Roberta Gellis (41 page)

That was certainly true. From what Bell had told her, Herlyoud’s journeymen and apprentices were fanatically devoted. Devoted enough to commit murder for their master? That might have been necessary if Borc was the one who had told him Genlis would write a false letter for release for him.

However, all Magdalene said was, “Yet you, too, paid Bertrild to be silent.”

Herlyoud sighed. “It was a mistake to do so. I see that now, but the first demand she made was small, and at the time I was busy with my sister’s troubles. I did not wish to need to explain myself to my guild, and I did not want to be burdened with a fine if the court saw fit to set one. For me, too, this is no longer worth talking about.”

“Except for one small matter,” Bell said, as he walked into the room from the corridor. He had been quietly standing just inside the doorway of Magdalene’s room while the men explained their compliance with Bertrild’s extortion. His voice was dry, his tone sardonic, and he stopped at the foot of the table. “All of you say the old sins are no longer important, that there are explanations. But there are also two new murders, both connected to these documents—”

“Murders?” Jokel de Josne interrupted with a laugh. He leaned against the wall near the door, his lips twisted up on one side into a cynical leer. “Say rather an extermination of vermin. Whoever did it should be paid a fee for his trouble.”

“They were human beings,” Mainard
said. “Not good ones, perhaps, but they deserved a chance to see the error of their ways, to confess, to repent, to be forgiven their sins.”

“Bertrild? Human?” FitzRevery’s voice was high and thin. “You can say that after what she did to you?”

“Yes, because unwitting and likely unwilling, she and you, not out of good will but because you wished to spite her, may have brought to me the greatest good of my entire life. God and his Merciful Mother work in Their own ways and choose what tools They will for that work.”

“Pious mouthings,” FitzIsabelle spat. He turned toward the table. “I want those documents destroyed. If the contents were exposed, I would be ruined. How many people will stop to think that I harmed no one, that I only wished to protect myself? They will account me greedy and untrustworthy. I did not kill the woman, I paid her.”

“You may not have killed her with your own hand,” Bell conceded, “but one of you five either murdered Bertrild himself or hired or forced another man to do it in order to conceal a much more serious crime than those you have explained.”

“Why? Why we five?” Lintun Mercer asked. “I can see from the number of sheets and the size of the writing that many more men were accused of crimes by Genlis than us. I think what Josne said is true, that Bertrild picked us to squeeze for money not because we were most vulnerable but just out of spite.”

“Why you? Because Bertrild was stabbed with two knives, and one of those knives was Codi’s. Codi’s knife was stolen from Mainard’s shop on the nineteenth of May. The only ones who could have taken that knife were you five.”

“I do not think that is true,” FitzRevery said. “I know there were others in Mainard’s shop both before and after we were there.”

“Some were never in the workroom. Some could not have killed Bertrild for other reasons, such as not being in London at the time of her death. In any case, we know who actually killed Bertrild. It was the man who said he was Sir Druerie’s messenger. The man who came muffled in a cloak. The man who Bertrild called Saeger.”

“No!” Herlyoud cried. “No! I did not kill her!”

Every eye in the room turned toward him.

“You mean you were the man in the cloak?” Bell asked, his hand dropping to his sword hilt.

“Yes. I was the man in the cloak, but I did not kill Mistress Bertrild, and I am not Saeger. I told you already. I had no reason to kill her.”

“You hid your face. You claimed to be a messenger from her uncle. With your knife in her back, you bade her dismiss all her servants so they should see and hear nothing. And you expect us to believe that you did not kill her?”

Herlyoud was breathing hard with nervousness, but he said. “I did not kill her. The rest I can explain. I was coming home from my sister’s new house. There was so much dust from cleaning and scraping and painting walls, that I nearly choked to death. I had intended to stay and help my sister settle into the house, but I was coughing and choking and she bade me go home—that was why I was muffled in the cloak. As I was riding along, I was thinking of Bertrild’s second demand, and it came to me that I had rather spend the pence on my dear sister’s pleasure to lift her spirits after her husband’s death. Also, I thought that it was time to clear my past with my guild. I decided to go and tell Bertrild not to send Borc to my shop again.”

“You could have told Borc that the next time he came.”

