Roberta Gellis (21 page)

“Ten pounds,”
he gasped as soon as he saw her. “Gerlund was holding
ten pounds
for Bertrild. He did not have all the money to hand. I will have to go again tomorrow or the next day. But he was also holding this.” Mainard held out a parcel, wrapped in oiled leather, tied with several cords, and sealed on every fold and knot. He swallowed hard. “I cannot open it. I cannot.” Tears stood in his beautiful eyes. “I cannot bear to know what evil I allowed that woman to do, all because I did not wish to contest with her. For my own ease, God knows what agony I allowed her to inflict on others.”

“Do not be ridiculous, Master Mainard,” Magdalene said. “There is no controlling that kind of person. If you blocked her one way, she would have found another.” She shook her head. “But I
am
beginning to doubt whether it is just to seek and punish her murderer.”

“If he had not taken Codi’s knife…. That was as cruel as anything Bertrild did.” Mainard sighed. “I know you are trying to comfort me, but I have done wrong. I did not even try to discover and prevent her evildoing. And I am too much a coward to look at this, which must be more evidence of it. Do you think I can burden Sir Bellamy with this also?”

“Actually he is the very person. If it is more jewelry, it is barely possible that he might recognize a piece. As the bishop of Winchester’s knight, he is often at Court and has business among the great men. And such pieces as you showed me are from a nobleman’s strongbox. When I next see Bell, I will ask him to wait on you—”

“Oh, please, Magdalene, please take this away. It is all sealed. If you are questioned about it, I will stand witness that I took that box from Johannes Gerlund and gave it to you to hold for me, just as it is, and Gerlund will have to stand witness, too. Give it to Sir Bellamy and tell him that I pray I will never again need to see it or its contents, whatever they are.”

He looked utterly distraught, his normal skin so pallid that the birthmark fairly flamed against it. Magdalene remembered how he had blamed himself for Bertrild’s evil. This was not a man who lightly sloughed off responsibility; he truly was driven beyond endurance just now. She reached out and took the box.

“Thank you,” Mainard breathed. “Thank you.” Then he frowned slightly. “I am so sorry,” he said. “I remember now that you came without my sending for you. I had meant to ask if you would, but you came—” His eyes widened. “Is something wrong? Sabina….”

“Yes, Sabina,” Magdalene said. “I wished to speak to you about Sabina.”

Just at that moment the bell at the door pealed. Mainard looked away, grabbed a purse from the top of a chest, and pushed it into Magdalene’s hand. A horrible grimace twisted his lips. “Please, take this for her board and lodging. Please do not force her to ply her trade.” Then the pallid natural skin flushed, and he bent his head in resignation, although he still would not look at her. “I am not trying to forbid Sabina any pleasure she desires. If she wishes to take other men, me being what I am, I will understand, but I want what she does to be her choice, not out of need.”

“Master Mainard,” Magdalene said indignantly. “I do not run a common stew. I do not force—”

Footsteps sounded on the stair, and Magdalene fell silent. There was no need to spread broadcast who and what she was. The still too-thin but no longer terrified servant stopped in the open doorway, grinned, and said, “Master Thomas FitzNeal and his lady are here to offer what comfort they can, Master Mainard.” He did not look as if he believed any comfort was necessary.

Mainard’s lips parted, but Magdalene put a hand on his arm. “It will do you no good to have me discovered in your bedchamber, Master Mainard,” she said softly, drawing her veil over her face and pulling her cloak forward so that it covered the parcel and purse she was carrying. “I will leave as soon as it is safe for me to go.”

The servant, who had been looking around the chamber, had lifted his head alertly when Magdalene said it would not be good for her to be found there. “I have shown Master FitzNeal into the common room, Master Mainard,” Jean said, now speaking much more softly. “If you will go down to him, I will take this lady out the back way. No one will know she was here, except me, and I will never, never say what could hurt you.”

“I am sure you would not, Jean,” Mainard said, almost smiling. “Nor is there any wrong in what I have done, but to have another woman in the bedchamber the day after my wife’s funeral would not look well, perhaps.”

“And such a woman as me!” Magdalene said, laughing, as she turned to leave.

