Roberta Gellis (22 page)

“Oh well,” Bell said blandly, “if it should become necessary, I am sure you will be able to retrace your steps. Did you perhaps buy any cloth at the showing?”

Mercer cast him an angry glance and said, “No, I did not. It was very fine cloth, but above the price my customers would like to pay.”

“Ah, I am sorry you had a wasted trip. If you saw anyone there you knew—”

“I am sorry to say, I did not. The showing had been mentioned to me in passing as a private hint. Of course, I am sorry now I did not tell my friends, but I did not.”

“Too bad. It is nice to have confirmation. If you remember anyone who might recall that you were there, let me know. You can leave a message for me any time at the bishop’s house opposite the front gate of the priory.”

Mercer nodded. “Perhaps there is a man…. I did not get his name, but he lives there in Greenwich and I spoke to him. He might well remember me.”

As he rode from Mercer’s shop, Bell repeated to himself what the man had told him until he was sure he would have it word perfect for Master Octadenarius. If it seemed worthwhile to the justiciar, he could send men to inquire about whether there had been a showing of Flemish cloth in Greenwich on Saturday and to look along the road for a smith who had replaced a shoe on a horse on Saturday not long after Vespers.

It was very annoying that two out of the five men could not account for themselves on Saturday afternoon. It would be just his fate that no one had witnesses to clear him of suspicion. FitzRevery had said he was in the shop all day, but his journeyman had supported his statement with such an expression of surprise that Bell was almost tempted to arrest FitzRevery and try a little physical “persuasion” to wrest the truth from him. In the end, he left him with no more than a strong warning not to leave the city without first informing him or Master Octadenarius.

His interview with John Herlyoud left him even less satisfied. The man grew pale when he entered the shop and introduced himself, upon which his two journeymen came forward with such aggressive expressions that Bell dropped his hand warningly to his sword hilt. Herlyoud immediately called them sharply to order and sent them away, but Bell wondered if they would have offered him violence had Herlyoud not done so. Nor were they too willing to go, and left with lagging steps, looking over their shoulders as if Bell were going to attack their master.

The behavior woke dark suspicions in Bell and at the same time testified to the total lack of any practice in hiding guilty secrets in Herlyoud’s household. “You have loyal servants,” he said.

Herlyoud looked at him with the sick fascination of a paralyzed bird eying a snake. “I hope I have been a good master to them,” he said, and then as if the words were wrung out of him, added, “But I am sure you did not come here to talk about my household. I saw you at Mistress Bertrild’s funeral, did I not?”

“Yes, and with Master Octadenarius’s concurrence, I am investigating the cause of her death.”

“I know nothing about her death! Nothing!” Herlyoud exclaimed, growing even paler. “I was away all day on Saturday. My sister’s husband died a month since, and I was helping her move from her house in Windsor to a new house I found for her in Lambeth. She will thus be closer to me, and I can be of more help to her.”

“You went to Windsor Saturday morning?”

“No, of course not. I went on Friday after Sext. Windsor is all of thirty miles. We left there at first light on Saturday and came to Lambeth perhaps a candlemark or two before Nones. Then the place had to be swept and some walls painted. I do not know exactly when I left, but it was well before Vespers, after which I came home, and I did not go out again.”

If he had left on Friday afternoon, would he have had time to find Saeger and give him the knife? Perhaps…barely. Also, it seemed he thought Bertrild had been killed near the time she was discovered in Mainard’s yard—or he wanted Bell to believe that was what he thought. So Bell told him that Bertrild had been killed on Saturday, probably soon after Nones and in the common room of her own house in Lime Street. Herlyoud wavered on his feet, clutching at a table edge for support.

“No. No. That is not possible,” he whispered.

Bell’s eyes were like balls of barely tinted ice. “The time is what Brother Samuel of St. Catherine’s Hospital told me, and the place I found for myself, marked by bloodstains on the floor under the rushes. Why do you say it is not possible?”

“I…I do not know,” Herlyoud mumbled, staring at his own hand clutching the edge of the desk. “Somehow such violence is not fit for daylight in a well-furnished room. I thought… I was sure that she had been set upon in the street, in the dark….” He shook his head. “There is nothing more I can tell you. Nothing. I must attend to my business now.”

