Roberta Gellis (10 page)

“Yes,” Magdalene said slowly. “I do know. Remember, several of the guilds hired the Old Priory Guesthouse for meetings. After all, where else could they get the privacy we offer as well as lively company and a good meal? Dulcie’s years in the cookshop have not gone to waste. Besides, we are so close to the works of the new bridge.”

Her mind was not on what she was saying, however. It was unlikely that Sabina had recognized voices from the meeting of any Bridge Guild, although she had sung at several. What Sabina had meant, but would never say except in total privacy to Magdalene alone, was that she recognized the voices of clients of the Old Priory Guesthouse.

That sparked a further memory. It had been Master Perekin FitzRevery who had arranged for Mainard to lie with Sabina and had paid for a whole night of her service. Only Mainard had not come for that purpose. FitzRevery had summoned him to Magdalene’s house with a tale of a meeting of the guild and had instructed Sabina to do her best to seduce Mainard into sexual congress once he came. It was a gift from their guild to Mainard, FitzRevery had said, but with such a wry twist to his lips that Magdalene knew there was a special purpose to that “gift.” A Bridge Guild buys a gold chain or a fine brooch or a silver candlestick to honor a member; it does not pay for a whore’s services.

Suddenly Magdalene took her lower lip between her teeth. It was to spite Mainard’s wife, she realized. Master FitzRevery had warned her that Sabina would have difficulty convincing Mainard she was willing to lie with him because Bertrild had scorned him and diminished him. But why should a Bridge Guild or even Master FitzRevery alone care about Mainard’s troubles with Bertrild?

No, not FitzRevery alone. Surely he would have wished to claim the “gift” for his own if he had paid the entire sum. If it was accepted, Mainard would be deeply in his debt; even if it were refused, FitzRevery was already identified with it so he could gain nothing by the claim that others had contributed to that first night with Sabina. And those others as a group must all have wished
to do Bertrild some harm. More harm than merely making her husband unfaithful, if one of them had stolen Codi’s knife. Interesting.

Which others? All! Sabina had already told her that. They were members of a Bridge Guild that had hired the Old Priory Guesthouse and also clients. Magdalene began to rack her brains for the members of the Bridge Guild to which Mainard belonged, but her thoughts were interrupted.

“If you don’t want me no more,” Henry said, “I might as well go home. Codi and the boys never work on Sunday, but it’ll be a real treat for me to be off.”

“I am not the master here,” Magdalene said, “but I cannot believe Master Mainard would object. What do you think, Codi?”

“Who will tell those who come to the shop why it is closed?” Codi asked, his voice trembling slightly.

“No need to answer questions,” Henry said. “Just drape the door in black cloth and everyone will know there’s been a death.”

Codi hit himself in the head gently. “I am all to bits and pieces,” he said more firmly. “I should have thought of that myself. What kind of cloth should we buy, Henry?”

“I would go to the ragpickers for it myself,” Henry replied with twisted lips, “but Master Mainard will not wish to be niggardly. Send Gisel next door to Master FitzRevery. He will give him a decent cloth at a good price.”

“Yes.” Codi sighed with relief. “Of course. I did not think of that either. And Master FitzRevery will put the cost onto Master Mainard’s tally, so no one will need to find the coin to pay.”

“Then I will be gone,” Henry said, nodding at Codi and the boys and getting to his feet.

“Just a moment.” Magdalene laid a hand on his arm. “I have a question. You must have seen the men who came in on Friday. Can you name them?”

“Of course. Master FitzRevery, Master John Herlyoud, Master Ulfmaer FitzIsabelle, Master Lintun Mercer, and Master Jokel de Josne. They are the main members of the Bridge Guild to which Master Mainard belongs, and they meet with the other members of the guild once a month. But at odd times those five also meet without the other members of the guild to dine together or—he cast a knowing glance at Magdalene “—to seek other amusement. Master Mainard used to go with them, but after Mistress Sabina came to live here, he most often refused. Friday they came to invite him to dine with them….” He hesitated and then said, “Today, yes. It would have been this afternoon they were to meet at Master Ulfmaer FitzIsabelle’s house.”

“You heard the invitation?”

