Season of the Fox (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 2) (14 page)

“If that’s so, then why did so many men of the hue and cry scream for Peter’s blood, behaving as if Bernart were their own brother?” Faucon protested.

That made the monk laugh. “They don’t love Bernart any more than they love anyone else. All you saw was men enjoying the chase, sir, just as you do. Once they were on Peter’s trail, they raced after him, longing to taste blood at the hunt’s end.”

“More fool me,” Faucon replied, laughing at his own blindness. “In my own defense, I’ll tell you I’m the sort of hunter who cares naught if I return with prey in hand or leave the creature standing where I’ve cornered it, so I might chase it again another day.”

“Is that so?” Colin replied, looking surprised, then gave a jerk of his head to indicate the print on the floor. “Why not make a pattern?”

Faucon shot him a startled sidelong glance. “I beg your pardon?”

“A pattern. We’re at a linsman’s house. Perhaps the workmen have a scrap of fabric. If we press it on the floor, it’s possible the dried blood will leave an outline.”

That made Faucon grin in excitement. “I never thought! I know just the men with the skill to do that for me. Give me a moment,” he told Colin, coming to his feet, “and don’t let those lasses back in to do their work while I’m gone.”

“As you command, sir,” Colin agreed with a laugh.

Hurrying across the merchant’s yard to the storehouse, Faucon found Rob and Tom sitting on a table just inside the door. With them were another half-dozen of Bernart’s manservants and laborers. As they had already made their circuit around the table as part of the jury, they were now watching their betters and neighbors parade past their dead master.

“Have you found the bolt to your scissors?” he asked Rob.

The shy man glanced at him, then swiftly away. “I have not, sir, but Tom says our new mistress won’t take the value of that bolt from my wages,” he replied in relief. “We did search as much of the floor in the workshop as we could. We weren’t wont to move any of the chests, not without the mistress’s permission. It is not so large a thing, that bolt. Perhaps it rolled beneath one of them.”

“Possibly,” Faucon agreed although he no longer believed they would find what Rob sought in the workshop. Nay, he was convinced he’d find that bolt in the purse of the one who had opened the scissors. “Are your hands as steady with a tool that’s not as sharp as your scissors, Rob?”

Tom lifted his brows at the question. “Indeed, they are, sir,” he answered for his brother. “What is it you want Rob to do?”

A few moments later, the two laborers were back in the workshop, both of them crouching near their master’s worktable, a scrap of linen in Tom’s hand. Rob had brought with him a pot of ground charcoal. Using the tip of his smallest finger, he carefully spread the smut at the outer edge of the clean area, then took the fabric Tom held. Drawing it taut between his hands, he painstakingly pressed it to the floor inside the shape. When he was satisfied, he lifted the scrap to show his Crowner how the charcoal had marked the cloth.

“Does this suit, sir?” he asked.

When Faucon nodded, Tom handed him a more typical pair of shears, one made in the usual way, as a continuous piece of metal looped to form cutting blades. Lifting the cloth to what light yet streamed in through the windows, Rob clipped slowly and carefully along the outside of the mark, proving his worth. A moment later, he placed the shaped scrap into the print. It fit perfectly.

Faucon and Colin both grinned as they studied it. “Exactly a shoe,” the monk said to Rob, “or rather, most of one. Well done, lad.”

Colin nodded to Faucon. “Now, Sir Crowner, all you need do is take this around to Stanrudde’s shoemakers. I wager one of them will have a form that matches this shape.”

Once again, the monk’s suggestion caught Faucon by surprise. This was a far easier route to discovering the owner of that foot, and by far a better way to follow his trail to the solution he now craved. “And here I envisioned myself walking the lanes in town, staring at every man’s shoes,” he laughed, then shook his head at Colin. “I see there remains much for me to learn about this sort of hunting. So, how many shoemakers are there in this town?”

“Four,” all three men replied as one.

“But only two of them are true craftsmen,” Colin added.

That made Rob and Tom hoot. “You still hold affection for your parish, Brother,” Tom said in mock complaint.

