The Clerk’s Tale (11 page)
Authors: Margaret Frazer
On Christopher’s other side Master Gruesby hunched a little deeper into his shoulders as if it were some way his fault and glumly Christopher said, “Even so. And one of them has to be lying.”
Or both of them, Frevisse thought but did not say. In truth, there could well be a mix of lies and truth from both of them, and all of it made worse because the man who had come to find out one from the other was murdered.
Of course, given the kind of man Montfort had been, he might well be dead for some other reason than the matter of Stephen Lengley’s inheritance, but…
‘What questions should the jurors have asked that they didn’t?“
It took Christopher a moment to shift backward in their talk to where they had been, but Master Gruesby said toward the floor, “The way in.”
‘The way into the garden you mean?“ Frevisse said.
Christopher caught up. “How the murderer came into the garden. And how he left without being seen. Yes.”
‘Through the infirmary,“ Frevisse offered. ”The key hangs beside the door inside. But…“ She immediately saw objection to that. ”That would mean the murderer was likely a woman because no man could have passed through the cloister unnoticed. Do you think a woman could have killed your father?“
‘I think I don’t know. Not who killed him or why. And until I know more, I’m trying to suppose nothing.“
A far different way than his father had taken. Montfort as crowner had always preferred to grab hold of the obvious choice—or the profitable one—and not let go unless forced to it.
But Christopher was going on, “The thing is that Sister Ysobel says no one went into the garden that way.”
‘Would she have heard if they did?“
‘What she said when I asked her was that it’s her lungs that are rotting, not her ears.“
‘She might have slept and not known it.“
‘Coughing,“ said Master Gruesby to the floor.
Christopher agreed. “She said her coughing kept her from rest all that day. It probably did. She wasn’t resting well when I talked with her either. Talking came hard and I didn’t press her.”
‘Did she hear anyone, anything from the garden?“
‘She says she heard two men, speaking too low for her to know what they said or who they were. It seems they did not raise their voices, nor was there any outcry. They talked and then were quiet and the next thing she heard was Master Gruesby shouting.“
Frevisse looked at Master Gruesby who raised his head for a quick, startled look back at her as if the thought he had ever shouted was as impossible to him as it was to her. Then his gaze went down again and she asked of Christopher, “How long afterwards was that?”
‘She was saying a rosary slowly. When she heard Master Gruesby, she was half the way through the second time since hearing the men in talk.“
‘How long a rosary?“ Because a rosary could be either a loop of beads or a straight string of them and either one could be of any size. ”Did she show it to you?“
‘It was six decades.“ Six sets of ten beads each for Ave Maries, with a single bead for Paternosters between each ten, and said slowly, that could be time enough for whoever had done the killing to be well enough away that anyone hearing the outcry might fail to link the outcry with having seen him.
‘Did the jurors think to ask Sister Ysobel about what she might have heard?“
‘They did,“ Christopher admitted. ”I said I’d asked her and she’d heard nothing.“
‘Safer,“ Master Gruesby said. ”For her.“
Frevisse silently granted that was true enough. The murderer had come and gone unnoticed from the infirmary garden once. If he thought there was need to be rid of Sister Ysobel, why wouldn’t he try again? “But if not through the infirmary, then how?” she asked. “Not through the stableyard and other door, it seems. Nor over the fence.” Which she remembered was of wicker, not able to hold much weight beyond a squirrel’s.
‘Through it,“ Christopher said.
‘Through the fence? Leaving a great hole no one has bothered to mention?“
‘It’s of hurdles.“ Large but light-weighted pieces of withy-woven fencing easily handled by a man, meant to be moved around for making sheep pens and such-like things, kept up by being tied end to end with each other to make a pen, or else, as in the nunnery’s garden, made into an uncostly but sufficient wall by fastening to firm-set uprights. ”The twine holding a fencing to its post along the back side was cut,“ Christopher said.
And with that done, the murderer needed do no more than simply push or pull the hurdle enough open to let himself in and out.
‘What lies beyond the fence there?“ Frevisse asked.
‘The mill ditch runs just outside the wall, fed from the Thames, with an open meadow beyond it all the way to the river.“
‘Nothing overlooks the ditch, the meadow?“
‘Some nunnery windows and the mill. But no one says they saw anyone along there that day. Not at the needful time or anywhere near to it. Our best hope was some workmen at the mill that day but they were at their hot dinner in a tavern up the street all the time we need someone to have seen something.“
‘Footprints?“ Frevisse asked without much hope. Even in raw mud, shoes and boots, soft-soled as they mostly were, would hardly leave prints that mattered.
‘The bank is well grassed. All Master Gruesby found was somewhere on the far side where a foot might have slipped and torn the grass a little. Otherwise nothing.“
Nothing
seemed to be almost all there was so far but. “What else did the jurors not ask that they should have? Or not notice?”
