A Play of Piety (24 page)

“It was a mercy. It was just—” It was just that Hewstere had neither stroked the dog in pitying kindness nor looked the least sorry at the need, had simply done it. “It seemed to no more matter to him than snapping a stick would.”

Jack nodded with grim understanding. “I’ve seen him look at Heinrich that way when the boy is in one of his fits.”

“Heinrich has fits?”

“Rarely now. I think Sister Margaret and Sister Letice found some brew of theirs that helps. Anyway, both Sister Petronilla and Daveth take care to keep him out of Master Hewstere’s way. Not that he would actually harm the boy, surely. Besides, Aylton’s neck wasn’t broken. Besides that, why would he want Aylton dead?”

“Because he likes killing?” Joliffe ventured. “Or as a favor to Mistress Thorncoffyn? Or because Aylton was a danger to him in some way?”

“What way?”

Joliffe fixed a mock-irked look on him. “You play devil’s advocate far too well, Jack. It’s no use my coming up with satisfying thoughts if you keep pulling them down.”

“Not pulling down. Just asking to see the foundations. How was Aylton a danger to Master Hewstere?”

“He knew something Hewstere didn’t want him to know? Or at least something Hewstere could not chance him telling?”

“About what? Except for here, they never crossed each other’s way.”

“Something to do with the hospital or Mistress Thorncoffyn?” Joliffe tried. At Jack’s deeply doubting look, he gave way with a rueful grin. “Right enough. I grant we have no reason for Hewstere to want Aylton dead or chance to do it. Come to it, we lack reason for anyone at all to want Aylton dead. For all we know of why he was killed, you could be his murderer, Jack.”

“
If
he was murdered,” Jack pointed out.

Joliffe heaved a deep, deep sigh. “Right again. It’s just that for him to go somewhere he could get bread, then come back to the hospital, and then be going away again makes no sense.”

“Come to,” said Jack with a small snort of not-quite-laughter and following his own thoughts, “I’m more likely to be murdered than most. Sitting up here. Seeing all I do. Guessing what I do from what I see. Someone may get murdered for being ignorant, but I’m willing to wager more people are murdered for what they know.”

“If that’s the way of it, what did Aylton know? Any guesses that way?”

“Something against Mistress Thorncoffyn? Not that she waddled out and dealt with Aylton herself, but her loving grandson on her behalf? Of course there’s our fine Geoffrey Thorncoffyn himself. Maybe he had more part in Aylton’s treachery than anyone but Aylton knew and with Aylton dead he’s safe from anyone ever knowing?”

“There’s Idany, too,” Joliffe offered. “She has Mistress Thorncoffyn’s confidence and keys. She could be abusing her mistress’ trust, and Aylton knew it.”

Jack, openly enjoying this, said, “Or she and Geoffrey could be together in deceiving Mistress Thorncoffyn! That’s an alliance that would be profitable for them both, and if Aylton was part of it, then both Idany and Geoffrey had good reason to be rid of him.”

Joliffe heaved a regretful sigh. “Imagining reasons they might have to want Aylton dead is easy enough. The trouble lies in how either one of them would have had the
chance
to do anything against him last night, either one or the other, let alone together.”

“True,” Jack granted with equal regret. “There would have to be a conspiracy between them and with Master Hewstere, too, for any of them to have been gone long enough to deal with Aylton—to feed him and all. Come to it, you’d think that if they were bent on murdering someone, it would be Mistress Cisily Thorncoffyn herself, the thorn in everyone’s sides. If she was the one who was dead, there’d be people in plenty to suspect of wanting to kill her and no lack of ‘why’.”

That would have been a jest yesterday. Now it was no jest at all, and feeling stupid at having come so belatedly to the thought, Joliffe said, “She was ill last night. Sick to her ample stomach. And today her dog went ill after stealing food from her it was not meant to have.”

Jack looked as startled by the thought as Joliffe was. He made to answer but was cut off by the sound of hoofs of several horses coming at a canter along the hard-packed road. He limped to the window, leaned out, pulled back in, and said, “Looks to be the crowner and his men coming. That was soon. I’d best get down to open the gate for them.”

“Want I should do it for you?”

“It should be me does it this time. You’ll be better employed hurrying to let Sister Ursula know he’s here.”

