Chains of Folly (26 page)

He flopped over on his back and stared up into the blackness of the ceiling. Perhaps she was not so far wrong in saying her heart was large enough to hold more than one. She certainly loved her women, and he did not begrudge them her affection. But another man… Could he tolerate that? Nonsense, he had tolerated it for months, just pushing it to the back of his mind. And she wanted him; he could feel that. And when she spoke of William… No, never desire. Affection, yes; desire, no.

Was that difference enough? His mind winced away from that question and away from why he had asked it of himself. Instead he deliberately turned his mind to Magdalene saying that discovering who ordered involving the bishop was more important than the death of the whore. At first she had wanted to avenge that death because no one else would think it important enough to avenge. Now that it seemed likely Nelda’s death had been an accident, she saw the protection of the bishop as essential. Bell shifted. The cot creaked.

He must be careful not to read his own feelings into Magdalene. Her care for Winchester was because it benefited her, because he was a reasonable landlord, and perhaps because he was willing to talk to her; many churchmen were not. She had no loyalty to the bishop. Still she recognized his good qualities. It was most unlikely that he and Magdalene would find themselves at political cross purposes.

Bell drew a long, deep breath. He would take her back. But on his own terms. Suddenly Bell grinned into the dark. No, not his terms…hers. She insisted she was a whore and that he must recognize that fact. Well then, he would pay her like a whore. Smiling, Bell closed his eyes and slept.

He woke just at dawn feeling well rested. If he had dreamed, he did not remember. Dulcie was already awake, she readily put some cold meat and bread and cheese on the work table in the kitchen and went to the cellar to draw some ale for him from the barrel kept there.

At the bishop’s house, he left orders for drill and guard duty with Levin and told his man if he were needed, he could be found at the house of the whore who had been killed. He left the same information with the clerk half asleep at the table near the stair to the bishop’s rooms.

Bell was not surprised to find Magdalene waiting, just finishing breaking her own fast. She was no more likely to oversleep when she had decided to do something than he was. He smiled at her, thinking about how she would react when he offered to pay her. Her brows went up.

“You are very cheerful this morning,” she said.

“I had a good night’s sleep,” Bell replied blandly and did not smile at her surprised and suspicious look. “I have the key,” he added. “Shall we go?”

“Just let me get my veil.”

Although she threw the fine scarf over her shoulders, Magdalene did not, in fact, veil her face. The distance to Nelda’s rooms was short, and it was still warm enough to make covering her face uncomfortable. She did not think with Bell as escort that anyone would accost her. A single drunk, staggering down the main road, did make a grab, but Bell merely pushed him away. Magdalene’s glance at his face told her nothing. His expression was still deliberately bland; she had to resist an impulse to kick him in the shin.

The shop on the street level of Nelda’s house was closed but the outer door was as usual unlocked and they went up without hindrance. Bell taking the key from his pouch as they climbed the stairs. What struck them both when Bell unlocked the door and swung it open was not the disorder, the table knocked loose from its trestles and the stools overturned and scattered around, but the terrible stench. Both started to back away from the door and then Bell stopped and pointed.

“Look.”

“That is why he never left,” Magdalene murmured. “He was dead.” She peered through the gloom. “But how?”

“We need a light,” Bell said, backing away farther and turning toward the other door.

“For God’s sake, open the shutter and let in some fresh air,” Magdalene urged, lifting her veil to cover her nose and mouth.

“Not yet,” Bell said in a rather choked voice. “I want to look at it first.” He took the few steps to Tayte’s door on which he banged his fist. “There’s been an accident,” he called. “I need to borrow a light.”

Meanwhile Magdalene had taken a deep breath out on the landing and, taking care not to breathe again, had stepped into the room. There was just enough light leaking through the shuttered window to see a candleholder on a shelf. She hurried to grab it and rushed out of the room again, proffering the candle to Bell just as Tayte’s door opened and the mouse peered out. Bell held the candle forward as the door started to close again.

“Light the candle for Sir Bellamy, Tayte,” Magdalene said around Bell’s shoulder.

“What is that dreadful smell?” Tayte cried.

