Roberta Gellis (34 page)

* * * *

Bell was welcomed to Mainard’s house with exclamations of consternation at how wet he was. Hamo ran out to take the horse to the shed behind the house, and Mainard offered Bell dry clothing, grinning with the characteristic turn of his head that partially hid the distortion of his face as he said there were few to whom he could make such an offer because of his size. Since he was shivering and did not wish to take a chill, Bell accepted, and Mainard gestured him toward the stairs to the solar, but when Bell had climbed them, he stopped dead at the open door.

“What has happened here?” he asked, looking around at the obvious signs of a ruthless search.

Some effort had been made to restore order, but the cushions that had softened and decorated the chairs were slashed, every chest was open and its contents strewn on the floor around it, and the elaborate bed was a wreck.

“It was much worse when I arrived,” a short, broad, gray-haired man said from a righted chair, and as Bell entered the room, “Bell? Bell of Itchen? Is it you?”

“Yes, Sir Druerie.”

“Well, what are you doing here in London? The last I heard of you was that you had gone as a mercenary—and after your father and mother had paid well to have you educated for the Church.”

“The Church did not suit my temperament, Sir Druerie, but the cost of my education was not wasted. I am now one of the bishop of Winchester’s knights, and my ability to read and write and even my knowledge of Latin has made me valuable to his lordship—as has my skill in arms.”

“Here.” Mainard, who had paid little attention to the exchange, handed Bell a pile of clothing he had picked out from the mess on the floor.

“Change. Change,” Sir Druerie said. “You are shivering. I would not like to have to admit to your parents that I was the cause of your death after all the dangers you have survived.” He lifted a cup of wine from a table by the chair.

Bell laughed, sneezed, and began to strip off his garments. When he was naked, Mainard handed him a cloth to dry himself, and Bell put on the saddler’s clothing. Big as he was, he found that everything was loose—and much more soberly colored than he was accustomed to. Moreover, he could not wear the shoes at all. For
the moment, he contented himself with a pair of woolen stockings, but he had been staring around as he dressed, and he asked again when he was finished who had searched Mainard’s house.

“I have no idea,” Sir Druerie said. “When I arrived, the door was open, and the house looked like this. The common room was even worse. All the rushes had been piled in a corner of the room, the contents of the garderobe were on the floor, and the garderobe was pulled away from the wall. Every chair and table was overturned, every cushion slashed open and feathers all over. I went to the kitchen to look for the servants, heard cries and thumping, and I found them locked into the shed. If FitzRevery’s man had not been with me and assured me it was the right house, I would have left.”

“FitzRevery’s man?” Bell asked.

“Yes, he who brought the letter from Mainard telling me that Bertrild had been murdered. As soon as I saw that news, I decided to come, and I told the man to stop at Swythling on his way back so I could accompany him. I was afraid that Mainard had killed her, you see, and I wanted to testify for him and see if I could get him free on self-defense or justifiable homicide.”

“I would not!” Mainard exclaimed. “She was not a good or kind person, but—”

“She was a devil—a devil to each person with whom she dealt. She turned my wife and daughter, a most loving pair always, into two cats, hissing and spitting at each other. She changed my daughter-by-marriage, a most cheerful girl by nature, into a watering pot. And clever with her evil! It took me months to realize what had caused the misery in my home. I was sorry to send her back to you, Mainard, but we could endure her no longer.”

“I should not have allowed her to go,” Mainard said, “but I believed she would be happier and thus more agreeable in your house. I thought it was only me she hated because she had married a monster for nothing.”

“You are not a monster,” Sir Druerie said. “I have seen worse in the small villages. And refusing to buy back the mortgages on Moorgreen was the wisest thing you ever did. She never intended to restore the land. She intended to make the house into a great manor and be the Lady of Moorgreen while the money from your saddlery supported her. You would have been ruined in no time at all.”

Bell frowned. “Clearly you and your niece were not on the most loving terms, Sir Druerie. Why did you take the trouble to send a messenger—”

“I never sent any messenger!” Sir Druerie exclaimed. “That was the other thing in Mainard’s letter that disturbed me. I could not help but wonder whether the man, whoever he was, was trying to involve me in Bertrild’s death.”

