Bone of Contention Read online

  “Loveday!” Magdalene sounded shocked, but her lips quivered. “Do you wish to steal the man’s money?”

  “Where would an animal like St. Cyr get so much silver? And who knows what he intended to do with it. Buy an application of the royal seal to bind me?” She made an angry moue and then said, “We will have to give it back. Otherwise he will claim that Niall stole it. And how will we tell Niall that he should bring the purse and the document?”

  “I can ask Florete to let me know if one of William’s men stops in. He will be able to arrange for a messenger or perhaps Florete can. I certainly don’t think we should try to ride out to Noke ourselves. In fact, I am most reluctant even to go out into the market today. The fewer people that see us together, or you in Oxford, the better.”

  Although Magdalene could see Loveday was not happy with the decision, the girl knew it was sensible and agreed. The women spent the morning embroidering and had Diccon, who had no real news, for company at dinner time. By early afternoon none of William’s men had arrived and Magdalene was about to leave the room to ask Florete about a messenger when Bell forestalled her intention by calling through the door and then walking in without waiting for a reply. It was a piece of rudeness that made Magdalene lighthearted—a mark of trust he didn’t even know he had given. If the slightest suspicion that she still plied her trade troubled his heart, he would never have walked in and chanced finding her with a man.

  Then Magdalene told herself not to be a fool. Doubtless he had asked Florete if anyone was with her. Thus she moderated the warmth with which she greeted him, which was just as well. Too much gladness might have made him suspicious, particularly as he was in a foul mood himself. That was partly because he had been caught in a nasty downpour and partly because the dean did not feel the relation of gossip collected at alehouses was sufficiently urgent for Bell to ride to Winchester.

  He informed them of what he thought of that while he rid himself of his wet cloak and wiped his face and hair with a cloth Magdalene gave him. As he sat down to pull off his boots, he finished with “He said that a messenger with a letter to the bishop would be enough to describe the rumors. But how can a letter convey the leashed-in excitement that some of those men felt or the anxiety of others? Oh, I wrote of it, but if I told Winchester he would understand better.”

  “Likely,” Magdalene agreed, “but what good would it do? Salisbury must be here by tomorrow if he wishes to avoid the appearance of contumacy. If Winchester wrote to Salisbury, his letter would never arrive in time.”

  “It certainly would not,” Loveday put in. “It is near twenty leagues to Winchester and would take you a full day to ride there, even if you changed horses—a day and a half if you rode Monseigneur all the way. Salisbury will have left Malmsbury before you arrive in Winchester. And if the bishop of Winchester addresses his letter to Salisbury here—”

  “That would not be wise.” Magdalene’s voice was flat. “And even if Winchester heard your news and felt it as strongly as you do, what can you expect him to do? He cannot ride the way you can, so it would be two or three days before he could arrive. Worse yet, it would be even less safe for him to come here than to send a letter. I know the bishop is a good and wise man, but consider the animosity between him and the king…”

  “Oh, God,” Bell sighed. “Of course he would stand up for Salisbury and perhaps be caught in the same trap.”

  “And if he stays quietly in Winchester and yet knows clearly what has happened and what the opinions of the men attending the Council are, perhaps he will be able to mend the harm or smooth it over. Salisbury cannot live forever, he is an old man already.”

  “If the king could be convinced of that…” Bell nodded and Magdalene could see his body relax. “So the dean was not so foolish as I thought for keeping me here to see and hear. Well he was right.” Then suddenly he laughed. “Tell Magdalene and feel better.” He laughed again. “Out of the mouths of babes.”

  “Do you have a child, Magdalene?” Loveday asked.

  Now it was Magdalene’s turn to laugh. “In a way. One of the women who serves in my house is…simple. She is not of those with round faces, narrow eyes, and slobbering lips. Perhaps she was born as you and I and some illness or accident befell her that robbed her of her wits. But she is like a five-year-old—” Magdalene grinned “—except for her love of futtering, which is as strong and insistent as some men’s love for wine.”

