Chains of Folly (21 page)

“Will you be able to convince the bishop—”

“No!” Bell’s teeth snapped together and his jaw muscles bunched. After a moment he continued, “If you meant will he withdraw from the convocation? Nothing will convince him to do that. He has gone too far, even arranging time and place with the archbishop. But I will tell him what Waleran hopes.”

Magdalene thought “men!” but she only nodded. “And it might help if from time to time before the convocation takes place, you can remind him circumspectly of the danger Waleran’s single influence on the king holds for the realm and the Church. Winchester is a clever and subtle man. His mind will work on the facts until the 29th of August when the convocation convenes. He will realize that if he utterly alienates his brother the king no good can come of it, not only to him but to the Church.”

“The trouble is,” Bell sighed, “that Winchester leans more to the Church Militant than to gentle pleading.”

“I doubt he will get much support from the other bishops if he takes that tack. Salisbury’s discomfiture is too near and too vivid.”

Bell sighed again. “I think he knows it already from hearing what the archbishop had to say. Theobald is all for conciliation and compromise—perhaps an apology from the king but no punishment and no restitution.”

“Ah!” Magdalene smiled. “He may get that and I hope that Winchester can be satisfied with that solution.” She shrugged and her smile broadened. “I certainly do not mind in the least if the king’s treasury has been refilled by Salisbury’s hoard. Surely that will, for a little while, hold off more taxes. However, I do not wish to see Winchester stripped as Salisbury was because
someone
would have to replenish the bishop’s exchequer.” Her lips twisted. “And who do you think would bear the heaviest burden? No doubt the wicked.”

“I will do my best,” Bell said, stretching and yawning, “but do not expect too much. The bishop did not hire me for my sage advice in political matters.”

“Go to bed,” Magdalene said.

Bell stiffened but made no reply and after a little silence, Magdalene added, “None of the women knows you were here, and you will leave well before they rise in the morning, so no one will talk or wonder.”

She got up as she spoke and went to get a sewing basket, which she set on the table and from which she extracted a ribbon she was embroidering. Bell watched her begin a new line. Then, still without answering, he picked up the neglected piece of bread and cheese and ate it. When he had swallowed, he emptied what remained in the tankard on the table.

At last, he said, “Thank you,” got up from his seat and moved down the hall.

Lowering her head over her embroidery, the second of a pair of borders to be sewn to the cuff of a sleeve, Magdalene smiled to herself. A few more days and he would slip back into the habit of living in her house. Now if only she could arrange to have someone threaten the peace of the Old Priory Guesthouse, she could offer him her bed as payment for his protection.

Her needle flew over the broad ribbon. The design, a simple one of leaves and flowers, would soon be finished. She had not yet decided whether it would be worthwhile to offer the cuffs to Claresta as an excuse to go to the Lime Street house again. Unfortunately the girl did not seem enough interested in Linley to urge him to talk to her and listen. Eventually Magdalene set the last stitch, bound off her thread, and packed all into the basket. She walked once down the corridor, listening. Behind one door were soft voices; the others were silent. She paused at Bell’s door but heard nothing. She could only hope he was asleep.

* * * *

In that Magdalene’s hopes were fulfilled. When Magdalene had told him to go to bed. Bell had not hesitated because he did not want to take advantage but because he was afraid he would lie awake regretting he was not in
her
bed. The day, however, had been too long and trying. What came to his mind as he took off his clothes was not Magdalene but the fact that his master had two sets of enemies, each trying to destroy him in a different way.

Mandeville was not nearly so clever or subtle as Waleran. The letter he had arranged to obtain to make Winchester seem a traitor was in the bishop’s hands and could be presented to the king in such a way as to mark the bishop’s loyalty. The other schemes had gone awry too, the woman in the bedchamber and the attack. He would be alert for any further tricks and between him and Magdalene they would discover who had killed Nelda and clear Winchester of any connection with the crime.