‘The dagger wound was not the only hurt to the body.“
‘Christopher!“ she protested. ”How could they not notice that? Or you not point it out?“
Her protest did not unsettle him. After years of his father, it would probably take more than someone’s mere protest to unsettle him, and steadily he said, “I doubt any of them had seen a man violently dead before this. They weren’t minded to look closer than they had to this morning. They could see the dagger wound had surely killed him and that was enough.”
‘But you should have pointed out…“ She stopped, regarding him, his level look meeting her own. More quietly, she said, understanding, ”So as it stands now, the murderer doesn’t know what you know and thinks everything is over and he’s safe. Giving us“—she noticed the ”us“ too late to change it—”a small advantage.“
‘A very small advantage. Maybe none at all. But yes, that’s what I hope.“
‘What are the other wounds?“
‘A small cut in the right corner of the mouth. A scrape on the back of the head. Bruises on either side of the death wound.“
‘The tree,“ Master Gruesby murmured from behind Christopher.
‘The tree where the body was found,“ Christopher said. ”It’s…“ He made a ring with his hands maybe four inches wide.
‘I’ve seen it,“ Frevisse said. The young, slender-trunked ash tree in the grassy midst of the garden.
‘There was a narrow cut to the bark on one side. Where the edge of a dagger might have sliced along it. At about heart height for my father.“
He said it coolly, keeping distant from it, probably the only safe way he could say it, and Frevisse matched him, keeping thought away from actual torn flesh to mere considering of the cut tree, saying after a silent moment of thinking, “It could be guessed, from that, that the murderer forced Master Montfort back against the tree with a hand put over his mouth hard enough to cut it with probably a ring, keeping him silent while he was stabbed.” It was a narrow tree; with Montfort’s body centered on it, a dagger thrust through his heart and on through him would very likely have sliced the bark the way Christopher said. She could see the rest of it, too. How the murderer had probably gone on holding Montfort there, weight leaned onto the dagger still through Montfort’s body, Montfort’s head still shoved back against the tree, hand still over Montfort’s mouth until Montfort was fully dead. Then his murderer would have stepped back, jerked out the dagger, and let the body slump aside and fall.
But all that ugliness she left unsaid. By the look on Christopher’s face he could see it clearly enough for himself, though he said steadily enough, “That’s how we guessed it, too. Master Gruesby and I. It had to be someone strong.”
‘Someone strong or else very angry,“ Frevisse said. Anger’s strength was never a thing to be discounted.
‘Or very angry,“ Christopher granted. Angry enough to drive a dagger through a man to the hilt.
‘The bruises,“ Frevisse said. ”You said there were bruises to either side of the wound. Did you mean to the sides or at the ends?“
Christopher paused as if sorting out what she meant. Behind him Master Gruesby said to the floor, “At the ends.”
‘I see.“ Christopher drew an imaginary slit in the air. ”At the ends, yes.“ And then added, ”Round bruises.“
Now it was Frevisse’s turn to pause. “Round bruises?”
‘Like two knobs had been driven against him.“
Frevisse drew a sharp breath. “A ballock dagger.”
Christopher nodded agreement. “Neither Master Gruesby nor I can think of anything else that would do it. And they’re not common.”
No, they were not. Usually heavy-bladed and often unusually long for a dagger, their handguard was shaped not in the usual outstretched quillons but, most often, into two rounded lobes. Sometimes there was only one lobe, sometimes there were three, with no reason Frevisse had ever heard as to why the shape was particularly desirable at all except for the sake of being different. Or lewd. She only knew they were indeed not common, and carefully putting aside thought of how much anger—or hatred—there had to be behind a thrust hard enough to leave those bruises with it, she said, “You said nothing about it at the inquest so that whoever it was will go on wearing it. Your men”—and you, she did not say aloud—“were watching for it today, in hopes the murderer would be here.”
‘Yes.“
But they’d seen no one, or she and Christopher would not be having this talk; and because it was probably better that they be done and part company before someone saw her in talk with the crowner and wonder why, she asked, “What do you want of me?”
Christopher did not hesitate over his answer. “To listen and to watch. You’re likely to hear talk of things no one would say to me. You’re likely to find questions to ask that I wouldn’t.”
She did not argue that. She knew herself well enough to know that with all that Christopher had told her, she would be listening and seeing differently, both at Lady Agnes’s and here in the nunnery, and she would be asking questions, if only of herself, so that all in all there seemed no point to refusing Christopher her help and she bent her head to him with, “As you wish.”
Christopher smiled with a relief that briefly made him look as young as he probably was. “Thank you.”
But she already had a question she wanted to ask and said past him, “Master Gruesby, the letter you were taking to Master Montfort that afternoon, what was it about?”
At his name Master Gruesby jerked up his head and now stared at her over Christopher’s shoulder with much the look he might have had if sentence of death had just been pronounced upon him. “The letter?” he whispered.
‘The letter.“
He fumbled open his wide leather belt pouch with one hand and rummaged in it while still staring at her, rustling paper and parchment as if in search of a writing he could consult before he managed to say without help, “It was from Lord Lovell.”