  Bell shook his head in wonder. “Anyone, anytime, all the time. But she once told me when I was troubled…” His voice became slightly uneven as he thought of the mad miller whose throat he had cut, “that I should tell my troubles to Magdalene and she would make it all better.”

  Loveday smiled then sighed, turning to Magdalene. “Then I have a new piece of trouble to offer. I have just realized that we cannot simply send a messenger to ask Niall to bring the purse. He cannot get it out of my strongbox because I have the key with me.”

  “What purse?” Bell asked.

  When they had told him the story, he glanced out a window and said, “I will go, but not now. It would be night before I arrived and—” his eyes flicked to Magdalene and he smiled— “I prefer a soft bed here to a pallet on the floor at Noke. It will make little difference in when you would get the document, since Niall could not ride back here by night. If you trust me, I will take the key with me, and depending on what has happened at Noke, either Niall or I will bring back purse and document.”

  “Thank you.” Loveday smiled.

  Very, very good, Magdalene thought cynically. She was almost sure that Loveday had remembered the key earlier when they were first talking about sending a messenger, but she only spoke of it when she had before her someone she knew to be trustworthy and too bemused by another woman to consider marriage to her no matter what he found in her strongbox. That thought made Magdalene wonder how much that strongbox held, how Loveday had concealed a good part of a rich income from the king, and whether Niall was making a marriage even better than he thought.

  Her pleasure in that idea did not last long. If Niall no longer needed his employment with William, would he leave it? Would that deprive William of a strong, clever, and loyal captain at a critical time? Magdalene thought of Niall, of the lively eagerness of his face when he spoke of politics or war, his warm camaraderie with his fellow captains. She glanced once at Loveday, and recalled her absorption in her own affairs, her devotion to Noke.

  No, Magdalene decided, Niall would stay with William as long as the heady excitement of conflict hung in the balance and his friends were involved in it. And Loveday was not the type to weep and wail of her loneliness and her need for a man to manage affairs for her.

  Partly to keep Bell from recognizing how he had been handled and partly to hide her knowing grin, Magdalene rose and went to the shelves where she stored the tidbits she had bought. She collected a flask of wine and three cups. Another trip to the shelf produced a coarse cloth that when unrolled revealed another cloth, a set of chessmen, and four sets of differently dyed rounds of polished wood. The cloth inside was marked on one face with solid dark and light squares for playing chess and on the other with open interlaced squares for the three-in-a-row game often called Nine Man Merelles.

  These anodynes to worry and boredom were greeted with enthusiasm and, since three could play at once and that made the game far more complex and interesting, Merelles was chosen quickly. While Magdalene poured the wine, Loveday brought a selection of dried fruit and sweetcakes to the table, and Bell handed out the wooden pieces.

  Magdalene’s single glance at Loveday, with eyes that flicked toward Bell and away, signed a conspiracy and they played together against him. He was so good-humored about being soundly drubbed, however, that Magdalene could not keep up the pretence. As he was about to lose one of the last three pieces remaining to him and be officially “beaten,” she popped a particularly luscious piece of cake into his mouth, kissed him, and confessed.

  Bell laughed heartily
and admitted he had suspected the conspiracy, claiming he had not taxed them with their dishonesty just so he could demand some recompense. But before he could reveal what he intended to extract from them, the sharp crack of a sword hilt striking the door brought all three to staring attention.

  “Who is there?” Magdalene called, while Loveday shook the pieces off the gaming board to hide how many had been playing and retreated toward the bed.

  Bell stood up, taking his sword hilt in his right hand and holding the sheath where he had laid it handily near him on the table with his left. He could draw his weapon before anyone entering the door could reach him, and he knew Magdalene would take care not to be seized. However, the answer to Magdalene’s question relieved them of any concern about attack.

  “It is Giles de Milland, Magdalene. I’m sorry but I must come in at once.”

  “Come,” Magdalene said, hurrying to open the door. “What is wrong? Is something the matter with William?”

  “Not with my lord. Is Niall here?”

  “No. He is at this lady’s manor—” Magdalene gestured toward Loveday “—holding it against—”

  “No, he is not!” Giles de Milland cut her off. “I was out there before midday. Your people would not let me in.” He glared at Loveday. “But they swore that Niall Arvagh was not within the manor, that he had ridden away.”

