The Serpent's Tale (23 page)

Adelia shook her head at her. “What would I do without you?”

Gyltha poured the remnants of the broth from Adelia’s bowl into hers and put it down on the floor for Ward. “For a start, you wouldn’t have no time to find out who done in that poor lad, nor who it was done for Rosamund,” she said.

“Oh,” Adelia said, sighing. “Very well, tell me.”

“Tell ee what?” But Gyltha was smirking a satisfied smirk.

“You know very well. Who’s arrived? Who’s been asking questions about the boy in the icehouse? Somebody wanted him found and, sure as taxes, that somebody is going to question why he hasn’t been. Who is it?”

It was more than one. As if blown ahead of the snow that had now encased them, four people had arrived at Godstow during Adelia’s absence.

“Master and Mistress Bloat of Abingdon, they’re ma and pa to that young Emma as you took to. Come to see her married.”

“What are they like?”

“Big.” Gyltha spread her arms as if to encompass tree trunks. “Big bellies, big words, big voices—he has, anyhow, bellows like a bull as how he ships more wine from foreign parts than anybody else, sells more’n anybody else—for a nicer price than anybody else, I wouldn’t be surprised. Hog on a high horse, he is.”

By which Adelia gathered that Master Bloat reveled in a position he’d not been born to. “And his wife?”

In answer, Gyltha arranged her mouth into a ferocious simper, picked up the ale bottle, and ostentatiously prinked her little finger as she pretended to drink from it. She hadn’t taken to the Bloats.

“Unlikely murderers, though,” Adelia said. “Who else?”

“Their son-in-law-as-will-be.”

Another person with a valid reason for coming to Godstow.

“Aaaah.”
So the beautiful, gallant writer of poetry had come to take his bride. How nice for that wild, charming girl, how nice that love would lighten the winter darkness for a while at least. “How did he get here?”

Gyltha shrugged. “Arrived from Oxford afore the blizzard set in, like the others. Seems he’s lord of the manor over the bridge, though he don’t spend much time there. Run-down old ruin, Polly says it is.” Gyltha had made friends in the kitchen. “His pa as took Stephen’s side in the war had a castle further upriver during the war, the which King Henry made un pull it down.”

“Is he as handsome as Emma thinks he is?”

But Adelia saw that here was another that hadn’t been taken to—this time, in depth. “Handsome is as handsome does,” Gyltha said. “Older’n I expected, and a proper lord, too, from his way of ordering people about. Been married before, but her died. The Bloats is lickin’ his boots for the favor of him making their girl a noblewoman.” Gyltha leaned forward slightly. “And him kindly accepting two hundred marks in gold as comes with her for a dowry.”

“Two hundred marks?” An immense sum.

“So Polly says. In gold.” Gyltha nodded. “Ain’t short of a shilling or two, our Master Bloat.”

“He can’t be. Still, if he’s prepared to purchase his daughter’s happiness…” She paused. “
Is
she happy?”

Gyltha shrugged. “Ain’t seen her. She’s kept to the cloisters. I’da thought she’d come rushing to see this Lord Wolvercote….”

“Wolvercote?”

“That’s his lordship’s name. Suits him, an’ all; he do look proper wolfish.”

“Gyltha…Wolvercote, that’s the man…he’s the one who’s raised an army for the queen. He’s supposed to be at Oxford, waiting for Eleanor to join him.”

“Well, he ain’t, he’s here.”

“
Is
he now? But…” Adelia was determined to follow the gleam of romance where it led. “He’s not a likely murderer, either. It speaks well for him if he’s prepared to delay a war because he can’t wait to marry young Emma.”

“He’s delayin’ it,” Gyltha pointed out, “for young Emma plus two hundred marks.
In
gold.” She leaned forward, pointing with her knitting needle. “You know the first thing he do when he got back to the village? Finds a couple of rogues robbin’ his manor and hangs ’em quicker’n buttered lightning.”

