The Clerk’s Tale (33 page)

The tangle was worsening, and without need to hear Christopher’s answer, she asked the next thing on her mind. “With all this, have you been able to go any farther about your father’s murder?”

‘Do you know, almost everyone else says ’your father’s death.‘ You’re almost the only one who says ’murder.‘ “

‘Almost everyone?“

‘Master Gruesby, like you, says ’murder.‘ “

‘We share a certain scholarly desire to be precise, I suppose,“ Frevisse said dryly. ”Have you been able to find out where people were that day?“

‘Yes. Stephen Lengley was at home through the morning. Until after my father had spoken with him and Master Haselden. Then he went to dine at his grandmother’s and was there until the alarm was raised after Master Gruesby found the body. Servants at both places all say the same thing. No one has been caught in contradiction to what anyone else says nor is there any sign of lying.“

Frevisse nodded that she was satisfied with that. As satisfied as could be, because servants could be loyal and there was no reason they could not lie well, especially to strangers. But for now she would accept what Christopher said as he went on, “Lady Agnes did not leave her chamber that day. She saw my father there in the morning. She was the first of them all he visited. After he was gone, she stayed alone except for her woman until her grandson came. They dined together there in her room. Master Haselden went out from home not long after Stephen did. He was then out and about on various business into the afternoon.”

‘What business?“

‘First, at the priory. He spent some time with Domina Matilda over priory matters.“

‘Why?“

‘He’s bailiff of Goring.“

‘How can he be? Suffolk is lord of Goring and Master Haselden is Lord Lovell’s man,“ Frevisse protested.

Christopher raised his shoulders slightly. “Master Haselden is head of the gentry around here. Since Lady Agnes’s son died a dozen years ago. He’s prosperous in his own right and has local authority. Until this matter of the manor arose, there was probably no conflict in his interests that weighed against everything in his favor. So he’s Suffolk’s bailiff here and sometimes there are things to be decided between him on the lord’s behalf and Domina Matilda on the priory’s.”

‘So he was at the priory when your father was murdered. No.“ She corrected herself. ”Domina Matilda was at Nones then.“

‘He left when Domina Matilda went to Nones. He spent most of the day afterwards upriver, riding the fields to see how much danger of flooding there was like to be.“

‘Who saw him go?“

‘Who saw him go?“

‘Out of the priory. Who saw him leave?“

Christopher held back before admitting, “I don’t know.”

‘Someone rode with him around the fields?“

‘One of his men. They were both seen by people we’ve questioned.“

‘Could anyone say exactly when they were seen?“

‘Afternoon. That’s all. It was an overcast day, no close telling of time by the sun.“

‘Ask who saw him leave the cloister. Find someone who certainly saw him walk out the cloister door into the yard.“ She forestalled the question she saw coming to that by asking, ”What about Master Champyon?“

Almost, Christopher refused to be turned aside from Master Haselden; he hesitated but finally said, “My father talked with Champyon at his inn that morning. He won’t say what was said between them. He claims it’s for the next escheator to know, no one else. He says he left not long thereafter to ride to Reading on business. He and the servant who went with him claim that’s all he did. That he rode out of Goring on the Reading road, nowhere near the nunnery and long before the time of the murder. They came back late the next day. I haven’t learned yet when he reached Reading. I’ve sent someone to ask.”

‘Who heard what passed between him and your father?“

‘Mistress Champyon and her son and daughter were there.“

Which was almost the same as saying “No one” because they would long since be all agreed on their story. Unless, for Stephen’s sake, Juliana deserted her mother. “Did your father have someone with him? Master Gruesby?”

‘No. That morning he went alone to everyone.“

‘Why?“

‘I don’t know. Even Master Gruesby can’t say.“

‘We know where Rowland Englefield was later, almost to a certainty. Where were Mistress Champyon and Lady Juliana after Master Montfort and then Master Champyon left them?“

‘It seems they kept to their room at the inn.“

‘Seems?“

‘Their servants say so. Inn servants were in and out, bringing their dinner and clearing away afterwards. No one saw them go anywhere, anyway.“

‘And Nichola?“

‘Nichola?“ The question stopped Christopher short. ”Why her?“

‘She had as much to lose as Stephen if he was found to have no claim to that manor. More to lose than her father does.“ Though Frevisse had not seen it that way until now.

