Chains of Folly (20 page)

“Gehard fitzRobert is the man who beat Nelda,” he said, startling Magdalene out of her thoughts, “and he may have been the man who killed her too.”

Glad that he had diverted her, Magdalene still frowned. “Likely not. I think the man who killed her is Sir John of Rouen, although I have no better direction for him except that I think he is in the household of Geoffrey de Mandeville.”

Bell choked on a bite of the pasty that he had tried to swallow too quickly. “Mandeville!” he got out. Magdalene pounded his back and he cleared his throat. “Mandeville is behind it all? But why? As far as I know, Mandeville was never of de Meulan’s party.”

“I do not think he is.” Magdalene wrinkled her nose. “So far as I know he is always of his own party, but he is clever enough to let Waleran know when he does something that he thinks will work well with Waleran’s plans. Raoul de Samur brought me the news that a Sir John was boasting that he had got from Gloucester a letter for Winchester. Not that Raoul knows the bit about Sir John was news to me. He thought I knew of the letter because this Sir John had been with one of my women and told her about it.”

Bell opened his mouth for another slice of meat, but instead said, “Samur may be right. It is possible that Sir John did boast to Nelda about obtaining the letter from Gloucester. But I wonder how she could have got it from him?”

“Oh, I know that,” Magdalene said. She moved around and sat down in her usual place at the head of the table and told him about her expedition to The Saracen’s Head with Letice.

“So she drugged him and stole the letter. How come he did not miss it when he finally wakened and dressed?”

“I know that too,” Magdalene said, and described Tayte and how she had seen Nelda coming up the stairs and holding a piece of folded parchment. “I suppose she replaced the letter with the parchment she had obtained. Likely he would not take the letter out and look at it.”

Bell shook his head. “That may well be true, but then it makes no sense,” he said. “If this Sir John did not know Nelda stole the letter, why should he kill her apurpose or quarrel with her so violently that she was pushed down the stairs? And if he
did
know she stole the letter, why would he tell Lord Hugh that he had it?”

Magdalene frowned. “You are right.” She snorted gently. “And I thought we had our killer. It seemed to me that if Sir John had killed Nelda by accident, trying unsuccessfully to get the letter back, he might have moved her to Winchester’s house so he could say he had arranged for the bishop’s embarrassment. Possibly he hoped it would save him some of Mandeville’s fury when he learned the letter was lost. So Gehard may be our man after all.”

Bell smiled at her. “Gehard may be, but you put that all together very cleverly, and it all fits—except his telling Lord Hugh he had the letter. Unless he and Nelda quarreled about something else. Could she have stolen something else from him, something he did notice so that he threatened her to make her return it? What was in that pile of ‘keepsakes’ you took from her rooms?”

Magdalene rose and went to her bedchamber where she drew a key from a chain hanging between her breasts and opened the steel-bound chest under the small, high window. She moved her clothing aside carefully and drew out a sturdy box that she opened with a smaller key from her pocket. From the box she removed a leather pouch, which she carried with her into the common room after she had restored and relocked everything.

She emptied the pouch onto the table between Bell’s seat and her own. “The Mandeville house badge? Could that have been Sir John’s? And of all the rings she had, only these three and the seal have not been identified. I wonder how she got the rings? She could drug a man to sleep, but so deeply he would not feel a ring being pulled from his finger? And wouldn’t even a half drugged man notice his ring was gone?”

Bell held what was left of the pasty in his left hand while he fingered the rings Magdalene had pushed toward him with his right. “I think she got these at least honestly,” he said, then grinned. “At least honestly from your point of view in that they were likely given her for her service. They are not true gold, and I think this stone is only garnet.”

“I knew they were not very valuable,” Magdalene agreed. “But far too valuable to pay a whore for her service. She had to have a reason to keep them in her most secret place.”

Having chewed and swallowed the last bit of pasty. Bell said, “Likely they were pledges of some kind. Or…wait. Gehard said he would not have killed her because then he could not retrieve his—ah! the seal is Gehard’s. He said she had stolen his seal.”

“Gehard fitzRobert,” Magdalene murmured, taking the seal from Bell and pointing to the groove that broke the Beaufort arms. “See the mark from left to right?”