“A dead man after a day lying in this heat,” Bell said.

“Dead?” Tayte whimpered. “Oh. Oh. Oh, what will we do? We shall be found. And we had nothing to do with the dead man. I swear.”

A young man appeared suddenly behind Tayte’s shoulder, carrying a burning spill. He put the girl gently aside and reached beyond her to light the candle Bell held. “How did he die?” he asked. “Tayte told me that she heard a lot of noise yesterday afternoon, like furniture breaking, but she only saw the one man enter Nelda’s rooms.”

“I don’t know how he died,” Bell answered. “I am not even sure who is dead. The room was too dark to see from the doorway and, with the way it stinks, I didn’t step in. We need the sheriff or his deputy.”

“No!” Tayte cried.

“Don’t be silly,” the young man said to her, putting an arm around her waist and giving her a hug. “I will go off to my work as I was just about to do, and you will help Sir Bellamy as best you can. There will be no reason for you or anyone else to speak of me, will there?”

“Not so long as Tayte can be found,” Bell said promptly. “In the most unlikely circumstance that it seems you have information I need, I will be able to find you…if I must.”

“Good enough,” the young man said as he gave Tayte a last squeeze and stepped out past her. He paused for a moment at the top of the stair to add, “Truly I know nothing about any of this, beyond what Tayte has told me. And that she can tell you herself.”

“I cannot go to the sheriff, I cannot,” Tayte whimpered when her man had clattered down the stair and out the door.

“No,” Magdalene said before Bell could speak. “There is no need. Run instead to my house—you know where that is—and tell the lady who answers the bell at the gate to rouse Tom Watchman and tell him I need him. He will accompany you back here. Can you do that, my dear?”

Tayte huddled her arms around herself, but nodded. She went back inside to put on her shoes.

“I was going to go to the sheriff,” Bell said. “It would be foolish to send her. Who would listen to her?”

“I know you were,” Magdalene said, “but I did not want to be left here alone with the body.”

Bell blinked. “You were afraid?”

Magdalene shook her head impatiently, but she was afraid. The body on the floor sent chills through her, and brought back memories of past terror, such terror as froze the blood in her body. But there was no blood, she told herself staring at the corpse; there was no dark pool spreading from the twitching, dying hulk and dripping from the knife in her hand.

Again over the memory of freezing fear came a faint wash of satisfaction. Terrified as she was, she had not yielded. She had cleaned the knife on her gown and then torn it off and flung it on the floor not far from her husband’s body. She had taken the key of the strongbox from around his neck, wiped her bloody hand on the already bloodied gown, taken the money, every broken farthing, and then begun to pack.

How fortunate his roaring rage had sent the servants running from the house. There had been time for her to escape. She knew the servants would not return until the next morning, usually to find her beaten bloody and unconscious. This time, staggering drunk, her husband had threatened worse than a beating. She was too beautiful, he said. Too many men praised her. He would cut off her nose and her lips. He had drawn his knife, laughing at her pleas…

“Magdalene?” Bell asked uncertainly into the silence.

“I am not afraid of the dead,” she said, making sure her voice was steady, “you know that. I am afraid of what the sheriff would say if he found me here alone. Would he not ask what I had stolen? What I had changed or rearranged so that my guilt would be hidden?”

“Why should you stay at all?” But as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Bell laughed. “That was a stupid remark.”

“It certainly was. You think Tayte would not name me at the first question? Or her young man, if he were pressed? Oh no. Either we can send Tom for the sheriff and both remain here or Tom can stay with me outside the door and swear to that when the sheriff comes.”

Bell was still grinning. “It is true that your presence here could not be hidden, but I was not thinking of that. I was thinking that your curiosity would kill you if you went away before we discovered who was dead and why and how.”

* * * *

In fact it was her curiosity that kept her there—and perhaps the need to bury her memories under the whys and wherefores of this body. Magdalene knew she had no need to fear the sheriff of Southwark. Perhaps if she had been found standing over a corpse with a knife or poison in her hand, he would have asked her some pointed questions…perhaps. His instructions from William of Ypres were clear and to the point. Magdalene was William’s. She, her women, and the Old Priory Guesthouse were to be protected against anything.

