Lord of Midnight (31 page)

“Why should I?”

She tried to chip his soul. “My father wrote about your visit to him in the Tower.”

“Wrote? Where?” He sounded surprised, but not at all guilt-struck. If only she could believe that he truly suffered guilt, perhaps she could begin to forgive him, but she was beginning to doubt that he had a soul at all.

She turned to walk away, but he caught her arm. “Wrote where?”

It wasn’t worth fighting over. “In his journal. That book’s not a retelling of the story of the Brave Child. He tells the story of the rebellion with himself as Sebastian.”

“I thought so.” He released her, but his face was set in anger. “He planned all along to bring matters to a court battle.”

It took her a moment to understand him. “Are you
daring
to suggest that my father planned his own death?”

He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Oh no. He had more faith in God than you. He believed he could win.”

“And so he would if not for that sword!”

“Don’t be foolish.”

“
Foolish
!” Claire realized she’d screamed it at him, and saw some servants turn to stare. She sucked in a breath and said, “My father was a good and righteous man—”

“—who was seriously astray in his vision of right and wrong.”

Claire hadn’t realized that rage could make a person dumb. When she regained her voice, she said, “My father was never astray except when he misjudged a false friend.”

She stalked away but he said, “Don’t you want to find out who killed Ulric?”

She wanted to attack him. Like Thomas, she wanted a weapon and a chance to hurt him. The only weapon she had, however, was the truth about Ulric’s death.

If he’d been telling the truth about recalling pictures, then he might have identified people who had spoken to Ulric. She couldn’t give him the chance to get to them first—to either frighten them into silence, or ensure their silence by yet another murder.

“Right,” she said, whirling back. “Dora will be in the dye house. It’s outside Summerbourne, down near the river.” She headed toward the gates, not looking to see if he followed.

“So,” he asked, close behind her, “what did your father write about me?”

Horror stopped her, turned her to face him. “What kind of monster are you? Do you have a soul at all?”

“All men have a soul. I can ask Nils to read it to me.”

She didn’t want him or his clerk touching that book. She said the thing she hoped would hurt the most. “He liked you.”

“You could take that as paternal guidance.”

“You have the sensitivity of that log you destroyed. He expected to weep over your body!”

“Claire, I did weep over his body.”

And, like a blow, she saw that it was true. Those tired, bloodshot eyes he’d brought to Summerbourne were from weeping over his deed.

“But you still killed him,” she said.

“But I still killed him.”

And there it lay between them like iron, like rock, cold and unbreachable.

“Then may God forgive you, for I cannot.”

They walked in silence down toward the river, side by side, but eternally divided.

The dye house and the tanning sheds were located out here to be close to water, but also because no one wanted the stink too close. As the smell hit, Claire hesitated.

He put a hand on her arm. “Why not let me go in and ask this woman to come out to you?”

She twitched away. “And give you chance to scare her into silence? No, thank you.”

He had to stoop to go through the low door into the pungent rooms full of vats and steam. Colored cloth and yarn festooned from hooks in rafters and walls. Huge vats simmered, and colored puddles muddied the earth floor. Going through the door, Claire wrinkled her nose at the stink of sour urine. The local men were encouraged to donate to a vat there as often as possible. It was needed in the dyeing process.

She spotted Dora working over a boiling vat, sleeves rolled up, skirt kirtled high as she poked cloth under the seething blue liquid.

“Dora!”

The woman looked up, pushing damp tendrils of brown hair back off a red face stained with blue. “Lady?”

“I need to speak to you. Find someone to take your job and come outside.”

The chief dye woman was coming over anyway, and so Claire left her to manage and drew the young woman outside into the cooler, fresher air.

“Yes, lady?” asked Dora, looking nervously between Claire and de Lisle, though the nervousness could simply be an effect of her protruding pale eyes.

“You’re not in trouble,” Claire assured her. “We’re just trying to find out what Ulric, my father’s man, did on the night he died. We think perhaps he sat with you at the meal.”

“Oh, aye, he did, lady. Though only for a while. He came in late, and then I had to go and lend a hand in the kitchens.”

Claire tried not to show her excitement. It might make the woman more nervous. “Did he speak to you?”