“To show that he had not full rights to the family?” Bell’s voice rose as if to question, but he did not doubt what Magdalene had said. “Yet he was given the seal.”

Magdalene shrugged. “You said his name was fitzRobert. A bastard of the old earl that he wanted to use but did not want to recognize? I heard he was a righteous old prig.”

“But what is a Beaufort bastard doing in the employ of Mandeville?”

Magdalene did not answer at once. She pulled the branch of candles on the table closer and twisted the seal from side to side. After a moment she picked at it with the nail of her little finger.

“Wax,” she said. “What odds will you lay against me that Gehard used the seal to identify messages about Mandeville’s doings and plans which he sent to Waleran or to Hugh.”

Having taken back the seal and examined it. Bell nodded. “No odds,” he said. “I do not wager against sure things.”

“Which makes it more clear why Hugh was so enraged by learning that Winchester was supposed to be held in that place across from Paul’s Wharf.”

“How do you know he was enraged? Oh, yes. Raoul. But why should Lord Hugh care? Nothing could be proven. Oh, I see. Gehard had made him look a fool, to put his victim in a place that pointed so directly to Baynard’s Castle. Hmmm. I wonder just how much resentment Gehard has built up against his Beaufort half-brothers over the years?”

“I do not think you can suborn him,” Magdalene said. “To serve Beaufort was likely set deep into his blood and bone from childhood.”

Bell sighed. “He would be totally untrustworthy anyway. His conscience would nag at him and sooner or later he would turn on anyone who tried to make him betray the family. And one would never know when.”

He tilted the tankard to get the last drops of ale, and Magdalene rose to refill it. When she returned to the table, she said, “What were you about to tell me when you suddenly remembered Gehard had said Nelda stole his seal? We were talking about the rings being pledges.”

“Oh, yes. When Gehard said he was not so stupid as to kill a person who stole from him before he retrieved what he had lost, he said something about those who were desperate for more of the stuff not killing her either because she never told anyone where she got it.”

Magdalene’s eyes opened wide. “That must be the poppy cake. The man who sold it to her, Umar, also said something about those who took it growing desperate.”

“Likely that was what the valuable rings paid for,” Bell said with a sudden sense of satisfaction. He reached out and cut a slice of cheese with the knife he had left on the table, slapped it on the bread and took a bite. In a voice somewhat impeded by his mouthful, he added, “And the less valuable ones, too. She might not have known the difference. And that was why she had ten pounds in her strongbox. I doubted any man would pay very high just to escape being accused of visiting a whore.”

“I think you must be right.” Magdalene sighed and shook her head. “And you know, Bell, that if her death was really an accident, if she fell down the stairs while struggling to escape a threat, the logic of not killing her because then one would not be able to retrieve what she had stolen or obtain more of the drug becomes meaningless. Which makes Gehard more likely to be the killer.”

But Bell was looking past her, considering what he had said and thinking that Father Holdyn might pay high to keep his sin secret. And then the sense of Magdalene’s remark hit him, and he groaned aloud and set his food on the table.

“I believe I’ve been even stupider than I thought.”

Magdalene shook her head again. “You aren’t stupid, Bell. You make mistakes, like any other mortal man. At least when you make mistakes you recognize them. What happened?”

“It was my cursed temper. It was rubbed raw and it mastered me. First I was annoyed because I needed to stand around for hours while Winchester and the archbishop fenced with each other about that cursed convocation. Then, we dined at the cannon’s table—roast vegetables, turnips…”

Magdalene uttered a small giggle. Bell glared at her and then smiled sheepishly.

“Actually it was quite good,” he admitted. “After dinner the bishop questioned Father Holdyn about that crucifix we found among Nelda’s other trinkets. He admitted it was his—well, he could not well deny it, both Winchester and I have seen him wear it. He said it was stolen on Sunday night.”

“Was it?”