“The two on the bridge? I wondered about them.”

“Sister Havis ain’t happy. She made a right to-do about it, according to Polly. See, it’s the abbey’s bridge, and the sisters don’t like it being decorated with corpses. ‘You take ’em down now,’ she told his lordship. But he says as it’s
his
bridge, so he won’t. And he ain’t.”

“Oh, dear.” So much for romance. “Well, who’s the fourth arrival?”

“Lawyer. Name of Warin. Now he
has
been asking questions. Very worried about his young cousin, seemingly, as was last seen riding upriver.”

“Warin, Warin. He wrote the letter the boy carried.” It was as if an ice barrier was melting and allowing everything to flood back into her memory.
Your affct cousin, Wlm Warin, gentleman-at-law, who hereby sends: two silvr marks as an earnest of your inheritance, the rest to be Claimed when we do meet.

Letters, always letters. A letter in the dead man’s saddlebag. A letter on Rosamund’s table. Did they connect the two murders? Not necessarily. People wrote letters when they could write at all. On the other hand…

“When did Master Warin arrive seeking his cousin?”

“Late last night, afore the blizzard. And he’s a weeper. Crying fit to bust for worry as his cousin might’ve got caught in the snow, or been waylaid for his purse. Wanted to cross the bridge and ask at the village, but the snow started blowing, so he couldn’t.”

Adelia worked it out. “He was quick off the mark to know the boy was missing, then. Talbot of Kidlington—it must be him in the icehouse—was only killed the night before.”

“Is that a clue?” The gleam in Gyltha’s eye was predatory.

“I don’t know. Probably not. Oh, dear
God
, what now?”

The church bell across the way had begun to toll, shivering the ewer in its bowl, sending vibrations through the bed. Allie’s mouth opened to yell, and Adelia scrambled to get to her and cover her ears. “What is it? What is it?” This was no call to worship.

Gyltha had her ear to the shutters, trying to listen to shouts in the alley below. “Everybody to the church.”

“Is it fire?”

“Dunno. Summoning bell, more like.” Gyltha ran to the line of pegs where their cloaks hung. Adelia began wrapping Allie in her furs.

Outside, groups of people hurried from both ends of the alley and joined the congestion in the noisy church porch, where those pausing to let others go in chattered in alarm, asking one another questions and receiving no answers. They took noise in with them…and quieted.

Though it was crowded, the church was silent and mostly dark, all light concentrated on the chancel, where men sat in the choir stalls,
men
, some of them in mail. The bishop’s throne had been placed in front of the altar for Queen Eleanor to sit in; she wore her crown, but the enormous chair dwarfed her.

Beside her stood a knight, helmeted, his cloak flung back to show the scarlet-and-black blazon of a wolf’s head on the chest of his tabard. A gauntleted hand rested on his sword’s hilt. He was so still he might have been a painted sculpture, but his was the figure that drew the eye.

The trickle of sound that came in with newcomers dried up. Godstow’s entire population was here now, all those who could walk, at least. Adelia, fearing that the child in her arms might be crushed, looked round for space and was helped up onto a tomb by people already standing on it. Gyltha and Ward joined her.

The bell stopped tolling; it had been mere background to what was developing and only became noticeable now by its cessation.

The knight nodded, and a liveried man behind the choir stalls turned and opened the vestry door, which was the entrance used by the religious.

Mother Edyve came in, leaning on her cane, followed by the nuns of Godstow. She paused as she reached the chancel and regarded the men who occupied the places reserved for her and the sisters. The Abbot of Eynsham sat there, so did Schwyz, Montignard, others. None of them moved.

There was a hiss of appalled breath from the congregation, but Mother Edyve merely cocked her head and limped past them, a finger raised to beckon at her flock as she went down the steps to stand with the congregation.

Adelia peered round the nave, looking for Mansur. She couldn’t see him; instead, she found herself looking at mailed men with drawn swords standing at intervals along the walls, as if the ancient stones had sprung rivets of steel and iron.

