A Mortal Bane (26 page)

“Fear of invasion, or hope for it?”

“If he hoped the empress were coming, would he have mentioned the idea of someone killing Messer Baldassare to keep the pope’s decision secret?”

“Likely not.”

William sighed and pushed away the platter from which he had been eating, took a last drink of wine, and allowed himself to fall sideways onto the bed so that his head was on the pillow. Magdalene jumped forward to get the table out of his way before he kicked it over as he lifted his feet onto the bed. Setting the table aside, she went to remove his shoes and undo his cross garters. When she looked at his face, his eyes were barely open.

“Tired,” he mumbled, and then, “When I wake, remind me of the names of my men who are allowed to come to you and know the ways of your house and about the back gate. I will be able to clear most or all of them, which will save your Bell from needing to pry into my affairs.”

Chapter Thirteen

24 April 1139

Old Priory Guesthouse

By midmorning on Monday, William was gone, having cleared all but two of the men sworn to him who frequented the Old Priory Guesthouse. Those two had been away from Rochester on his business, and it would be easy enough for him to discover where they were on Wednesday night and let Magdalene know.

By accident, while talking about who was with the king in Nottingham, William had also cleared five other noble clients. Although he had chosen not to join the court himself—mostly, he said sourly, because he had been hoping to bring the papal messenger with him when he next approached the king—William knew who was there and what was going forward almost day by day. A stream of messengers—sent by this man and that who owed him favors (or wanted one), or who simply hated Waleran de Meulan—flowed out of Nottingham to Rochester and would follow him to London.

Magdalene was tempted to ask him about the rest of the noblemen on her list, partly because she felt very fond of him that morning and she knew her confidence would please him, but she resisted. William could not really be trusted with information that might conceivably be exploited to apply pressure to a person he could use. He would apply that pressure, without regard to anyone else, if it would forward his own plans and ambitions.

Fortunately, he never guessed her temptation or her resistance to it, and they parted quite tenderly. Although he had been too fast asleep to take her when she came to bed, he had wakened very amorous, and had loved her—a little to the surprise of each—very successfully, so that both had risen from her bed sated and pleased with themselves. That, Magdalene told herself, should diminish any interest she felt in the less predictable and possibly dangerous Bell.

William was very merry at breakfast, teasing Somer, who did look rather heavy-eyed, and the women until the room rang with laughter. He grew serious, however, while Somer went to saddle the horses, assuring Magdalene as she walked with him to the gate that he would stay in London to be certain no harm came to her until the murderer was found or she was cleared in some other way. She flung her arms around him and kissed him, but she laughed, aware that the offer was not completely altruistic, and promised, without prompting, to let him know if she possibly could, if the pouch was found.

“Good girl,” he said, flicking the tip of her nose with a finger. “And I promise that Winchester and your Bell won’t lose by it.”

Her Bell? No, Magdalene thought, he was not, and would not be,
her
Bell, even though William seemed to have gotten over the resentment he had first shown. Fond as she was of William, it was as great a pleasure to see him go as to see him come. She resolved anew not to allow any man ever to think of her as his, waving to William as he set off and then closing the gate behind him.

It would be to her benefit as well as William’s if Winchester’s relationship with his brother improved, but she was not sure having Stephen hand the bull to him would work. Magdalene suspected a better feeling between the brothers was not really William’s prime purpose. He liked Winchester well enough, but he wished to please Stephen, and it might please Stephen just as well to use the bull to demonstrate his power to Winchester as to be reconciled to him.

She reentered the house, shook her head when Dulcie asked if she wished to finish her ale, and the maid continued clearing the table. Her women were gone. Vaguely, she heard sounds through the open doors to the corridor and knew they were cleaning their rooms. Automatically, she walked to the hearth, sat down on her stool, and picked up her embroidery.

One by one, the other women joined Magdalene. Letice and Ella also took up their embroidery and after some desultory talk about the clients, Sabina struck the first notes of a lively and rather bawdy tune about a soldier. Magdalene looked up and smiled. William’s visit had done them all good. This was the first time since Wednesday night that no one made a reference to the murder.

