Roberta Gellis (6 page)

It must be Mainard’s wife who was dead, and if Sabina was so overset, he must have put her out, hoping to find a respectable wife who would bear him untainted children.

“Murdered,” Sabina got out between sobs. “Bertrild was all but cut to pieces in the yard of Mainard’s shop. Oh, she deserved to die, but now Mainard is suspected.”

“Bertrild was murdered?” Magdalene echoed.

She hardly heard the end of what Sabina had said. If Bertrild had been murdered, someone would soon remember the trouble that devil of a woman had tried to make for those of the Old Priory Guesthouse. Would she and her women be accused of taking revenge?

“Mainard did not!” Sabina cried. “I know he did not!”

By now Letice and Ella had put down their embroidery
and risen to their feet. Both added their comfort, Letice patting Sabina’s shoulder and Ella stroking her head and making soft reassuring murmurs. Diot also put down her work, but she did not move. She watched the scene with wide, frightened eyes. If Sabina’s lover was guilty of murder, the blind woman would be forced back into the Old Priory Guesthouse. If she came back, her clients would return to her and there would be none for Diot herself.

“Hush, Sabina,
hush,” Magdalene was saying. Sabina shuddered convulsively, and Magdalene clutched her closer. “Come, love,” she crooned, leading Sabina toward the table and benches. “Come and sit down.”

Between them all, Sabina was seated on one of the short benches with Letice and Ella standing beside her and offering comfort. Magdalene sent Haesel off to the kitchen, where Dulcie would keep her busy one way or another. Then she seated herself on the corner of the inner long bench and took one of Sabina’s hands in hers.

“Dearling,” she said gently, “do you want to come back here to stay? You will be very welcome.” She heard a sound, half gasp, half sob, and glanced briefly toward the hearth where Diot still sat, her eyes fixed on them.

“No!” Sabina cried, recoiling. “I will never leave Mainard, never! He did not do it! Oh, help me! Help me to prove that he is innocent. Mainard could never kill a woman, not even such a devil as she was.”

“Truthfully, I would not have believed he could,” Magdalene said thoughtfully, patting Sabina’s hands. “Despite his appearance, I could have sworn Mainard was one of those who tears out his own lungs and liver when he grieves or rages and never allows his bile to spill over on those around him.”

“It is true,” Sabina breathed.

“Perhaps,” Magdalene said. “But I am afraid we will need more than your feeling or mine to keep him from being hanged. I would surely have killed Bertrild if she were my wife.” She hesitated momentarily, thinking she was coining too close to her own past truth, and she continued quickly, “Is Mainard taken by the justiciar?”

“No,” Sabina gasped. “No. He is gone home to the Lime Street house to wait for the brothers of St. Catherine’s Hospital to clean and release the body. He said also he would speak to the priest about the burial.”

“If he is suspect, why did the justiciar release him?”

“He did not do it! He was with me the whole time!”

Her hand closed so hard on Magdalene’s that the nails bit into the flesh. Magdalene looked down at Sabina’s hand. “You told Master Octadenarius that Mainard was with you when Bertrild was murdered, and he allowed Mainard to go home. Then why are you so frightened, love?”

Sabina was shaking so hard that both Letice and Ella squeezed onto the bench with her and embraced her, one on either side. “Because if they cannot find who really killed Bertrild, you know they will discount my testimony. I am a whore!” She burst into tears.

Ella began to cry also, and Magdalene told her to get some wine for Sabina and then to go help Dulcie and Haesel in the kitchen. Ella was easily frightened and should not hear what would prey on her mind because she could not understand. As she turned back to Sabina, Magdalene wondered whether what Sabina had said about Mainard being with her was true, and she frowned as she thought of Master Osbert Octadenarius casting around to discover who else might have wanted Bertrild dead. He would surely remember that Bertrild had brought a complaint before him about her and the Old Priory Guesthouse.

When Sabina had sipped the wine and her sobs had quieted, Magdalene said, “I think you had better tell us the whole tale from the very beginning.”

“Oh, I am not sure where the beginning is.”

“Mainard has been married to Bertrild for some years. He must have known what she was long ago. Why was she killed now? Was there some particular thing that happened, something Octadenarius could discover, that could have driven Mainard to violence?”

