Roberta Gellis (14 page)

“I thought the messenger himself might be the killer. There is, after all, no proof that the man did come from her uncle, only his tale to the servants. And she knew him. She called him Saeger—a name Mainard said he did not recognize.”

“Yeeesss.” Magdalene drew out the word as she considered what Bell said. “But you had better hear what I learned from Codi and the boys.” She then recounted the evidence that only the five men who had visited the workroom on Friday could have got Codi’s knife. “And, even if it was not the murder weapon, it
was
used to stab Bertrild,” she concluded. “Unless…could she have been stabbed with Codi’s knife after the killer brought her body here?”

Bell gnawed gently on his lower lip as he considered that. “I am not sure,” he said slowly. “Brother Samuel said she was hard as a rock when he received the body, and he felt that she had died well before Vespers, perhaps not very long after Nones. Still, the stiffness that comes after death might not have been so great when she was brought here. Indeed, I wonder how the body could have been carried on the horse if it were rock hard.” He bit his lip a moment longer, then suddenly his expression cleared and he shook his head. “No, the wounds inflicted with Codi’s knife could not have been made long after death because there was some oozing of blood from them, and if she had been hours dead, I doubt there would have been any.”

“But what if the messenger brought her some information she had desired from her uncle, then he left, and she used that information in such a way that whomever she used it against killed her? Maybe she did not send the servants out to prevent them from seeing the messenger or learning what he said but to keep them from seeing the person who came next?”

“That is certainly possible. The errands Mistress Bertrild set the servants would have taken some time—sending the men to the West Chepe, for example. And even when the cook and the maid got back, the latchcords were all pulled in, and they had to wait for the men to hook them out.” He sighed. “I will speak to Master Octadenarius as soon as I can and ask him to have the neighbors questioned.”

Magdalene nodded. “And if you can convince him that Bertrild was killed before Vespers in the Lime Street house, then no guilt could attach to Mainard. I will just run up and tell Sabina—”

“Wait just a moment before you do that,” Bell said to her, then turned to Codi. “Master Mainard would like you to take the boys and go to the Lime Street house. He said that as you were part of his family you must appear there as mourners.”

“Yes, of course,” Codi said at once, beginning to gather the tools Magdalene had been looking at from the counter and replace them in his box. “It is not right for him to keep vigil with the dead all alone, and I cannot believe
she
had any friends who would sit with him. I will get the boys washed up and dressed in their best.”

Closing the box, he hurried through the door into the workroom. Magdalene cocked her head inquiringly at Bell.

He shrugged. “After you tell Sabina that Mainard is cleared of suspicion in his wife’s death, you had better tell her to go back to the Old Priory Guesthouse with you, too. Mainard told me to ask her to do that.”

A flicker of intense pain passed over Magdalene’s exquisite features. “Poor child,” she whispered. “I believe she truly loves him, and she never liked whoring.” Her eyes rose and her glance fixed his.

“I wouldn’t!” Bell exclaimed, defensively.

Magdalene laughed, raised herself on tiptoe, and kissed him on the nose. “You will never have the chance, love. You will never have the chance. I admit I do not like whoring either, but I
adore
being my own mistress and managing the Old Priory Guesthouse gives me that.”

She stood for a moment, smiling a challenge, and Bell’s fair skin reddened, but there really was nothing he could say. Naturally, if he took Magdalene into his keeping, he would expect to be master of the household. Her smile broadened and with a gurgle of laughter she turned away to climb the stair to Sabina’s chamber. Seething, Bell started to follow her, but he knew if he did, he would say something quite unforgivable, considering Mainard’s message. Fortunately at that point he remembered the second message Mainard had asked him to deliver, and with a sigh of relief, he walked out of the shop to the mercery next door.

* * * *

The din and crowding in the market had abated somewhat in the late afternoon lull. Nonetheless, the young man who stood beside the display of cloth, yarn, and rough, sheared wool was alert. A single glance at Bell made him step to the door of the shop and call for his master.

A man just entering his fourth decade walked through the door, bowed slightly to Bell, and gestured him to come in. He had light brown hair, showing a few glints of gray, round muddy-colored eyes, and an indeterminate nose.