Listening to the song, Magdalene laughed aloud. With his rough good humor and his rough-and-ready ways, the hero was a bit like William; his inventiveness reminded her of William. She shook off her concern about political problems. They did not really matter to her. Her protectors might suffer small setbacks that displeased them, but both the bishop and William of Ypres were too important and too powerful to have more than their pride hurt by Waleran de Meulan.

The morning was quiet, except for a minor and very delightful flurry caused by Magdalene’s finding a heavy purse on her pillow when she finally went to make her bed—an extra token of William’s affection (or satisfaction with her response to him). The day proceeded pleasantly; dinner was uninterrupted and the right clients arrived at the right time. Three more men were crossed off the list of possible suspects when that set of clients left.

Two more arrived without overlapping or colliding with each other, and Buchuinte, the third, came at his regular time. He was still saddened by Baldassare’s death—he told them he had arranged the burial for Tuesday—but he was not so sad as to give up his appointment with Ella. An easy day.

Magdalene had settled to her embroidery again after hearing Ella’s squeal of pleasure, cut off by the closing of her door. She was enjoying her solitude and looking forward to the completion of a complex pattern and the delivery of a piece already ordered, when the bell at the gate rang. She gave a quick thought to the men being entertained behind closed doors. Sabina’s second client, an elderly widower whose children were established in their own homes and was more lonely than lustful, was staying the night, but Ella’s and Letice’s guests would be gone in time for this new man to be accommodated.

Sighing, Magdalene fixed her needle into her work and rose to answer. She would have preferred not to need to entertain anyone until one of the women was free, and William’s extra purse would have made it possible to indulge herself, but she had left the bell cord out. That was an invitation that could not be withdrawn without offense. She would let this man in, she told herself, and then pull in the bell cord. Fixing a pleasant smile on her face, Magdalene started toward the gate, only to stop dead a few steps along the path.

The man had let himself in, which always annoyed her, but the face she saw rendered her too speechless to protest.

“Delighted to see me, are you?” Richard de Beaumeis said, grinning broadly. “How did you like the client I sent you?” And when Magdalene still just stared at him, gaping, he laughed and went on. “Baldassare did mention my name, did he not? I told him he should.” He laughed again. “I would wager he was surprised at what he found here. I would have loved to be invisible and have seen his face.”

“I thought you were in Canterbury,” Magdalene got out, still too stunned to say anything sensible.

Beaumeis certainly sounded as if he thought Baldassare was alive. Could he have struck with the knife and then run away without realizing he might have killed the man? There was a kind of self-satisfied spitefulness under his final words that simply did not fit with having already taken the ultimate revenge.

“Canterbury?” Beaumeis repeated. “I brought the archbishop’s news on Friday. The cannons celebrated fittingly on Saturday, and I returned to my duty in St. Paul’s…. Why should I remain in Canterbury? It is a nothing place after London and Rome.”

He started to step around her, and Magdalene was suddenly enraged. “Oh, no,” she said, catching his arm. “You are not welcome here. You do not know the ill you did us with your nasty little jest. Baldassare de Firenze is dead, and I have been accused of killing him.”

“Dead?” Beaumeis’s voice came out as a squawk and his face had gone parchment yellow. “No! No! He cannot be dead. I saw him…. No! He cannot be dead.”

He sounded genuinely shocked, but so he might be if he did not know his blow had struck home. Magdalene said, “He
is
dead. He was killed on the north porch of the church—

“No! I do not believe you! I cannot believe you! You are a lying whore.”

Beaumeis’s eyes bulged, looked ready to fall out of his head, and he swayed on his feet. Magdalene would have felt sorry for him if not for that last sentence.

“Then go look at his body yourself,” she said coldly. “It is laid out in the small chapel between the monks’ entrance and the church.”

He pushed past her roughly, running toward the back gate. Magdalene called after him, but he did not stop or even turn to look at her, and she shrugged and went into the house, walking quickly through it toward the back door. As she expected, it burst open a few moments later and Beaumeis stood in it, panting. Magdalene blocked his entrance; Dulcie waited in the kitchen doorway, the long-handled pan in her hand. But Beaumeis did not try to push his way in this time.