“I did not want him in my shop again. He upset my journeymen and apprentices.”

Bell’s brows went up. “Enough for them to feed him lily of the valley steeped in wine?”

“No!” Herlyoud exclaimed. “They would have cast him out the front door, but they had seen me give him money and were afraid for me. That was why they sent him out the back. And I do not think any of them know how dangerous lily of the valley is. They are all four from the city, and I do not have any of it in the garden. I have young children who come sometimes to the shop and play in the garden.”

“Let us go back to Bertrild. Why did you say you were a messenger from her uncle?”

Herlyoud shrugged. “I was exhausted from choking. I wanted a place to sit down and get a drink of water. I knew if Bertrild was there, she would likely refuse to see me, and if she were not, her servants would never let a stranger in the house, so I said I was a messenger from Sir Druerie. I knew he was Gervase de Genlis’s brother. I had seen him with Sir Gervase while I waited in the stables at Moorgreen for Sir Gervase to write and sign my letter.”

“But Bertrild called you Saeger.”

“I had not yet put back the hood of my cloak. I suppose she mistook me for this other man. When I did lift the hood, she sort of squeaked with surprise and then said she was expecting someone else and I must leave at once, I told her I had changed my mind about paying for her silence, that I wanted my money back. She paid no attention to what I said. She did not even bother to answer me, but went to the door and shouted for her servant. Then she sent him on an errand, and told him to take someone called Hamo with him, and to send the cook and the maid to her.”

“Why did she send away the servants?”

“I have no idea. I thought it was because she did not want them to hear us quarreling about the money I wanted returned.”

Bell stared hard, then nodded. “But once the house was empty, you found it easy to lose your temper, draw your belt knife, and stab her in the throat.”

To everyone’s surprise, Herlyoud laughed. “No, you are wrong. Wrong about that. Wrong about who took the knife from Mainard’s shop. It was Bertrild who took Codi’s knife and drew it on me! When I asked again for money, she pulled this knife from under her cloak—she had never taken it off—and said I was a cheat and a liar and what she had taken from me was rightfully hers. She looked like a madwoman and she screamed at me, I swear it was for half a candlemark, about how we had led her father into sin and we must suffer for it, and then she thrust at me with the knife.”

“So then you drew your belt knife to defend yourself—”

“No. Before I thought, I thrust back at her with my whip. She was still coming for me, and the whip caught her hard on the shoulder. She fell, and I ran out. I thought she would come after me, still screaming about her father’s corruption, so I pulled up my hood again, mounted, and rode away. I did not kill her! Perhaps this Saeger that she was expecting came afterward and did it.”

Bell stared at Herlyoud with a mixture of doubt and frustration. Little as he liked seeing his whole elaborate theory of the murder destroyed, Herlyoud’s story was as likely as his reconstruction of the crime, and it explained the bruise on Bertrild’s shoulder, which did not fit with the knife wounds. Magdalene had told him that Stoc reported Bertrild in the shop on Friday afternoon and that both apprentices agreed she would, if she could, pick up a tool, a buckle, a pair of reins—anything that would cause trouble.

“But the stallkeepers on the alley and the grocer’s wife across the street said that no one else had entered the house,” Bell said.

“The alley opens onto Fenchurch as well as onto the Chepe,” Mainard said. “If this Saeger came south from Fenchurch, the stallkeepers—”

“Mainard,” Sir Druerie said from the corridor, “this young woman—” His voice checked as he stepped into the room and saw the unexpected crowd. His glance swept around. His eyes widened. His hand dropped to his sword hilt and he began to draw. “Saeger!” he exclaimed, moving forward.

Every head except Lintun Mercer’s swiveled right and left, looking for the person to whom the name was addressed. Mercer let out a bellow of rage so loud that everyone was frozen for one more moment. Then Bell had his knife out—a sword being utterly useless in the crowded room, which Sir Druerie was discovering—but there were too many bodies in his way. By the time he had pushed past FitzIsabelle, Magdalene, and Mainard, Saeger had bowled over Sir Druerie and had caught Sabina to him, pressing his knife against her neck.

Mainard howled and surged forward. The knife pressed closer, starting a tiny thread of scarlet down Sabina’s long, white throat. Mainard stopped and whispered, “Don’t.”