Dora frowned as if this were a difficult question. “He said a greeting as he sat down.”

“Did you know he’d just arrived?”

“I suppose. He carried a staff and pack.”

Claire wanted to shake information out of the woman, but only patience would work. “You know he was my father’s personal servant?”‘

“Aye, lady.”

“Weren’t you curious? Because of Lord Clarence’s death.”

The big eyes remained blank. “Nay, lady. I was watching the tumblers. Right clever, they were.”

Claire shared an exasperated look with Renald, then quickly looked back at the servant. He was the enemy.

“So, all the time he was sitting there, he didn’t say anything more?”

Dora idly scratched beneath an ample breast. “He told me to shut up.”

“To shut up?” Claire couldn’t help but look at her husband again, and surprised twitching lips.

A murderer shouldn’t have an infectious smile. He really shouldn’t.

“I was only being friendly, lady. Talking about the tricks. Asking if he’d seen the like. And he told me to shut up.”

“So he wasn’t talking to anyone at all?” Even though she knew Ulric was taciturn, Claire felt that in a properly run universe he would have said a bit more before dying.

As if picking up her thought, Dora offered, “He might have said a bit more to Sigfrith.”

“Sigfrith?”

“He were on his other side.”

Claire paused halfway through incising the name. “Sigfrith from the stables?”

“Aye, lady.”

Claire completed the name. “Thank you, Dora. You’d best get back to your work.”

But Renald spoke. “Hold a moment, Dora. Did you notice anyone else speak to Ulric while you sat beside him?”

The woman frowned, which had the alarming impression of pushing her eyes farther out. “I do think some folk paused behind to speak. But they didn’t stop. Why would they with him not wanting to chat?”

“You don’t remember who these people were, or what any of them said?”

“I were watching the entertainers, lord.” She pondered a bit more, and seemed to find scratching helped the process. “I think I remember someone… Someone said something like, ‘Ulric. I thought you dead.’ Yes. That jogged my memory, like. About who he was. And the lord’s death. It made me sad for a moment…”

“But you have no idea who any of these people were?”

She looked between them, rubbing red j and blue hands on gray skirt. “Nay, lord.
Lady.”

He nodded and thanked her, then drew Claire away. “Let’s hope this Sigfrith can help us more. I assume he’s the man with grizzled blond hair and a big nose.”

“Yes.”

“You seemed startled by his name.” He was too perceptive by far, but she wasn’t going to tell him Sigfrith was a relative of I sorts. That would only give him more excuse to try to foist his crime on her grandmother.

She was beginning, however, to wonder I about that herself. She’d never seen any sign of connection between Lady Agnes and the I man, but if her grandmother wanted a hired I killer, she might turn to a foster brother.

It must be nonsense.

Gran?

Try as she might, however, Claire could not swear that ordering a murder was entirely beyond Lady Agnes.

She reminded herself fiercely that
Renald
was the murderer. He had the motive. She simply had to prove it.

“We’d best go to the stables,” she said, Betting off toward the gates. “I don’t suppose our pictures show who stopped to speak to
Ulric?”

“I have no control over what lingers and what fades.”

“But then, you wouldn’t tell me if you did.”

He stopped her with a hand in her girdle. “Claire, if I killed him, these matters have no importance. If I didn’t, I want you to have the information that will clear me.”

She turned to him. “No importance? I’m not thinking you wielded the blade. I doubt you had time. But you only had to order one of your men to do it. I assume they kill on order as you do. So, what if Sigfrith remembers that one of your men stopped to talk to Ulric?”

“Let’s go and ask him,” he said shortly and led the way at a brisk pace.

Since learning about Sigfrith, Claire had noticed the man more, and even detected a faint resemblance to her father. She’d never spoken to him, however, other than about stable matters.

They found him in a stall, cleaning a horse’s hooves.

“Lord Renald. Lady Claire.”

“Sigfrith,” Claire said, “we hoped you might be able to tell us something about poor Ulric.”

He kept his head down to his task. “Ulric? Him as died?”

“You sat with him during his last meal.”

He glanced up then, in the wary way of one who expects trouble. “So? He came in late and sat there, lady. What of it?”