Nor had Christopher. Slowly, considering, he said, “I’ll find out.”

Another new thought made Frevisse exclaim, “Lady Agnes!”

‘I already said—“

‘Not where she was. About the dagger. She’s not always been an old woman who goes few places, and even now she has friends she talks with and is always hearing things from her servants. She very possibly knows as much as anyone about everyone and everything in Goring. She may well know who has something as unusual as a ballock dagger.“

‘To protect someone she might lie,“ Christopher said doubtfully.

‘She probably would, if it were Stephen. Otherwise, she might not. We lose nothing by asking her, and best we ask her now, while she’s still unsettled by Nichola’s death.“

Chapter 21

Lady Agnes was seated at her window, a cloak wrapped well around her against draughts, the thin winter sunlight making paler her already pallid face, and when she turned her head from watching the street and whoever was presently leaving her house to regard Christopher and his question with a long level stare, her years were sitting more heavily on her than they had been two days ago. She had allowed him to come in because Frevisse had asked it but not given him so much as a look until now and looked more ready to bid him go away than answer it.

But after a pause, her stare still fixed on him, she said, “Ballock daggers are common enough. Why are you asking?”

‘They’re not that common, my lady,“ Christopher said.

She looked away out the window, determined not to be interested. “What does it matter?”

Evenly but with the weight of his authority as crowner quietly behind it, Christopher said, “There’s been murder, Lady Agnes. A death where there need not have been. In the king’s name, tell me what you know about any such dagger.”

She turned her head to look at him again as if staring him down might end the matter before, abruptly, she faced forward and said at the wall in a low, half-angry voice, “Philip has one. Master Haselden. Or had one. After he came back from the French war with Lord Lovell, he used to always wear it until I told him it was coarse.” She returned her look, sharp now, to Christopher. “That was years ago. It’s been years since I’ve seen it. Anyone could have it by now. It could be anywhere.”

‘Thank you.“ Christopher took a step back from her, ready to leave.

‘You’re not particularly welcome.“ Distracted from her grief, Lady Agnes was becoming crisp, and more crisply her look going past him, she asked, ”When did my solar become everyone’s thoroughfare? Who are you?“

Frevisse turned with Christopher, Domina Elisabeth, and Letice to find Master Gruesby hovering with his usual unease in the doorway, as if uncertain whether he had come in too far or else not far enough or, when Lady Agnes snapped at him, should not have come at all.

‘He’s my clerk,“ Christopher said, going toward him, asking, ”You heard?“

‘Master Haselden,“ Master Gruesby murmured.

‘He’s likely returned home by now. Go and make inquiry after the dagger. Take someone with you. Where’s Denys?“

‘Gone back to the nunnery with everything.“

‘Is Jankyn still below? Take him with you. He’ll be better anyway. Master Lengley?“

They were both too intent on what they were doing to think about where they were or Christopher would not have asked that, Frevisse thought. But he did, and Master Gruesby answered, low as always but not too low to be heard across the room, “He went to the inn where the Champyons are staying. He said something to a servant and waited while the servant went inside and came out again. I presume he sent in word to someone there and waited for the answer.”

Christopher nodded agreement with that. “And then?”

‘He returned here. He’s in the garden again.“

Lady Agnes snatched her staff from where it was leaned against the window seat and thudded it on the floor, flinching everyone around to face her as she demanded, “What do mean, having your man follow my grandson?”

Christopher gestured Master Gruesby to leave while saying, “Lady Agnes—”

‘Don’t ’Lady Agnes’ me.“ She struck the floor again. ”What are you at? And where’s he going?“ She pointed her staff at Master Gruesby’s back as he scuttled out of sight. ”I want him back here!“

‘Lady Agnes…“ Christopher tried again.

