Chains of Folly (17 page)

“We do think her death was an accident,” Magdalene agreed, “but what was done with her body afterward was not, which is why we wish to find the person who killed her.”

Both Umar and Fatima nodded and murmured that the reason they had been willing to speak to her was that they did not desire trouble to fall upon the bishop of Winchester.

“Likely no one will ever need to know what you have told me,” Magdalene said slowly, “but I fear Nelda might have put the sleeping draughts to less innocent use than her own need to sleep. We found evidence in her rooms that she was a thief. It is possible that she drugged her clients so she could steal from them when they were sleeping deeply.”

“That does not seem very reasonable,” Fatima said. “It could happen once, possibly with a very stupid man even twice but then the client would not return. Or are your men more stupid than ours?”

“No, but I think what she stole was more often something secret rather than valuable. Something that could mark the man in some way. I think she did not care that the client did not return because she then threatened to expose his secret and extorted money from him.”

“A good reason for her to be dead,” Umar said. “Cannot you find who killed her from the secrets she had uncovered?”

“If there were only one item,” Magdalene said wryly, “we might, but there are several and we are not yet able to identify to whom each belongs.” She sighed. “Well, I thank you all.” She reached through the slit in her skirt to her pocket and took out two silver pennies, which she laid on the table. “For your time,” she said.

Umar and Fatima each took a coin and nodded acknowledgment. To Abd al Zahir, Magdalene said, “Letice will tell me if there is some favor I can do for you in return.”

“Teach Leilia to read and write well, and when she tires of work in your house, I will take her into business with me. That will repay any favor I do you many times, for once she knows the skill, I can find someone to teach her to write in Persian also.”

When Magdalene and Letice left The Saracen’s Head, Magdalene’s glance at the position of the sun showed that it was after Tierce but not yet close to Sext. There would be time, she said to Letice, to stop by the house in which Nelda had lived and see if she could manage to speak to the woman who lived next door—Tayte, Tom Watchman had called her. Letice nodded, but pointed onward, which Magdalene took to mean that Letice would go on to the Old Priory Guesthouse.

When they came to the turn onto Dead Pond Road, Letice nodded and continued along the main street while Magdalene turned first right into Dead Pond and then left onto Rag Street. The woman in the rag shop barely flicked her eyes at Magdalene when she opened the door and walked into the house.

It did not seem very safe to Magdalene, to leave the outer door open that way when the rag woman was known to be “blind and deaf.” But then, as she looked around the bare space into which the stairs descended and the rickety stairs themselves, she acknowledged that there was nothing to steal. She remembered that Linley had told them that Nelda always kept her door locked. Tayte did too, no doubt.

Magdalene knocked, waited, knocked again. Even if Tayte had had a client the night before, she should be awake by now. Magdalene knocked a third time, somewhat longer and a bit louder.

“Tayte,” she called, “it is Magdalene la Bâtarde. I wish to speak to you.”

Still no answer. It was, of course, possible that the woman had gone out to shop or to visit a friend. Magdalene knocked once more and sighed. She was about to turn away when she heard the sound of bolts being withdrawn. She pulled her veil aside so that Tayte, even if she did not know her face, would see that it was, indeed, another woman.

A little mouse opened the door and peered out. She was diminutive in size though well rounded, with soft, fuzzy brown hair, small bright black eyes, a little pursed mouth, and a nose, just a little pink, that seemed to twitch a bit.

“What do you want?” The voice was mouselike too, high and squeaky.

Magdalene bit her lip to keep from giggling and spoke softly and slowly so as not to alarm the little creature. “You know, I assume, that your neighbor, Nelda, was killed—we think on Thursday night.” The door started to close. Magdalene put out a hand to hold it open. “Believe me, we do not think you had anything to do with Nelda’s death. We think it was an accident. We are fairly certain that she was quarreling with a man and that she fell or he pushed her down the stairs.”

“Don’t know. Had company Thursday. Busy, and then sleeping. Neither of us heard anything. And my man didn’t leave till morning, so it wasn’t him!”

