Chains of Folly Page 26

  “Thank you,” the priest said faintly.

  Bell and Winchester looked at each other. Without words Bell conveyed the fact that he would accompany Holdyn. He would make sure the episcopal vicar’s servants took him off to his bed before he spoke to anyone. Once Holdyn was out of the way, Bell would confirm with the clerk where Holdyn was Thursday night and where the late bishop of London had found Holdyn. A messenger could be sent to that parish to determine who had kept Holdyn’s house and whether the woman was known to be Holdyn’s sister. Bell would ask, too, about Gehard.

  * * * *

  “There are none so blind as those who will not see,” Bell said to Magdalene when he arrived long after Complin. He stretched tiredly and leaned forward to rest his arms along the table. “What she was must have been plain to everyone in the household except Holdyn.” He shook his head. “She dismissed all the servants and hired new just before she left.”

  “And you spent the whole afternoon trying to find them.”

  Bell smiled. “It was not so difficult. Holdyn kept good records so I was able to find the servants’ families and eventually speak to the servants themselves. I am sorry I never knew Nelda. She must have been a strange person, but Holdyn was not alone in finding her delightful. Even the servants she dismissed liked her…but she was whoring while she lived as his housekeeper. They told me.”

  “Was she his sister?”

  “Are you asking whether he was lying with her, denials to the contrary? I do not think so. The servants certainly did not think so. They all agreed that sister and brother was how they acted. In any event, we will know tomorrow or the next day for certain. Winchester sent a messenger to the village where Holdyn was born. His father was the miller there, a prosperous merchant, and his brother still owns the mill. Holdyn writes to him and has letters in return. The bishop was so sure of the answer, that he sent back Holdyn’s crucifix.”

  “Then he is almost certainly innocent. He would not have said she was his sister when he has a living brother who must know the truth.”

  “Oh, yes. Father Holdyn is cleared. According to his clerk he recognized Gehard’s name because there had twice been complaints from women stallkeepers about rough handling. Father Holdyn did not meet the man. The local priest spoke to him…for all the good it would have done. But it doesn’t matter now. Even if Holdyn had remonstrated with Gehard himself, there was no cause for murder. Holdyn did not know that Gehard had beaten Nelda. He had not seen her since before that happened.”

  Magdalene nodded. “So that leaves Linley and Sir John. Where is Sir John? Why is he not here, seeking his letter?”

  “I cannot say except that it is possible he or his horse was injured on the road…or he never went on the road.” He groaned softly. “Peste! I forgot to stop by Baynard’s Castle to ask about whether Sir John said where he was going when he left them, and if they knew which road he took.”

  “Will they be willing to give you any information? Lord Hugh is not a great admirer of Winchester nor likely to be too willing to be helpful.”

  Bell showed his teeth in what was not a smile. “But I have the word of the would-be abductors of the bishop that they were to bring him to that warehouse opposite Paul’s Wharf—so convenient for Baynard’s Castle. The testimony of my men about what they heard is good before the law, too. Those who gave the information were dying.” His eyes were ice-cold and his lips set like two bands of steel. “They knew it. They even wished for it.”

  Magdalene shuddered slightly. She had seen Bell kill, but always quickly and cleanly. She did not want to know that he could torture also.

  “I may drop a hint or two about that attack and about the strange death of the man who hired the attackers… They will wish to oblige me and if the answers are not important to them to be rid of me as soon as possible.”

  “Just be sure that they do not get rid of you…permanently.”

  Bell laughed. “Never fear. I am not an idiot. I will bring a full troop, half to come in with me and half to wait without to be sure we all come out.” His eyes dropped to the bright cuffs on which Magdalene was binding off a short edge. “Those are pretty.”

  “Yes,” Magdalene said, laughing. Bell did love fine clothing. “But they are not for you, my greedy friend. They are my excuse tomorrow for going to speak to Claresta. I will offer the cuffs and ask her to try to remember when Linley actually left Rhyton’s house, but I really want to speak to the servants. They were Bertrild’s slaves, who Mainard freed. They know me and trust me. Claresta may not know exactly when Linley left, but I hope that Jean will know.”

