Roberta Gellis (8 page)

“Oh yes I did!” Bell was surprised at the vicious tone. “She hurt Mainard. I would gladly have killed her. Gladly!”

“With a knife?”

He was grinning, and she heard it in his voice and turned her head in his direction again, making an impatient gesture. “With anything I had in my hand, and I
could
have gone down to the privy in the yard.”

Bell laughed aloud. “Yes. Without your staff so that you bumped into all the furniture and tripped over the sleeping apprentices, through a back door, which you could not find, carrying a knife, which you have no idea of how to use, just in case….” He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her an affectionate squeeze.

“Who said I did not have my staff!” she said, trying for indignation.

“Because if you had your staff, love, you would have hit her with that. I remember how neatly you cracked Waleran de Meulan’s man on the head. If Bertrild had been dead of a crushed head or a broken neck….”

“Just a moment,” Magdalene said, coming up on Bell’s other side as the street widened. “In all the excitement about finding Bertrild dead, no one has asked the first question that needed to be asked. What the devil was she doing in Mainard’s yard at God-knows-what time of night?”

“That is a fine point,” Bell said, all laughter gone from his voice and manner. “Sabina, you said you were at Newelyne’s until dusk and that the Watch will confirm you and Mainard were still abroad when it was full dark. You say also that the house was dark and quiet, the journeyman and apprentices asleep when you came home.”

“Yes.”

“If that is true, can either of you believe that Bertrild was dead out in the yard before dark?” Magdalene asked. “Is not a visit to the privy the last thing most people do before going to bed? Could her body have been overlooked?”

“I do not know,” Sabina said. “I was not taken out.” She smiled a little sheepishly. “To speak the truth, I was never in the yard. But I will swear that Codi and the two boys are not the kind to see a dead body and go quietly to bed and to sleep.”

Bell chuckled. “I cannot say I am surprised. That takes more
sangfroid
than most people have.”

“Yes, yes,” Magdalene said impatiently, “but then what was Bertrild doing prowling about Mainard’s yard when she should have been at home and safely in bed?”

“Spying?” Sabina asked faintly. “There is a window in my bedchamber in the back, and in this weather I open it. There is a hedge and a fence, an alley and another yard between us and the house behind, so I have never worried about anyone looking in. Could she have been watching for Mainard to pass before the window?”

Magdalene made a dissatisfied noise. “Yes,” she said. “Unfortunately, Bertrild was just the kind to spy. I had hoped that there was no reason for her to be there and that she might have been killed elsewhere and dumped in the yard. If that were so, it would be nearly impossible for Mainard to have killed her.”

“Oh, is that possible?” Sabina cried. “I am sure Bertrild did not know the back entrance to the yard. She never lived in the rooms above the shop. She insisted that Mainard buy the Lime Street house before they were married.”

Magdalene and Bell glanced at each other and grinned. “Enough, love,” Magdalene said. “Please do not tell anyone else. It says a little too much
of how much you care for Mainard and how little you care for the truth and will only cast a bad light on your saying he was with you until dawn.”

“But he was!” Sabina exclaimed.

The growing noise ahead of them relieved Magdalene and Bell from needing to comment and indicated that they were coming into the market. Sunday might be quiet in the whorehouse, most men being unwilling to so soon soil the cleansing of attending Mass, but it was a favorite day for buying and selling. Bell dropped back, frowning a little as he thought over what Magdalene had said and what Sabina had said also. He thought their warning to Sabina would keep her from suggesting Bertrild had been killed elsewhere, but that
was
a definite possibility.

Why should Bertrild bother to spy on Mainard? Establishing a whore in the rooms above his shop might be grounds for complaint. But seeing him in the woman’s bedchamber would not make anyone more willing to listen to that complaint. There was no law against a man keeping a mistress; such behavior was between him and God, a sin, not a crime.

That she had been killed elsewhere and put in Mainard’s yard was more likely, actually, than that someone had come out of the house carrying a knife just when she was there and stabbed her—unless she had made a noise and the journeyman had gone out intending to drive off a thief. Or Mainard had heard something through the open bedchamber window and recognized Bertrild? Had his patience broken? Had he rushed out with a knife and killed her? And just left her lying there and gone in again to futter Sabina? Nonsense! Could Mainard have got out of the house without waking his journeyman or apprentices? Probably not. Would they lie for him? Bell sighed. From what everyone said about him, probably yes.

