The Poisoned Serpent (5 page)

Hugh shook his head.

“Very well.” The sheriff pushed his hip away from the table and stood upright. “I will have a guard take you to him. He is here in the castle, in one of the cells.”

Hugh stood up also, his face somber.

Gervase said kindly, “When you are finished talking to him, return here. Richard and I have a town house on the Strait. You can stay with us while you are in Lincoln.”

“You don’t have to house me, sir,” Hugh said. “I can lodge at an inn.”

Gervase said emphatically. “I refuse to send Ralf’s son to an inn. You will stay with us.”

A second before his silence became so drawn out
that it would seem rude, Hugh said, “Thank you.”

Gervase escorted Hugh into the hall and signaled to a guard. Within a minute, Hugh found himself descending the stone stairs that led down into the dungeon of the castle, where accused criminals were kept.

B
ernard Radvers was confined in one of the castle’s least noxious cells. It had a high window that allowed a small amount of light and air to enter, and the straw pallet that served as his bed was decently provided with two wool blankets. There was a also a chest and a single stone lamp, which had been lit against the gathering darkness.

No amenities, however, could disguise the fact that this was a small, cold, stinking cell, and that it would be Bernard’s last habitation on this earth unless someone else was convicted of the murder of Gilbert de Beauté.

“Hugh!”

Huddled in one of his blankets, Bernard was sitting on the chest, which provided the cell’s only seating other than the bed. His broad, middle-aged, weather-beaten face was filled with astonishment as he regarded the young man standing in the cell doorway. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to see you, of course,” Hugh replied.

“Just call out when you want to leave, my lord,” the guard said to Hugh before he backed out into the pas
sage. He closed and locked the heavy, partially barred wooden door behind him.

Hugh looked at his father’s old friend and said in mock exasperation, “Aren’t you growing a little old for this sort of trouble, Bernard?”

At that, Bernard’s face lit with a huge smile. He got up from the chest, shed his blanket, and enveloped Hugh in an enormous hug.

The young man stood patiently, allowing himself to be embraced. When Bernard finally stepped back, Hugh let his eyes run up and down the length of the imprisoned knight.

“You look thin,” he said. “Aren’t they feeding you in here?”

Bernard grimaced. “Aye, they feed me. But my appetite isn’t quite what it used to be. I’ve a lot on my mind these days.”

Hugh continued to regard him appraisingly. “Might one of the things on your mind be an idea of who actually killed Gilbert de Beauté?”

Bernard let out a long, hissing breath. “I have had some thoughts on the subject.”

Hugh gestured to the chest. “Do you mind if we sit down?”

Bernard frowned. “Of course not, lad. You look weary.” For the first time, he appeared to notice that Hugh was dressed in mail. “Did you just arrive in Lincoln?”

“Aye.” Hugh crossed to the chest, removed the lamp that was perched on one side of it, and sat down. He pushed his mail coif off and ran his fingers through his matted-down hair. Then he rubbed his neck as if it ached.

Bernard watched him. “You should have waited be
fore you sought me out,” he scolded. “You need a bath and a meal.”

A glimmer of amusement showed in Hugh’s gray eyes. “You needn’t sit next to me if you find my smell offensive.”

Bernard wrinkled his nose in disgust. “No smell can be as offensive as the odor of this stinking dungeon.”

Hugh’s elegant nostrils pinched together. “I have been trying not to inhale too deeply.”

Bernard grinned, reminiscing. “Ralf used to say that if ever Adela found her way down here, she would make him have every inch of the dungeon scoured with lye soap.”

Hugh smiled faintly. “That would certainly have made your stay more pleasant.”

Bernard joined him on the bench, the smile dying away from his face. “Have you heard that they found me clutching the murder weapon?” he asked.

“Aye,” Hugh replied grimly. “And I also heard of the very unwise words you apparently let drop at the Nettle.”

Bernard groaned.

Hugh said, “I want you to tell me everything you know. I want to hear everything that happened from the time that Gilbert de Beauté first entered Lincoln until the moment you found him dead in the Minster.”

The cell was so cold and damp that their breath hung in the air. Bernard coughed and lifted the rough wool blanket to drape once more around his shoulders.

“The visit actually started out well enough,” he began, and then went on to tell Hugh about the bishop’s dinner to welcome the earl and his daughter, and
about the various hunting parties in which both the earl and the sheriff had taken part.

“The trouble began when de Beauté began to criticize Gervase’s military preparedness,” Bernard continued. He spoke in some detail about the defenses Lord Gilbert had proposed to supersede the ones that the sheriff had put in place.