“We wondered what he said to you.”

“Nothing.”

Claire shared a glance with Renald, before remembering that this guilty reaction wasn’t good for her case.

“Not even, ‘Good evening’?” asked Renald. “Stand and face us.”

Claire thought for a moment that the groom would ignore the cold command and shivered for him. But then he let the hoof fall and rose. He even bowed. “Aye, well, lord, maybe he said that.”

“And did you say good evening back to him?”

“Aye, I suppose I did, lord. I can’t remember.”

Claire wondered if Sigfrith had always been this sullen and resentful. Or was it now a sign of guilt?

“And did he say anything else?” Renald asked patiently. “About the tumblers, for example. Or about Dora, who was chattering about the tumblers?”

The man frowned, but more thoughtfully than angrily. “Aye, lord, he did at that. Called her a chattering besom, which is true. But Ulric was never much of a one for speech.”

“You knew him well?” Claire asked.

He turned his blue eyes on her, eyes very like her father’s. “‘Course I did, lady. We were of an age, and lived here all our lives.” There was an unmistakable edge in the comment and Claire worried again for his skin.

“But since you knew him so well,” Renald asked, “didn’t you say an extra word or two? Ask him about his journey, perhaps? Or comment on Lord Clarence’s death?”

Sigfrith looked as if he were weighing chancy options, but in the end he said, “I suppose we spoke a little. I think I said as I’d wondered where he’d been. And I did ask what happened to Lord Clarence’s horse. ‘Twere a good one.”

Claire looked at Renald. “What did happen to Aidan?”

His dark eyes flashed a command. “Later. So,” he said to Sigfrith, “what did he say to that?”

“That it were none of my business. Which wasn’t true. Stables are my business.”

“Did he say anything about how Lord Clarence died, or about my betrothal to Lady Claire?”

The question clearly surprised the man. “Nay, lord.”

“Nothing?” Claire asked. “My betrothal must have been of interest to him.”

“Can’t say about that, lady. He made no mention of either.”

She’d think he had to be lying except that she couldn’t see why. Even if he’d killed Ulric, for his own purposes or those of her grandmother, why not admit that Ulric talked of such pressing events?

Renald killed Ulric, she reminded herself. Renald, or one of his men.

Renald picked up the questions. “A number of people stopped by to talk to him. Do you remember any of them?”

Sigfrith shrugged. “Big Gregory. He’s married to Ulric’s sister. Offered him sympathy, as I remember. Lord Eudo said much the same. And Britha—you know Britha, lord— asked if he wanted comfort.”

Claire jotted down the names, distracted by wondering if that
you know Britha, lord
meant that Renald knew generous Britha in a biblical sense.

She tried to pretend she didn’t care.

She asked, “And those are the only people you remember speaking to Ulric at the table that night?”

“And the lord’s squire, Josce.”

Claire’s stylus froze, mid-mark, and she glanced up at Renald. He showed nothing, but that—as she was beginning to realize—said a lot.

“Did you hear what Squire Josce said to Ulric?” she asked.

Like, meet me in the garden…

But Josce? Fresh-faced Josce with the freckles and the big smile? What was a squire to do if ordered to kill, however? The same as his master. Obey.

“Nay, lady,” said Sigfrith. “The young man spoke quietly. Privately like.” Sigfrith’s sly look showed that he knew he’d started trouble and was glad of it. She’d have to think more about his place here.

She finished her note, thanked the groom, and walked out into the sunshine. Once out of earshot, she faced Renald de Lisle. “Well, my lord?”

His jaw was tight, twitching with anger, but not at her. “Well, we had better go and speak to Josce.”

He strode off so quickly, she had to hurry to catch up. “Are you still claiming innocence?”

“I still
am
innocent. As Josce will be able to make clear.”

“Don’t try to lay all the guilt at his door! He’s only a youth.”

“I’ll lay the exact amount of guilt he deserves.” His fist clenched. Claire seized his arm with both hands. He stopped, but turned on her so sharply she feared for her skin.

After a shocking moment, the searing danger was leashed. “What?”

Claire had to force out her voice. “If Josce killed him,” she made herself say, “it was by
your
orders.”