Bell drew a deep breath, lay down, and pulled a light blanket over his naked body. The danger from the Beauforts, just because there was no actual danger, was more acute. Waleran and his family had been implicated once or twice in false schemes to discredit Winchester so that the king had been made suspicious of them. This time, according to Raoul, Waleran was so sure Winchester would hang himself that he was taking care that no one in his family would even be seen handling rope.

Unfortunately, Waleran was likely right. If Winchester used the papal authority to try to cow Stephen, he would lose even if he forced Stephen to restore everything to Salisbury. The breach with the king would become so wide that nothing could bridge it, the other bishops would also feel the king’s enmity and lose their trust in Winchester… Bell grunted and shifted. No. Winchester was no fool. Bell reasoned that all he had to do was present the information in such a way that it did not add to Winchester’s carefully controlled rage. His eyes closed on that thought.

* * * *

In the morning Bell did not stop to break his fast but made his way to the bishop’s house and asked the clerk on duty—not Phillipe this morning—if Winchester could receive him now. The clerk climbed the stairs to the upper story and scratched on the door. A servant opened it. In less than a quarter candlemark the clerk came down and told Bell to go up.

“You are early this morning,” Winchester said, turning away from a handsome crucifix where he had likely said mass.

“I have news, my lord, and I wished to be sure you had it before you became so busied that you had no time for it.”

“News of note then?”

Bell hesitated. “Yes and no. I do not believe anything I learned calls for any action on your part, but you might know better than I whether that is true.”

One servant was busied near the bishop’s bed, folding the stole Winchester had worn to say his prayers. The other servant went out and down the stairs.

Winchester moved to the table and without hesitation sat down in the chair in which the corpse had been found. He gestured for Bell to take a stool and sit also.

“First,” Bell said, “Father Holdyn told the truth about being at the church on Monkswell on Sunday night, and from what time his servants say he returned, he could have done no more that night than walk from the church on Monkswell to the bishop of London’s palace.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that he could not have visited Nelda—the whore who was killed—and had his crucifix stolen or given it to her that Sunday night.”

“Ah, so Holdyn told all the truth. The crucifix was stolen from his chamber in the palace.”

“Not
all
the truth, my lord. He did not tell his servants that the crucifix was missing or seek for it.”

“Mayhap he did not notice it until he dressed on Monday morning. Then he would have thought it was too late to pursue the thief and did not wish to grieve his servants.”

“Possibly,” Bell said, but his tone was such that Winchester cocked his head in inquiry. Bell continued, “The servants also told me—they are very fond of their master and wished to praise him—that for some years a woman has been somehow finding her way into Holdyn’s house, and into the palace also. They think she stole a gilded cup some years ago which Holdyn replaced without inquiry, and he left out coins for her to take.”

“Then he did know the woman he buried.” Winchester sighed and bowed his head. “That it should not be the same woman as was found dead in my chair is too great a coincidence. I am disappointed. Not because Father Holdyn slipped in virtue. That can happen to any man. But I would not have believed he would lie about it.” He hesitated and then added forcibly, “And I
will
not believe he set the corpse in my chamber.”

“My lord, neither would I,” Bell said. “But I find it curious that he took so long to deny he knew her. A prepared lie tumbles out quickly. When you question him about the woman—I assume you would wish to speak to him yourself?”

“Yes. So, when I question him about the woman…”

“Ask him
why
he said he did not know her. Mayhap you think the answer is obvious—that he did not wish to acknowledge acquaintance with a dead whore—but I just feel there is more to it than that.”

The servant who had gone down the stairs returned bearing a large tray on which was a substantial breakfast. He set it on the table. Bell swallowed and his belly rumbled. The bishop laughed and bade the servant bring another cup for the wine.

“You did not break your fast?”

“No, my lord. I was afraid I would miss you or that you would have invited someone to break fast with you.”

“Then I suppose the rest of your news is more important than that Father Holdyn lied about the woman.” He began to eat, swallowing a spoonful of frumenty before he nodded to Bell to continue.

“I am almost certain, my lord, that the attack made on you on Monday was ordered by Lord Geoffrey de Mandeville.”

Winchester put down his spoon for a moment and asked, “How?” Then he looked down and began to eat again.

