Chains of Folly (16 page)

Winchester stared at the priest for a handful of heartbeats. “Then perhaps you will explain to me how it came to be in Nelda’s possession?”

Holdyn’s shoulders slumped. “I cannot. All I can say is that I had taken off the crucifix because I changed to rough clothing. I intended to help with the cleansing of a church in which murder had been done. I laid the crucifix on my chest and it was gone when I returned.”

“The church near Monkwell Street?” The bishop glanced at Bell, who nodded very slightly indicating that he would go and inquire whether Holdyn had been there and for how long. “I remember mention of the murder in the report I had just before we set out for London,” the bishop continued. “The church will need reconsecration.”

“Yes,” Holdyn began rather eagerly, as if he hoped to divert Winchester to a new topic.

But the bishop was not easily diverted. What he said was, “So your crucifix was lost on Sunday night and you did nothing? You did not question your servants, your clerks?”

“My lord, you know I have been lodging in the bishop’s palace to attend better to the needs of the diocese. However, there is no retinue and very few servants. I know my clerks and my servants. They would not steal…but a large number of people come and go in the palace on church business. My servants might easily not notice a stranger who seemed harmless. And such a stranger might have been able to find my chamber and steal my crucifix.”

He knew who had taken it, Bell thought. But would his servants allow a woman dressed as Nelda had been dressed to wander about the bishop’s palace or go into the episcopal vicar’s bedchamber? Bell thought back on how long a silence there had been before Holdyn answered Winchester’s question about whether he knew the woman. A mark of his struggle with the need to lie to his bishop?

“I think perhaps you should press your servants more closely about who might have been loose in the palace. Has anything else been found to be missing?”

Holdyn swallowed again. “Once, a gilt cup. I replaced it, my lord, and after that all valuables were locked away.”

“You did not discover who committed that theft either?” Winchester asked.

“I—it came at a bad time. I fear I was so busy I did not pursue the matter. I replaced the cup with one of equal value. The punishment fell upon me for my carelessness, and that was just.”

“Perhaps, but I would have my servants make sure that strangers did not wander about the palace.”

“I did, my lord, but the palace is large, the servants are few. The front doors are kept locked, of course, but there are necessary entrances for service…”

“I see.” Winchester rose to his feet and Bell followed. Holdyn moved his hand tentatively toward the crucifix, but Winchester picked it up and returned it to his purse. “You will have it back when we discover who killed the poor woman and so indifferently used her dead body.”

* * * *

When Magdalene returned from the house on Lime Street where she had spoken to Claresta, she found Letice at the table eating cheese and cold meat with hunks torn off still-warm golden bread. To her surprise Letice smiled and signed toward the door. Her women worked hard when they had guests at night. Then she remembered that the man who had come for Letice came at night only so no one would see him and never stayed very long. He paid the full night’s fee, too, so Magdalene had no complaint.

Then Magdalene also remembered that Letice had implied it was too complicated to explain how she knew the dead woman and wanted to take her to the Saracen’s Head. She nodded and said, “Is there a time that is better than others to see your—uncle?”

Letice first shook her head, making a gesture for encompassing all, which Magdalene assumed meant that all times were the same, and then nodded, which Magdalene took to mean the man was her uncle. Magdalene almost forgot again in her eagerness finally to discover where Letice went and who were her people—questions despite her curiosity she had never felt she had the right to ask—that her purpose was to find out what connection Nelda had with Letice’s compatriots.

While Letice finished her meal, Magdalene went to tell Dulcie that she and Letice were leaving and to instruct the maid to pull in the bell cord and lock the gate behind them until Diot was up and ready to answer the bell. Then she and Letice veiled their faces and went out. Letice turned right, away from the bridge to London, but they only went a short way before they turned left into the lane that led to the church of St. Thomas.

The lane was narrow and crooked, and the counters that protruded into it held mostly worn out gowns and tunics. One or two frankly sold rags—garments too torn and stained to be remade into something wearable. Still the cloth was of value. It could be used for patches or for stuffing a gambeson or for layering the inside of a gown or tunic to make it warm for the winter.

