The Illuminator (36 page)

“Open up! We demand to see the mistress of the house!” Voices loud enough even the dead sleeping in the crypt could hear them.

“Open by command of the king! Serjeant-at-arms.”

Kathryn's softer voice, her words not clear but her tone indignant, carried up the stairs.

Finn hitched up his leggings and pulled his shirt over his head as he headed for the door. He did not stop to pull on his boots and was halfway down the steps when he remembered that he'd left behind his dagger. For Kathryn's sake, he could ignore the cold floor on his bare feet, but the dagger was another matter altogether. He turned back, leaping the twisting stairs two at a time.

Sir Guy rode into the courtyard just as Lady Kathryn opened the door. Well-timed—he'd known he could depend on his lout of a Serjeant to conduct the business churlishly. All the better. That meant he could play the mediator and not the perpetrator.

The Serjeant was shoving the widow roughly aside. “We don't need your permission. We have orders to search this place.”

Sir Guy pitched his reins to a stable groom, dismounted and rushed forward, barking at his men-at-arms, careful that his voice would carry to Lady Kathryn's ears. “Clumsy fools! You insult this noble house and its lady at your own peril.”

He jerked his head sharply left, indicating that his men should wait outside, and inserted himself between Kathryn and the serjeant. He reached for Kathryn's hand—“Please pardon their insolence, my lady”—and placed her hand to his lips. He held it thus a moment too long, tried to keep the temper from his countenance when she withdrew it abruptly.

“Sir, by whose authority is the peace of Blackingham broken?” She stared first at the serjeant, then at Sir Guy, as though she knew his gambit all too well.

Her posture irritated him. He'd noticed that arrogance in her demeanor before and wondered why Roderick had suffered it. He would not when he was master here.

The serjeant, his perplexity showing in his face, answered. “By authority of the king and his lordship the high sheriff.” This last trailed off in a question. Sir Guy ignored the uncertain glance directed at him.

“I beg your pardon for this intrusion, my lady. It seems this business is being ill-conducted. I thought as much. I left a meeting with the bishop to attend you.”

“You are well come, Sir Guy. But your words, and the arms your men would bear into a lady's house, suggest this is not a visit between friends.”

“A visit, alas, no. But friendship, truly, on my part”—here he bowed stiffly—“if I may be so bold as to presume.” He started to reach for her hand again, but thought better of it. He closed the door, shutting out the cold and the serjeant. “As the widow of my dear friend, I feel a certain responsibility toward you, my lady. I hope you know that I can be relied upon to look after your interests in this and all matters.”

“And just what
matters
might these be?” The voice, a man's voice, came from behind him.

The sheriff recognized the illuminator as he stepped out of the shadowed stairway to his right. A pesky fellow. A horsefly buzzing about the ear. Best not to swat him now. Let him settle so that he could get a square blow.

He directed his answer to Kathryn to imply that the illuminator was not worthy of a response.

“Something easily satisfied, I assure you. A mere formality.”

“Please, sir. Speak plainly,” Kathryn said.

The sheriff nodded. “It is the matter of the dead priest.”

Was it his imagination, or did her spine stiffen even more?

“Dead priest?”

“Father Ignatius. The bishop's legate found at the edge of Blackingham last summer with his head bashed in. You almost swooned when we brought the body into your courtyard. Surely, you have not forgotten.”

“Not a sight easily forgotten. It pains me to remember it now.”

Indeed it seemed to. She had gone quite pale.

“Pain the lady should be spared,” the illuminator interjected. “Lady Kathryn assured you at the time of the body's discovery that she had not seen
the priest. I heard her say it. It was the day I arrived at Blackingham.”

“Ah, was it indeed? I had not remembered. Thank you for reminding me.”

This scrivener was like a horsefly circling a dung heap. Patience. An untimely swat, and the sheriff might end up with excrement on himself.

He directed his remark to the lady. “As I was about to say, the priest's unsolved murder weighs heavy on the bishop's mind. It has been six months. An inventory has been found that would suggest the priest visited Blackingham. In spite of my lady's denial.”

He chose his words carefully, well enough to frighten her so that his intervention would be that much more appreciated. She held one hand—the hand she'd withdrawn from his lips—at her white throat. She gave no response.

He continued. “Although I've done my best to assure His Eminence of your complete innocence in this, the bishop demands a search. My men will do a cursory inspection of your outbuildings and kitchen. Whilst I, with your permission, my lady, will accompany you on a tour of the manor house.”

To punctuate his words, he gave her his sincerest smile: the one in which he arranged his face to say,
You can trust me for I am loyal and not self-serving;
the one he'd practiced before the bishop that very morning, the one he'd used to gain his lucrative position as sheriff of Norfolk. He touched the ribbons on her shoulder, ignoring her recoil.

“Together, we can easily satisfy the bishop.”

He tried, too, to ignore the fact that she was looking past him, at the illuminator, as though asking him what she should do. He wanted to put his hand on her jaw and crack her skinny neck like a chicken bone. The illuminator nodded at her. God's Blood! If only the cursed insect would light within range.

She said, “Very well, you may proceed. But you will understand if I do not offer you hospitality, since the nature of your visit is official.”

He remembered the day of the fire and the shepherd's death. Blacking-ham hospitality was something he could forgo. Still, he marked the slight, tallied it in a mental ledger to be settled at some later date.

“And please, ask your men not to treat other members of my household with the same discourtesy to which they subjected me.”

Another tally mark in the ledger.

“Your household must be questioned, my lady. The bishop would settle for no less than a thorough investigation. You must understand, with no one to speak in my lady's behalf, the cloud of suspicion—”

“Innocence needs no advocate but the truth.”

