Bone of Contention (32 page)

Magdalene found herself looking forward to a quiet day on her own. She felt as if she had been rushing around from place to place and problem to problem ever since she had arrived in Oxford. She was thinking about the half-finished ribbon of embroidery meant for Ella’s hair, planning the next row of flowers, as she stepped in the door and swung her wet cloak off her shoulders.

“Wait,” Florete called, jumping to her feet and holding up a hand to keep Magdalene from coming down the corridor.

Magdalene stopped and caught her breath. Florete hurried up to her and murmured in her ear. “There is a man waiting for you—and not for service. I have never seen him before, and I did not like the way he looked.”

“Did he give a name?”

“That, yes. Lord Ormerod, he said.”

Magdalene breathed a sigh of relief. “I know him,” she said. “And I do not think he means me harm— But even as she said the words, she remembered that Lord Ormerod was deeply involved with Sir Jules and not too happy about it, because Sir Jules’s solution for paying his debts and giving his sister a dowry was marriage to Loveday. And St. Cyr had stood in the path of that marriage. Still, she had nothing to do with that.

“What do you mean you did not like the way he looked?” she asked Florete.

“As if he had not slept. As if…as if he were desperate.” Magdalene stood staring at Florete, biting her lip as she tried to decide what to do. Could Lord Ormerod have killed St. Cyr? Was that why Sir Jules would not name the man he saw behind The Broached Barrel? But why should Ormerod come to her? Not about the murder. She
knew
no more ill of him than of any other man.

What did she know? He had been uneasy when he spoke to Bell about his involvement with Sir Jules. Bell thought he might have come to get money, a loan that had not been repaid, from Sir Jules. But according to Loveday, Jules never had a penny. Florete said Ormerod was desperate. Was
he
short of money? He knew the Old Priory Guesthouse made money and he might even have guessed that William had summoned and was paying her well…

Her eyes narrowed as she remembered William’s purse hidden in the chest. She could give Ormerod something, enough to carry him back to his own estates anyway. She nodded at Florete.

“Thank you for the warning, love.” She wrinkled her nose. “As I said, I know him and I do not think he means me harm. It will be better if I see him. But I will leave the door of my room a little open and appreciate it if you listen for loud voices or a call for help.”

Florete nodded and walked the few steps to where her table partially blocked the opening into the common room. She bypassed the table to enter the room, while Magdalene stopped at the table. She could see Florete standing before a man whose head was sunk into his hands, supported by his elbows on his knees. As the whoremistress spoke, he looked up, then started to his feet as he saw Magdalene.

“Where the devil have you been?” he asked, brushing by Florete and coming around the table to stand by Magdalene.

“How could that be of interest to you?” Magdalene asked.

He made a dismissive gesture and said, even more urgently, “Where is Jules?”

“Sir Jules?” she echoed. It was not money Ormerod wanted—at least not from her.

“Yes. Where is he?”

“How could I know?”

“I hoped he had told you where he was going when you talked to him out in the back of The Broached Barrel.”

“But that was yesterday, before Sext.”

“Before Sext? So early?”

Ormerod looked past her, but it was obvious that he did not see the curtains of the cocking chambers behind her. She had not been cold while riding, even though she was damp, but standing in the corridor with the door open behind her, she was getting chilled, and she shivered.

“I am wet and cold,” she said. “Come into my chamber so I can change my clothes.”

She waved him down the corridor, unlocked the door of the back chamber, and waved him through ahead of her, leaving the door open until she could get some light. He did not care. He walked as far as the table, and turned to face her.

“He’s disappeared! He never came home last night! I am at my wits’ end.”

Magdalene shook her head, then walked past him to light candles on the table and past again to partially shut the door. Then she went for dry clothing. As she gathered her things she said, “Why? I know Sir Jules is a fool, but he is a man grown. Why should you be responsible for him?”

Ormerod shrugged then disappeared from her view as she stepped behind the bed, where she was shielded from his sight by the bedcurtains. She could hear his voice clearly enough.