Beyond the church, which Magdalene had never entered—what need when St. Mary Overy, larger and more beautiful, was right beyond her back gate—the lane narrowed even further. Magdalene’s glimpses of the filth-encrusted inhabitants who occasionally peered out the open doors made her grip the knife hidden in the folds of her gown, but Letice walked without either hurry or nervous glances. Indeed, she waved a hand occasionally to this or that seamed face and matted head. Most acknowledged the greeting; some even smiled.

They did not go much beyond St. Thomas’. Within little more than a hundred yards, they turned left again into what began as an equally narrow and dirty lane. This, however, soon widened, then widened again into a little square. It was no cozy village green—there was no sign of grass—but the stalls around it and the goods laid out on mats were recognizable. Fruits, vegetables, and to Magdalene’s surprise rice and spices. Those were expensive items and did not seem to fit with the squalor they had passed. All of those vendors greeted Letice, only they called her Leilia, and she waved and made some signs with her hands at them.

On the northwest corner was the ale house called The Saracen’s Head. It had, as well as the bundle of brush that marked a drinking place, a roughly painted head wearing a turban. Magdalene recognized their goal at once from the times Letice had drawn the sign on her slate.

The exterior of the building was, if not decrepit, old and worn. The interior was a surprise. It was well-lit from some windows, unshuttered in the summer heat, and brass lamps hanging from the ceiling. Even more surprising, the heavy wooden tables were clean and the rushes on the floor fresh. There was a decided smell of wine and almost none of ale.

Several voices called “Leilia, what are you doing here today?” And at the very back of the room a man stood up and came forward toward them. Letice put a hand on Magdalene’s arm and gave it a hard squeeze. Then the man was before them and Magdalene understood the warning.

Bell had said that Letice’s uncle had the most villainous face he had ever seen. It was no exaggeration. The skin was ravaged by pock marks until it looked leprous. On the right side, a terrible scar from forehead to lip drew both eye and mouth upward into an ugly leer; on the left, the lid of the eye was scarred by the pox so it could not open fully and a large black wart twisted the lips. Magdalene was grateful for her veil, which hid her no doubt blanched complexion.

“Leilia,” the man said, giving Letice a quick hug. “Is something wrong? What are you doing here today?”

Magdalene did not expect Letice to shrink away; her face had always expressed real affection when she acted out visiting the man. But Magdalene did not expect her to kiss his horribly scarred cheek, then step back and begin waving her hands about and making quick gestures with the fingers.

“Ah,” the man said when Letice’s hands had come to rest. He smiled at Magdalene, which made her swallow hard. “So you are Mistress Magdalene, Leilia’s employer. I am very glad to meet you. Leilia is very happy at your house.”

“Thank you,” Magdalene replied, “but how did you know I was not just a friend?”

“Because Leilia just told me. She speaks with her hands in signs that permit the deaf and mute to be understood.”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Magdalene exclaimed, almost forgetting the man’s face in her interest in what he had said. “Why in the world didn’t she teach me? I would have gladly learned. I have been teaching her to read and write, but writing is so slow.”

The man laughed, which, although it did nothing good for his appearance, made Magdalene even better able to forget it. The laughter was warm and merry.

“She did not try to teach you because she can only sign in our own tongue, not in French. She would have had to teach you Persian first, and that would have been no easy task when she cannot speak and at that time could not write either.” He bowed. “My name is Abd al Zahir. I am the brother of Leilia’s father.”

Magdalene looked away for a moment but then could not help saying, “Could you not have given her a home? I do what I can to make my women happy, but it is not a good life.”

Zahir raised his eyebrows, which made Magdalene look away again for a moment. His cratered and furrowed skin seemed to crawl around the fixed lines of the scar and the black mole.

“You say it is not a good life,” Zahir sounded rather condescending, “but that is because your faith considers the joys of the flesh evil. That makes you ashamed to use your body for pleasure. Our faith recognizes the joys of the flesh.”

Now it was Magdalene who raised her brows with a touch of contempt. “Yet I understand that you keep your women locked up.”