Other questions: Was there anything of enough value in the yard to make worthwhile the danger of needing to drive off a thief? Had Bertrild brought someone with her? Or had she agreed to meet someone? In the middle of the night in the yard of Mainard’s shop rather than in comfort in her own house in Lime Street? Ridiculous. But say there was a reason for a meeting there, why should the person she agreed to meet at such a time and place—which must mean she did not fear that person—suddenly pull a knife and stab her?

Bell could think of any number of people who might have stuck a knife into Bertrild in a rage, but it was impossible for any argument to have taken place in Mainard’s yard without waking someone in the house. That meant that whoever had come with Bertrild or agreed to meet her intended to stab her. Possible, but it was still more likely that she had been killed elsewhere and dumped in Mainard’s yard. After dark it would only take moderate care to avoid the Watch and no one would have seen the body moved.

While Bell’s mind was busy, they had turned right at Gracechurch, passed the cordwainer’s shop on the corner, and come to the front of Mainard’s saddlery. The counter was missing, the door closed. Bell was about to pound on the door, when Haesel came alongside, simply lifted the latch, and led Sabina in. Magdalene followed with Bell on her heels.

“The shop is closed—” Henry began and then sighed. “Oh, Mistress Sabina, we wondered where you had gone.”

There was something in his voice that made Sabina bristle. “You mean you thought
I had deserted Master Mainard as soon as he was in trouble. Well, I did not. Since I have more brains than an overcooked pease porridge, even if I cannot see, I went to get help. I have brought Mistress Magdalene, who has powerful friends, and Sir Bellamy of Itchen, who is the bishop of Winchester’s knight and is accustomed to unraveling mysteries.”

“I thought no such thing,” Codi said, getting to his feet.

To right and left a boy rose with him, clinging to him. The younger had a tear-smeared face, and the elder still looked pale and sick. Codi himself was a hulking young man, almost as tall and thick as his master but without Mainard’s grace of movement. He had a shock of brown curls and a thick, neatly trimmed brown beard. His eyes, which were small and deeply set, were also brown and, had his expression been less lugubrious, he would have looked like a friendly bear.

“Well, whatever you thought,” Bell said firmly, “Mistress Magdalene and I are here to discover what we can to help Master Mainard. Now, who found the body?”

The older apprentice grew even paler, but he swallowed hard and said, “I did, sir.”

“And you are?

“Gisel, sir.”

“Now I see that you are still very upset, Gisel, but do you think you can show me the exact place where Mistress Bertrild was lying?”

The boy began to tremble, and Codi put an arm around him. “I saw it, too, sir,” he said. “In fact, it will be easier for me, because when Gisel ran in screaming that Mistress Bertrild was lying in the yard covered with blood, I told him to go wake Master Mainard, and I went myself to see if she had perhaps fallen and hurt herself and I could help.”

“Then Mistress Bertrild was often in the yard?”

“Oh, no, sir. I never saw her in the yard before. She often came into the workroom. She liked to snoop around and pick out specially fine pieces of leather and insist we give them to her for shoes. But she never went out back. I really thought that Gisel was mistaken, that some other poor woman had been hurt and wandered in from the alley. But Master Mainard would have had to be wakened in any case, so I didn’t ask any questions, only ran out to look myself.”

“Good enough,” Bell said. “Let us go out.”

He cast a glance at Magdalene, and she reached out and took Gisel by the arm. “Sit down, child,” she said, backing him toward the stool from which he had risen with Codi. “You have had a terrible shock.” She looked around at Henry, the other apprentice, Haesel, and Sabina. “Have any of you eaten?”

There was a concerted shaking of heads, except for Henry who said he had broken his fast at home. Gisel swallowed convulsively, and Magdalene smiled at him, realized he could not see that through her veil, and patted his shoulder.
“I know that even thinking of food makes you feel sick, but part of that is actually hunger.” She reached into the purse hanging from her belt and took out two pennies. “Haesel, I know you buy Sabina’s meals. It is near dinnertime. Suppose you run across to the cookshop and bring back whatever you think will be best for everyone. Would you like to go with her, Gisel? How about you?” she asked the second child.

