzled, not aggressive or argumentative, the voice was thick, the words oddly slurred. Magdalene remembered that the whore Hertha had said he spoke as if his tongue was too large for his mouth. It was a good description. Behind her, Magdalene could feel the tension ooze out of the watching men, although they pressed closer to hear.

“I have it written,” Manville d’Arras said plaintively, fumbling in his purse and bringing out a parchment, which he offered to Loveday. “I have his horse and his armor and his clothing…” His lower lip trembled. “I do not want them. I want… I want Carl—no, I mean Aimery—I want Aimery back. He—the man swallowed hard “—he talked to me all the time. Sometimes I didn’t understand him, but he never yelled at me for that. He only laughed and said it was good to talk to me. No one else ever said that.”

There were tears in Loveday’s eyes, and she leaned forward and patted Arras comfortingly on the arm. “It is hard to lose a friend. I know too well what it is to lose those I loved, but your friend Aimery was deceived. The betrothal document offered to him was false and worthless. You see, I had been previously betrothed, and you know the Church does not permit the marriage of a betrothed person.”

Arras nodded. “Yes, I know that. But—but the betrothal was not offered to Aimery. He thought of that himself and had to find someone to write it for him.”

“But then how did Aimery find out about me?”

A big grin split Arras’ face. “Oh, he was clever, that Aimery. He found—” He stopped speaking suddenly and frowned. “No. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“And you didn’t,” Loveday said, smiling at him and patting his arm again. “That was right while Aimery was alive, of course, but now that he’s dead, you want to explain how clever he was so that he will be well remembered. The promise you made must have ended with his life so you can be free to praise your friend.”

Behind her, Magdalene heard Niall draw in a hissing breath, and she jabbed backward with an elbow to keep him silent.

“That’s true.” Arras was frowning. “But Aimery said if I told, it would be his death. I never did tell, never…but he’s dead anyway.”

“Yes, but it was not your fault, and nothing can hurt Aimery now. Nothing can hurt him ever again, so you can tell me how clever he was.”

“He found a place—” the grin was back “—up in the attic over Lord Waleran’s solar. I’m not sure where it was, maybe near the chimney hole—where he could hear all the lord’s privy conversations. It was there that he heard the king’s clerk tell Lord Waleran about an orphan with a good property who was not rich enough for a king’s man but might be suitable for one of Lord Waleran’s men. Well, Aimery was one of Lord Waleran’s men, so why shouldn’t he have the orphan?”

Magdalene had clapped both hands over her mouth to hold back a gasp, and her eyes were as wide as they could get. If Raoul could find that place, William would soon know most of Waleran’s secrets. Arras was still extolling his friend’s cleverness, making it quite clear that he had no idea that what Aimery had done was wrong, and Magdalene took the chance of glancing back at Niall and Bell. Both wore almost identical expressions of mingled horror and speculation.

Meanwhile Arras had wandered from his adulation of Aimery to anger at the man who had robbed him of his friend.

“But it was not Niall Arvagh who did that,” Loveday said. “He was here, at Noke, when your friend was killed. Indeed he was. I am telling you the truth.”

“But who else could it have been?” Arras said pitifully. “No one else wanted Aimery dead. Everyone liked him. He told me so.”

“I do not know,” Loveday said, choking a little over the idea of St. Cyr as a general favorite. “Perhaps it was the person who wrote the false betrothal document for him. It was false, you know, I did not sign it. I can write my name and would not use an X, and besides that, I knew I was already betrothed—although I did make a mistake and not tell the king’s clerk of my arranged marriage. But it is wrong to write a document you know is false, so that person may not be a good person. He might have feared Aimery would tell someone about the false document and killed him to ensure his silence. Do you know who that person was?”

“No!” Arras cried, looking shocked. “Aimery talked about his friend who had found a high place, but he never named him and I never saw them together. And I do not believe that someone would kill over a silly piece of parchment. I
heard
Niall Arvagh say he would kill Aimery.”

“Only if he ever came here and troubled me again, and he never did, so Niall had no cause to kill him. And Niall was here, at Noke, when Aimery was killed in Oxford. You need not believe me. Indeed, I was not at Noke that night, but the priest was here. Why do you not go down to the village and seek out Father Herveus? You know a priest would not lie. He will tell you that Niall was here, playing chess with him that night, and could not have killed your friend.”

“Will he?” Instead of looking stubborn or doubtful, Arras looked relieved. “I will be glad if it is true. I would have had to fight Sir Niall if he killed Aimery. I am a strong fighter.” He shook his head. “But I do not think I could have won that fight.” He uttered a long sigh. “I will go to the village and speak to the priest. If he tells me Sir Niall is innocent, I will look for the man who gave Aimery the false document and ask him where he was the night Aimery died.”

“Be careful,” Loveday said, rising as Arras did to see him to the door. “Such a man is dangerous. Be on your guard. If he killed Aimery, he might wish to harm you also.”

Arras smiled at her. “Oh, I am not afraid of anyone who writes. I was a much better fighter than Aimery. I taught him to use a sword and he was big and strong, but he never wanted to practice enough. He was cleverer than me, but I was the better man-at-arms.”

His voice faded as he went out of the Hall. Loveday, who had gone with him to the door, stood watching as he mounted his horse and rode out. The steward closed the gate after him. Meanwhile, Bell helped Niall shed his mail shirt and then followed Magdalene into the Hall. Sure the house was secure again, Loveday had returned and stood near the benches, wringing her hands.

“The poor thing,” she said, and tears stood in her eyes. “Should I have tried to stop him from searching further into St. Cyr’s death? He may be a good fighter, as he said, but that will not save him from someone who will creep up and stab him in the back.”

Niall put an arm around her and kissed her forehead. “You cannot order everyone’s life to protect them, Loveday, You might have convinced him not to ask one kind of question, but he would not have understood the general idea and would have asked another.”