The Clerk’s Tale (36 page)

Christopher took the paper, swept it with his eyes, and said, “Good. Thank you.” He handed the paper back to him and nodded toward Juliana. “Let her sign it.”

Juliana looked half ready to refuse, then shrugged and held her hand out for the paper, read it quickly, and went to where Master Gruesby was now waiting at the railing, the only flat place to be had in the gallery besides the floor. With a careless flourish she took the readied pen from him and signed below his words and gave the paper and pen back to him with, “There. That’s done. Now I’m going.”

She started for the stairs but turned again to Stephen and said, low-voiced and gently, “All I wanted was for you to love me.”

Hoarsely, strangled on too many feelings, Stephen said, “No. You wanted me to lust for you. But my love… you never wanted my love. It was Nichola wanted that. And it was Nichola I gave it to.”

Juliana’s look at him went cold, but before she could make to leave again, Christopher said, “There’s still that for you to answer. Nichola Lengley’s death.”

Juliana raised her eyebrows in mocking surprise. “Her death? That’s nothing to do with me.”

‘There’s evidence says otherwise,“ Christopher said grimly.

Juliana hesitated. Then she smiled, bitter and brittle and mocking all at once, and answered, “Evidence? That as we crossed that stream I dropped back from the other riders to ride beside her despite she tried to keep away from me, even shoved at my horse? That I said something to her about her husband and she made answer back at me that he was hers and she would keep him no matter what I did? That she made me so angry I hit her across her pretty little face with my riding whip and she cried out and I knew she’d tell Stephen so I swung my horse against hers, forcing it sideways over the edge of that steep stream bank? Is that what you mean?”

‘Exactly that,“ said Christopher.

Juliana’s smile was now small and bright and hard with scorn. “For all of which I doubt you have evidence enough to hang a flea, let I alone convince a jury against me. Therefore, I think there’s nothing else about Nichola Lengley’s death to be said between us.” And she turned away again, arrogant in her triumph and with nothing to be done to stop her because what she had said about the evidence was all too true, and no matter how much truth there was in what she had said, she had not made confession of it.

But Mistress Haselden beside the stairs said as Juliana reached the top of them, “Lady Juliana.”

And Juliana turned toward her. And Mistress Haselden put both hands against her and shoved. And Juliana with no chance to save herself, maybe not even time to feel afraid, fell outward and backward and the snap of her spine as it hit the edge of a thick oak step near the bottom came almost as one with the crunch of her skull into the hall’s stone paving.

And into the frozen, horrible quiet of the moment afterwards Mistress Haselden said with terrible calm to no one at all, “She tripped.”

Chapter 23

Afterward, Master Gruesby never cared to think much about the rest of that day. There were outcries that brought servants running, with more outcries and confusion, but by then Lady Agnes had seized hold of Mistress Haselden and taken her into her chamber, out of the way, along with her woman and Dame Frevisse’s prioress. It was Dame Frevisse who stayed to order the servants, quieting them and seeing to it that Lady Juliana’s body was moved to lie flat on the hall floor and that a blanket was brought to cover it while Master Christopher sent his own man at a run to bring the rest of his men from the nunnery while holding Master Haselden under guard himself. Master Gruesby hovered aside from all of that, making sure he had Lady Juliana’s statement safe in his belt pouch and keeping an eye to Stephen, who had drawn back until flat against the rear wall of the gallery, out of the way and out of sight of Lady Juliana’s body, unheeded by anyone until Dame Frevisse went to speak low-voiced to him. He answered with first a sideways shake of his head and then a nod, and she turned from him to give order to one of the servant women, “Take him to the kitchen, Emme. Give him something strong to drink, keep him warm by the fire, don’t let anyone make him talk about anything.”

‘Lady Agnes…“ Emme started.