“Because I have committed my brother Edward to his sister,’ he said, “and we quarreled bitterly the night before last over the condition to which he has brought his estate. I…I said some things I did not mean—really I am very fond of Jules—and when he went out yesterday morning, he would not accept my company. And I…I do not deny that I was not sorry. In fact, I went to look over his lands, more particularly the farm that will go to Edward with Marguerite.”

“That seems reasonable enough to me. I cannot see why it should make you feel uneasy.”

“Not that.” A stool scritched against the rough floorboards as Ormerod seated himself. Magdalene dropped her wet clothes and pulled on a dry shift. “But I was sorry for what I said, and Marguerite had sent his servant to Oxford around Nones, only the servant could not find Jules, so when she begged me to find him and bring him home, I went.”

Magdalene’s lips thinned with irritation even while her brow creased with uneasiness. She pulled on her tunic and gown hastily, saying a sentence each time her head was free. “He should have arrived at home soon after dinner, before Nones anyway. Bell told him, rather forcefully, that he should go home and stay there just before we ate our meal.”

“Oh, Lord! Don’t tell me he was fighting or insulting drunk so early.”

“No. He had had a few, I could smell him. But he was not drunk—well, maybe a little because he was frightened when he saw me dozing on the table while Bell fetched dinner for us from a cookshop. My veil was over my head and I fear he thought me another dead body.”

“But St. Cyr was found behind the shed,” Ormerod said, drawing in a sharp breath as Magdalene came back around the bed where she could see him. “Why should he think you were
another
dead body?”

That sounded to Magdalene as if Ormerod had not overheard the conversation at the back of the Broached Barrel. She raised her brows and admitted, “I asked him what he had seen in the yard to give him such a shock, but he insisted he had seen nothing, that it was dark and he had been drunk. Bell pointed out to him that even if he had seen nothing suspicious, simply having been out there that night was dangerous and that he should go home and stay there.”

“But he didn’t.” Ormerod’s shoulders slumped. “He got fresh clothing from the landlord.” He grimaced. “Jules often had little accidents from drinking too much and the people at the alehouses regularly lent him clothing. When he was clean, he asked the landlord to send a boy to fetch his horse from the stable and to bring him another cup of wine. Before the boy could leave, a man the landlord said looked like a merchant offered to pay for the wine. Jules seemed surprised, but the man said something about Loveday and Jules immediately told the boy not to bother with the horse. He went with the merchant to a bench at the side of the room. A little later, they left together.”

“Did you find the merchant?” Magdalene asked eagerly.

“Yes. Before I even tried to find him, I walked to the other alehouses, thinking that Jules might have been rolled into a corner and left for the night. A girl at The Lively Hop knew Jules—they all know him—and told me she saw him walking down past The Wheat Sheaf with a companion. She was so surprised that Jules didn’t go into The Wheat Sheaf that she noticed the door they did enter.”

“Who was this merchant? What did he say?”

“He was home, nursing a sore head.” Ormerod snorted. “Not an unusual thing when one has been in Jules’s company, but he didn’t know what happened to Jules either. They had had one or two more cups of wine at The Broached Barrel and then, wanting to make some plans—although to tell the truth I think they were both too besotted to plan anything—Hardel—”

“Tirell or Reinhart?”

Ormerod stared at her suspiciously. “Tirell. Why, do you know him?”

Magdalene swallowed the impulse to say that Tirell had a mail shirt, reminding herself that Ormerod had a mail shirt too and did not know that the man who had killed St. Cyr had been wearing mail when he committed the crime.

“No, but Loveday does,” she said. “They are father and son and the father desires that the son marry Loveday.”

Ormerod shrugged. “Well, they were not quarreling over her, according to Master Woller, the mercer in whose house Hardel is lodging. I spoke to him after I spoke to Hardel and realized he could remember little of what happened. He said he had invited Jules to his lodging because he had heard a rumor that Jules would marry Loveday, and he wanted the truth of it.”

“And was what he told you the truth?”

Ormerod grimaced. “As much of it as he knew himself. He was in no case to think out elaborate lies. He was drink-sick. All he said was that he and Jules sat drinking and talking for some time. Then they heard the bells for Nones and Jules said he must go. Hardel thinks he begged Jules to stay and eat something and sleep off the worst of the wine, but he cannot be sure.”