Warders.

She turned back. The knight in the chancel had begun speaking.

“You all know me. I am the Lord of Wolvercote, and from this moment I claim this precinct of Godstow in the name of our Lord Savior and my gracious liege lady, Queen Eleanor of England, to be held against the queen’s enemies until such time as her cause prevails throughout this land.”

It was a surprisingly high, weak voice from such a tall man, but in that silence it didn’t need strength.

There was a murmur of disbelief. Behind Adelia, somebody said, “What do he mean?”

Somebody else muttered, “Gor bugger, is he tellin’ us we’re at war?”

There was a shout from the nave: “What enemies is that, then? We ain’t got no enemies, we’m all snowed up.” It sounded to Adelia like the voice of the miller who had questioned Bishop Rowley. There was a general, nervous snigger.

Immediately, two of the men-at-arms against the southern wall barged forward, hitting people aside with the flat of their swords until they reached the interrupter. Seizing his arms, they pulled him through the crowd to the main doors.

It
was
the miller. Adelia got a glimpse of a round face, its mouth open in shock. The men dragging him wore the wolf’s head blazon. A boy ran after them. “Pa. Leave my pa alone.” She couldn’t see what happened after that, but the doors slammed shut and silence descended again.

“There will be no disobedience,” said the high voice. “This abbey is now under military rule, and you people are subject to martial law. A curfew will be imposed….”

Adelia struggled with disbelief. The most shocking thing about what was happening was its stupidity. Wolvercote was alienating the very people he needed as friends while the snow lasted.
Needlessly.
As the miller said, there was no enemy. The last she’d heard, the nearest military force was at nearby Oxford—and that was Wolvercote’s own.

Oh, God, a stupid man—the most dangerous animal of them all.

In the choir stalls, Montignard was smiling at the queen. Most of the others were watching the crowd in the nave, but the Abbot of Eynsham was examining his fingernails while the scowl on Schwyz’s face was that of a man forced to watch a monkey wearing his clothes.

He wouldn’t have done this
, Adelia thought.
He’s a professional. I wouldn’t have done it, and I don’t know anything about warfare.

“…the holy women will keep to their cloister, rationing will be introduced while the snow lasts, and one meal a day shall be eaten communally—gentles in the refectory, villeins in the barn. Apart from church services, there shall be no other gatherings. Any group of more than five people is forbidden.”

“That’s done for his bloody meals, then,” Gyltha breathed.

Adelia grinned. Here was stupidity in extremis; the kitchen staff alone numbered twenty; if they couldn’t congregate, there would be no cooking.

Whatever that man is up to,
she thought,
this is not the way to do it.

Then she thought,
But he doesn’t know any other. This is a man for whom frightened people are obedient people.

And we
are
frightened.
She could feel it, collective memory like a chill lancing through body heat in the church. An old helplessness. The Horsemen were with them, introduced into their peace by a stupid, stupid swine.

For what?

Adelia looked to where Schwyz and Abbot Eynsham sat, radiating discomposure. If this is the queen’s war, they are all on the same side. Is Wolvercote establishing himself over his allies before he can be challenged? Grabbing authority
now
? Not the Abbot of Eynsham, not Schwyz, nor any other to win the glory, if glory was to be won. Wolvercote had arrived to find the queen of England at hand and must establish himself as her savior before anyone else could. If she succeeded under his generalship, Wolvercote might even be the true regent of England.

I’m watching a man throw dice.

He’d come to the end of his orders. He was turning, kneeling to Eleanor, his sword proffered, hilt first, for her to touch. “Always your servant, lady. To you and God in majesty, I swear my fealty.”

And Eleanor was touching the hilt. Standing up. Skirting him to get to the chancel steps. Raising her small fist. Looking beautiful.

“I, Eleanor, Queen of England, Duchess of Aquitaine, do swear that you are my people and that I shall love and serve you as I love and serve my gracious Lord, Jesus Christ.”