“The gate is locked,” he shouted. “Give me the key.”

“I do not have a key,” Magdalene said mendaciously. “And keep your voice down. I do not want my clients disturbed.”

“It is never locked,” he said angrily but in a lower voice. “It was open when…when I was last here.”

“When was that?” Magdalene asked. “I do not remember.”

There was more color in Beaumeis’s face now, but he did not meet her eyes when he said, “I do not remember, either, but it must have been before I left the country in January.” He hesitated, then drew a deep, almost sobbing, breath. “Is Baldassare truly dead?”

“Truly. He was murdered on Wednesday night—according to Brother Paulinus, who came to accuse us of the crime on Thursday morning. Where were you on Wednesday night?”

“I do not know,” he muttered. “On the road. Somewhere on the road.” And then, as if the words reminded him, he asked, “What did you do with his horse?”

“I? I did nothing with his horse. He took it with him when he left, I assume.”

“Took it with him? Did he not—” He stopped abruptly, but now he was watching her avidly, appearing more interested than distressed, his color back to normal and a slight supercilious droop to his lips. “When did he die?”

“How would I know that?” Magdalene snapped. “If you are so curious, go ask Sir Bellamy of Itchen, who is trying to discover the facts on the bishop’s behalf.”

“Bishop? Winchester?”

“Yes, Winchester. Since Baldassare had come here to Southwark, it is possible he came to see the bishop.”

The remark did not have the effect Magdalene expected. She had hoped to surprise a look or a word confirming that Beaumeis knew about the bull, but he said nothing. He had paled again and looked away as Magdalene spoke, but not quickly enough. She was sure it was rage that thinned his lips, and the concentrated venom of his expression surprised her. She was certain now that Beaumeis was more than a selfish nodcock. He could have arranged to meet Baldassare. He hated Henry of Winchester enough to take some chances to spite him.

In another moment Beaumeis’s face was smooth and indifferent once more, although still rather pale. Magdalene again revised an opinion. He was well able, it seemed, to hide what he was thinking. She was annoyed with herself for her lack of comprehension. Of course he had never tried to hide his honest feelings from her or her women in the past; they were not important enough for him to bother.

Suddenly he seemed to notice that she was blocking his entrance into the house. “You do not need to try to keep me out,” he said, first glancing over her shoulder at Dulcie and then looking down his nose at her. “I am rich enough now to keep my own woman, who will not drip on me the leavings of other men.”

To that, Magdalene made no reply other than stepping back and slamming the door in his face. She did not waste time fuming over so silly an insult, knowing her women were trained to wash carefully between clients and remove any signs of previous use. She peered out the kitchen window in time to catch a flicker of his cloak as he rounded the corner of the house, heading for the front gate.

“I must go out,” she said to Dulcie, who nodded understanding and replaced her pan on a hook by the door.

Magdalene then took the key to the front gate and hurried to her own chamber, where she wound her outdoor veil around her head and face. Taking her cloak, she peered out the door to make sure Beaumeis was gone, then ran to the front gate and pulled in the bell cord. Until she could return, they would do without extra custom. It was more important to tell Bell that Beaumeis was back.

As she walked to the rear gate, unlocked it surreptitiously, and slid through, she tried to decide whether to tell Bell that William had been with her and had remembered that it was Beaumeis whose ordination had been interrupted. She could say she had remembered the name herself, she thought, and then bit her lip. Fool that she was. Of course she must tell Bell—perhaps she had better begin to call him Sir Bellamy again—about William’s visit. She needed to remind him of what she was.

Magdalene slipped by the monk at the gate by pulling the hood of her cloak down so far that her veiled face could not be seen. When she came near the gate, she bent forward and uttered hoarse sobs. Young Brother Patric, as Magdalene had hoped, allowed his soft heart to overcome his strict duty. Although he could not actually remember the arrival of the sad lady, he was sure she must have come in if she was now going out. There was no need to stop her and add to her distress by demanding to know who she was.