The pressure on the door eased and Magdalene quickly pushed it more widely open and stepped inside before the little woman could prevent her. The room was small, holding no more than a wide bed, a chest under the one window, a stool, a chair, and a very small table. But it was not a typical whore’s cocking place. There were a few touches of luxury: the chest was padded with a woven rug and the chair had a cushion on it. Moreover the room was clean and tidy.

“I mean you no harm, Tayte,” Magdalene said hastily, “and I do not think—no one thinks—that you or the man who was with you had any part in Nelda’s death. But Nelda’s body was carried from here, where Sir Bellamy, the bishop of Winchester’s knight, is sure she died, to the bishop’s house and was set up in the bishop’s very own bedchamber. Sir Bellamy is most eager to discover who moved Nelda’s body. And, if we can, discover how the accident that killed her occurred. That, we hope, would remove any trace of blame from the bishop.”

The little mouse’s eyes flicked from side to side, seeming to look frantically around for a place to hide but saw that escape was impossible. She then gestured Magdalene toward the chair. Magdalene took the few steps necessary but before she sat reached through the slit in her skirt, took out her purse, and laid it on the table.

“Did you see anything at all that Thursday?” Magdalene asked when she had seated herself and Tayte had taken the stool.

Tayte eyed the purse with an expression of anxiety on her face that was puzzling to Magdalene. “It was hot,” Tayte whispered. “I had opened my door so the breeze could blow through the room. I heard a knock on Nelda’s door late in the afternoon and I…I did glance out. I saw a man standing there. It was not
her
man.”

There was definite disapproval and contempt in Tayte’s manner and expression. Magdalene first felt surprised that one whore should be contemptuous of another and then realized that Tayte must not be a whore in the common sense. Most likely she had only one lover, a man who, for some reason, would not or could not marry her—perhaps because she had no dowry or perhaps because he was married already—but who supported her. Well, Magdalene could not blame him. She was an adorable little thing.

Suddenly Magdalene also understood the expression of anxiety on Tayte’s face when the appearance of Magdalene’s purse provided a strong hint that she would be paid for her information. Likely, Magdalene thought, Tayte was from a decent family and maintained their standards; she would be troubled by the idea of being paid for information it was right to give. On the other hand, from the size of the room, Magdalene suspected that, though Tayte did not go hungry or without shelter, there was little extra money.

“I am taking up your time,” Magdalene said. “It is only fair that you be paid for that.” And when Tayte finally nodded, after thinking over what had been said, continued, “Can you tell me anything about the man? Could it have been he who caused Nelda to fall down the stairs?”

Tayte bit her lip. “Well, I have seen him before, but not often, and once he came with her man.” She shrugged. “He dressed like her man so I suppose they were in the same business, but he was very ordinary to look at. And I don’t think that he did Nelda any harm. She was glad to see him. Oh!” She looked surprised and then said, “His name. He called out his name before she let him in! He said, ‘It’s Sir John.’ Yes. I remember.”

Sir John was too common a name to be much help in identifying the visitor, but that Tayte remembered might mean she would remember—and relate—other details.

“And then what happened?” Magdalene asked.

“She must have opened the door, because I heard him say, ‘My God, Nelda, what happened to you?’ If she answered, I didn’t hear her, and then the door closed.”

“What did this Sir John mean when he asked what happened to Nelda?”

“Oh!” Tayte’s eyes got very round. “She was beaten. Monday, it was that it happened. It was awful! Awful! I heard her screaming, but I was so afraid. And whom could I call to help? It was that great big man.”

Magdalene shook her head. “There was nothing you could have done.” She was perfectly sincere. She could not imagine the man who supported the mouse or any other man in the area capable of interfering with the person that generated caution in Bell and likely no one would have been willing anyway. “You had seen him before also?” she added.

“Oh, yes. Nelda did not…solicit from the street. I…I would not have agreed to live next to a…a common whore. It was only men she knew,” Tayte’s small face pinched into disapproval. “But she was far too free with her favors.”

“The big man. Did he come often?”