Hugh listened in silence.

Bernard said disgustedly, “It was clear to all of us at the castle that the earl was trying to show that he had more authority than the sheriff. There is not a single thing wrong with Gervase’s military dispositions.”

He gave Hugh a sober look.

“He’s a good sheriff, Gervase Canville. He’s not Ralf—there could never be another Ralf—but he knows his job, and he executes it with judgment and intelligence.”

Hugh’s eyes were focused on his ungloved hands, which rested loosely on the skirt of his mail hauberk. He didn’t reply.

After a moment, Bernard began to recount the story of the night Gilbert de Beauté was killed.

Toward the end of his recitation, Hugh interrupted him with a question. “The message that supposedly came to you from the sheriff was verbal, not written?”

“Aye. It was brought by William Cobbett, one of the castle grooms. He told me that the sheriff wanted me to meet him in the Minster two hours after evening services were done.”

“Didn’t you think such a request was rather strange?”

“I thought it was very strange,” Bernard replied frankly. “But the groom could tell me no more.”

“Did you ask the groom if he had received the message from Gervase directly?”

“I didn’t think to ask him,” Bernard replied. “At the time, I didn’t think it was important.” He rubbed his forehead. “It’s important now, of course, because Gervase claims he sent no such message.”

Hugh drummed the fingers of his left hand with slow deliberation on the overlapping metal circles of his hauberk skirt. “So what we can assume, then, is that someone deliberately set out to lure you to the Minster at that particular hour.”

“It certainly seems that way,” Bernard agreed. He coughed again. “What I don’t understand is
why
I was sent there.”

Hugh turned to look at him, eyebrows lifted. “Surely that at least is clear. You were meant to take the blame for de Beauté’s death.”

“I don’t know if that is the case,” Bernard returned slowly. He shifted a little on the chest, as if trying to get more comfortable. “You must understand, Hugh, that it was a complete accident that Richard’s squire should have found me the way he did. Richard had sent the boy to the church to retrieve his dagger, which he had left in the vestibule. The boy had no reason at all to come inside the church. He was supposed to collect the knife and return home.”

“Why did he go into the church?”

“Apparently he decided that, since he was there, he would stop and say a quick prayer.” Bernard frowned. “I have been thinking about this, and it seems to me that if someone went to such trouble to get me to the Minster at that precise hour, he would have made a more foolproof arrangement to ensure that I was discovered.”

Hugh continued to look at Bernard. “Perhaps he did make such an arrangement, and the squire foiled it by appearing when he did. I rather think that if the boy
had not turned up, someone else would have come into the church to find you.”

Once more, Bernard rubbed his forehead. “Perhaps that is so. On the other hand, perhaps I was only meant to discover de Beauté’s body and sound the alarm. Perhaps it was purely an accident that I came to be suspected of the murder myself.”

“That is a possibility, I suppose.”

Hugh did not sound convinced.

He returned his gaze to his hands and stared at them intently. “Let us assume for the moment that you were meant to be found and blamed for the murder. In order to make you appear a likely culprit, a motive was needed. Do you know who first advanced the notion that you killed de Beauté in order to facilitate my claiming the earldom?”

Bernard shook his head. “I don’t know whose idea it first was,” he said. “But I can tell you that within hours of the murder, it was going around the castle like wildfire.”

There was a long silence. Then Hugh leaned his head back against the stone wall and half closed his eyes. “There is one key question we must ask ourselves in all this. Who profits by the death of Gilbert de Beauté?”

Bernard stared at Hugh’s perfectly chiseled profile, and did not reply.

Hugh answered his own question. “The most obvious person, of course, is the sheriff himself. With de Beauté dead, he no longer has to worry about eviscerating the shire’s defenses.”

From the look on Bernard’s face, it was clear that he had thought of this, too. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Gervase is not the sort of man who would stoop to such treachery.”

“If it was possible to tell what a man was capable of from his outward guise, we could dispatch with all evildoers before they act,” Hugh said practically.

Bernard blew through his nose and mumbled a reluctant agreement.

“Gervase had the motive, and he had the opportunity,” Hugh said. “He is one of the few people whom de Beauté would go to meet in the Minster. And let us not forget that it was a message from Gervase that put you into the unfortunate position in which you now find yourself.”

“I know,” Bernard said unhappily.

“So then, we must consider Gervase as a likely suspect.” Hugh’s eyes were still half-shut. “Who else besides the sheriff might profit from de Beauté’s death?”