  Bell frowned. “It is possible that Linley will be there. From what I heard from his fellow officers, he is mostly to be found at Rhyton’s house. I am not too happy about your meeting him. I would go with you, but I need to go to Baynard’s Castle first.”

  “I cannot leave going to Lime Street too late or Claresta will be gone to the shop, and it is the Lime Street servants I must question. Possibly you will be back from Baynard’s Castle before I leave, but if not… Yes, I would be happier if I knew you would follow me there. And you will not frighten Jean and the others; they know you as Mainard’s friend.”

  Bell yawned and stretched again. “I am off to bed then. I think I have walked ten times around London today.” He looked down as Magdalene set one cuff aside and began to finish the other. “Hmmm,” he said, “if Claresta will not buy the cuffs—you said she did not want to buy for the unwelcome wedding—I will buy them.”

  Magdalene chuckled. “When did you ever buy any piece of my embroidery?”

  And then the laugh froze in her throat as she saw the expression on Bell’s face change. His hand dropped to the purse fastened to his belt, and he removed five silver pennies from it.

  “I desire to buy something else also,” he said, and put the coins on the table.

  “I am not for sale,” Magdalene hissed.

  “You are a whore. You have told me so many times. You have insisted on it. A whore is for sale.”

  “Not a rich whore. A rich whore picks and chooses the men she wishes to take to her bed.”

  What a fool she was! She should have taken his five pennies. She could have returned them in the morning with a jest about the pleasure he had given her. Now she felt sick. She would lose him again. He would say that she then chose to lie with William. What could she answer? He had not forgotten she had told him in Oxford that she loved William too. If she used the excuse that William was too powerful to refuse, he would know she was lying.

  But Bell did not mention William. He said, “When you claimed you were retired, you picked and chose me. I have not changed.”

  Hope stirred in Magdalene. It seemed that Bell, too, wished to pretend that William did not exist. She grinned up at him. “I chose you for pleasure, for laughter. I do not want your coin. I prefer to take my pay in other ways, Bellamy of Itchen.”

  “Oh.” Now he grinned too. “Well, I am not for sale either. If you want your pay, you will need to take my terms for it.”

  And before she could reply, he walked down the corridor to the room in which he had been sleeping. He grinned again as he began to take off his clothing, remembering that Magdalene intended to take on another woman. There would be no convenient bed available for him once they found someone suitable, and he was quite confident that Magdalene did not intend to put him out. Then there would be only her bed…

  He felt not at all frustrated and in very good spirits as he lay down, and he wondered how Magdalene would explain her invitation. He wondered, too, if he should simply yield at once or try to insist on paying her. He always enjoyed a tussle of wills with Magdalene. And before he had planned out what he would say to tease her, he fell asleep, still with the grin of satisfaction on his face.

  Morning, though it was damp and foggy, did not blunt his feeling of good cheer, and that sense of amused confidence must have communicated itself to Lord Hugh’s men. The guard at the gate looked him up and down and s
ent at once for the master-at-arms. That man glanced sidelong at Bell when he identified himself and asked what the bishop wanted of his lord. Bell smiled.

  “Nothing at all, except to ask about the Sir John to whom you gave lodging on last Thursday night.”

  The arrested expression on the master-at-arms’ face told Bell plainly that the man knew of the letter Sir John thought he was carrying. He allowed himself to smile more broadly.

  “Sir John is not Lord Hugh’s man,” the master-at-arms said uneasily.

  “I never thought he was,” Bell assured him. “I know he is Lord Mandeville’s man. I merely wish to ascertain when he left Baynard’s Castle on Friday—or on Thursday night if he had decided to travel at night—”

  “No, it was Friday. He spoke to Lord Hugh before he left too, but—”

  “Ah,” Bell interrupted, “then I would be pleased if you would inform Lord Hugh of my arrival and ask if he could grant me just a few moments of his time. I wonder if from his window he could see a light from that warehouse that is across the river from Paul’s Wharf.”

  “Lord Hugh’s windows do not face the wharf.”