“Not often, and even then he did not always…ah…sleep with her. Usually Nelda was waiting for him and they went out together at once. Nelda usually carried a basket and she often came back alone. Once I heard them quarreling as they came up the stairs.”

This must be the man that Umar and Fatima had spoken of. Nelda must have carried home her purchases in the basket. “Was that the time he beat her?”

“Oh, no, a week or two before that, and then he didn’t do anything, only yelled at her. That Monday, I didn’t hear him come at all. And—and I don’t know when he left either. I—I closed my door. But—but Nelda was all right. I knocked on her door later. If he was still there or she hadn’t answered, I would have called the Watch. But she did answer and I asked if she wanted me to fetch a leech or anything. She said no, and her voice was not weak.”

Magdalene restrained a smile with some difficulty. For all her propriety, Tayte apparently kept a close watch on her neighbor out of curiosity or boredom.

“She was not seriously hurt by the beating,” Magdalene agreed. “When her body was found, the bruises were all healing. But on that Thursday, the day she died, did you hear anything else? See anything? Anything at all?”

Now Magdalene took three silver pennies out of her purse and laid them on the table. Tayte looked at them, then looked away. Then she said slowly, “I told you that my man came that day and we were busy.” Tayte looked down at the coins again. “Oh, wait. I do remember something strange, but it was nothing to do with the man who came. After…after a time for them to be together, Nelda went out with bowls and pots and then came back with food. But still later—it was almost dark—I heard footsteps on the stairs, and I opened my door and ran out because I thought it was my man.”

“Yes?” Magdalene said encouragingly.

“But it wasn’t my man, it was Nelda, coming up the stairs
again
—I hadn’t heard her go out. She must have taken care to be very quiet because I was listening for my man and would have heard. And she was holding something folded in her hand. It must have been a piece of parchment.” Tayte shook her head. “But what would Nelda be doing with a piece of parchment?”

“I have no idea,” Magdalene said, and pushed the coins over toward Nelda. “And you heard and saw nothing else?”

“No.” Tayte’s eyes were on the coins, but she did not grab for them. “My man came in as soon as Nelda was back in her place. We went into my room and…and we were busy. Later it was so hot, we went out to walk on the bridge and to eat an evening meal at a cookshop. And when we came back we were busy again.”

“Thank you,” Magdalene said. “I hope you will not be offended if Sir Bellamy wishes to come and ask you some questions. I promise he will be gentle and do you no harm at all. If you do not want a man in your room—I understand that—we would meet you in some public place, like a cookshop or someplace in the East Chepe.”

The mouse looked frightened, but then looked down at the three silver pennies again and nodded. Magdalene smiled at her and left. As she picked her way carefully down the stair her mind was very busy. Parchment? Nelda was carrying a folded piece of parchment? The letter?

Then she realized it could not have been Gloucester’s letter. Nelda was coming
up
the stair, going into her apartment. A piece of parchment to
replace
the letter she was about to steal? That meant that the man in Nelda’s room had been the man who was carrying the letter. And his name was Sir John.

Not so utterly useless a name after all. Between her and Bell, they should be able to decide who was eager enough to damage Winchester and also had enough influence to appeal to Gloucester. Then if there was a Sir John trusted enough in the service of those lords to be sent on such an errand, they might have the man who had his hands around Nelda’s neck and killed her…apurpose or by accident.

Magdalene walked home briskly and found her women half through dinner. The women could not afford to delay the meal because their clients would be arriving soon. Although Magdalene did not really like to have anyone in the house when the clients came, today she was so eager to tell Bell what she had discovered that she was sorry he had not come.

She had to possess her soul in patience, however, for Bell did not come even after her women were all at work. A minor reward for patience made waiting easier when she recognized Diot’s client as a successful apothecary. With satisfaction Magdalene told herself that he would know about the cakes from unripe poppy seed juice—what they did and what they cost. She had accepted what Umar and Fatima said without questions, not wanting to display her ignorance, but she really had no idea what they were talking about.

Thus, she waylaid Diot and her client on their way out of the back door, and drew them aside to a bench in the garden. He sat down heavily, with a sigh and a glance up at Diot, who stood just behind him and tickled his ear.