“That’s possible,” Colin said with a grin, then looked at Faucon. “Why do you ask, Sir Crowner?”

“If there are four, then I wonder if Rob might make me three more copies of this pattern, so each shoemaker could have one to compare to his own patterns that he holds in store. Would you, Rob?”

“Aye, I can do that,” the shy man replied, holding Faucon’s precious scrap.

“My thanks. It’s a great boon you’re doing me,” he said, then glanced between the men, considering asking them to guard their tongues about what they’d done for him. He instantly dismissed the idea as futile. No matter what vow he had from them, their tongues would surely wag. The whole household would soon know their Crowner had asked them to make that pattern, and that he’d found something of import in the workshop.

“Would either of you know where I might find Mistress Gisla?” he asked instead.

“Aye,” Tom said. “She said she couldn’t bear to watch the jury, so she took the hogs back to their pen, then went to the far end of the garden.” He pointed to the west, in the direction of the kitchen, to show them where he meant. “I expect you’ll find her on the bench we keep back there, under the apple trees. She likes it there because it’s private and quiet.” As he said this, the workman winked.

Oh aye, tongues wagged in this household. Faucon guessed there wasn’t a man, woman or child within these walls who didn’t know that their young mistress had been meeting illicitly with Peter.

Thanking the man again, Faucon turned for the door when a thought struck him. He looked back at the brothers. “Tell me this, if you can. Did Mistress Alina leave the table more than once to urge your master to join you at your meat?”

It was Rob who answered, doing so with certainty. “Aye, sir. She went three times.”

“Only three? Are you sure?” Tom countered.

Rob nodded, then cast his gaze downward again. “I am. She went fewer times than usual.”

His brother gave a harsh laugh. “Aye, fewer times for sure, but that was only because the master came up dead on her third trip down.”

“How long was she gone from the table on each visit?” Faucon wanted to know.

Tom squinted up at him. “Usually she’s gone only as long as it takes her to speak the words, reminding the master it’s time for him to join us. But this day, she stayed a goodly while as she made that second trip down the stairs. I think it was because she argued with the master. Is that not right, Rob?”

His brother nodded in agreement.

“But you didn’t hear them arguing?” Faucon asked in surprise.

It was Rob who answered. “The floor between hall and workshop is stone. You cannot hear anything, not if yon door is closed.” He indicated the workshop door.

“So how long do you think she remained in here on that second trip?” Faucon pressed. “As long as it might take her to go into your kitchen, say? Or perhaps farther than that? It’s not necessary to be exact. I’m but conjuring how this all happened. It helps me to know the particulars,” he added, to assure the men he asked nothing untoward of them, nothing that might threaten the livelihoods they made for themselves here.

Rob said nothing. Tom glanced from his Crowner to the monk. Colin smiled at him, nodding to encourage an answer. The workman eased back on his heels and closed his eyes for a moment as he thought.

“By my steps, I think she was gone as long as it would take me to pace slowly twice around our storehouse,” he replied as he opened his eyes.

“Did anyone else leave the table before your master died?” It was Colin who asked this question.

“Mistress Nanette,” Rob said to the floor. “She went to the kitchen, wanting milk instead of our usual ale.”

Startled, Faucon stared at laborer. As an acknowledged mistress in her trade, Nanette was no different than Gisla or Alina. If she wanted a cup of milk, she could ask one of her apprentices or any other servant in the house to do the task for her. “She went for it herself? Why?”

Once again, the men sent him that look, the one empty of all save surprise that a knight such as he would pose them that question. Since it wasn’t really the answer he needed, Faucon rephrased.

“When did Mistress Nanette go to the kitchen? Before or after the mistress’s second trip down here?”

“Before,” said Rob while Tom answered in the same instant, “After.”

“After,” Tom insisted, looking at his brother. “Remember how Mistress Alina came back after that second time and how upset she was? She was wringing her hands and almost crying. They nearly collided as Mistress Nanette came to her feet with her cup in her hand. That’s when Mistress Nanette spoke aloud of how much she preferred milk to ale.”

