Roberta Gellis (17 page)

There was a short silence during which, in the back of her mind, Diot cursed Master Mainard with every foul word she knew. It seemed now that even if he were not accused of murder, he would not keep Sabina. And that meant that, likely, Diot’s dream of joy was over.

It had been so perfect—a life almost as elegant as that she had been driven from by her jealous husband and, added to the comfort and security in which she lived, a variety of men. A few were old and ugly, but many were in their prime. And none could tell her how to live her life, except for what kind of sex he desired. Even the sex was better. None of them was simply using a convenience that lay beside him, as well known and about as well regarded as his chamberpot. Most of the men came primed and ready for laughing and playing, for trying any new little game her fertile mind could devise, eager to escape from proper and dull cohabitation for the purpose of procreation and, since they were sinning already, ready to indulge in any extravagance of lust.

Somehow, Diot told herself, she
would
hold on to what she had. There was hope. Magdalene had allowed her to keep her room; it was Sabina who was lying on a camp bed in the spare chamber. Diot’s mind fixed on that bed and her spirits lifted. Sabina could entertain no clients on that bed. So she did not intend to take back her clients; she expected—or hoped—that Master Mainard would take her back whether or not he was free to marry.

If he could! Diot hastily withdrew her curses and imprecations. The best chance to rid the Old Priory Guesthouse of Sabina was to be sure that Master Mainard was not accused of murder and kept his reputation intact so he could afford to keep a mistress. Magdalene wanted gossip. Diot racked her brain, but the descriptions were too general to attach to any man she had seen in the stews, and besides, she did not really believe any of the men who came to Magdalene’s house would take a woman in the places she had worked. But there was one name. She bit her lip.

“Yes, Diot?” Magdalene said. “No matter what has come into your mind, tell us.”

“It is not about the men,” Diot replied. “But I have heard the name Bertrild before. It is not a common name, but there was one woman I once knew who was called Bertrild—she was from an old Saxon family—so when I heard it called aloud in Stav’s stew it stuck in my mind. Specially considering who was calling out thanks to Bertrild. It made me laugh. The Bertrild I knew was so high and mighty proud.”

“You do not mean to say that Bertrild worked in Stav’s stew?”

Sabina’s voice was redolent with disbelief. “She, too, is—I mean was—high and mighty proud. Her father was a lord and had a fine estate, and she blamed Mainard for not buying back the estate from the debts under which it was buried. She said she would have endured him, even borne him children so they could inherit the lands.”

“No, no,” Diot said. “I did not mean that Borc was exclaiming in pleasure over what a woman named Bertrild did. What happened was that this Borc is so degenerate, so filthy and diseased, that even Stav did not welcome him. However, one day he came to the stew with a handful of farthings. Stav made ready to drive him away, saying he did not want the sheriff in the house looking for a thief, and Borc said that Stav need not worry, that Mistress Bertrild had found a new source of money and had paid him for collecting it for her.”

“A new source of money,” Magdalene muttered, “and tally sticks of which Mainard knew nothing. Hmmm.” She looked at Diot. “Do you remember when this was?”

Diot sighed and shrugged. “Time was one long nightmare in Stav’s house. All I can say is that it was colder than it is now but not winter. A month past, perhaps a little more. Do you think it might be the same Bertrild? And if so, can the memory be of any use?”

Magdalene made no immediate reply. She was now staring at the floor biting her lower lip. “Borc,” she muttered. “I am sure I have heard that name before…or do I just want to remember it? Surely though….” She looked up at Diot again. “You sound as if Stav knew this Borc.”

“I think he did, but from an earlier time. One of the bath women, her name was Ann and she warned me against Borc, said that Borc used to come to Stav’s old house, one that was almost under the bridge. She told me Stav left that place because it came under too-close and too-frequent scrutiny by the sheriff’s men, being so close to the main road south.”

“That would make it quite close to this house,” Magdalene said, her eyes intent. “So if a master came to this house, the man might be sent off or choose to wait at Stav’s place. Yes, go on.”