That was another one who would bear careful sieving out, Bell thought as he left Herlyoud’s shop. His reactions bespoke guilt, but it was also almost certain that Herlyoud did not know where and when Bertrild had been killed. He wondered, as he crossed the street toward Ulfmaer FitzIsabelle’s establishment, whether he should have pressed Herlyoud harder while he was still in shock or whether he was correct in believing he would get more out of the man if he gave him time to recover and make up some lies. Well, if worse came to worst, Octadenarius could wring the truth from him.

FitzIsabelle came out of a chamber behind a small showroom, which held some truly lovely pieces of silver—a set of candlesticks that easily rivaled the work of Master Jacob the Alderman, a set of brooches in gold that could have been made by the ancient Welsh masters.

“You are the bishop’s man and were at Bertrild’s funeral,” he said. “What do you want with me? I owe nothing to the church.”

“The bishop of Winchester is no way concerned with this matter. It is with the concurrence of Master Octadenarius, the justiciar, that I am looking into the death of Mistress Bertrild. I have come to ask where you were on the Saturday she was killed.”

“You are a busybody and likely serving the whore who lives with Mainard rather than Octadenarius. The one who had the best reasons to see Bertrild dead is Mainard.
Where was
he
on Saturday?”

“At a christening party at a Master Newelyne’s house in the West Chepe,” Bell said, smiling. “And I have questioned a dozen men who also attended that christening party. There is no doubt that Mainard arrived just about Sext and did not leave until almost Compline.” Bell felt a little guilty, but what he said was perfectly true, and FitzIsabelle annoyed him.

“I am sure the whore says he was with her at night.”

“It does not matter where Mainard was at night. According to Brother Samuel at St. Catherine’s Hospital, Mistress Bertrild died before Vespers. Mainard did not kill his wife. There are others, however, who had reason to wish her still and silent. You are one of those she caused trouble for.”

“That was years ago, and she was silenced by order of the then sheriff. Why should I suddenly act against her now?”

“Because Mistress Bertrild seems to have found a more effective way to punish those she hated.”

Bell did not smile with satisfaction at FitzIsabelle’s reaction to his statement. He just waited. The man’s face did not pale, but it was as if it had frozen.

“Whatever you think she found, it was nothing to me,” he said, but his voice was strained. “Still, I had nothing to do with her death, and if it was near to Vespers, I can prove it. I was here in my chamber or my shop Saturday afternoon. My journeyman and apprentices will bear witness for me. You can ask them as you leave.”

Magdalene did not get to deliver Mainard’s parcel to Bell until Wednesday morning and had little time to think about it until then. She came home to find four of William’s captains and a clerk she did not know seated around the table and devouring bread, cheese, and cold pasty, washed down with William’s wine. Letice, Ella, and Diot were cheerfully entertaining them. Sabina was nowhere to be seen.

“Just let me take off my cloak and I will welcome you properly, my lord,” Magdalene said, hurrying toward her own room.

“Liar,” Giles de Milland called after her. “You
never
welcome a man as a proper whore should do.”

Magdalene laughed and flirted a dismissive hand at him as she entered her chamber and closed the door. She pulled off veil and cloak and threw them on the bed over the purse she had dropped there first, then took a heavy key from the pocket tied around her waist under her gown and opened a chest so heavily bound in metal that little wood showed. From that she lifted out her strongbox. She dropped Mainard’s parcel in, put the strongbox atop it, and relocked the chest. Then she rushed out into the common room.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” she asked the men as she lifted a flagon and refilled wine cups.

“To Oxford being packed like a barrel of herrings,” Sir Niall de Arvagh snarled, lifting his head from Ella’s shoulder where he had been nuzzling her neck. She froze at the tone, and he patted her and said gently, “Sorry, sweeting, I wasn’t angry at you. You’re good and lovely, not like the damned king.”

“What has Stephen done now?” Magdalene asked lightly, laughter in her voice.