He looked at Faucon. “Mistress Nanette made a show of her words. It’s something she always does after the master has upset the mistress. I think she believes it distracts us from noticing the master’s cruelty toward his wife,” he finished, his tone suggesting Nanette’s efforts were wasted.

“How long was Mistress Nanette gone?” Faucon asked.

Tom shrugged. “No longer than it took her to fill her cup and return, I suppose. I wasn’t paying any heed to her comings and goings. I’m not certain if she returned to the hall. I think she might have been just outside the hall door when Mistress Alina again passed her, making that last trip down to the workshop to convince the master to come to the table. But he couldn’t come join us, could he?” the man said. “Not with him just then made dead by Master Peter’s hand. That’s when the mistress stirred us all to the hue and cry.”

Faucon offered them a grateful nod. “My thanks. You have been a great help, indeed.”

As he and Colin left the house, Faucon led the way across the courtyard to the storehouse. “I take it we are walking,” the monk said.

“We are,” Faucon replied. “After that, if you don’t mind, perhaps you’ll come with me to speak to Mistress Gisla. I’m hoping she’ll better tolerate my presence and answer truthfully if you’re at my side.”

“Of course,” Colin replied as they started on their first trip around the storehouse.

Faucon chose a pace he imagined slow to a servant who didn’t care much for his master. When he and Colin crossed their starting point for the second time, he looked at the monk. “I say that’s long enough to stand behind a man, slash his throat, then return his tally sticks and purse to a chest. What say you?”

“I say you’re right about that, but I think it’s not long enough for that same person to also clean away the blood that surely stained her hands as well as a single shoe. Or to change her gown which must have been befouled after such slaughter.”

“Her, is it now?” Faucon laughed.

Colin shot him a quizzical look at that. “Why ask about Mistress Alina’s whereabouts if you’re not thinking she did this?”

“I’m not certain what I think yet,” Faucon replied. “That’s not true. I’m certain of one thing. Peter the Webber did not kill Bernart. So, if not to do murder, why was he in the workroom? I suspect I know why, but I crave confirmation from the one he came to see, among other things.”

Starting in the direction of the garden behind the kitchen, he cast an eye to the heavens above him. At the western horizon, the setting sun shot hazy rays of light through a now orange and pink sky, while to the east, hints of twilight’s deep blue began to stain what remained of the day’s clouds. As if drawing strength from the shift of light to dark, the breeze stirred anew, its breath now filled with the crisp chill of an autumn night.

The structure in which the household’s meals were prepared was about a third the size of the house. When Faucon had first stepped into the courtyard, there’d been only a narrow trail of smoke lazily twining skyward from its smoke hole. Now, a thick twisting rope of fragrant air pooled above its thatched roof. Nanette’s charges were hard a-work, creating a feast for the master’s wake upon the morrow.

As he and Colin reached the back wall of the kitchen, the monk turned as if he meant to pace along the building’s length. Faucon didn’t follow, continuing instead in the direction of the hodgepodge of sheds and barns that stood at the forefront of the household garden.

He shot a laughing glance over his shoulder at the monk. “Where are you going?” he called.

“We aren’t walking here?” Colin called back.

“Nay, there’s no need for that,” Faucon returned.

Colin lifted the hem of his habit and trotted after his Crowner, scattering the few ducks and chickens that yet lingered hopefully near the back of the kitchen. “Why not?”

“Because Mistress Nanette was at the table when Mistress Alina went down to the workroom for the second time. She stayed there until her mistress returned.”

“And why does that matter?” Colin pried.

Faucon grimaced. He didn’t much like the thought of putting all his eggs into a basket filled with nothing but a few scraps of linen, but that was all he had in hand just now. Yet again, the bits and pieces he’d gathered thus far rearranged themselves but there was still so much missing, nothing came of it. And those bits he craved would remain missing until he could speak with Peter or find a way to compel Hodge to share honestly with him.