Bell told the tale of his interviews with the captain of Mandeville’s troop and Gehard, not sparing himself over his mistakes. The bishop listened without comment. When he had finished his bowl of frumenty, he smiled very slightly.

“Likely you should not have choked the captain. My reputation is not
that
fragile.” Then he sighed. “As to what the man Gehard let slip… I do not understand why Mandeville should wish me harm.”

“Gehard said no physical harm to you was intended. But if you mean why Mandeville ordered an attack on you, I think he hoped to frighten you so you would not consult with the archbishop and let the idea of a convocation lapse. I suppose he believes that the king would be pleased and grateful.”

“Frighten me?” Winchester’s voice rose. “He thought I would run back to Winchester to hide because a few brigands… The man is not only unprincipled, he is stupid!”

Bell’s lips twitched at Winchester’s outrage over the slur on his courage. “He only sees you in the rich vestments of the Church,” he said. Then could not help grinning. “And he did not see how lovingly you took your mace from its chest.”

The bishop laughed and then said, “Eat.”

Winchester addressed himself to a chunk of yellow cheese, which he sliced and laid on a piece of bread. Bell reached for the white cheese, which he knew to be of milder flavor. He cut the wedge in half, broke a piece of bread, and took several healthy bites. Those he washed down quickly with the watered wine.

“There is more, my lord.”

Winchester raised a brow. “You have been even more busy than usual. Can you be in more than one place at a time?”

Bell smiled. “The rest comes from Magdalene, my lord.”

“Ah.”

So he reported what Magdalene had learned from Tayte and what Magdalene’s guess was as to how Nelda had stolen the letter from the man Tayte had heard name himself Sir John. Winchester immediately leapt to the same conclusion that Magdalene had—that Sir John had discovered his letter was missing and had killed Nelda in an attempt to retrieve it.

Now Bell hesitated. He was approaching the delicate ground of what Raoul had reported from Baynard’s castle. Finally he shrugged and said, “That was what Mistress Magdalene thought until yesterday when one of her women reported that this Sir John had been in Baynard’s Castle late Thursday night—near to Matins—and had told Lord Hugh that he carried a letter from Gloucester addressed to you.”

“Peste!”
Winchester exclaimed, slapping a hand hard on the table. “So the word is out to the Beauforts. I will have to go to Stephen with the accursed thing.”

Bell’s heart sank. He knew he should be glad that his master would take him away from temptation, but the warm comfort of talking over everything with Magdalene, of sleeping in ease and comfort in his private room, of looking forward as he had been doing to a bath when he was done with this day’s duty tightened his chest with loss.

“And chasing after Stephen from castle to castle,” the bishop continued, “will keep me from receiving replies from the other bishops to my summons to the convocation. It could put the whole convocation at risk. Could someone at Baynard’s Castle have stolen the letter and moved the poor woman’s corpse for just that purpose?”

Bell barely stopped himself from raising his eyes to heaven and saying thanks for the opening Winchester had given him; however, he only allowed himself a troubled expression. “I do not know, my lord,” he said, “but Magdalene’s woman told her that Sir John had set off to find Mandeville—he thought he would be at Devizes—the next morning. Would he have done so if the letter had been taken from him? And, my lord,
would
Lord Waleran desire that the letter be delivered to your hand? Would he not hope that Mandeville would present the letter to the king at the worst possible moment…say, when the summons to the convocation was just known?”

“Then why was the woman brought here?” Winchester asked furiously.

“Oh, to do you a despite. There can be no doubt of that. The doubt is that those who brought her—there were two of them—knew she had the letter.”

Winchester ground his teeth and got out, “Then I will have to go to Stephen. But to need to beg his pardon for something I have not done… To need to do so while he sits in Salisbury’s castle, counting Salisbury’s coin and weighing his plate… Surely this is de Meulan’s work so that the convocation will fail.”

Bell did not allow himself to sigh with relief; the bishop had given him exactly the right lead for what he had to say. “No, my lord. There is further information from Magdalene. She most earnestly desires your well doing and that your power not be diminished.”