Chapter 18

I
n the kitchen, Sister Ursula took the news with her usual calm, only saying, “So soon? That’s well,” before adding to Sister Petronilla who had been rolling out a pie’s crust at the worktable, “Heinrich?”

“Best, yes,” Sister Petronilla agreed, laid aside the rolling pin, wiped her hands on her apron, bent, scooped up Heinrich from where he had been sitting against her skirts between her feet, and settled him on her hip as if he were a much smaller child. “You come with me, poppet. Maybe it’s time for a little sleep now you’ve had your dinner.”

Rose went to take up the rolling pin as Sister Ursula asked, “Daveth?”

“Already in the dorter, last I knew,” Sister Petronilla said and was gone.

Looking down at her apron, probably to make certain it was clean enough for receiving an officer of the crown, Sister Ursula said, “Joliffe, pray, warn Credy and the others that Master Osburne is here. They’re still in the rear-yard, I think. If not, you’ll have to find them.”

“They’re there,” said Rose. “When I took them out the ale, the constable’s man had come back with word the crowner was on his way, so they decided not to bother heading out to the harvest, just to have to come back.”

She sounded oddly taut, and Joliffe, starting for the rear door, took his first full look at her since she and Sister Letice had come into the kitchen with news of finding Aylton. Was she still unsettled by that? Or was she worried because, as a first-finder of the body, she would be questioned by the crowner? None of that would account for the betraying shadows under her eyes of a sleep-short night, though. She looked almost as drawn with tiredness as Sister Ursula and Sister Petronilla. He wanted to ask her what was the matter, but Sister Ursula was going on, “That’s good then. And Sister Letice is in the stillroom and can stay there until called, surely. Sister Margaret is in the hall. She can go out with me to greet Master Osburne. Joliffe, once he’s here, stay with him if you can, to hear how things go. Rose, when you’ve finished rolling out the crust, take cups and a pitcher of ale to his men in the foreyard. He probably has two with him besides his clerk.”

Joliffe found the constable, bailiff, and Denton comfortable on the bench outside the laundry door with a pitcher of the hospital’s ale in their midst and Denton sharing his cup with his cousin Emme who must have just stepped out of the laundry’s heat and was pushing her straying hair back under her cap with one hand as she took the cup with her other. Done with their work on Aylton, the three men were cheerful enough, Borton calling that if Joliffe had brought his own cup, he could join them. Then he took in Joliffe’s look and said with a sigh before Joliffe could give his message, “Here already, is he?” He slapped Denton’s knee. “Up and at ’em, lad. Master Osburne is not a man to waste time and he’ll want all you have to tell.”

Borton had that right. Too soon to have spent time on greetings or going to see Master Soule before all else, as well he might have and maybe should, Master Osburne came into the rear-yard, a clerk following him. The crowner was a narrow-faced man with the somewhat yellowed skin of the slightly jaundiced, and he walked as if he might have a fistula, but he looked and sounded wide awake enough as he greeted the three village men by name. He then looked at Joliffe in a way that had Credy saying who he was without being asked. Master Osburne accepted that with a brisk nod, answered Borton’s comment about him being here sooner than hoped by saying, “I was only five miles off, as it happened. An old woman fell into a pond while washing out a grandchild’s clouts and wasn’t found until too late. Nothing but an accident but I had to say so. Your man overtook me as I was leaving there. Where’s your body?”

Joliffe stayed outside the shed, not wanting to see Aylton’s mutilated body again. The clerk who had followed Master Osburne into the yard seemed to be of the same mind; like Joliffe he stayed outside, able to hear without seeing while he scratched with a pen at a piece of parchment stretched over a wooden tablet. Unfortunately, Joliffe heard nothing new before the four men came into the sunlight again with Master Osburne saying, “If you say that’s all there is to be learned from him, there’s no reason not to move him to the church. Borton, Denton, if you’ll see to that. Then you can get back to your right work. Credy, I want you to keep with me while I see to the other questions I have to ask. Who was first-finder of the body?”

“One of the sisters and a servant here found him together,” Credy said.