Zahir shrugged, smiling again. “Ah yes, because we do recognize the joys of the flesh and wish to know that our sons are our get. So we do prefer that our women lead safe and secluded lives.” He sighed. “But for those women who cannot tolerate the confining conditions or who for some other reason cannot find a husband, there is this other life.” He shook his head. “In any case I was too late to offer Leilia a home. Her father had already sold her into the house she left to come to you.”

“Sold her?” Magdalene’s voice was flat.

Abd al Zahir shrugged again. “Perhaps I would not have done the same, but she was his daughter and mute, which made it hard to find a husband or another way to live…and he was very sick. I do not think it was against her will—she says not, but that might be out of loyalty. The house was not a common stew. He did not know the keeper was cruel and dishonest. And he did not know that I was on my way here.”

Letice touched his arm and signed briefly. He nodded, smiled, and gestured for them to follow him. In the corner of the room from which he had come he set two stools for Letice and Magdalene and sat down himself across a small table.

“Leilia tells me that you have come for information about a woman who was killed?”

“Yes,” Magdalene said, very glad that Letice had kept her mind on business, for she had once more forgotten all about Nelda. “Letice recognized the woman, who was called Nelda Roundheels, and remembered she had seen her here.”

He frowned and said defensively, with an angry glance at Letice, “I do not even know when and how this woman died. We had nothing to do with her death.”

Letice shook her head violently and Magdalene made a dismissive gesture. She had forgotten that foreign and non-Christian as Zahir was, he would fear being blamed for any crime—a convenient scapegoat, as were whores.

“No,” Magdalene said emphatically. “I’m sure you did not because you would have had no reason to place her body in the bedchamber of the bishop of Winchester.”

Zahir’s mismatched eyes widened. “No, certainly not. The bishop has been tolerant of our residence here. As long as we pay our tithes, like any Christian, we are free to do business and even, privately, worship in our own way. I assure you we were very disappointed when His Grace of Winchester was not elected as archbishop. God alone knows what this new man will order.”

“I am in much the same position as you are. Master al Zahir,” Magdalene sighed. “If he can, I am sure Winchester will continue to protect us, but it would be easier for him if we could clear up this woman’s death so no scandal would attach to his name.”

“I see that,” al Zahir said, then turned to Letice. “When did you see her here, Leilia?”

Again Letice’s hands flew.

“Hmmm,” al Zahir said. “Leilia tells me that she saw this Nelda with two dealers in drugs. Was she an apothecary?”

“No, she was a whore.”

Zahir cocked his head. “I wonder if she bought to sell or to use?”

But he did not wait for an answer. He got up and walked around the room, stopping at several tables. First a man and then a woman rose and followed him back to where Magdalene and Letice sat.

“This is Umar,” al Zahir said, gesturing to the man. “He deals in drugs of various kinds and has sold to the woman Leilia has described. But he says she bought only cakes of dried poppy juice.”

“She did not take it,” Umar said. “Did not eat the drug herself. I know the look. She did not have it. Those who do eat it can become very desperate. Perhaps that was why she came with a guard.”

“Or because she did not trust us,” Zahir said, his lips twisting.

“A guard?” Magdalene repeated thoughtfully. “Then she was afraid of something. That is interesting. What was the guard like?”

“Big,” Umar replied, and the woman with him nodded.

“Ugly too,” the woman said. “Not so much in the face, in the look. Mean. Cruel.”

Magdalene immediately thought of the man who had accosted Bell, asked if Nelda was dead, and said she deserved killing.

“Can you say more closely what he looked like?” al Zahir asked.

Umar shook his head but the woman said, “Brown hair, brown eyes, and his nose was broken maybe more than once.”

“All I saw, Fatima,” Umar said, “was the way he looked at the cakes of poppy seed juice. Not bound to it hard yet, but he knew the delight it can bring.”

The woman shrugged. “A foolish delight. False. With much sorrow to follow. I sold only peace—sleeping draughts. But you said she was a whore, not an apothecary. Well, perhaps she feared sinning and slept ill.”

“You said she was killed?” Umar asked. “It would have been an accident. A poppy-eater would not wish to kill the supplier.”