  “Likely he had,” Loveday said, looking puzzled. “I imagine he went to Murcot to…to see his father.”

  “Yes,” Bell put in. “I saw him at Noke yesterday and I brought something that I think he would want to show his father. Perhaps he rode there.”

  “No, he did not. Lord William sent Leon there soon after prime.”

  “William sent a man to Niall’s father?” Magdalene echoed. “But what does it matter where Niall is? Why do you need him so urgently?”

  “Because Aimery St. Cyr was murdered last night and Manville d’Arras has accused Niall of the crime.”

  Chapter 8

  23 June,

  Soft Nest and Cornmarket, Oxford

  “Murdered?” Magdalene cried. “Surely you mean that Niall killed St. Cyr in a fight to protect Noke.”

  “Murdered,” Giles insisted. “St. Cyr was found behind a shed outside The Broached Barrel. He was stabbed in the back.”

  “No,” Magdalene said indignantly. “Niall would not stab a man in the back!”

  “Not in an ordinary way,” Giles said, “but he had already shown he had no need to fear St. Cyr and could best him in a fair fight. If the man would not face him and was running away…he had sworn he would kill St. Cyr it he troubled Mistress Loveday—” he looked toward the girl and then back to Magdalene “—again. If he met St. Cyr and warned him away and the man made him angry… Niall’s temper matches his hair.”

  “Not with me,” Loveday said. “I can testify that he is not quick to anger and certainly would not strike out in such a way without thought or warning. Even in the heat of the fight at Noke, when I bade him not to kill St. Cyr he only struck him with the flat of his sword.”

  “Perhaps he regretted his forbearance,” Giles said, frowning. “In fact, Lord William was of Magdalene’s mind; that Niall would not stab a man in the back, which is why he sent me to Noke and Leon to Murcot. He wanted Niall to explain what had happened.”

  “Yes, but how did Lord William learn of St. Cyr’s death in the first place?” Magdalene asked.

  “A man from the sheriff came to us at our lodging in the armorer’s house and asked for Niall, saying that a body had been identified by one Manville d’Arras as Aimery St. Cyr, and that this Arras had accused Niall of murder, saying he had heard Niall threaten St. Cyr.”

  “Come in and sit down, man,” Bell said, gesturing toward the benches at the table.

  Giles nodded and sat, breathing out a heavy sigh. “I have been riding or running from this place to that all day.”

  Magdalene got another cup and poured wine into it for him, pushing the remains of the cakes and dried fruit within easy reach. “But surely,” she said, “you told the sheriff that Niall was no murderer.”

  “Of course, although what I said was that killing St. Cyr in a fair fight was not murder. Then the sheriff’s man told us that a knife in the back was no sign of a fair fight. Naturally I protested that Niall would not stab a man in the back and asked for particulars.”

  “And those were?” Magdalene asked.

  “That the Watch had found a body, dead of a knife wound in the back, behind a shed that belonged to The Broached Barrel alehouse. Those in the alehouse knew the corpse as Aimery St. Cyr, who was in service with Lord Waleran. When the sheriff sent a man to the lodging of Lord Waleran’s men-at-arms, Manville d’Arras came forward at once, claiming to be St. Cyr’s friend. He identified the body and then he told them the tale of St. Cyr’s betrothal to Mistress Loveday and Niall’s violation of that contract by driving St. Cyr away from Noke and by threatening to kill him if he returned there.”

  “It was a forged, false contract!” Loveday exclaimed furiously.

  “But apparently St. Cyr did not go back to Noke,” Bell remarked, brows raised. “He was killed here, in Oxford.”

  “Has anyone asked where this Manville d’Arras was when St. Cyr died?” Magdalene asked.

  “Not yet, I think. The sheriff’s man said that Arras was truly distraught and weeping when he saw St. Cyr dead.”

  Magdalene laughed. “If I had killed a man, I too would pretend to be distraught and weeping.”