He looked toward Joliffe, who answered in turn as Master Osburne looked at him, “Sister Letice went out to her morning work in the garden. Rose Basset, the servant, was just coming from the other way, on her way to her work. Sister Letice saw him first, I think, lying facedown in the water, and together they pulled him out, rolled him over, and saw he was dead.”

“All that will be for them to say.” Master Osburne shifted as if his fistula were troubling him. “Where will I find them?”

Joliffe led the crowner, Credy, and the clerk to the kitchen, where Sister Ursula and Sister Margaret were waiting for him. Sister Ursula said, “Master Soule wishes to see you, Master Osburne.”

Like someone who had expected that, he said back, “In good time. I’ve questions to ask first. Unless he knows aught about this man and his death?”

“I think not. I think he merely wants you to understand this is his hospital and he has authority here.”

There might have been the smallest touch of laughter behind her words’ outward respect. There was maybe even some in Master Osburne’s as he answered, “I’ll not tread on toes that shouldn’t be trod on. Now where are the women who found the body?”

“Rose is here. Joliffe, if you’ll tell Sister Letice she’s wanted now?”

“I’ll talk to them apart,” Master Osburne said; and to Rose, “If you’ll come into the yard with me?”

Rose nodded and went with him. Sister Margaret followed, unasked, with the clerk. Joliffe, relieved the sisters were keeping watch on their own and his worry for Rose useless just now, went to tell Sister Letice she was wanted, too.

The stillroom was a peaceful and well-ordered place. It smelled richly of all the varied herbs hung to dry from the rafters and wall-poles, and the varied bowls, the mortar with its pestle, the pottery jars, wooden boxes, and all else were orderly in their places, ready to hand for use. Sister Letice was using nothing, though. Instead she was leaning forward with her hands braced on the long shelf against one wall that served for table and workbench together, her head hanging as if she were enduring either bodily pain or heavy thoughts.

Joliffe wondered, startled, if she was as upset as Rose had seemed to be about being questioned. He said her name and she straightened and turned to him with the care of someone ill and working not to show it. Quietly, with effort, she asked, “The crowner is come?”

“And wishes to speak with you. Sister Ursula said I should bring you.”

She gave a small nod and came. He followed her back to the kitchen, where Sister Ursula told him, “It might be well if you see if anyone needs aught in the hall, since all of us are taken up with this for now.”

Joliffe bowed and went willingly, taking the covered walk along the garth, to go in by the door at the hall’s far end. Tom Lyttle’s dying had made the men quiet, turned them inward to their own thoughts, but Aylton’s death was another matter altogether. He had not been one of them nor died properly in his bed. Once they heard of it, the men had spent the morning in eager talk and had used their dinnertime to throw questions at Joliffe and the sisters. Now, with the curtains drawn between the beds for what should be their afternoon rest, Joliffe was able to come to Basset’s bedside unseen, avoiding the questions and talk that would otherwise have been hurled at him from one end of the hall to the other.

There was the chance, of course, that Basset was sleeping as—judging by the quiet—the other men were, but instead he was sitting on the edge of his bed rubbing ointment from a pottery bowl into one bare foot and more than ready to hear whatever Joliffe could tell. That being partly why Joliffe had come, he sat down beside him and, low-voiced, told him everything about the morning, ending with his talk with Jack and their sudden suspicion about Mistress Thorncoffyn’s illness.

Basset, who had finished with one foot while Joliffe talked and was now working on the other, nodded understanding and kept on rubbing. “Yes,” he agreed slowly. “If she’s being poisoned in truth, rather than in her imagining, it would nearly pass belief for that to be separate from Aylton’s death. As for Aylton, it’s the bread that’s the trouble, isn’t it?”

“How he came by it, since it wasn’t here, and why he came back, having escaped once.”

“If he ever left at all. Maybe it was Jack’s bread and cheese he had, and he never went any farther at all.”

Joliffe had not thought to consider Jack in the matter at all and found himself uncomfortable with the thought that maybe he should have, but asked, “Why would Jack lie?”

“Why wouldn’t he lie, if he’d killed Aylton?”

“How would he have moved the body all the way around to the stream?”

“A humped back and a heavy limp don’t mean he’s a weakling.”

“His crippled arm would make it nigh to impossible.”

“But still possible,” Basset insisted.

“But what reason would he have to kill Aylton?”