“If one wishes, like our Holy Saviour, to be martyred for truth. But you have two sons. Would you have them martyred also?”

Color flooded her pale face, and he knew he had shot home.

By now they had entered the solar. He was aware of Finn following on the periphery. Still there. Buzzing, just out of reach.

The sheriff opened a chest that served as table, stool, and storage, rifled through the plate and linens, ran his sword between the wall hangings and the bricks they covered.

Kathryn stood rigidly by, like a sentinel at an unpleasant post.

“Just a quick look in the sleeping chambers, and then we're done,” he said.

She waved her hand toward the stair passage that led to the private rooms. “My chamber is at the top. My guest and his daughter occupy the room you will remember as Roderick's chamber. My sons' rooms are at the other end of the passageway. If you need to question my steward, I will send for Simpson … ?”

“That will not be necessary. The item in question is of a personal nature. But if you would be so good as to call Colin. I will speak with Alfred at my leisure.”

He thought he detected the briefest hesitation before she said, “Colin is not here.” She paused for a longer breath, then, maddeningly again, shifted her gaze to the insect illuminator. Obviously, Kathryn was no longer addressing him.

“Colin has gone on pilgrimage,” she said to Finn. “He joined a band of pilgrims who came through earlier in the day. Just an interlude, a respite, he said, to pray for … he feels responsible for the shepherd's death. He and Rose had been using the wool house to …” Her gaze wavered as though she was in distress. “To practice the lute. It was to be a surprise for you.”

The sheriff might as well have been an empty suit of armor propped against a lintel post. There was a pleading quality to her tone, a softness that suggested intimacy between the lady and the artisan. They were lovers. He'd suspected it before, but had thought she would not stoop so low. It simply was not to be tolerated. The prospect of Lady Kathryn—or any lady—with such a simpering pretender disgusted him. Yet, knowledge of this despicable alliance might give him leverage to use against her in future.

“I shall speak with Colin later, or I can send my men after him now,” he
said. “But perhaps neither will prove necessary. Now, if we can proceed. We will examine Master Finn's quarters first so that he shall be free to continue his work.”

“But why his quarters if not Simpson's?” she asked.

“I'm only carrying out my orders. As Master Finn reminded me, he was present at the time of the priest's murder. But what was it you said about innocence needing no advocate? I'm sure your illuminator has nothing to fear.”

“My daughter is resting. She has been ill,” Finn said. “I will not have her frightened by your rogue's tactics.”

“Rogue's tactics? You misspeak, sir. The sheriff of Norfolk is not ungentle with
gentle
women and
innocent
children. Please, precede us into the room, if you wish, to prepare your daughter.”

He had no real suspicions that a search of the illuminator's quarters would turn up anything, but it was pleasant sport to harass him.

As they followed Finn into Sir Roderick's former chamber, now transformed into an artisan's workroom, Sir Guy was struck by the neatness of it. The girl, the illuminator's daughter, stood in one shadowy corner of the room. She was pretty, he thought idly, but not of Norman blood, be noticed again—probably a by-blow begot on some infidel—and her eyes were red and swollen as though she had been crying. Lady Kathryn went to stand beside her. An enigmatic look passed between them.

The sheriff pulled back the covers of the large carved bed, used his sword to empty out a large chest, as though its contents might be dirty, leaving Finn's carefully pressed linen lying in a rumpled heap. He rifled through a few paint pots, leaving them also in disarray, carelessly overturning one, then apologizing with a variation of his practiced smile, glancing at Finn to measure his discomfort.

“The pigments are expensive and paid for by the abbot of Broomholm,” the illuminator said.

Sir Guy tried not to laugh, but the irritation in the illuminator's voice was so gratifying. In an attempt to provoke him further, Sir Guy stirred the neatly stacked pages. The candles in the wall sconce above the tables cast a flickering light across the sheets of calfskin. “You do passing work, Illuminator. I might allow you to do a book for me.”

The illuminator said nothing.

Sir Guy measured the width of the chest with his eye, tapped it on the side with his sword. Ah, a hollow sound, then denser. The chest had a false bottom. He nodded to the serjeant, who turned it upside down and pounded. The wooden lining slipped out, emptying its contents onto the floor. Papers fluttered down in a shower.

“Please, sir, my father's work—”

The illuminator shook his head to silence his daughter. Sir Guy bent to retrieve some of the papers from the top of the pile, more out of curiosity than courtesy.

“Hmm. What's this? A text from Saint John? Not very colorful. I thought you did better work than … “ He stood up, moved closer to the wall sconce to examine the papers in the light of the flame, his eyes squinting with the effort. “Saint John in English! The profane text of Wycliffe.” The smile that broke out on his face was not contrived. “Master Illuminator, the abbot would be interested to know he is not your only patron.” Then, more to himself: “The bishop might be interested as well.”

The horsefly was buzzing closer, hovering, almost in reach.

He shuffled the papers beneath the light. “
The Divine Revelations of Julian of Norwich.
And in Midland doggerel, too. The bishop should also know how his holy women spend their time.”

Sir Guy knelt to explore the rest of what was turning out to be a treasure trove of useful information, information he could trade for the bishop's favor. Henry Despenser's goodwill had lately been withheld because the priest's murderer had gone unpunished, and the bishop was probably feeling the archbishop's wrath. This little morsel might distract him. Henry Despenser hated John Wycliffe and his Lollard preachers with a visceral fury. Mayhap there was more to be mined in this innocent-seeming pile of script.