“I never thought of that,” Bell said slowly, as Mainard appeared by his side and offered a mug of steaming wine, redolent of herbs. He nodded his thanks, but continued speaking to Sir Druerie between cautious sips. “We are sure that the man who said he was your messenger killed Mistress Bertrild, but whether he made the claim just to get into the house or because he wished to do you harm, I do not know.”

“But who in London could wish to do me harm? I am no great lord. I live quietly on my land, I have been to London twice, no, thrice, in my life before this.”

“Saeger?” Bell said, carefully watching Sir Druerie’s face through the slight screen of the steam from his cup.

“Saeger?” Sir Druerie repeated, looking first totally blank and then, after a breath or two, puzzled. “Wait. Wait. I have heard the name, I am sure.”

“Will this help you remember?” Bell asked, reaching down to the pile of wet clothing on the floor and extracting the pouch in which he had carried the documents, which he handed to Sir Druerie.

Sir Druerie unwrapped the documents, looked at them, and shook his head. “These look to be wills,” he began, his eyes still on the parchments, “but the names on both are the same. Two wills?” He looked at Bell and then back down at the documents. “On the same date? And this? A record of a case in which
an indictment was obtained against…Saeger! For poisoning his wife…. Good God! Of course, I remember now. My brother was supposed to hear the case because Saeger’s farm was tenant to Moorgreen, but Gervase had already left, and it was presented before me. The man was guilty. No doubt about it, but we never caught him.”

So either Sir Druerie had sent Saeger to kill Bertrild because he knew he was guilty all along and kept him for such
work as most men would refuse to do, or, as he claimed, he had never sent a messenger and was not involved in Bertrild’s death. From past knowledge Bell hoped the latter was true.

“Did you know this man Saeger?” he asked eagerly.

“Know him?” Sir Druerie echoed. “Of course not. He was the son-by-marriage of a man who held a farm on Moorgreen land. How would I know a farmer’s son-by-marriage?”

“Sorry, Sir Druerie, I meant would you know him to look at. If you saw him again, would you recognize him?”

“I suppose so, unless he has changed out of all semblance. I was actually with him close to for several candlemarks. He was selling off some horses, and I had him bring them to Swythling for me to look at, since I knew Gervase could not afford to buy. They were good horses, well broken to the plough. I was surprised he was selling them.”

“What did he look like?”

“Look like?” Again Sir Druerie seemed astonished and then he nodded. “Of course. You believe the man committed murder, and you want to catch him. Hmmm. What did he look like?” He frowned, wrinkled his nose, then sighed. “He was very ordinary. Medium height, brown hair. I don’t remember the color of his eyes. He wore a brown smock, like most farmers….” He hesitated. “Not much help, eh? But I think I would recognize him if I saw him.”

“Perhaps we can arrange—” Bell looked around for Mainard, intending to ask him to think of a reason to collect the five men who could have taken Codi’s knife when he suddenly remembered why he was in Mainard’s house at all. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “Mainard, I was so shocked by this robbery—”

“But nothing was taken, so far as I can tell,” the saddler said.

“Nothing was taken? But why…. No! I will not be diverted again. I came to tell you that there’s another corpse out behind your house.”

“What?” The saddler who had been sitting on a stool, just out of Bell’s and Sir Druerie’s line of sight, jumped to his feet. “Who?”

“I am not certain, but from what Stoc said, I believe it to be Borc.”

“Borc? He was at my shop yesterday, after Nones, begging for money. He said he worked for Bertrild, and she had not paid him before she was killed. I cannot say I believed him, but he had been Gervase’s servant—

“Yes, he had. A most unsavory sort,” Sir Druerie said, shrugging. “He is no loss, whoever killed him.”

“I had hoped he knew Saeger and could point him out to us,” Bell pointed out. “And, I suspect from his timely death, that he
did
know Saeger and tried to make him pay for silence.” He stood up. “You are wanted at your shop, Mainard. I came to fetch you, but seeing the disorder here put my errand out of my mind.”

“Yes, of course,” Mainard said, looking distractedly around the room. “Codi will be out of his mind, poor boy. But how can I leave Sir Druerie—unless…would you be interested in coming with us, Sir Druerie, since the man was your brother’s servant?”

