Roberta Gellis (12 page)

Moreover, Bertrild had
not
been killed in the yard. Blood had run down her neck— Bell had noticed it along the lobe of her ear where it had not been washed away completely when the monks prepared her for burial. Doubtless that had happened when she fell or was laid down after she had been killed. Nor had the blood been caught in the hood of her cloak, though there was some on the back of the neckpiece, so it would have stained the grass. So Codi, if he killed her, must have done so in the workroom. Could Gisel and Stoc have slept through that or not betrayed any consciousness of such a horror? And there was the fresh horse dung.

There must be another solution, Bell thought, and said to Mainard, “Then it becomes important to know what your wife did after quarreling with Codi on Saturday morning.”

“She quarreled with Codi? But….” He took a deep breath and the normal skin on the left side of his face reddened with rage. “Did she attack Sabina again?” And then his eyes widened with realization of what he had betrayed.

“No, she did not,” Bell said. “Sabina heard her demanding that Codi make a belt out of some blue-dyed leather, which Codi refused to do. Mistress Bertrild did not go up to Sabina’s rooms, and she was seen to leave your shop alive and in good health.” He shrugged. “Master Mainard, you need not lie to protect Sabina or anyone else. Sabina trusts Magdalene utterly and me because she knows Magdalene would murder me if I betrayed her. We know everything Sabina knows.”

If anything, Mainard looked relieved, but he shook his head. “I cannot tell you where Bertrild went or what she did. To speak the truth, Bertrild and I were not on such terms that we talked about anything. Our only exchange of words was for her to demand money and, mostly, for me to refuse to give her more. I have no idea what she did all day—or even at night.”

“Would the servants know?”

“I have no idea. They are slaves, not free, and she treated them very badly. I did what I could, but if I tried to ease their circumstances, she inflicted new torments on them. She did not confide in them, of course, but doubtless they would know when she was in the house and when she was gone. Shall I call them?”

“One at a time, please.”

Jean was the first. Mainard brought him in, patted his shoulder gently, and went to sit down again on the bench near the hearth, leaving Bell facing the man. Bell remembered the hostile look, the slammed door, but the servant was already trembling with fear, and he could see no point in increasing his terror, which could easily lead to his insisting he knew and remembered nothing.

“I am Sir Bellamy of Itchen, the bishop of Winchester’s knight,” he said quietly, “and I have come here to discover, if I can, who killed Mistress Bertrild.”

“I don’t know,” Jean cried. “I didn’t.”

“I did not think you did know,” Bell replied soothingly, but did not comment on the terrified denial.

He took in the man’s starved look, the clothing worn to shreds—most unusual in household servants, even slaves. Normally what held household servants to their work, even for unpleasant masters, was the expectation of warmth and shelter and full bellies. Could the mistreated household slaves have been tried too far? Did Jean and the others know Mainard’s shop and its yard? To voice any suspicion, however, was to silence his witness.

“What
I
would like you to tell me, if you can,” Bell went on calmly, “is nothing immediately to do with the murder. I want to know what Mistress Bertrild usually did every day. Of course, if you know what she did on Saturday, that would be specially helpful.”

Jean’s eyes went past Bell to Mainard, and the saddler nodded encouragingly. “Just tell Sir Bellamy anything you know, Jean,” he said. “You need not be concerned about me. I am out of it. I was at a christening from noon until Compline.”

To Bell’s pleasure, Jean turned back to him almost eagerly. “Well, mistress was alive long after noon. I can swear to that and so can cook and the maid and Hamo, for she sent us all out on errands maybe a candlemark past Nones.”

“All of you? All at once?” Bell asked.

Jean nodded. “Yes.”

“And had she done that before? Was it usual?”

“No, master, not usual. Can’t remember her ever doing it before. Belike it was to do with that messenger that came and waited for her.”

“Messenger?” Bell repeated eagerly. “From whom? What did he look like?”

“From her uncle, he were. Least that’s what he said to me. ‘From Druerie de Genlis to see Mistress Bertrild, at once. The matter is urgent.’ I told him she weren’t here and he seemed angry, but then he said he’d wait and I took him in here.”

“Can you describe him?”