“You keep them back,” Saeger said to Mainard, “or I’ll slit her throat. I can’t die more than once, and I’m already condemned, so I’ve nothing to lose by killing her. But I don’t want to die, so if you let me go, I’ll let her go. She can’t even see me to point me out.”

“Don’t,” Mainard begged Bell, putting both his hands on Bell’s shoulders and holding him still. “Don’t move. He’ll kill my Sabina.”

“We will not interfere with you, if you do not harm her,” Magdalene said, her voice soothingly soft. “You are coming near the back door. Let Sabina twist around to open the latch for you. Then, if she lies down across the corridor, you can run out the door, push it closed, and we will be delayed by Sabina blocking our path. You will have a good head start, and we will not know whether you went into the priory or out into the street.”

“Damn helpful, aren’t you?” he said suspiciously, but his body was already half turned, his back to the kitchen, so that Sabina could reach behind him and find the latch of the outer door.

“To speak the truth,” Magdalene went on, “I don’t care a pin who killed Bertrild and Borc, both of whom certainly deserved killing, and I have no particular reason to want you caught and hanged. My only interest is in the safety of my woman. I am willing to help you, if you will let her go while you are still in the house. She is dear to me—

The words were cut off by a dull but rather loud bong, and the killer dropped like a poleaxed ox. Dulcie looked down at the man at her feet, watching suspiciously for any twitch of movement, and then turned over the long-handled skillet in her hand to examine the bottom. Behind her Haesel jumped up and down clapping her hands, and Ella cowered in a corner, whimpering about the man having a knife and hurting Sabina.

“The only doubt I ever had about working in the Old Priory Guesthouse,” Diot said, “was that I might eventually grow bored. I suppose I can lay that doubt to rest also.”

Magdalene swallowed hard. “It does not happen every day, but Dulcie’s pan has seen some use over the years.”

Her voice was calm, although her cheeks were blanched into an unusual translucence and she clutched Genlis’s documents nervously to her breast. She had caught them up right after Saeger’s bellow when FitzIsabelle had reached for them. She and Diot were by now the only ones still in the common room. The front door was open, and Jokel
de Josne was gone. The other men had crowded into the corridor to help? hinder? Bell, who was fastening Saeger’s wrists behind his back with a cord that Dulcie had supplied.

“That pan is a lethal weapon,” he said loudly to Dulcie, grinning. “I think maybe I should confiscate it.”

“Nah, then. Might make a mistake wit’ a new one,” she said, grinning back. “Always hit ‘em right with this. Not too soft—don’t want ‘em waken’ up too soon; not too hard so they get sick. Jus’ a gentle tap to make ‘em behave. You leave be my pan, Sir Bell. Fries eggs good too.”

He laughed and hiked Saeger to his feet. With Sir Druerie holding the man’s other arm, they got him onto one of the short benches at the end of the table opposite where the documents were. Bell then tied one of his ankles to the foot of the bench, and tipped him forward over the table so he would not fall.

Mainard was holding Sabina to him, weeping, and she was patting his shoulder and assuring him she was not hurt, that it was no worse than the nicks she occasionally gave herself when cutting her food, that Magdalene would fix it right away. Magdalene, however, was busy gathering up the scrolls.

“Look at her,” FitzIsabelle said, grabbing Bell by the shoulder. “Will you let a whore keep those parchments and be a threat to us for the rest of our lives?”

“No, I certainly will not let Magdalene keep Genlis’s records, but not for fear any person mentioned in them would suffer from Magdalene’s knowledge. I will take them with me to the bishop of Winchester’s house because I do not want anyone to harass her or her women.”

“I would not keep these scrolls and parchments now if I were promised a pound a day to house them,” Magdalene said. “We know who killed Bertrild….” Her voice faded, and she looked at Bell. “
Do
we know who killed Bertrild?”

“Not me,” Saeger said thickly. He had lifted his head from the table and was frowning with pain, but his eyes were focused. “And I am not lying. Why should I? I cannot be hanged twice. But I do not wish to hang alone, so I will tell the truth. I went to Lime Street to kill Bertrild, I admit that. I told her to be rid of her servants, or I would not come with the money she wanted to keep silent about my true identity. But I did not kill her. She was dead when I got there.”