“Well, in those days Borc apparently had money to spend, and he always liked to have two or three work on him at once—a tongue in his mouth, fingers up his ass, someone sucking his cock, and another licking his balls. But one night he came in and when he was done, he said he couldn’t pay, that his master was dead. Stav was going to have him beaten to a jelly, but he swore he had a new place lined up and would pay the next time.”

“So,” Magdalene said, sounding satisfied, “my memory was not at fault. Go on, Diot. I think you may have found the end of an important string.”

“There is not that much more. Ann said that Borc did come again, a few weeks later, but that time Stav wanted his money first, and Borc had only two farthings. That Stav wrested from him—in part payment of the debt he owed—threw him out, and told him not to come back until he had the full sum—and not to dare to go elsewhere when he had the money or he would be found and broken in parts.”

Magdalene nodded. “Yes, indeed, it all fits. I am almost sure the woman who gave Borc the money was Mainard’s wife, Bertrild—”

“Would Bertrild know such a person?” Sabina asked. “She holds—held—herself very high.”

“She knew Borc because he was her father’s servant. I knew I had heard the name when Diot mentioned it. At that time he was not so filthy and ragged, although he was usually drunk. He came with Gervase de Genlis, and I refused to let him wait for his master anywhere in my grounds or go to the priory because the first time de Genlis brought him, one of our clients found Borc going through his saddlebags when he came out of my house. Borc might well have gone to Stav’s place to wait for his master.”

“So if Borc collected money for Bertrild,” Diot said thoughtfully, “would it not be most likely one of those who paid her—I suppose to be silent—would kill her? Perhaps one was her uncle and his messenger brought death instead of gold.”

“True,” Magdalene agreed, “although there is still the question of how he got Codi’s knife. But, if one of the five who was in Mainard’s workshop is also on Borc’s list of those from whom he collected money…. Yes. Now, how do we lay our hands on Borc to ask him? Do you think Stav would know?” she asked Diot.

“Stav always tries to know something about those who come to his house, but Borc…. I do not see what he could hope to gain from knowledge of Borc.”

“Who Bertrild was? From whom she was collecting? Well, well, it is too late now; it is near dark, but I think I will go to Stav’s place and also to—” She turned to look at Letice. “For whom did you work when you lifted seals, Letice?”

“not tere now” the slate read.

“I know,” Magdalene said, “but the new whoremaster or whoremistress will probably know what happened to him.”

Letice nodded and shrugged, then indicated that she would take Magdalene there the next morning.

After he had interviewed the last of Newelyne’s guests who had known Mainard, and a few more—in case Newelyne had given him only the names of men who would speak well of the saddler—Bell decided he had better take the information he had gathered to a responsible official. He settled on the justiciar because he had worked with Master Octadenarius on a problem the bishop had needed secular authority to settle.

It was nearly sunset when he arrived at the justiciar’s large and elegant house, so he was not surprised to find him at home.

“You are zealous, Sir Bellamy,” Master Octadenarius said. “My lord of Winchester is well served.”

As he spoke, he waved Bell across the large common room to which the servant had admitted him through a doorway and into a private chamber. He preceded Bell to a short, highly polished table and indicated a handsome stool, himself moving around the table to sit down in a large, imposing chair with arms as well as a back. While Bell settled, by habit immediately arranging his sword so that it did not pull his belt and would draw freely from the scabbard, he was aware of Octadenarius’s shrewd black eyes rapidly assessing him.

“Not today,” Bell said, smiling. “I confess I have been hard at work, but not on the bishop’s business. Well, I did straighten out a small matter of some bolts of cloth that had not been delivered, but most of my business today was interfering with your affairs, my lord Justiciar.”

“What?”

“You know that the Church, in particular the diocese of Winchester, owns the property adjoining the priory of St. Mary Overy called the Old Priory Guesthouse?”

“I do,” Octadenarius said, not quite so cordially.

Aha! Bell thought, he is or has been a client there; however, nothing showed on the experienced soldier’s face. “Through collecting rents and suchlike,” he continued blandly, “I have become well acquainted with the whoremistress, Magdalene la Bâtarde.”