“I have been thinking and thinking, and I can’t come up with anyone else,” Bernard admitted.

“I can,” Hugh said.

A cold wind blew in the open window, and Bernard coughed and clutched his blanket tighter. “Who?” he demanded.

Hugh opened his eyes and turned his head so that he could look directly at Bernard. “While he was in Lincoln, Gilbert de Beauté raised
two
issues that were sure to upset the political power base of the shire,” he said. “The first we have discussed—his challenge to the sheriff’s authority.”

“And the other?” Bernard demanded when Hugh did not immediately continue.

Hugh’s eyes were level and unreadable. “He announced that he was going to marry his daughter to the heir of the de Leons.”

For a long moment, Bernard stared at Hugh. Then he said incredulously, “Are you saying that
you
have a motive?”

Hugh smiled. “Not me, Bernard. William of Roumare.”

“Roumare!”

“Aye. For years William of Roumare and his half brother, the Earl of Chester, have planned to bring Lincolnshire within the circle of their control. Roumare owns vast estates in the shire and he fully expected to be named Earl of Lincoln. Stephen infuriated him when he named Gilbert de Beauté over him.”

“He named Roumare Earl of Cambridge,” Bernard pointed out.

“He tried to placate Roumare by giving him Cambridge, but Roumare has no lands in Cambridgeshire. His power is in Lincolnshire, and it is Lincolnshire that he wants. His half brother Ranulf commands all of Chester, as well as controlling a string of estates and castles that run along the line of the Trent right into Lincolnshire.” Hugh’s eyes narrowed slightly. “The aim of the brothers has always been to seize dominion over this entire part of the kingdom.”

Bernard blinked twice, trying to assimilate what Hugh was telling him.

Hugh thrust his fingers through his hair, which had fallen across his dirt-streaked forehead. He went on, “Then my uncle stepped in and won for the de Leons the power that Roumare and Chester had hoped to win for themselves.”

“Your marriage to the de Beauté heiress,” Bernard said slowly.

“Aye,” Hugh agreed. “My marriage to the de Beauté heiress. With that accomplished, Guy would have Wiltshire, and I would be in position to inherit Lincolnshire. The de Leons, not the brothers Chester and Roumare, would be the ones to control the crucial heart of England.” Hugh’s voice became very dry. “I
doubt that this prospect made either Ranulf or William very happy.”

Bernard’s brow was deeply furrowed. “Do you think that Roumare and Chester might be involved in de Beauté’s death?”

“I think it is extremely likely,” Hugh replied. “The time frame certainly fits. Less than two weeks after de Beauté revealed the marriage arrangement, he was murdered. The result of his death is that the earldom is empty, the wardship of the Lady Elizabeth passes to the king, and the de Leons are cut out of Lincolnshire.”

“Why shouldn’t the marriage go forward?” Bernard protested. “After all, the king approved the match between you and the Lady Elizabeth.”

“He approved it when her father was alive and the king wanted to keep him happy. With de Beauté dead and his daughter unmarried, Stephen is free to name anyone he wants to be the new Earl of Lincoln. He can still honor his word to Guy and give me the lady in marriage, but the earldom does not have to go along with her. Stephen might very well decide that it would be wisest to give it to William of Roumare after all.”

“Jesu,” Bernard said slowly. “I never thought of that.”

Hugh nodded. “It would not have been difficult for Roumare to find someone to kill de Beauté for him. As I said before, he has vast estates in Lincolnshire. There are many men who would find it profitable to do him a service.”

“It would have to be someone whose presence inside the castle walls would not be questioned,” Bernard said. “I have thought about this, and no stranger would have been allowed to remain after the gates were closed. Nor would the guards admit any
one who could not demonstrate legitimate business within.”

Hugh nodded.

“I simply cannot believe that it could be one of the castle guards,” Bernard said stubbornly. “I have served with all of them for years and I would swear that they are honest.”

“Perhaps that is true of the regular garrison,” Hugh said. “But what about the men who are serving out their knight’s fee?”

Hugh was referring to the fact that the Bishop of Lincoln owed knight service to the king, and to fulfill this duty, he awarded the use of lands he owned to certain chosen knights. The knights paid for these lands by performing a month of guard service at Lincoln Castle.

Bernard’s breath wheezed audibly and he said, with a trace of excitement in his voice, “John Rye has been with the garrison this month. He has a manor north of Lincoln Fields, which he holds in knight’s fee from the bishop. I believe I heard somewhere that he is a cousin of William of Roumare.”