Jean shook his head, looking disappointed. He was clever enough to recognize Bell’s interest and that it was safer engaged on a stranger than on himself. “Never saw his face,” he admitted. “He was coughing and sneezing and wheezing and had his hood pulled way down to his nose. Don’t think his voice was like it usually was either. He was sort of croaking and clicking.”

“Interesting,” Bell said, and turned to look at Mainard, who stared back, wide-eyed with surprise. “Did Bertrild’s uncle often send her messengers?” he asked, including both men in the question.

“I cannot remember him ever having done so before,” Mainard replied at once, “although he did send a message back with her courier that she would be welcome when she asked if she could stay with him for some months last winter. But since then, if one came during the day, I might not know.”

“No, master,” Jean said promptly. “None came that I ever knew of. But he must have come from her uncle because she knew him. As I closed the door, the mistress said ‘So eager, Saeger? You are early.’ ”

“Saeger?”

Bell turned to Mainard again, who shook his head. “I know no Saeger—not that I know Sir Druerie’s servants—and I never heard Bertrild say that name before.”

“Bertrild was childless so whatever she brought to the marriage would go back to her next of kin if she died…. No, wait. I think I know Sir Druerie. Of Swythling, is he not? That is just upriver from Itchen. How strange that he should be Bertrild’s uncle. He seemed like a decent man—but then, I only met him once or twice, and that was years ago.”

Before Bell finished, Mainard had begun to laugh. “I never met Sir Druerie,
but decent man or not, he would not have wanted what Bertrild brought to our marriage. Believe me, that would be no reason for him to do away with her. She brought nothing but debts. There might be other reasons. She lived in Swythling from November until February. Who knows what happened there. Could she have made an enemy of this Saeger?”

Bell turned his attention back to Jean. “When she said ‘So eager, Saeger? You are early.’ did she sound angry? Frightened? Surprised?”

Jean’s mouth turned down. “She sounded like always. Like she was lookin’ down her nose, talkin’ to a worm.”

“He must have put back his hood if she recognized him.” Bell said thoughtfully. “Was he still coughing and sneezing then?”

“No.” Jean’s eyes brightened. “No, nor when I opened the door for the mistress to go in. It was quiet in the room. And I’ll tell you somethin’ else. His boots weren’t right.”

“Weren’t right?” Bell urged.

“They were city boots—polished leather with thin soles. No countryman wears boots like that, specially not a servant carryin’ a message.”

“Do you remember anything else….” Bell began, and then held up his hand. “No. This is no way to go about this. Start at the beginning of the day, Jean, and tell me everything you remember that your mistress did and said.”

The man looked puzzled, but began at once. “She got up usual time. Nell can tell you that better than me, and cook will tell you what she ate. She left the house a little before Tierce, like always—”

“Yes,” Mainard put in. “That would be right. She came to the shop Saturday mornings for money for the week. I left that for her with Codi. I had to go early to Basynges to deposit the week’s earnings because I had to take Sabina to Newelyne’s house by noon.”

“She came back in a real fury. Slapped me when I opened the door and kicked me too. Then she went up to the solar. She sent for dinner just before Sext.”

“Did you bring it up?” Bell interrupted.

“No, sir. Never allowed onto the upper floor, not Hamo or me. We cleaned, tended garden, carried water and such but all down here. Nell did the cleanin’ in the solar and bedchamber. She or cook carried up the mistress’s dinner. I’m not sure which.”

Bell nodded. “I’ll speak to them later. Go on.”

“Came clown maybe near two candlemarks after Sext carryin’ the usual bundle of tally sticks—”

“Tally sticks?” Mainard echoed. “Are you sure? For what did Bertrild need tally sticks?”

The servant naturally could not answer the last question and assumed, correctly, that it was just an expression of astonishment. “Knew they was tally slicks because once she tripped on the stairs and dropped them. Wrapping came open, and they fell out all over the floor. Know what tally sticks are. Me dad had them afore we lost the farm and I got sold.”

“Do you know where she took the tally sticks?”

“No, sir.”

“Did she have them with her when she came back?”

“Yes, she did. When I said there was a messenger from her uncle in here, she…she bit her lip and went through to the kitchen. Didn’ have the bundle when she came back. Then she pointed for me to open the door, and she went through. Like I said, it was quiet until she asked this Saeger if he was eager.”

“Did you hear anything else?” Bell asked.