Thus the sheriff on being told by Tom that Sir Bellamy and Mistress Magdalene had found a dead body, actually came himself with his two assistants to investigate. He was deeply relieved that Bell, whom he knew from other investigations, would stand witness that he and Magdalene had come to the house together and had not been apart since that time.

The stench of the corpse having been somewhat diminished by the exchange of air through the open door, the sheriff walked in, reaching to open the shutter too. Bell stopped him, breathing shallowly, but holding up the candle to examine the bar that held the ill-fitted boards in place. Then he lifted the bar, pulled the shutter from the window, and leaned out to look at the window sill and the outer wall of the house.

“What the devil are you doing?” the sheriff asked.

“Magdalene and I unlocked the door. I am making sure that no one left through the window. The young woman who told Magdalene about the noise in the empty rooms said she heard someone come in, but did not hear anyone leave.”

“Why should she tell Magdalene about the noise?”

“The woman who lived here, Nelda Roundheels, she was called, was killed last Thursday. Her body, as you no doubt heard, was carried to the bishop of Winchester’s house and left there for him to find. Since we did not know who the woman was and she was dressed as a whore, the bishop asked Magdalene to discover what she could.”

The sheriff grimaced. “I knew about Nelda. Can’t say I was sorry. I’ve had complaints about her.”

Bell nodded acceptance. “We heard that she stole and used drugs to make sure her clients slept well. As part of her attempt to find out what Winchester wanted to know, Magdalene questioned the girl who lives in the room next door. And she told the girl that if she saw or heard anything strange in Nelda’s rooms, she should bring that information.”

“Ah,” the sheriff said and then, still standing by the window where the stench was not so fierce, gestured at the body on the floor. “So who is that?”

Bell turned from examining the window sill, the wall, and the unpromising packed earth below. In the light coming from the window, he saw the dead man’s features clearly.

“Shit!” he muttered, and then added more loudly, “That is Gehard fitzRobert. He is, or rather was. Lord Geoffrey de Mandeville’s man.”

“FitzRobert?” The sheriff took a deep breath to hold, then went closer, looked down at the corpse, and snorted. He retreated to the window again. “So it is. He’s not much loss either. Came roaring into my office a couple of times complaining about being thrown out by a brothel keeper for being too rough. Too rough? I can’t think what he was doing if one of those stew-keepers thought it was too rough.” He paused, looking at the body, which showed no sign of a wound, and asked, “Why do you care if he died?”

Now Bell had approached the corpse. He stared down at it, noting that the lips looked blistered and the chin and front of the tunic were marked with vomit. He then knelt, seized the body by an arm, and turned it over. It flopped limply—all the stiffness that came after death gone; Bell had to use both hands to turn it onto its belly. The limpness confirmed to his mind that Gehard had died a day and a half earlier, when Tayte had heard the noise.

There was no more sign of a wound on the back than on the front and not a speck of blood, but the man’s braies and tunic were stained with once-liquid feces. Bell backed away, swallowing nausea, and stuck his head out of the window to breathe the less-tainted air. He straightened to find the sheriff staring at him.

“Well? So a man has a fit and dies. That happens to big men like Gehard, doesn’t it? Why do you care?”

“Because he didn’t just die of a fit. Look at his mouth. It is burnt. He vomited and he voided. The man was poisoned.”

The sheriff breathed an exasperated sigh. “Damn you, Bellamy, you always have to find the hardest way to do anything! He was all alone. If he was poisoned, he must have taken the poison himself. So he killed himself. That means an unhallowed grave and damnation.”

So the sheriff had seen the signs of poison and decided to be deliberately blind to get Gehard the mercy of a grave in hallowed ground. Bell shook his head and uttered a mirthless crack of laughter. He had had too much of a Church background to think you could fool God and be saved from damnation by being buried in hallowed ground.

“Oh, I am sure Gehard will be buried in hallowed ground,” he said, “but you will like the reason even less than my noticing the poison. This is no self-killing. No one who knew Gehard would believe that. He was murdered by poison. I am quite sure of it.”