  Bell glanced sidelong at her, and almost shuddered at the coldness that looked out of her half-lidded eyes and the way her softly curved lips had folded into a hard, cruel line.

  “Truly I did not think so far ahead,” Giles admitted, “only that Niall could not have done such a thing. And when I went to the keep and reported to Lord William what had happened, he said I had better bring Niall back here to answer the stupid charges, and then he remembered that Niall might have gone out to Murcot to his father’s manor, so I went to Noke and Leon went to Murcot. But Niall was in neither place, and is not here, so we must assume that he has fled.”

  “Fled to where?” Loveday cried.

  “Back to London or to Rochester, I suppose, where he would be safe from the sheriff of Oxford.”

  “Leaving me at the mercy of anyone who wished to take me?” Loveday sounded stunned.

  “You’re in no danger. St. Cyr is dead,” Giles protested.

  “And what of Lord William’s men who were with Niall at Noke? Did he take them to London or to wherever too? is the manor protected only by the servants?

  Sir Giles de Milland looked at her with open eyes and open mouth. “Men? Lord William’s men? Lord William’s men were at Noke?”

  “Yes,” Magdalene put in. “Niall took ten men from his own troop with him to protect the manor.”

  Milland’s expression darkened. “He must have taken the men with him or they would have let me in, no matter what the servants of Noke wanted.” He sighed. “This is very bad.”

  “I want to go home,” Loveday said. “I must go home at once and see what is happening.”

  “It is too late,” Bell pointed out. “It would be full dark before we arrived, and the manor was peaceful this morning when Sir Giles rode out there. Since St. Cyr is dead, there can be no further threat to Noke.”

  “Bell is right, love,” Magdalene said soothingly. “Why do we not go out to the market, since you now have nothing to fear, and find an evening meal at a cookshop? You will feel better for being out of this room and walking about.”

  “Yes,” Bell agreed heartily, “and I will hie me off to The Broached Barrel. One alehouse is as good as another. I can ask about St. Cyr there as well as listen for the wagering about Salisbury.”

  “And I,” Sir Giles said, “had better get back to Lord William.” He smiled at Magdalene. “Shall I tell him that you do not believe Niall committed this crime and have set about finding out who did?”

  “Twice was enough,
” Magdalene said, watching Bell collect his boots and begin to pull them on. “I have no great urge to confront murderers. When my women and I were at risk, I did what I must. Of course if Bell finds an answer, I will let Lord William know, but I think Niall will be innocent or have a good reason for what he did.”

  They walked together to the Carfax where Sir Giles turned left on Castle Street. Bell, Magdalene, and Loveday walked straight ahead. The sun was just about to drop behind the hills to the west, but the market was as lively as ever with a long, light evening ahead and plenty of twilight for packing up goods on a midsummer day.

  About midway along the street, across from Redding’s mercery, Loveday pointed to a cookshop and said, “Let us eat there, Magdalene. Edmee and I often took a meal there, as it was close to the shop. It is a little more costly than the place at the end of the street, but that makes it a little quieter too. And I think it the cleanest.”

  “That last convinces me,” Magdalene said. “The cleaner the cookshop, the less likely stomach gripes, I have found.”

  They crossed the street and Magdalene noted with approval that the benches seemed sturdy and the tables carried no more than recent spills. She told Loveday to order what she thought would be good, since she was familiar with the place, and then Bell touched her arm and she looked up.

  “I assumed you would allow me to share your bed tonight,” he said. “Was I right?”

  “Do you still want to?” Magdalene asked. “I saw how you looked at me when I spoke of murder.”

  “It was not what you said, but how you looked,” Bell said. “You are, I think, more intimately acquainted with killing than most.” He looked down into her face, so lovely it made his chest hurt, into the misty blue eyes that met his steadily. “It is none of my business,” he said. “If you will let me come, I will be grateful.”

  She smiled. “Remember Loveday will be there.”

  Bell wrinkled his nose. “That one knows men and knows how to use them. No sweet maiden, she. Loveday can stuff her ears if she does not wish to hear us. She may or may not be virgin, but I doubt anything we could do would shock her.”