Jean pursed his lips, then pulled them back. “A squeak?” he said uncertainly. “I was just goin’ away to sit on the stair, but he couldn’t of killed her then because a little while later she opened the door and told me she had several errands that must be done at once. The only thing ….” Jean hesitated.

“Yes, go on. Even if you don’t think it’s important, tell me anyway.”

“It’s just…those errands, they weren’t nothing special. She sent the cook off to market for extra food, as if the messenger was going to stay, and she sent Nell off to the laundress, like more sheets and tablecloths was needed. And she sent me and Hamo all the way over to the West Chepe to buy candles, like we didn’t have a candlemaker just beyond Master Josne’s house on the corner of the East Chepe.”

“Well, it is clear enough that she wanted you all out of the house. The question is why. No, never mind that, Jean. There is no way you could know the answer to that. So you all left. And when you came back?”

“There weren’t no one here. House were empty—and not locked up neither, only the bell rope and the latchstrings they was all pushed inside. Had a time fishin’ out the one for the back door.”

“You all came back at the same time?”

“No, acourse not. Cook was back first. She was mad as fire, the fish havin’ dripped all over her basket, and Nell was there, too, when me and Hamo came. But cook and Nell couldn’t think of how to get the latchstring out, so they just sat down to wait. We saw the horse were gone, and we didn’ know how to feel about that. Mistress would be glad to save what he would have eat, but if she wanted him to stay and he wouldn’, we’d all get beaten.”

If anyone had good reason to kill Bertrild, those four servants did, but Bell did not think—if Jean was any example of what the others were—that they had sufficient spirit. And if they had, there would be time enough to question all of them more straitly. So far, Jean was talking freely and easily, and Bell did not want to dry up the source by implying suspicion.

“Did you look through the house when you got in?” he asked.

“No, sir. Thought the mistress and the messenger would be back any minute. Cook was ravin’ ‘cause she didn’ know whether to make extra for the evenin’ meal—if she made more and didn’ need it, mistress would whip her. And Nell were cryin’ ‘cause she didn’ know what kind of bed to get ready and whether it should be down here or up in the solar. She’d get whipped too for not bein’ ready. Hamo and me just sat down on the stair—me to open the door and carry whatever needed bringing in and Hamo to take the horse to the shed.” He paused and then a beatific smile lit his thin, haggard face. “But she never come, and now she never will.”

Such open delight in Bertrild’s death almost precluded Jean being a cause of it. “You did not think to send a message to Master Mainard when his wife did not return home?”

Horror filled Jean’s eyes. “Send a message without the mistress’s order? How could we know if she went somewhere with the messenger and didn’ want master to know? She’d of tortured us to death!”

“Very well,” Bell said. He had experience with mistreated servants, who would do nothing without specific directions, and he thought that for the moment he had drained Jean dry. “Send in Hamo, please.”

The second man was even more pitiful than Jean, dull and terrified. It took Bell and Mainard a little while to calm him enough to answer at all. He had been outside when the messenger came and had seen and heard nothing, but then Bell struck the right note and asked about the horse. Dull, Hamo was, but he loved horses and knew them. When he and Jean had come around the front of the house to go to the West Chepe, he had seen the horse. The messenger’s horse, he reported eagerly, glad at last to have something to tell his master, did not look as if it had come a long way, not unless the rider had travelled very slowly. Moreover, he said, the horse and the saddle were like Bell’s, and then, wringing his hands, that he didn’t know how to say it better.

“But I am not riding my destrier, or my palfrey,” Bell said to Mainard. “I rented a horse from a local stable because I did not wish to walk all the way to St. Catherine’s.”

“That’s what I saw,” Hamo whimpered, trembling.

“We believe you,” Mainard soothed. “Do not worry about it. I know you are good with horses. Was there anything else you saw that was strange?”

“Not then.” Hamo swallowed hard. “When we come back, after we waited a while for mistress, I remember that I left the wheelbarrow out, and I run out back to put it away in the shed…but it weren’t where I left it. I near to died of fright. I didn’t dare tell no one.” He began to shake with recalled terror, and tears ran down his face. “I thought maybe if I run to the master before light the next day, he’d let me say he wanted it. But when I got up to sneak out of the house, the wheelbarrow
was
there—”