“Is it true?” he asked Bell as soon as he was inside. “Is Mistress Bertrild dead?”

“Dead, but not of natural causes,” Bell replied, somewhat repelled by the man’s eagerness even though he knew no one would miss Bertrild. “To whom am I speaking?”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. I am Master Perekin FitzRevery. I forgot to say because I know who you are, Sir Bellamy. Is the bishop—”

“No,” Bell said. “My lord of Winchester is not involved. I am looking into the matter for a friend of a friend.”

“Ah.” A faint knowing smile touched Master FitzRevery’s lips, but he did not mention Magdalene’s house or Mainard’s whore. “Yes, it was rumored that Mistress Bertrild was murdered. I do not know what to say. I have not seen Mainard all day. Do not tell me that he is suspect? Oh, he had reason to want to be rid of her, but he is not that kind.”

“You need have no fear of suspicion attaching to him,” Bell said, with some satisfaction, wondering whether Master FitzRevery was defending or subtly accusing Mainard. “Master Mainard has most excellent witnesses that he could not have possibly killed his wife.”

“That is a great relief,” FitzRevery said, but Bell was not certain whether it was relief or surprise, even a touch of alarm, that showed on his face.

I have just come from Master Mainard, who is holding vigil for his wife in the house on Lime Street. You know where that is?”

“Yes.” The answer was short and hard.

“Master Mainard asks if you would do him the favor of stopping by the house. He needs to inform Sir Druerie de Genlis, Mistress Bertrild’s uncle, that his niece has died and would like, if it is possible, for one of your men to carry a message.”

“Oh, of course.” Now there was no mistaking the expression of relief on FitzRevery’s face. “Indeed, I will have a man starting for Hamble tomorrow. Is there anything else I can do? We have been friends a long time, Mainard and I. I would like to help in any way I can.”

“He did not say anything else to me, but he was uneasy about using me as a messenger for fear my pride would be hurt. I am sure, as you are friends, that he will speak more freely to you.”

“Yes, of course.” To Bell’s surprise, FitzRevery’s face actually paled, and his mouth twitched briefly into angry and bitter lines. His eyes shifted from Bell’s, and he added hurriedly, “If you will excuse me, Sir Bellamy, I will go at once and see what I can do for Master Mainard.”

Considerably bemused, Bell returned to Mainard’s shop, just in time to hear Codi say, “The boys and I are leaving now. Do you have your keys, Sabina?”

“We are leaving now also,” the young woman said softly. “Please wait and lock up after us. There is no need for me to take keys. I will not be returning without Master Mainard.”

Her simple dignity made Bell furious with Mainard and gave him the sinking feeling that the saddler had used her to help him murder his wife. Then he called himself a fool. Mainard might be innocent in some ways, but he ran a successful business, which warranted some shrewdness. No man who had used a woman to help him commit murder would then set her aside. But perhaps she knew he had not. Her serene face, her steady voice, the fact that she was taking nothing from the house, except her lute, all spoke her confidence that she would return.

Nonetheless, Bell felt a sudden determination to make sure that Mainard had been at Master Newelyne’s house from Sext until Vespers, so he asked Magdalene if she needed his escort. She grinned at him; he knew it even though the veil swathed her face; he could hear it in her voice, see the amusement in those lovely, misty gray-blue eyes as she thanked him, very gravely, and said she was sure they would be quite safe walking home.

She did not need him. He knew it, but it was a bitter potion to swallow each time she reminded him of it. And after this betrayal of Sabina by Mainard, it was less likely than ever that Magdalene would consider coming into his protection. With an ill-natured snort, Bell preceded the women out of the house and set off back to the stable where he demanded a less-sluggish mount.

He realized when he reached the West Chepe that he had no idea where Master Newelyne’s house was. However, he did know the man was a cordwainer, another leatherworker like Mainard, and a single question at the corner of Cordwainer Street brought him sure directions. A decent, contented-looking servant opened the door for him and led him into a well-appointed shop with displays of boots and shoes on shelves behind a broad counter. There were benches along the wall, likely for the trying on of shoes, on which the servant invited him to be seated while he went to “find” his master, but Bell found himself too restless to sit, and there was no need. Master Newelyne opened the door in a wall that closed off about one-third of the area into an office and entered the shop.