  Bell smiled again. “Then it would have to be from the battlements that a light would be visible. Was there a watch set?” Bell’s voice was only mildly inquisitive, as if he could guess the answer without being told.

  “A watch set when? For what? You are making no sense.”

  The tense anxiety of the questions told Bell that the man knew very well what he was talking about. “No?” The smile lingered on Bell’s lips. “Possibly you were not told. But you will enquire as to whether Lord Hugh can grant me an audience? I promise I will keep him less than a quarter candlemark.”

  The master-at-arms hurried into the building. Bell nodded at Levin. “There is no reason to dismount. I do not expect to be within for more than a quarter candlemark. Eduin has the other men safe from arrow shot?”

  “Right against the wall. Sir Bellamy, with shields ready.”

  “Good.”

  Bell smiled again, quite sure that the guards had heard the exchange, which assured that any harm coming to Sir Bellamy and his men would be swiftly reported to the bishop of Winchester. He began to walk slowly toward the door of the outbuilding that housed the stair going up into the keep. No one tried to stop him, and by the time he reached the door the master-at-arms was just stepping out. He led Bell up the stairs and through the great hall, which was actually not particularly great, to a low dais on which there was a table and behind it a tall cushioned chair with back and arms.

  Bell came to the table and bowed, not smiling now, carefully keeping his face without any expression because he always felt a kind of contempt for Lord Hugh. It was not fair; there was nothing truly lacking in the man himself. It was just that he was a pale, rather unfinished version of Waleran de Meulan. That he resembled Waleran was natural; Waleran was his older brother. But Robert of Leicester, who was Waleran’s twin, did not look like a washed out version of Waleran. The resemblance was strong, but Lord Robert looked like himself. Perhaps it was Lord Hugh’s expression.

  “Well, what do you want, Sir Bellamy?” Lord Hugh asked.

  “Information about the Sir John who was your guest on Thursday night. Earlier that night a woman called Nelda Roundheels—”

  Lord Hugh laughed. “The woman who was found in the bishop of Winchester’s bed, eh?”

  Bell said nothing while rage tightened his throat, but this was not a captain of a troop, and he still regretted the loss of control that had probably made him an enemy. Then he smiled, as sweetly as he knew how.

  “She was dead before the bishop’s bed arrived from Winchester with some twenty guardsmen and ten clerks, but the men who were told to bring Winchester to the warehouse across from Paul’s Wharf were alive when I took them and had a most interesting tale to tell—”

  “Lies. All lies.”

  “As is the tale of the whore in Winchester’s bed. My lord the bishop was not in London when the whore was killed, but he was…ah…annoyed that someone had carried her corpse into his house. Which is why I am asking what time Sir John came to Baynard’s Castle that Thursday night.”

  “How would I know? I was abed. Do you think my men wake me for every nobody who comes begging shelter?”

  “No, but I thought since Sir John was a messenger to Lord Mandeville from Robert of Gloucester—” Bell kept his voice smooth, but he was interested to see a brief expression of surprise cross Lord Hugh’s face; he was not supposed to know that Sir John had been to see Gloucester “—you might have asked him whether his message was secret or he was willing to speak of it to you and whether the message was urgent. I need to know whether Sir John actually rode north to find his master. You see, the man who hired the troop to attack Winchester was murdered only a few days later.”

  “Who hired them? Who?” Lord Hugh was furious. “I will… Oh, you said he was dead already.”

  The naked shock on Lord Hugh’s face followed by fury and then frustration was all the proof Bell needed—not that he needed much after what Raoul had told Magdalene—that Hugh was in no way involved in the attempt on Winchester.

  “Yes, murdered, as I said. In fact, poisoned. And the poison was purchased by someone who could fit Sir John’s description.”

  “But Sir John had only just got off a ship from Normandy that arrived on the midnight tide. How could he—”

  “He might or might not have got off a ship that day, but it did not arrive on the midnight tide. On that Thursday, Sir John tried for accommodation at the Old Priory Guesthouse before Nones. Thus, he was in London long before Vespers, not to mention Matins. And the murdered man, Gehard fitzRobert—”

  Lord Hugh’s lips had parted as if he were about to protest when Bell said that Sir John had been at the Old Priory Guesthouse before Nones, but by the time Bell registered the expression, he had continued to the mention of Gehard’s death.

