Roberta Gellis (26 page)

“The cook is not enough,” Bell said. “You need two witnesses.”

“The pie seller was there near Sext, and he’ll remember because I nearly knocked over one of his trays when the cook grabbed me to throw me out. And—”

“And nothing. I want the names of the men to whom you carried messages on Thursday. I want to know how many of them and which ones came to the cookshop
on Saturday.”

Bell’s frustration grew as he realized that if Bertrild had been killed by someone who could not or would not permit more extortion, that man would not have bothered to go to the cookshop to make a payment Saturday morning.

“Don’t remember,” Borc muttered. “Mistress Bertrild told me where to go and I went. She didn’t tell me any names. Show me the men, and I’ll say if I remember their faces.”

Borc smiled when he said that, and Bell barely refrained from gritting his teeth and exposing how important the information was. Bell knew Borc understood it was safe enough to offer to identify the men if Bell brought them before him. Obviously, if he didn’t know who the men were, he couldn’t bring them for Borc to examine.

Instead of expressing his rage, however, Bell sighed ostentatiously and pointed out that if Borc thought he could continue the extortion, he was mistaken. No one would believe him against the word of rich merchants and, besides, the men were dangerous.

“If you didn’t kill Bertrild, don’t you realize it must have been one of them?
Yes, you’re a witness with important information. I’ll stick you in protective custody until the sheriff’s men can beat a sworn statement out of you.”

He gestured to his man-at-arms, who jerked Borc to his feet. Tom Watchman stepped back, and the man-at-arms who had come to fetch Bell and had followed him up the stairs stepped around him and grasped Borc’s other arm.

“Wait,” the man whined. “Wait. Don’t be so stinkin’ mean. Let me go around one more time. They can all afford a few pennies more. Then I’ll tell you, I swear I will.”

“Hmmm,” Bell said, as if he was considering what Borc said. “Show me some good faith. Tell me something else. You came to London with Bertrild’s father, Gervase de Genlis, didn’t you? So you knew most of Gervase’s friends and tenants?”

“Well, most of the tenants. Can’t say I knew his friends. I may have seen them, but—” he snickered “—Lord Gervase wouldn’t want them to know how close we were.”

“Did you know a man called Saeger?”

Bell was looking Borc straight in the face when he said the name, but then let his glance wander so Borc should not attach too much importance to the question.
Before he looked away, he saw a frown of thought and honest puzzlement; there was no sly shifting of the eyes or twisting of the lips. Bell judged that Borc was willing to please by answering questions about life in Hampshire in the hope that his cooperation would mitigate his treatment at the hands of whoever would imprison him.

“Saeger,” he repeated. “You know, it does sound like I heard that name somewhere, but it just don’t come to mind. But I’ll tell you this. If I get knocked around, it’s sure to get rattled right out of my skull.”

“That depends on how hard they hit you,” Bell said. “If it’s hard enough, I think the name might get hammered right in so you don’t forget again. How about Perekin FitzRevery?”

“Him I do know,” Borc answered, promptly and easily, his gaze suddenly steady.

Bell almost laughed at Borc’s expression. That in itself was a banner waving in warning. In addition, Bell detected a flicker of the eyelids, a tightening of the corners of the mouth that betrayed the intention of keeping some secret.

Still Bell asked with interest, “What
do
you know about FitzRevery?”

“Had a farm on the west side of the Itchen. Ah…let me think…. Hamble, that’s what it’s called. Nice farm. In the family for years.” Suddenly Borc’s mouth twitched, as if he realized Bell was not convinced of his truthfulness. He looked down, and tears began to leak from his eyes again. “Good years when we were out there,” he muttered. “Good years. But I was hot to come to London when Lord Gervase decided to leave Moorgreen. I thought I would find wonders in London. Wonders. Look at me now.”

“No, thank you!” Bell said. “It is no pleasure.” And then to the men-at-arms. “Put a rope around his neck before you take him down the stairs. If he wants to jump and hang himself, that can be as he wills, but don’t let him get away. I will meet you at the justiciar’s house on Gracechurch Street just south of the Cornhill road. Take him inside the gate, but not into the house. I do not believe that Master Octadenarius wants his house fumigated.”