‘Philip’s dagger. My grandson. This is all about Mont-fort’s murder, isn’t it?“ She threw the folds of her cloak aside from her legs and made to rise. ”You young fool, let it lie. I don’t care if he was your father. He was never, and isn’t now, worth making trouble over.“ She tried to push herself to her feet but failed, too weak or else too shaken by her rage, but striking peevishly at Letice who had rushed to help her, saying still fiercely at Christopher, ”Let it lie, I tell you!“

‘You’ll make yourself ill, my lady!“ Letice protested.

Domina Elisabeth was gone to her, too, taking her a goblet of something to urge on her while frowning at Christopher who, unsettled by so much disapproval turned on him, tried, “Lady Agnes, none of this may go anywhere—”

‘Good,“ she snapped, shoving away Letice’s attempt to cover her legs again and refusing the offered drink. ”Nobody cares who killed him, least of all me, just so long as he’s dead.“

‘Lady Agnes,
no,“
Domina Elisabeth said.

Lady Agnes rounded on her but stopped, bit back whatever she had been going to say, and after a hard-fought moment said bitterly instead, “You’re in the right and I’m not. Whatever kind of man Montfort was, murder can’t be let go.” And at Christopher, more grudging than gracious, “Follow my grandson if you think it will do you any good. It won’t. He was with me when Montfort was killed and that’s flat.”

With barely a knock at the door, Emme entered, head-kerchief awry, and with hurried curtsy tumbled out, “Master Stephen is quarreling in the garden with that woman that was here the other day. I heard them when I went out…”

‘Damn her!“ With the help of her staff and her anger, Lady Agnes surged to her feet. ”I’ll have her head on the garden path this time…“ She swayed, sat heavily down, and made to rise again despite it but Letice and Domina Elisabeth closed on her, exclaiming that she must not, and Frevisse, already moving toward the door, said, ”Shall I bring them here? Both of them?“

‘Yes!“ Lady Agnes cried. ”The both of them. That bitch in heat can at least let him be until Nichola’s in her grave!“

Frevisse escaped out the door, Christopher with her, but in the gallery with no one to hear them she said, “It’s maybe best you stay here. Whatever Lady Agnes knows, she’s more likely to say it while she’s angry. I’ll bring Stephen and Juliana for you.”

‘Here? With Lady Agnes to hear everything?“

‘Here and now, while they’re all angry,“ she said over her shoulder, leaving. ”They’ll maybe drive each other on to betray more than otherwise they would.“

Above her head as she went down the stairs, Christopher called to a man in his livery waiting beside the hall’s hearth, the hall finally empty of everyone else, “Go with Dame Frevisse. She has my authority. Back her on whatever she does.”

Frevisse let the man follow her without wasting explanation on him, thinking pointlessly as she left the hall and crossed the yard that it was as well she was wearing that unloved fur-lined habit today, given how often she was going outside without a cloak. Stephen’s angry voice reached her as she went through the garden gateway. He and Juliana were not in the winter-barren arbor this time but on the path halfway down the garden and no sign of lust between them, Juliana clinging to Stephen’s arm to keep him near her as he pulled away, saying at her, “Leave go. Just leave go. I don’t want you.”

‘Then soon. There’s no reason not to…“ Juliana broke off, seeing Frevisse and the crowner’s man and letting Stephen go as he turned and saw them, too.

Frevisse, not bothering with courtesy, said at Stephen, “Your grandmother wants to see you,” and at Juliana, “You, also. Now.”

Juliana drew back, gathering her cloak around her. “A pity, then, that I don’t want to see her.” She gave Stephen an unfriendly sideways look. “I’m not welcome here and I’m going.”

‘The crowner is with her and wants to see you, too. He’s sent his man to be sure of it,“ Frevisse said, and when Juliana looked about to refuse again, Christopher’s man took a purposeful step forward. She’ paused at that then shrugged with disgust and started toward the house. Stephen opened his mouth to ask something of Frevisse but she curtly shook her head at him and stepped aside to let him and Juliana and Christopher’s man go ahead of her.