‘Has enough on her hands just now. Nor does Stephen need to deal with women for the while; He needs quiet and something strong to drink. Go with her, Stephen.“

Stephen went, not saying anything and his head turned aside from Lady Juliana’s blanket-covered body when he had to pass it at the stairfoot. Master Christopher’s men came then and Master Christopher sent one of them promptly out again to keep guard in the yard against anyone coming in, because if the screams and cries had not been heard, then the running to and from the nunnery had surely been seen and the curious would be gathering.

To Master Gruesby’s relief, young Denys was given the task of going to tell Lady Juliana’s family that she had fallen and was dead and to promise that Master Christopher would see them himself as soon as might be and tell them more. In the meanwhile he would keep with Master Haselden until somewhere was found to lock him up and keep him under guard until he was given over to the sheriff. It therefore fell to Master Gruesby to go with the men who carried Lady Juliana’s body to the nunnery, where the nuns and nunnery servants would be better able to help her family with all that would need doing than anyone at the inn. But when he had told the nun at the cloister door what was the matter, she took him to explain again, to Domina Matilda, who granted the nunnery’s help—“Of course”—and went to see what she could do.

He made his escape only barely in time. As he crossed back to Lady Agnes’s, Denys was coming down the street toward the nunnery in company with Mistress Champyon, her son, and husband. For Master Gruesby that made it easier to go forward into the gathering of people already outside Lady Agnes’s, their questions flurrying around him—What had happened? Whose body had been carried out? Who was dead? Had someone died?—his head bowed and shoulders hunched, thankful when Master Christopher’s man let him into the safety of the yard.

But to be thankful was not the same as to be happy and he was not happy as he went into Lady Agnes’s hall. Was even farther from happy seeing a maidservant on her knees at the foot of the stairs scrubbing Lady Juliana’s blood from the stone floor, and he shied aside to the fireplace, to stand with his back to her and his hands out to the fading coals and gray ashes of the neglected fire. Not that he would have been any better warmed by flames. He was cold right through with a cold against which no fire had chance.

He had seen someone die before now. In the ordinary way of things it was natural for people to die. He had even taken comfort once in being beside someone he cared about until her end and thought she had taken comfort in his being there. But he had never seen someone killed before now. He had seen the aftermath of violent deaths often enough, of course. As crowner’s clerk he had seen a great many bodies dead in any number of unpleasant ways. But by the time he had seen a body it had been… a body. Not a person anymore. Even little Mistress Lengley yesterday. He had seen her alive one day and then, when next he’d seen her, she had been dead and he had been able, as always, to keep the two things—the being alive and the being dead—apart in his mind.

With Lady Juliana it had been… was different.

Not that he had liked her. He had not. But he had watched her this morning laughing, being scornful, angry, proud… and then between one instant and the next, in the time it had taken her to strike the stair and floor, she was no longer there. Instead of Lady Juliana there had been only a sprawled body with blood spreading from under its head. No longer anyone at all.

And that was how it had been with all those other bodies he had seen. Upon a time each of them had been someone who had laughed and been angry, hurt, and happy. Had been someone as alive as Lady Juliana had been. And then they were not. No more than Lady Juliana was or ever would be anymore.

It was as if he had come around a corner in his mind where he had never gone before and instead of only knowing something he was
feeling
it.

Feeling anything much at all unsettled him. He did not like it and he was grateful to Master Christopher for coming at that moment through a nearby doorway into the hall, letting him leave the fire and his thoughts to go to him, a little guilty at being found idle, saying, “All’s seen to at the nunnery, sir.”

‘My thanks. With Lady Agnes’s leave, we’ve tied Master Haselden for now in a storeroom with a small window and heavy door.“

‘Mistress Haselden?“ Master Gruesby ventured to ask.

‘Lady Agnes has given bond to answer for her. Now I’d have you write me word to the sheriff that he’s needed here. Tom will take it…“

Master Gruesby slid, pleased, into familiar duties. There was comfort to be had from duties. If one only held to them hard enough, they kept a great many thoughts at bay, and today they served to see him well into the afternoon, until Master Christopher could no longer put off going to see Lady Juliana’s family. Mistress Champyon had been sending demands to him, that he tell her himself what had happened, and finally, with everything done that could be done for the day, he faced the task but took young Denys with him. “Because if you’re there, Master Gruesby, she’ll want to question you about it, too, and that would mean more talking,” Master Christopher said, to Master Gruesby’s great relief.