Bell thought of going back to the bishop’s house to get his palfrey, but decided the time he would save on the less-crowded streets would be offset by the time lost getting across the bridge and through the Chepe on horseback. He went down the stairs, ignoring Borc’s cries that he was now prepared to tell him anything if he would let him go afterward. Bell was sure Borc had managed to think up a half dozen names, possibly even names Bertrild had mentioned, but not those from whom he had collected
money. He would talk just as freely or more freely after a few days in prison.

As ever, when he reached the bridge, Bell’s gaze passed down the street to where he could just make out the wall of the Old Priory Guesthouse. His lips twitched as he recalled Magdalene’s hurry to get him out of her bedchamber. He had been grateful at the time for her thoughtful protection of his reputation. Second thought had exposed her clever device and associated that rush with the documents he had left strewn on her table.

His lips twisted again but with understanding, not amusement.

Her eagerness to keep the documents was not for her own sake or even Sabina’s. Magdalene was a good friend. No “out of sight, out of mind” for her. Despite the fact that William of Ypres would never have known of Gervase de Genlis’s records, she would glean whatever might be useful to Ypres from them—just as she had made sure Ypres would know when and where the papal messenger’s pouch would be discovered. She was fiercely loyal, yet she was not Lord William’s woman. She could and sometimes did take other men into her bed.

She said the one thing had nothing to do with the other, that her body was like a roll of cloth that she cut a length from and sold. The severed length had no effect on the quality of the remainder of the cloth on the roll, and until the roll was all used up or her body worn out, each piece of cloth that she sold was as good as any other and as worth the price. Her loyalty was an entirely different matter.

Bell turned his back on the Old Priory Guesthouse and started across the bridge. Lord William, he knew, had done Magdalene many favors and always supported her against any attack from the Church or the Law. He remembered how Master Octadenarius had said he did not press Magdalene for information she did not wish to give lest he receive a visit from William of Ypres. And yet— Bell almost bumped into a counter thrust a little too far into the walkway; he stopped and remonstrated with the merchant and the counter was withdrawn a few inches. And yet—his thought continued exactly where it had left off—she had offered to put the parchments away and not look at them if that was what he wanted. A warm glow suffused him. She had put his desires ahead of William of Ypres’s interests.

The glow lasted just long enough for him to enjoy it; then common sense removed it. Magdalene had put his desire ahead of Ypres’s interests for a few insignificant hours. As soon as they looked at the records again, she would have learned everything anyway and would send the information off to Ypres. Bell was surprised at how little animosity he felt about that thought, but he grinned as he lengthened his stride. Putting jealousy aside, passing such information to Ypres was a practical necessity, and he himself would have seen that word got to Lord William if Magdalene had not.

Robert of Gloucester had abjured his oath of fealty to King Stephen the previous autumn. If the fact that the men in Hampshire would not pay for Bertrild’s silence did mean that Robert of Gloucester was planning to invade, William of Ypres would certainly be involved in the defense of the country. The sooner he knew of the possibility of Gloucester coming to England, the better his defense could be.

As he executed a neat twist to avoid a man with a tray of ribbons and a woman with pails of oysters hanging from a yoke over her shoulders and got off the bridge, Bell’s brow furrowed. Perhaps it would have been better if the news about the possibility of Gloucester’s imminent arrival came through his own master, the bishop of Winchester? He and Ypres had had their differences from time to time, but now they were drawing together, both worried about the influence of Waleran de Meulan on the king.

The frown cleared. No, it was better this way. He and Magdalene could do it by both roads. He would send a messenger to Winchester tomorrow. The bishop, although he still had not forgiven his brother for denying him the position of archbishop of Canterbury, would still send the warning on to King Stephen. From there, it might or might not actually get to William of Ypres, depending on Stephen’s mood and Meulan’s advice, but since Ypres would already have had Magdalene’s warning, he would doubtless inform the king himself. Perhaps the double alarm might stir Stephen to action.