* * * *

Bell woke in a much better humor than Magdalene had. He was rather looking forward to his morning’s work, but it was too early to begin so he lay abed a while—a rare indulgence—before he rose and broke his fast. While he lingered abed at his ease, he ran over in his mind the behavior of the five men at Bertrild’s funeral. That all five had come was interesting; even more interesting was how they all clung together; most interesting of all was the air of nervous expectation that hung about them. Bell reconsidered that while he was eating. All had acted as if they were waiting for something to happen, but each reaction to the expectation seemed different.

Having finished his meal in a leisurely manner, Bell bade a servant see that his palfrey was saddled while he fetched his cloak and his purse. He had determined to begin his questioning with Jokel de Josne, who had seemed more thoughtful than worried at the funeral and had left the group to speak to others most frequently. Bell had not been able to overhear any of those conversations, but from the expressions on the faces of those Josne approached, they were not best pleased with what he said.

A reason for that occurred to Bell when he had entered Josne’s shop. Although he called himself a mercer, Josne seemed to deal mostly in small foreign luxuries—sandalwood boxes, delicate bamboo fans, brass hinges and latches, and suchlike; however, his shelves were remarkably bare of goods. Items were well spread out but could not completely disguise the dearth of stock. It was possible that Josne had been explaining late deliveries or cancelling promised deliveries.

He still hoped to do business nonetheless, Bell thought, as Josne hurried into his shop in response to the ringing of a bell on the shop counter, but Josne’s expression changed from a broad welcoming smile to a grimace when he recognized who his visitor was.

“What can I do for you, Sir Bellamy?” he asked sharply.

“I am looking into the death of Mistress Bertrild, the saddler’s wife, at the behest of Master Octadenarius, the justiciar.”

The man nodded, lips twisting wryly. “I cannot think why anyone should bother. She was such a woman as the world will rejoice without.”

“You are not the only one to think so, but the law is the law, and a man who kills for a justifiable reason once may do so again for less reason or no reason if he finds killing easy.”

Josne shrugged. “You do not need to look far to find one who had the best reason in the world to be rid of her. She was a shrew and expensive and took joy in hurting and belittling her husband. He is not a man prone to violence, but once he found a woman who professed love for him, likely he decided to be rid of his encumbrance.”

“That is reasonable, only Master Mainard could not have murdered his wife. There are witnesses to say he was elsewhere at the time she was killed.”

“The whore, no doubt.” Josne shrugged again. “She will say anything that will profit her, I don’t doubt.”

“No, not the whore. A dozen or more men who knew him well. Thus, Master Octadenarius and I are constrained to look at any who had reason to wish to be rid of the woman. You had trouble with her, I know.”

Josne snorted. “When the Bridge Guild to which I now belong was first proposed and members solicited, Bertrild’s father, Gervase de Genlis, was proposed as a member—”

“By whom?” Bell
asked.

“I do not remember,” Josne said, thrusting forward his lower lip. “He was not accepted, but he did come to a few of the early meetings—one at the Old Priory Guesthouse. Somehow his daughter heard of that and when, not long afterward, Genlis was killed in an alehouse brawl, she blamed the other members of the guild who had attended that meeting.” He laughed suddenly. “Bertrild said we had corrupted her father, who was so corrupt already that the whoremistress of a good house would not let her women serve him.”

“I have heard Bertrild did more than blame you. She came to your shop and made a scene, and when you put her out, she stood in the street and cried aloud her charge of corruption. It might have been worth your while to silence her if you suspected she would create another such disturbance.”

“Do not be ridiculous,” Josne replied, without the smallest look of uneasiness. “If I did not murder her then, why would I do so now, several years later?”

“Because she had learned that your business was…ah…not as prosperous as it once was and she threatened to renew her accusations. What did not matter when all was going well might cause a disaster in less prosperous times.”

“Who said I was less prosperous?” Josne snapped.

“My eyes and the expressions of those you spoke to at Bertrild’s burying.”

“Nonsense!” The man’s eyes shifted. “It is true that a ship with my goods is a little delayed, but an accusation years old will not change that.”

This time Bell shrugged. “Where were you on Saturday between Nones and Vespers?”