“Yes, they were in the shop right behind me then. Master Mainard refused. He said he had another appointment. This time they did not wish to take no for an answer. They followed him back into the workroom. I could hear them arguing with him, but not the exact words.”

“He didn’t want to go with them,” Sabina put in. “We had talked about going on the river because I had never been….” Her voice faded and her brows knit in a frown. Magdalene waited. Those were sure signs that Sabina was trying to find words for what she had “heard” when someone was speaking of something else. “But it was not only that,” Sabina continued as Magdalene had expected. “We could have gone on the river any Sunday, I do not think he liked those men…or some of them. There was something in his voice when he spoke of them and also….”

“Yes?” Magdalene urged. “This is no time to worry over telling tales.”

“But I do not see that what Mainard said to me can have anything to do with Bertrild.”

Magdalene was suddenly aware that Henry, Codi, and the boys were all listening with deep interest. “Then let it go,” she said easily, knowing she could get Sabina alone either in her own rooms above or back at the Old Priory Guesthouse and discover what Mainard had said.

“So those five went into the workroom,” she said turning toward Henry and Codi. “Did anyone else do so?”

“Lord Baltom and his wife were there earlier in the morning,” Codi said. “He was on his way to Oxford and stopped in to bring a special blue-dyed leather to be decorated and used for the cantle and pommel of a saddle he has ordered for his wife’s mare—a lovely animal, but small.”

“They came on horseback?”

“Yes, but the horses remained in the Chepe.” Obviously Codi remembered Bell asking about the horse dung near the back gate. “There were grooms to hold them. The lord and lady came into the workroom to see the saddle frame and then we all came out into the shop. They are both in love with that mare and wanted to choose padding for the saddletree of soft-enough leather. They even had Stoc and Gisel out there to warn them to stitch carefully. Master Mainard warned that the soft leather would wear out, but the lord laughed. He said he would replace it, as with his wife’s present saddle. But he could have had nothing to do with Mistress Bertrild’s death. They were leaving London on Saturday morning.”

Magdalene swallowed a sigh of impatience, but made no reprimand. She
had
asked who had come with no qualification. She corrected herself. “I meant who could have taken the knife and used it on Bertrild.”

Codi shook his head. “No one. There were two—”

“No, three,” Gisel interrupted.

“Yes.” Codi nodded. “Three other customers who came into the workroom, but they, too, were on their way out of the city. Master Snelling lives in Greenwich. He only comes to London on Wednesday to do business and goes home on Friday. And Shipmaster Peter and his factor were sailing back to Spain. They came to ask whether Master Mainard had any special orders for them.”

“Are you sure?” Magdalene asked.

Henry shrugged. “I suppose someone could have sneaked from the shop to the workroom while I was busy with a customer at the counter outside, but I do not think so.”

Codi and the two boys consulted one another with their eyes. Magdalene watched keenly, but under half-lowered lids. Nothing appeared in any expression to give her reason to think they were hiding anything. Finally, Codi said there had been no one in the workroom except those he had named.

“And you can ask Master Mainard. He was there all day, except for dinnertime, and we had the door closed then.”

Magdalene nodded slowly and with considerable satisfaction. “Then it was one of those five who took the knife. Well, we are progressing.”

* * * *

Bell had made several interesting discoveries too. When he left Mainard’s shop, he had gone across the Chepe and north a little way along Gracechurch Street to a narrow road that held a stable. There he had rented a stolid gelding that would carry him safely, if not quickly, through the chaos of the market to the Postern Gate, from where he could ride south through East Smithfield to the Hospital of St. Catherine.

He was already known to the brothers, having done various kinds of business with them
for the bishop. The infirmarian was a little surprised when he asked to see Bertrild’s body because the death had taken place in London, but made no objection, summoning one of the lay brothers to lead him to the small chamber where she lay.

“We did not put her into the mortuary,” the brother said chattily, “because we are waiting for her husband to send her coffin and her shroud so she can be taken home for the funeral. But you need not fear. She is decently covered.”

“I am reasonably well acquainted with dead bodies,” Bell replied dryly, “and I have come to examine this one, so I will have to uncover it. She was sent here by Master Octadenarius because her death was not natural. Can you tell me who looked at her to determine the cause of death?”