When Bell looked around, he was coming out into the western end of the market and the sun was casting long shadows to warn of oncoming evening. He looked from John Herlyoud’s place of business to that of Ulfmaer FitzIsabelle. The goldsmith had stolen a dead man’s money, Bell mused as he walked along. Octadenarius would have to know about that in case there were heirs who had been defrauded. What Herlyoud had done, he did not yet know. He could guess that FitzRevery’s crime had to do with the farm at Hamble. Borc’s quick, smooth comment that it had been in FitzRevery’s family for years—by the reverse logic that must be applied to anything Borc said—implied that a problem lay there.

Recalling Borc made Bell quicken his pace as he came onto Gracechurch Street again. There were still shops, but the press of people was less, and in a short time he was pulling the bell at Octadenarius’s door. He was shown in immediately, directly into the justiciar’s private closet this time.

“You are early today,” the justiciar said, putting aside a roll of parchment he
had been examining.

“We have laid hands upon the man Borc, who collected the money Bertrild extorted.”

“I hope the sheriff is not going to complain to me about a
riot in the market.”

“No, my lord Justiciar.” Bell smiled. “As ever the whores of the Old Priory Guesthouse have been most helpful. One of them, a woman called Diot, knew Borc—as I told you yesterday—from a stew where she worked in the past. She induced him to give her part of his meal and offered to pay for it in the usual way. Then she led him to the lodging of Tom Watchman, and my men seized him quietly. They are bringing him along and should be here soon.”

“Bringing him here? Do you suspect him of being this Saeger and murdering his mistress—perhaps for the money he had taken and did not want to share with her?” Octadenarius sounded hopeful.

Bell knew it would be convenient if the murder could be fixed onto so worthless a character. He shook his head regretfully. “Unfortunately you know he could not have got into the house by either the front or back doors. The grocer’s wife was watching the front and could never have missed such a creature as Borc entering, and the merchants with booths at the mouth of the alley would never have let him pass. Beyond that, he can prove where he was all day on Saturday. In fact, he was in the cookshop where Bertrild’s victims delivered their sacrifice, watching to make sure they came. Some of them may have noticed him too.”

Octadenarius snorted with displeasure. “Then why bring him here where I will have to take note of his capture? Could you not squeeze the information you wanted out of him wherever you were?”

“Oh, I am sure lots of things would have poured out if I squeezed him, but little or nothing of it would have been true, and I really have no way to prove or disprove his accusations. If we play him right, however, his actions should tell us what we need to know.”

“If we play him right.” Octadenarius sighed, but under his heavy brows, his eyes twinkled, belying the mournful expression. “Why can I foresee my role in this will be busy and costly? If you had more strength of character and had resisted the importunities of Mistress Magdalene, I would have accused and hung the journeyman and not had all this trouble.”

“You would have been sorry for hanging Codi,” Bell responded, laughing. “He is really a most estimable young man and will be a fine saddlemaker some day. Would you really wish to exchange him for a man who not only knifed a woman but plotted to lay the blame on an innocent?”

Octadenarius sighed again. “I suppose not, although such a woman as Mistress Bertrild…well?”

“I would like you to put Borc in the Tun for a night or two and let them squeeze him there—but not too hard. I want him reasonably lively when you let him go. When he believes he has convinced them that he has told them everything, he maybe released—with several of your men on his tail. They are to watch him close. Sooner or later he will go into a number of respectable shops, shops where he could not possibly afford to buy and that would not employ so ragged and disgusting a person. Let your men make note of whose shops he tries and, if they can come close enough without being marked, what he said and whether he was given anything.”

This time Octadenarius’s face showed approval. “Very good. Bringing the creature as a witness might not convince a jury of a decent man’s peers, but the testimony of my men as to what they saw will be more effective. Did you learn anything about the messenger, this Saeger?”

“That was a question I think Borc answered honestly. He said he did not know, but admitted the name was familiar to him. That is possible, if Saeger was a servant of Bertrild’s uncle, Sir Druerie, rather than of Gervase de Genlis, whom Borc served, or was Genlis’s tenant or friend. But we should soon have an answer to whether the messenger was truly from Sir Druerie or not. Master Mainard sent a letter to Sir Druerie with a man of Perekin FitzRevery’s. FitzRevery has a farm at Hamble, west of the Itchen River, not far from Swythling.”