“Asked Lord William to send his men away because the city is like to be too crowded when the other barons and bishops arrive,” a smooth voice, totally without passion, replied.

Magdalene shifted her attention from Sir Niall to the opposite side of the table and dropped a sketchy curtsey to the man she did not know. He was dressed in clerical robes, very rich clerical robes; he had dark hair, smoothly combed; dark eyes; and a neat moustache that joined a short well-trimmed beard, which surrounded his mouth and covered his chin but left most of his cheeks bare.

“Surely that is very foolish, my lord,” she said. “If Oxford becomes crowded with many nobles’ and churchmen’s meinies, there is sure to be conflict. Who is to keep the peace if not William’s men? They are accustomed to lodging in tents or even in the open and are mostly foreign mercenaries that could not care less about parties in England.”

A corner of the dark man’s mouth twitched. “Perhaps someone does not desire that the peace be kept.”

“That is even more foolish. The king’s peace must hold with safe conduct for all when the king calls a Great Council or the barons will not come.”

“Unless the king has become so powerful that it is more dangerous to refuse to attend when summoned than to come without safe conduct.”

Magdalene looked at him steadily for a moment and then shook her head. “My lord, I understand your words, but the true meaning of what you say is not clear to me.”

He laughed. “I doubt that, Mistress Magdalene. I doubt that very much, indeed, but it is much clearer to me why Lord William is known to frequent this house so often. This is no common stew.”

“No, indeed,” Magdalene said, laughing in response and also to hide her uneasiness. “It is very
uncommon,
as you will discover if you allow Letice or Diot to show you what they can do to ease a man.”

He shook his head but without any sign of being shocked. “My calling does not permit. I will ride on with Sir Giles to Rochester as I have messages for Sir Somer de Loo, but these other gentlemen will be staying in Lord William’s house by the Tower, I believe. They will not need to hurry.”

Magdalene made some light remark about never interfering with a gentleman’s vows, and Sir Giles began loudly to bemoan his deprivation, saying he had certainly made no vow of celibacy. That was no more than a jest. He rose and left readily when the stranger finished the last sip of wine in his cup; William’s men did not delay in carrying out his orders to pleasure themselves. It was just as well, because Magdalene had not been able to think how to accommodate him and still have her women ready for their regular clients.

Sir Niall de Arvagh left in good time to make room for Ella’s first client. He had enjoyed her lively ministrations but had little taste for her childish chatter. Even so, Magdalene had to entertain two men, who fortunately did not know each other, with tidbits and wine until Diot and Letice were able to be rid of their company. That delay, of course, caused further delays. By the time Ella and Letice were bedded down with all-night visitors, Magdalene was exhausted. Diot told her to go to bed, and she was very happy to do so, very happy to know that if the bell rang Diot would answer it. She uttered a brief prayer that the woman would continue to prove as satisfactory as she was now and slept.

* * * *

The next morning, Bell arrived in time to share their breakfast. Unfortunately, his men had not laid hands on Borc. Either Borc had not appeared at the cookshop, or Tom had not been able to pick him out from the description Diot had given. On the other hand, the justiciar had been most cooperative. His men had questioned the neighbors on Lime Street, and he had passed the information to Bell.

First, the likelihood that the messenger had killed Bertrild were considerably increased. She had not left the house after she returned to it at about Nones and no one, except the messenger, had gone in—at least at the
front door. That left the possibility that someone had sneaked down the alley and come in through the back, but it was not great. The alley behind the house opened into the Chepe. There were stalls on either side, and they were so close together that to pass into the alley took great care not to knock the goods to the ground. Both merchants remembered the servants leaving and returning, but they swore that no one else had passed them all afternoon.

At the front, the messenger had been seen arriving and leaving by a grocer’s wife across from Mainard’s house. She loathed Bertrild, who had quarreled with her and insulted her, and she was hoping that so unusual an event as a mounted visitor could be used to Bertrild’s discredit. She had watched carefully and confirmed the time Jean had set for the messenger’s arrival. He had left perhaps a candlemark later, in a great hurry, heading
west. Then she had gone next door to gossip and found her neighbor had also watched, so she had that woman’s witness to what she said.