“Oh yes, although to be sure I had to ride all the way up to Monkwell Street and then back to the bishop of London’s palace, all the while broiling in my armor. But when I asked Holdyn’s servants if he had complained about anything being stolen, all they knew of was a gilt cup lost a year or two ago. No one was ever accused; Father Holdyn simply purchased a new cup for the church. The servants said—thinking to praise their master’s charity—that they believed the cup was stolen by a woman who periodically got into Holdyn’s house and into the bishop’s palace, too. They didn’t even know the crucifix was missing. Holdyn never told them, never said the woman should be seized the next time she came.”

Silent for a moment, Magdalene then nodded slowly. “Too bad Nelda was buried before the servants could be brought to look at her, but even without that I think the woman who took such liberties with Father Holdyn must have been Nelda. So he knew Nelda, knew her, seemingly for years. Why should he kill her now?”

Bell sighed. “For the same reason as any other man. The gilt cup was nothing. He could replace that and it did not compromise him in any way. The crucifix was different. It was his and his alone, and many people knew that. So he tried to get the crucifix back, threatened to choke her, and she fell. It was an accident. Holdyn is bigger than me and hard as a rock. He spends all his spare time building or repairing churches.”

“But?” Magdalene asked.

Bell looked down at the bread and cheese on the table. “But I cannot believe it. I simply cannot believe that Father Holdyn would not run weeping to his confessor if he had killed Nelda, even by accident. And then rushed to the bishop to confess his crime.”

“Did you ask him straight out?”

“Winchester did ask him if he knew the woman he buried and he waited a long time before he answered. He had an odd look, too. As if he were rather surprised and sad when he said that he did not know her. I thought then that he was lying and was ashamed of it.”

“But the bishop did not press him further?”

“No, because he cannot believe that Holdyn would put the woman in his room.” Bell sighed. “I can’t believe it either.”

“I understand. You do not wish to suspect Father Holdyn but what he has said and done are suspicious. What then?”

So he told her about nearly killing Mandeville’s captain for making a stupid jest and saying just the wrong thing to Gehard so that he could not learn who had ordered the man to have the bishop of Winchester attacked.

Magdalene’s lips twitched, but she said soberly enough, “Likely you should not have throttled the captain, but you need not blame yourself for not wringing more from Gehard. As soon as he said what he said, he must have shocked himself sober. No matter what you did, he would deny his words.”

“Perhaps. Still it must be Mandeville who sent that order from Devizes or wherever they were. Unless Lord Hugh wanted to implicate Mandeville by using his man… No, then he would not have ordered Winchester brought to that place across the river from Paul’s Wharf.”

“Oh, yes, it must be Mandeville because the only purpose there could be for attacking Winchester is to frighten him enough to call off the convocation. And Raoul told me that Waleran has not the smallest intention of interfering with the convocation the bishop wishes to call.”

“What?”

Magdalene nodded, knowing that Bell had heard her and was only expressing his disbelief of what she said. “I felt as you do at first, but Raoul pointed out that Waleran’s purpose is to be the only influence on the king. Raoul reports that Waleran said nothing could widen the breach between the king and Winchester more than this convocation, during which, I suppose, the king is to be admonished and forced to return Salisbury’s possessions.”

Bell’s mouth opened, but he did not speak and an expression of decided discomfort knitted his brows and turned his lips down.

“That is put in the most bald and unflattering terms,” Magdalene said flatly, “but it is the meat of Winchester’s intention. In the same bald terms, how likely do you think it is it will be successful?”

Bell looked down at the bread and cheese again; he did not want to meet Magdalene’s eyes. “It is not often that Henry of Winchester lies to himself,” he said softly, “but this time I think he has done so. Oh, only on the top of his thoughts. Inside he knows. And inside I knew too. When the bishop and archbishop agreed that the convocation would be held in Winchester, I was relieved and thought at once that the bishop’s whole armed might could be gathered there without being obvious about it. I remember thinking that Winchester and the other bishops could not be taken as Salisbury was taken.”

There was a silence and finally Magdalene said, “What will you do?”

Bell shook his head. “I will tell him what we know—

“Do not betray Raoul!” Magdalene interrupted sharply. “That will involve William.”

Bell stiffened, and Magdalene cursed herself for mentioning William’s name; however after a moment Bell said, “No. There will be no need. So many men come here. So many are cozened into talk. It is possible that Winchester will even believe that the woman who passed this news to you did not remember which particular man told her.”