“My name is Stoc,” the younger boy said. “I will go. Haesel will only bring back a pot of slops. I want some ham and bacon and some pasty as well as soup or stew, and—”

“Very well,” Magdalene said, grinning behind her veil at the boy’s resiliency, “but we will also need bread and cheese and some ale—”

“There is ale,” Gisel said. His color was somewhat better already because of having something else to think about beside a dead woman covered in blood. “Master Mainard buys it by the barrel, and it is good ale. It is in the cellar. There is wine, too, if Mistress Sabina prefers.”

Before Sabina could protest that she could not eat a bite or drink, Magdalene touched her hand, and she said only, “No, for a first meal I think ale is belter.”

“Very well, Haesel,” Magdalene said. “See what the boys would prefer, but do not let them overrule your good sense. And they must help you carry.” When they were gone, she said to Henry, “What was happening here when you arrived?”

“Nothing!” he exclaimed with a scowl. “Usually when I come at Prime, the counter is out and what Master Mainard wants to be sold is on it.” He thrust out his crippled hands. “I cannot carry, so Codi sets up, but he could not sell gold for rotten eggs. As soon as I come, he goes into the shop, but today they were all there,” he waved at the three stools, “sitting on those stools where you found them, holding each other and shivering. As if it were not the best night’s work I ever heard of that she is dead!”

“You did not love Mistress Bertrild, I gather?” Magdalene asked.

“If prayers could kill, she would have been dead of mine a long time ago, but—” he lifted the crippled hands again “—I could not have held a knife firm enough to kill her, aside from being at home with my wife and four children. I live by the Walbrook, south of Watling Street. For that matter, wanting Mistress Bertrild dead can be no strong indication of who did kill her. There cannot have been ten among all those who knew her who did not want her dead.”

Magdalene shrugged. “That many disliked her, I know. She was an unpleasant woman. But dislike and stabbing someone are different matters altogether. I disliked Mistress Bertrild myself, but I had other methods of dealing with her than to need to kill her.”

“Need to kill her?” Henry repeated. He was silent for a while, searching
as if to find her expression behind the veil; then he turned away. “You know that as well as I,” he said, looking out of the window instead of at her. “But I cannot believe he did it. He knows how to suffer, that one. What has his life been but one long suffering? In all that time, I do not believe he once, even once, struck out at anyone to ease himself.”

Only that made it worse, Magdalene thought. When a person who knew so much pain had been provided with a perfect anodyne and then threatened that that relief would be snatched away, a terrible desperation could be engendered, a desperation strong enough to result in murder. Except that the threat of losing Sabina was not really so immediate or so strong. Still, Mainard was probably the only one who could have got Bertrild into that yard. If he had told her he would be at a party with Sabina and that afterward he intended to stay at the shop, she could have counted on seeing him in Sabina’s bedchamber. He could have been watching for her from the window….

Magdalene did not like the trend her thoughts had taken, but before she needed to pursue them further, Haesel and the boys were back. “That was quick,” Magdalene said.

“It is between times,” Haesel replied, “after the morning meal and before dinnertime, so he served us right away.”

She set several packets and a loaf of bread down on the counter. Gisel and Stoc added their burdens and began to pull off covers. Just then Bell came in again with Codi, who looked much less frightened. Before anyone could speak, Bell bade Gisel to come with him and went out the back door again. The cheerfulness disappeared from Codi’s face.

“He does not believe me,” he said.

“I am sure he does,” Magdalene said, not sure at all but wishing to keep Codi from becoming too wary and frightened to talk to her. “What he wants is to be able to say he had two witnesses who told him the same thing. And you had better have something to eat at once before you begin mixing up the hollowness of hunger with the hollowness of fear.”

Stoc was already helping himself liberally. Haesel, Magdalene was glad to see, ran up the stairs and brought down two bowls and spoons, one of which she filled and set into Sabina’s hands. She filled a second, too, but wrenched a piece off the bread and took slices of ham and bacon, which she began to eat. They were hardly started when Gisel was back. He was, perhaps, a little paler but not really sick looking, and he went at once to the counter and began to help himself to food. Bell appeared at the workroom door and gestured for Magdalene to come.