But it left him with no excuse against doing the thing he had to do and, unhappy at it, he returned to the nunnery and displeased the sacristan by asking to have the Lengley strong chest brought to him. At least he did not keep her long. There was only the one thing he needed from it and when he had it he stood for a moment over the open chest, holding it, then seemed to put it back among the other papers but in the doing somehow set the scrolled documents he had set aside on the table rolling over the edge to bounce and scatter on the floor toward the sacristan and servant, who moved to stoop and gather them and did not see Master Gruesby slip the folded paper up his sleeve before he came around the table to help them, begging pardon for his unhandiness. The sacristan was not much disposed to pardon him, instead snapped, “You’re always doing this,” as she snatched and dumped documents back into the chest, then asked if he were done, and at him humbly admitting that he was, slammed shut and locked the chest and went away with it, leaving the servant to see him out.

Clear away, he went back yet again to Lady Agnes’s, half expecting to be told Stephen had returned to the Haseldens’ manor but found that he had not, was still with his grandmother. Master Gruesby would have asked if he might speak with Master Stephen alone but the tiredly impatient servingwoman gave him no chance, showed him up to Lady Agnes’s solar without question, announced, “It’s the crowner’s man,” and withdrew, all in a bustle that frighted him off saying anything.

He immediately regretted his weakness. Not only was Lady Agnes there, sitting straight-backed in a cushioned chair close to the fire, looking weby and grim, with one age-thinned hand held out toward the flames and the other holding tightly to Master Stephen seated beside her, but so were Dame Frevisse and her prioress, seated across the hearth with hands folded in their laps, the both of them with the look of someone praying inwardly and hard. He had heard, during the day, that they had put off their remove to the nunnery, asked by Lady Agnes to be with her a little longer, but he had also forgotten he had heard it and the knot already in his belly knotted a little tighter. He would rather not have had Dame Frevisse anywhere near what he was going to do.

But there was no going back from his purpose now, and as the four beside the fire looked toward him, he bowed and said, close to a whisper but unable to help it, “By your leave, Master Stephen. I’d talk with you apart, please.”

He had hoped Master Stephen would leave the room with him but he only rose, looking puzzled, and crossed to the window, where the late-afternoon sunlight was slanting in, long and golden. Perforce, Master Gruesby followed him but, once there, sidled a little sideways to put his back toward the women by the fire.

‘Is something wrong?“ Master Stephen asked. Too little time had passed yet for all of yesterday and today’s happenings to be lined deeply into his face but the pain that would make those lines was there, along with a weariness that wanted only to be done with hurts both given and received as he amended his question to, ”Is something else wrong?“

For answer to that, Master Gruesby drew the folded paper from his sleeve and held it out, more wishing he was elsewhere than at almost any time in his life before. Master Stephen took the paper from him, turned it over in search of a superscription that was not there, and asked, “What is this?”

Master Gruesby drew breath to answer that but could not, let out his breath, drew it again, and succeeded in saying toward Master Stephen’s belt buckle, “It was with the Lengley deeds and documents. I found it. It’s yours.”

‘Mine?“

Unnerved so badly he could hardly stand, Master Gruesby repeated, somewhat desperately, “Yours.”

He had carefully refolded the paper with its attached wax seal safe inside it. There was no doubt that Master Stephen could feel the weight of it and indeed he unfolded the paper carefully, caught the seal as it slid out, and as he began to read, kept it in his hand rather than letting its heavy wax hang loose on the green ribbon that had been threaded through a pair of slits near the bottom edge of the paper and doubled over, both ends of the ribbon fixed firmly in the wax so that the seal could not be removed from the paper without destruction of the seal or tearing of the paper or cutting of the ribbon.