Sir Druerie laughed and tilted his head toward the window where the storm drummed against the closed shutters. “Go out in that rain to inquire about the death of a common servant—and a bad one at that? No, I thank you. Go, if you feel obliged to do so, Mainard. I think your servants will have put the common room into order by now. I will have them carry down the chests holding Bertrild’s things and look through them to see if there is anything my wife or daughters might find of use. The servants can give me dinner, I hope?”

“Of course. I will tell Jean. He will get Hamo to help carry anything you wish downstairs. I am sorry to leave you, but my poor journeyman and apprentices will be very frightened. Finding Bertrild was a terrible shock, and this atop it….”

While Mainard and Druerie were speaking, Bell had bundled up his wet clothing and picked up the wills and Genlis’s report of the indictment from the table by Sir Druerie’s chair. He pulled his pouch, into which he slipped the documents, over his shoulder and picked up his sodden cape.”

“You can leave that here,” Mainard said. “I’ll have the women dry it out. I can lend you another.”

While Bell struggled into his wet boots, Sir Druerie rose from his chair with a hint of reluctance, putting a hand on his hip and grimacing as he did. Bell, who had been a little annoyed by the man’s seeming indolence and arrogance realized he was prey to rheumatics, intensified by the wet weather. His guess was confirmed by the care and difficulty with which Sir Druerie navigated the stair. Bell would have offered his shoulder as a support, but the stair was too steep and narrow and he suspected, too, that the older man’s pride would have been hurt.

Since there was no place in which to leave his horse in shelter at Mainard’s shop and the distance was no more than a street and a half, Bell did not have Hamo bring his palfrey from the shed but set out to walk the distance at Mainard’s side. They turned the corner into the Chepe itself, and Bell recognized Lintun Mercer’s shop (recalling and dismissing the memory that the bolts of cloth had arrived when promised) a few doors down. As they passed it—it looked strangely naked without its counter as did the whole market with only a few open stalls sheltered—Bell could see FitzRevery’s shop and Mainard’s, too. Lacking the crowds, even Herlyoud’s and FitzIsabelle’s places of business…. Bell drew in a breath.

“What is it?” Mainard asked, looking anxious.

“Sir Druerie can recognize Saeger! He said so. That is our answer. You must arrange for the five men to come face-to-face with Sir Druerie.”

“I? You are asking me to be a Judas goat!” Mainard exclaimed.

“I am asking you to lay an ambush for a man who not only killed your wife—who I admit might have deserved killing—but also, for her property, another woman in Hampshire, of whom I know no ill at all.”

“But what if he did not kill Bertrild?
What if someone came in at the north end of the alley from Fenchurch Street? If a man wished to conceal his movements, he would have chosen to go farther rather than pass the stalls nearer my house. It is not impossible
that someone else—”

“Then if we lay hands on Saeger, he will have a chance to clear himself, at least of murdering
your
wife, and we will bring him to deserved justice for murdering
his.”
Bell’s voice was sharp, without sympathy.

Mainard wrung his hands under his cloak. “I suppose I must,” he said faintly, “but what am I to say? I am no liar, and I do not do business with any among them except FitzRevery. I will choke on the words if I must ask them to gather to talk of the bridge. Truthfully, I have not given it a thought or a moment’s time since Bertrild died. They will all know it is not the truth….”

“Then tell the truth,” Bell said. “Tell them that you collected ten pounds in silver from Bertrild’s goldsmith and that you wish to return it to those from whom she extorted it. That is the truth. You do wish to return the money, do you not?”

“Yes. But then they will know that I know from whom she took the money and…and why.”

“Hmmm.” Bell thought that over, then said slowly. “I think they, or at least one of them, knows already. Do I not remember that you said nothing was taken when your house was turned inside out?

“Nothing of real value. I have not counted up every shirt or pair of socks.”

“Then do you not think it possible that whoever did it was searching for the evidence….” Bell hesitated, sighed, stopped, and grasped Mainard’s arm. “At the funeral, you told someone about Bertrild’s tally sticks, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did. Was that wrong? I only told Pers, that is Master Newelyne. He has nothing to do with this, and he certainly could not have killed Bertrild or be Saeger.”