“Was not she involved with the murder of a papal messenger only a few weeks ago?”

“Yes, she helped prevent the murderer from stabbing the bishop, and I was forced to kill the man. It would not have come under your hand anyway, because Guiscard was a clerk in minor orders. The church would have dealt with him. As to Magdalene, despite her profession, she is a decent woman and treats her whores well. When one wished to leave her, she did not interfere, and soon after the murder was solved, the blind whore from her house was taken into keeping by a master saddler, Mainard—”

“Whose wife was found dead in his backyard. Yes. What is this to do with you?”

“Sabina, the whore, is deeply attached to Master Mainard, who has been most indulgent to her. She came and begged Magdalene to save Mainard from being accused of killing his wife, who, I must admit, richly deserved killing.”

“The whore said Master Mainard was with her every moment from noon, when they went to a christening party, until they were wakened by the apprentice’s finding the body.”

“Yes, and that is likely true.”

Bell was shocked as the words came out of his mouth. He had not, until that moment, been sure whether he would tell Octadenarius that the saddler’s whereabouts during the party were by no means certain. It seemed he had decided without real thought. Well, he had heard enough over the day to be sure that if Mainard
had
killed his wife, he was not likely to commit another crime.

Bell sighed. If he found real proof of Mainard’s guilt, he told himself, he would have to reconsider, but for now there was no sense in casting a shadow over Sabina’s lover. If Octadenarius thought he had the killer in hand, he would look no farther, and Bell could use his help. He had spoken right by instinct, Bell decided. He would keep his own counsel about Newelyne’s party.

“But—” Octadenarius prodded, having noted the sigh.

“But Sabina,” Bell continued, “was terrified that you would discount her word because she had been a whore. And she knows what her word would be worth in a court of law if Master Mainard were tried for the crime.”

“So?”

“So Sabina went weeping to Magdalene, and Magdalene, knowing I was in London on the bishop’s business, sent for me, and I…ah…cannot resist Magdalene, so I went to see what I could see. And I discovered that Mistress Bertrild was not killed in the backyard of Master Mainard’s shop or anywhere near the shop.”

The laughter that had crinkled Master Octadenarius’s eyes, although his lips did not twitch, when Bell said that he could not resist Magdalene, promptly disappeared and was replaced by shock. “What?”

“Because none of us could understand what she was doing there in the middle of the night, I carefully examined the entire yard and—”

“She was not killed in the middle of the night,” Octadenarius interrupted rather sharply. “Brother Samuel at St. Catherine’s Hospital told me he believed she was dead before Vespers, possibly not long after Nones.”

“That is true, my lord Justiciar, he told me the same thing. Can you really believe that the body lay in the middle of the yard from before Vespers until dawn the next day without anyone noticing it?”

“No, of course not. I assumed she was killed in the shop, hidden, and then put in the yard at night.”

“Killed in front of Codi and the apprentices? By whom? Hidden where?”

“I believe she was killed by the journeyman—she was heard to threaten him earlier that day—and the apprentices were terrified into silence—”

Bell began to laugh. “Did those boys look terrified of Codi? Of Master Mainard?”

Master Octadenarius scowled horribly. He was a busy man. The murder of one unpleasant woman of no particular stature or reputation in the community was not a very important matter, and the solution of the crime had seemed obvious. He had intended to send a man to gather a few more facts and then to arrest Codi.

Now that he had been forced to rethink his quick conclusion that Codi was guilty, he had a vivid image of the two boys clinging to the big journeyman; he heard again the reassuring voice in which Codi had urged them to tell everything they knew. He knew he did not really believe they were afraid. They sported no bruises; they were well fed, well clothed. There had been no shadow on either boy’s face when asked about Codi or his master. He sighed gustily.

“As I remember from the time I worked with you to settle the bishop’s problem, you are not wont, to look for an easy path, Sir Bellamy. So what have you to tell me?”

It was such a sufficiently long and interesting tale that the justiciar invited Bell to take the evening meal with him. And when both were replete and toying with cups of wine, Octadenarius said, “So she was killed in her own house and moved to the shop. In God’s name, why?”