“Not killing Mistress Bertrild! I was here, I think, or out walking for a while. Anyway, I did not hold any grudges over her hysterics. I had my revenge for that long ago.” Josne uttered a bark of a laugh. “Did you not know that it was we five, who had formed the Bridge Guild and whom she accused, who bought Master Mainard a night with Sabina? Perekin FitzRevery thought of it, and the five of us each contributed a penny. It seemed just. She had accused us of corrupting her father—who even Satan could not have spoiled, he was so rotten already—so we corrupted her ‘innocent’ husband.”

“Did she know that?” Bell asked blandly.

Josne showed his teeth in what was not a smile. “I am sure she did not. Had she known, she would have told the whole world—and that might have hurt me, since it is often women who buy my wares, and women might not think it so fair and funny that we led Bertrild’s husband to use a whore. But I did not kill her and would not for such a cause.”

“Perhaps not.” Bell half raised a hand in farewell, and added over his shoulder, “But I would try to find someone who can speak to your whereabouts on Saturday—and preferably not one of your men or one easily bribed.”

He stepped out while Josne was still fuming, but once he had mounted and turned his horse’s head west, he permitted himself to smile. That had been interesting. He had known about Bertrild’s attacks on the men leading the Bridge Guild, but he had not known how Mainard came to Sabina’s bed. He had assumed that being dissatisfied with his wife he had gone to Magdalene’s house and chosen Sabina because she was blind, but apparently FitzRevery had chosen Sabina for him. So that was why Mainard had said FitzRevery had done him as great a favor as a man could do.

Could he have done Mainard an even greater favor and removed the cross he was bearing? Bell almost passed Lintun Mercer’s shop to go on to FitzRevery’s, but decided to keep to his original plan of working the men from east to west and dismounted at what had been William Dockett’s mercerie.

This time the journeyman at the counter recognized him and waved him past into the shop. The young man looked almost cheerful, and Bell remembered that he had never mentioned the possibility that the bolts of cloth he had come to inquire about might have been diverted between the shop and their destination. If that half-smile was an acknowledgment perhaps he should…. No. It was none of his business. It was as likely that the journeyman had just had a very good day or hated his new master and hoped a second visit from the bishop’s knight would mean more trouble for Lintun Mercer.

An apprentice scurried up the stairs, and Master Mercer came down without delay. “I saw you at Bertrild’s funeral yesterday,” he said. “I did not know the bishop knew her or Mainard.”

“He does not, as far as I know,” Bell replied. “I attended as the eyes and ears of Master Octadenarius, the justiciar, who is interested in determining who killed her. He has on record a report of several disturbances caused by Mistress Bertrild and has asked me to determine the whereabouts of the men she accused of evildoing.”

“That was years ago,” Lintun Mercer said indifferently. “Master Dockett complained, and she was warned not to break the peace again. She did not.”

“What had Master Dockett to do with Bertrild?”

Lintun Mercer laughed. “Master Dockett was the one who was interested in the Bridge Guild, but he had sent me to the meeting at the Old Priory Guesthouse in his stead. That was how I came to be Bertrild’s target.”

“And you have had nothing to do with Mistress Bertrild since then?”

Mercer shrugged. “She stepped into my shop once or twice on her way home from Mainard’s place. I spoke to her as a courtesy to a fellow merchant’s wife, but I do not believe she ever bought anything.”
He cocked his head in thought. “No. No. She never bought anything.”

“Just to satisfy my curiosity. I am asking everyone she caused trouble. Where were you on Saturday between Nones and Vespers?”

“I was out in the morning for perhaps half a candlemark, but I had dinner here. Then I had to go Greenwich where there was a showing of Flemish
cloth, so I rode out. I was still on the road at Vespers, and I was worried about reaching home before dark—and, of course, my beast cast a shoe. It is so whenever one is in a hurry, is it not?”

“You rode your own horse?”

“Yes…well, actually it was William’s horse, but at need anyone in the household can use the beast.”

Hamo had said the horse and saddle looked as if they were from a livery stable. Still, a tale of a cast shoe was easy to tell. “Did you have the shoe replaced?”

“Yes, of course. I did not wish to lame the horse, but it is useless to ask me who did it or where. It was some hole in the wall past Deptford. I did not even ask the smith’s
name.”