“It is my fault. All my fault.” Sabina sighed tiredly. “You know when I agreed to go and live with Mainard, both of us believed that Bertrild would not care, that she would be glad to be free of him.”

Magdalene’s lips thinned and she felt a prick of guilt. She had learned from another client that Bertrild had some spite against her husband and wanted to make him suffer. If Sabina brought him
happiness, Bertrild would do anything to spoil it. She should have warned them.

“And Mainard did not want gossip to hurt her pride,” Sabina was saying. “He actually charges me rent and finds me work singing so that I can pay.” The sweetest smile erased the fear on her face for a moment. “I enjoy that so much. My singing is praised. I have been called back to two of the places to entertain again.”

Magdalene smiled. Sabina was blind, but she always knew when someone smiled at her. Could she “hear” it in the voice? “As soon as we have a party, I will invite you here to entertain.” She patted Sabina’s hand. “But I gather that your pretense was not sufficient to fool her.”

“For a while it was, but three weeks ago there was a man waiting across the road from Mainard’s shop, and when I came out, he threw offal at me and called me a whore.”

“Did Mainard drive him away?”

“Oh, no. Thank God he was not there. Codi, the journeyman, rushed out and chased whoever it was away.”

Naturally Magdalene did not bother to ask if Sabina had seen her attacker. She said, “So far so good. Mainard might never have known of that.”

“Well, he did, but there was worse that everyone in the street heard about.”

Magdalene made a “tchk” of irritation. It would have been better if Mainard seemed unaware of any insult or attack on Sabina, which he might well blame on his wife, but he would be worse off if his friends were ignorant of what his enemies knew. She made an encouraging noise.

“Just this last Wednesday,” Sabina continued, gulping unhappily between words, “she came secretly into the shop and came upstairs and attacked me. Henry would not think to stop her or—”

“Wait,” Magdalene said. “Who is Henry?”

“He used to be a saddler, but something terrible happened to his hands. They are all twisted, and he can hardly hold a spoon or knife to feed himself. He could not work and had to give up his shop. Mainard—you know what Mainard is; he cannot bear to see misfortune—he offered Henry the work of selling.” Sabina found a wan smile. “It is true that bread cast upon the waters comes back tenfold. Henry has doubled the profit of Mainard’s business. In secret Mainard told me that Henry was never a very good saddler but that he could sell a saddle to a man who had no horse.”

“So Henry stands outside the shop at the outdoor counter and must see everyone who enters and leaves. Does he live in Mainard’s house?”

“No. He has a wife and children and a house of his own. Well, I think Mainard may actually own it now since he paid Henry’s debtors, but Henry does so well between his pay and his commission on what he sells that it is nearly all paid back.”

“So Henry let Bertrild pass. Would he not even call out to Mainard to say she had come?”

“He did not,” Sabina said softly. “I think he feared her. She used to call him ‘cripple’ and make cruel jests about his hands, and she said something to him one day—you know how keen my ears are—about knowing the true reason for his crippling and for the loss of his shop.”

Magdalene sighed. “Before we are done, we will be hard put to it to find anyone in London who did not wish to kill her. Well, so she came into the shop and upstairs to your chambers. What do you mean she attacked you?”

“First she bade me go back to the pesthouse from which I came and said that if I did not, what had happened to me in the street would grow worse and worse, that she would see to it that the whole Chepe knew I was a whore and unclean.”

“No one heard this except you?”

“Not that part. She was speaking very quietly until she ordered me to get up and leave, just as I was, taking nothing, or she would report me to the sheriff as a whore and a thief. But I did not move from my chair, and I said I would not go. I admitted that I had been a whore once but did no longer practice that trade, that I was a singer and player of the lute, and that between my earnings as a musician and my savings I had enough to live without selling my body.”

“Were you also speaking quietly?”

“Not as quietly as she. I was a little frightened and hoped Mainard would hear….” Her voice trailed away and she shuddered. “I did not know then that she would be….”

Magdalene squeezed her hand, and she swallowed and went on.