  “Gehard?” Lord Hugh’s voice came out in a surprised screech. “Gehard is dead?”

  “Yes, m’lord,” Bell said gravely, thinking, so Magdalene and I were right about that seal. Lord Hugh knew Gehard and knew him well; the Beaufort seal marked with that left-slanting cut was Gehard’s and he was serving the Beauforts despite being Mandeville’s man. “Did you know him? He was master-at-arms for a troop that Lord Mandeville left in London to guard the Tower.”

  “Yes, I knew him,” Lord Hugh said reluctantly but knowing he had exposed that fact too nakedly to lie about it. “I did not much like him, but I did not think he would be easy to kill.”

  “I do not think so either,” Bell said, and then pretended a slight shudder. “Someone gave him poisoned wine.”

  “Oh, wine.” Lord Hugh sighed, however his expression was contemptuous. “Gehard had a weakness for wine…and for ale…and for anything like that.”

  Bell had not liked Gehard either, but he felt a flicker of sympathy for the man, the unacknowledged bastard, used by the family but treated as unmentionable.

  Then a frown darkened Lord Hugh’s expression. “Poison,” he repeated slowly. “That is ugly. Do you know who… Wait, did you not say the buyer of the poison could have fit the description of Sir John?”

  “Yes, m’lord.” Bell now wanted to be polite as it looked as if Lord Hugh felt some vague responsibility about Gehard’s death and might wish to help find his murderer. He repeated the description given by the apothecary.

  Lord Hugh snorted. “Yes. It might be Sir John, but it might be almost anyone else also.” He frowned again, this time in thought. “But I am certain Sir John intended to ride to Oxford as fast as he could. He had with him a letter that he felt would make his fortune by increasing his importance to Lord Mandeville. He said as much.”

  “He did not show you the letter?”

  “For what purpose? It was sealed and I knew to whom it was addressed.”

  Lord Hugh had no expression so purposefully that Bell was sure he was repressing glee at Winchester’s
stupid knight who, he believed, had no idea that the letter carried by Sir John bore a disaster for the bishop. Bell concentrated on concealing his own expression.

  “And he left Baynard’s Castle, when?”

  Lord Hugh answered readily, obviously glad to be done with a subject on which he might betray something important. He said, “He slept late, having come in late. I had been long abed when he arrived. I suppose he broke his fast when he woke. He then came to thank me for his lodging and to bid me farewell…hmmm. Near Tierce it must have been, but I cannot remember whether I had just heard the bells or heard them after he left. He did seem anxious to be gone, but I have no idea which way he went.”

  That was the best he would do, Bell decided. Sir John had certainly implied that he wished to reach Mandeville as soon as possible. Lord Hugh did not seem to be concealing any guilty knowledge about Sir John’s departure, and Bell could not think of any advantage to him in lying for Sir John.

  “If I might have your permission to ask of your men just what time Sir John arrived and whether he said any more to them than he did to you, m’lord?”

  Lord Hugh waved him away. “By all means, but what difference would it make what he told them or in which direction he started? Just out of sight, he could have turned any other way, and my men would have no way of knowing. But ask if you will.”

  “Thank you, m’lord,” Bell said, backed a few steps and then went down the length of the hall and down the stairs.

  What Lord Hugh had said was perfectly true. Nonetheless Bell did ask questions. He got confirmation that Sir John had arrived after Matins that Thursday night and that he probably had been ashore for some hours. One of the men remembered that the horse Sir John rode did not seem to have come directly off a ship. Horses did not take well to travel by sea, and Sir John’s mount did not have that look of terror and exhaustion. The men who had seen him ride off agreed that he had set out toward the road to Oxford.

  A wasted morning. Bell thought, as he remounted Monseigneur and led his troop along the Thames toward the bridge, but necessary. He had not learned anything he did not know, but sure as death would come to all men, had he not gone to Baynard’s Castle and asked his questions, there would have been some essential fact he would have missed.