“Oh, that would be Brother Samuel. Here is the chamber where she lies. Do you desire that I fetch Brother Samuel to you?”

“Very much, if he is free. It would be best if we could look at this body together.”

As the young lay brother hurried out, plainly not eager to be in the same room as a corpse, Bell almost called him back. He did not want to be kept waiting while a monk unhurriedly finished meditating or praying or attending to another dead body. However, he was not kept waiting long. Before he was even much tempted to uncover Bertrild’s body, a long, thin monk with wisps of gray hair and kind, tired eyes, came into the chamber. He had an odd gait, lifting his knees like a wading crane.

“Sir Bellamy? Is the bishop in Southwark?”

“No. Nor has he any interest in Mistress Bertrild. I was asked by the friend of a friend of her husband’s to learn what I could, this friend fearing Master Mainard would be blamed for her death.”

“They were not a happy couple?”

“I fear not.”

Brother Samuel sighed. “She was killed with great hatred. Not only that, but it is possible that more than one person attacked her.”

“More than one person?” Bell echoed, thinking of Sabina saying how much she wanted Bertrild dead.

She and Mainard had come back late to the house in the Chepe and could prove that, but Sabina had admitted it had taken them a long time to get from Master Newelyne’s house to theirs. Instead of sitting on an alehouse bench, could they have made a detour to the house on Lime Street, got into some quarrel with Bertrild, and killed her there? That was very possible, but why then should they bring the body to the yard behind Mainard’s shop? That would be insane. And where had they found a horse at that hour?

The monk had not responded directly to Bell’s astonished echo of his suspicion, instead stalking over to the trestle on which the body lay and pulling away the stained and threadbare blanket that covered her. Bell followed, right on his heels, all concern for a female victim of violence lost in his sharp interest.

“You see?” Brother Samuel said, pointing to the wound in Bertrild’s throat. “And then look here,” he added, one long finger just not touching a bruise and dent that almost certainly marked a broken collarbone. His finger moved then to indicate several other wounds in her chest, belly, and side.

The knife wound that had killed her was not nearly as large as Bell had expected it to be, and its edges were smooth, although the bruising of the flesh around it gave silent testimony to the force with which the blow had been delivered. On the other hand, the wounds in her chest, belly, and side were not only wider but showed a telltale tearing of the flesh at the top of each.

“She was
stabbed in the neck by one knife and then several times more by a different weapon—one with a curved tip,” Bell said.

“That is what I see also,” the monk agreed.

“But it was the wound in the throat that killed her?”

“Oh, yes. The knife went right through the Adam’s apple, the windpipe, and one of those big veins. She must have been dead before she could cry out.”

“Then why were the other wounds inflicted?”

The monk looked very distressed. “Hatred?”

“Possibly.” Bell’s voice was redolent with doubt.

That kind of hatred simply did not fit with Mainard’s character, or with Sabina’s either. That Mainard, drunk, had come to wring some concession from his wife, might have been prodded into a rage sufficient to stab Bertrild was possible. That he should then take
Codi’s
knife and stab her dead body several times…. No. And why would he have been carrying Codi’s knife?

Bell could easily have accepted a crushed head or crushed throat as Sabina’s work, but not stab wounds…unless the randomness of where the blows went could be a result of her blindness. A shocking notion leapt into Bell’s mind. If Bertrild had come to the shop in the Chepe and been hiding inside, and then had attacked Sabina in the workroom, the broken collarbone could have been Sabina’s work, even the aimless stab wounds, if Sabina had dropped her staff and picked up whatever was closest to her hand with which to defend herself. Then Mainard might well have killed his wife to save Sabina from punishment.

“Could the other stab wounds have been made first and the one in the neck last?” Bell asked the monk.

“No.” Brother Samuel shook his head sadly. “Come. I will show you why.”

Beyond the trestle on a stool by the wall was the clothing that had been removed from the body. The monk said that he had ordered it not be washed because he was sure the justiciar should see it. First, he picked up the cloak. Bell noticed at once that the fronts were both stained and stiff with blood, more nearer the neck than the hem.