“So Jules left Hardel’s lodging staggering drunk?”

“Yes. Actually Woller told me more than that. He had been lending half an ear, fearing there would be trouble, because he realized they were drinking their dinner. He even crept up and opened the door a little, but from what he heard Woller thought they were companionable, commiserating with each other about some woman, which fits. Eventually he heard Hardel saying that Jules was drunk and offering to send for some food and let him sleep off the wine, but Jules would not accept. He left—the landlord saw him go—and Hardel stood on the landing watching and then went into the solar again.

Magdalene sighed. “I think you should hire some men and boys and have all the alleyways between the Lively Hop and the Broached Barrel searched, particularly around The Wheat Sheaf. If I have read Jules’s character aright, whatever he meant to do when he left Hardel’s place, he might well have ended up in the nearest alehouse.”

“No, because his horse was gone from the stable.”

“The horse was gone,” Magdalene repeated, her voice now faint and her eyes large with sudden anxiety. “When? When was it gone?”

“When I came to Oxford to look for Jules yesterday. I saw the horse was not in the stable, so I called myself a fool, thinking I had passed Jules along the way because he had stopped to piss or some such thing. I rode back to Osney, but he was not there. I was furious, but Marguerite was beside herself, so I gathered up some servants and we searched the woods along the road, thinking he might have fallen off or simply taken the horse into the wood so he could sleep. We didn’t find him and by then it was getting dark, so we returned to Osney and went to bed. But the horse returned in the night.”

“Oh.” Magdalene felt herself pale. “That is not good news at all.”

“There was no blood! I examined the saddle and the beast itself almost hair by hair. No blood. No sign of strain or scuffing on the stirrups.” He took a deep breath. “That was when I came back to Oxford and began to try to find where he had gone. And after asking all those questions and learning so little, I cursed myself for a fool and thought the likeliest place he would go would be to a whorehouse. It would even explain the horse, if he left it tied in front and it got loose. So I came here—Jules had mentioned the place—and once I was here I asked the whoremistress for you because I remembered the landlord had said you spoke to Jules at The Broached Barrel.”

“He did not come here, apparently. Florete knew him and would have…no, she might not if he paid her to…”

Magdalene gestured for Ormerod to stay put and went out the door to speak to the whoremistress. When she returned she shook her head at Ormerod.

“I thought he might have paid Florete to say he was not here. When I spoke to him, he sounded resentful of his sister’s watchful care. But Florete would not lie to me. Jules was not here last night, and neither was I. Bell and I went to Noke to fetch back Niall Arvagh and Mistress Loveday for an audience with the king.”

There was a silence. Then Ormerod said, “He had no money… I mean above a few pence in farthings to pay for his drink. Where could he have gone? No, he went nowhere because the horse came back alone.” Another silence followed before Ormerod asked, very softly, “Do you think he is dead, Magdalene?”

She bit her lip and tears came into her eyes. “We should not have asked what he saw that night. The back door of the alehouse was open. But he said again and again that he saw nothing, and it was noisy inside, and we were not shouting. Oh, I am so sorry if any hurt befell him. But Bell
warned
him and I warned him, too, to go right home.”

She remembered that neither she nor Bell had believed completely what Jules said and wondered if it had been his expression that betrayed him, which no one in the alehouse could have seen, or something in his body or voice. If his tone had betrayed him, a listener might have taken alarm. Magdalene put a hand across her lips to still their trembling and sniffed.

“No. Let us not believe the worst, not yet. What did the stableman say? Did Jules himself take his horse? Was he too drunk to ride? Could he have fallen right near the stable and then crawled away to sleep in a corner?”

“Of course he took his own…no, I don’t know. When I was with him, I dragged him with me to the stable so he could walk off the drink a little, but now I remember that the landlord of The Broached Barrel was going to send a boy to get Jules’s horse. I didn’t speak to the stableman. I saw the horse was not in its usual stall and rode out again. It was a different man this morning. He hadn’t seen Jules.”