“Sir Bellamy? How may I serve you, sir?”

“I am the bishop of Winchester’s knight, and I have been asked by a tenant of my lord’s to look into the death of Mistress Bertrild, Master Mainard’s wife.”

“Bertrild is dead?” Newelyne gasped, and then grinned broadly. “Well, thank God for that! I cannot think when a man has brought me better news—except that my wife had birthed a strong son after three daughters, only it was a woman who carried that happy word. Come in. Come in to my private chamber. Have a glass of wine.”

He gestured expansively toward the door, then hesitated and frowned. “To look into the death’,” he repeated. “That sounds as if there is some doubt about the manner of it?”

“Yes, there is, Master Newelyne.”

“I see,” he said, more soberly, but gestured again toward the door.

Behind it was a very pleasant chamber with a small window looking out into Cordwainer Street, and a small hearth on the far wall, vented through the side wall of the house. Facing the door and at right angles to the window was a sturdy table with a chair behind it so the best warmth of the fire would fall on the seated person’s back. There was no fire in the hearth on this mild spring day, of course, but a flask of wine and several well-polished pewter cups stood to one side of the table.

“Sit. Sit.” Master Newelyne gestured to the several stools, one at each end of the table and two along its length. He poured a cup full of wine and set it in front of the stool Bell had chosen, poured another for himself, and went around the table to take his place in his chair. “How is his lordship of Winchester interested in this matter?”

“Not at all,” Bell answered promptly. “He is in Winchester and will know nothing about it until he receives my report. At the moment I am acting for Mistress Magdalene of the Old Priory Guesthouse—”

“Sabina’s whoremistress?” Newelyne’s cup hung suspended halfway to his mouth. “Just a moment. How did Bertrild die?”

“She was murdered.”

“How? When? Where?”

When Bell had answered those question, Master Newelyne sighed with relief, drank deeply from his cup, and set it down on the table. “Then Mainard cannot be accused of her death, thank God. He was here, in my house, on Saturday at the celebration after the christening of my son, from a little before Sext until after Vespers.”

“You are sure of that?”

“Yes, indeed,” he said positively, then shrugged. “Well, I did not have my eye upon him every minute, and Mainard always found a dark corner in which to hide himself
so he would not shock or frighten anyone, but he brought Sabina to sing. I greeted him myself and showed the girl where to sit. But the question is ridiculous.”

“How so?” Bell asked blandly. “He had the best reasons.”

“It does not matter,” Newelyne said. “Mainard would not have committed murder, no matter the provocation.” Then he sighed. “I know that, but she was a devil and it might seem to others, who do not know Mainard as well as I do, that he had reason enough to have killed her ten times over. Well, he did have reason, but Mainard would not hurt anyone, not even Bertrild, so I am glad to be able to assure you that he was here.”

“All the time? You are certain? There might have been circumstances—”

“Not under which Mainard would harm another living soul,” Newelyne said positively. “I have known Mainard all my life. My father had a cordwainer’s shop in the East Chepe when I was young, and Mainard and I played together as children and attended the same school. He saved my life some two or three times.” Newelyne laughed fondly, remembering. “As a boy, I was somewhat more daring than sensible, and even then Mainard was very strong. He pulled me out of several scrapes—once literally, when I had gone into a deserted house that then collapsed around me.”

“You might feel a sense of obligation toward him, then, and wish to protect him.”

“No, no. We were always even. I saved him many more times, sometimes just from a drubbing—” the smile Newelyne had been wearing changed to a grimace “—but once or twice he might have been killed by fanatic fools who claimed he had been marked by the devil. Killed because he would not defend himself.”

Bell nodded. “I can believe that. I know Master Mainard a little. But perhaps if it were not himself he needed to defend?”

Newelyne laughed. “That would be no trouble for Mainard. He looks strong, but you do not know the half. It is as if his body should make up to him for his face. He is much stronger even than he looks. He simply steps up to the attacker, pins his arms to his body, and carries him away.”