“He did not hear. The pounding of the hammers is so loud. But then she seized me and started to try to pull me from my chair, and when Haesel tried to get her loose, she hit the child and knocked her down. Haesel screamed, and I screamed, too, because she had hold of my hair and knocked my staff out of my reach. Then she slapped me, shouting that I was a filthy whore and had caused her father’s death.” Sabina stopped speaking abruptly and looked pitifully anxious. “That could not be true, could it?”

“Certainly not, love. Do you not remember that drunken sot Gervase de Genlis? Even Ella would not serve him after the first few times, but he came to a nighttime party with some mercers and a goldsmith…oh, a little less than two years ago. On his way home he stopped in an alehouse, got into a brawl, and was killed. I remember because Bertrild came here not long after and threatened all kinds of evil. She accused me of murder and wanted me to pay to keep her quiet. I told William, who spoke to the sheriff of London—and that was the end of it, of course. There was no doubt that we had no part in how the unlamented Gervase died.”

Sabina sighed. “I am glad. I did not need another death on my conscience.”

“Why should Bertrild’s death be on your conscience?”

“Because I wished her dead! Oh, how I wished her dead. I prayed for it….” She shuddered again, and Letice hugged her tight.

“But you did her no harm. You said she had knocked down your staff.” Magdalene knew that Sabina could wield that staff to protect herself, and a very unpleasant idea had come into her head.

“No,” Sabina said. “I was so shocked that I did not even fight back or try to shield my face. Mainard came. He must have heard us screaming. Haesel said later that she thought he would kill the nasty lady—that was what she always called Bertrild, even though she knew her name. She said his face was all one color red, he was so angry.” Sabina uttered a sob. “But he did not! He did not do her the smallest hurt, even when he was in a terrible rage. He only picked her up, as if she were a doll of straw, Haesel said—you know how strong he is—and carried her away.”

“I do not suppose she took that quietly.”

“Oh, no. She screamed and Haesel said she struggled and scratched him and struck him.” Sabina sighed. “That was how the whole Chepe knew what had happened. Mainard carried her outside the shop, she screaming and cursing him and me, so everyone heard. But he only set her on her feet and told her to go home and calm herself. Everyone saw that too.”

“Was that the last time you saw her?”

Silently Sabina shook her head. Then she said, “She came back again yesterday. It was midmorning, after Mainard had left to bring the week’s takings to his goldsmith. He had left early because his friend Pers Newelyne had invited him to his new son’s christening party at noon, and I was going, too, to sing.”

“So Mainard did not see her?”

“No.”

“Did she attack you again?”

Sabina drew in a deep breath. “No. I heard her screaming in the shop, and I thought she was angry because Codi would not let her come up, but I did not think he could stand against her for long. Codi is afraid of her also.”

Magdalene watched Sabina’s soft lips thin into a cruel line and remembered that this seemingly gentle blind woman had survived some years in an ordinary stew. It was one of the better ones, not like the place Diot had come from, but anyone who had survived life as a common whore had learned self-defense.

“I took my staff and went to open the door.” Sabina’s nostrils flared wider. “If she came up, I was going to put my staff into her throat and try to break the Adam’s apple. And if I could not, I was going to push her off the landing, down into the shop!”

“Did you?” Magdalene asked, almost grinning.

Sabina shook her head again and then started to sob. “Oh, I wish I had. I wish I had. Then Mainard would not be in any danger. And I thought I would get off scot free. I did not believe anyone would blame a poor blind woman who had lifted her staff to defend herself and overset her attacker by accident.” She bent her head and covered her face with her hand, sobbing bitterly for a moment, then said, “I did not even care if they did hang me for it. At least poor Mainard would have been free.”

“I do not think he would have been glad of it if he lost you,” Magdalene said. “But if you say you wish you had, then you did not. Did you think better of killing her?”

“Not for a moment!” Sabina exclaimed, wiping tears off her cheeks. “She was not trying to get at me. When I had the door open, I could hear what she was saying. She wanted money, and when Codi said Mainard
had taken it, she demanded he make her a belt out of some special leather. He told her the leather did not belong to Mainard. It belonged to a customer who wanted it decorated for his wife’s saddle. She would not listen. She said if he did not make her the belt she desired that she would report him as a runaway serf and see that he was returned to his old master. Codi would rather be dead. Mainard told me he is all scarred from whipping and burning.”