The Reeve's Tale (19 page)

‘It’s part of the problem,“ Frevisse said back at him. ”How long there is to find Tom Hulcote’s murderer depends on how well they can hold out against Montfort wanting it to be one or both of you.“ Elena gasped but Frevisse asked Perryn again, ”What sort of men are they? Hamon I remember from manor court. He’s not likely to be happy with you just now.“

‘No,“ Perryn agreed, ”but Walter Hopper is solid enough.“

‘He’s the one who didn’t say anything while we were there?“

‘Aye. He’s hard to push where he doesn’t want to go.“

‘And the others?“

‘Bert Fleccher…“

‘A troublemaker,“ Gilbey said.

‘He’s that,“ Perryn agreed slowly, ”but not mean-hearted about it.“

‘Nay, just a fool, and that can be as bad,“ Gilbey said. ”He’d not mind seeing us down if he could do it without hurt to himself. Then there’s John Rudyng. He’s no use either. Without his mother-in-law there to tell him what to do, he’ll go whatever way looks easiest.“

‘Aye, maybe,“ Perryn agreed glumly.

Gilbey sat down in the chair beside the table, fingers drumming angrily at the broad wooden tabletop. “And that crowner will likely…”

Elena, turning back from a wall-hung aumbry with pitcher and fine blue-glazed goblets, said on a soft but rising note, “Gilbey. Guests.”

Gilbey twitched a startled look toward her, then at Frevisse, realized he was sitting and she was not, and stood abruptly up, making an awkward gesture toward the room’s only other chair, saying, “Pray, sit, Dame. If you will.”

He did not have it smoothly down but he was trying. Frevisse made a slight bow of her head to acknowledge his manners and sat. “You, too,” he said at Perryn less graciously but waiting until the reeve had sat on a bench end before sitting again himself. Elena put the pitcher and goblets on the table and began to pour a clear, golden ale while Gilbey, going back to what he had been saying, said, “That shit-witted crowner will bring them around to indicting us by suppertime, so what are we going to do?”

Elena’s hands jerked, making the ale she was pouring miss the goblet. “Indict you?” she repeated. “For what? For Tom Hulcote’s murder?”

‘What else?“ Gilbey returned.

She set the pitcher down, looking at Frevisse and Perryn’s faces, wanting a different answer. “Truly?”

Perryn nodded.

‘On what proof?“

‘Fool’s proof,“ Gilbey snapped, ”but since he has fools for jurors, it’ll be enough.“

‘It won’t be enough when it comes to county court,“ said Perryn. ”Not with men he can’t force the way he can here.“

‘He’ll have us ruined long before it comes to that,“ Gilbey said. Because in the while until then, all their property would be taken into the king’s hands for keeping, forfeit to the king if they were found guilty, returned to them if they were found innocent, but either way, some officer of Montfort would likely have the running and profit of it all in the meanwhile—officially on the king’s behalf, and surely much would reach the royal coffers, but a great deal would go into the crowner’s purse along the way, and Frevisse no more doubted it than Gilbey or Perryn did.

Nor did Elena, who said slowly, wiping up the spilled ale, “So it’s not so much who’s guilty that he’s looking for as that you two are the wealthiest men in Prior Byfield, yes?”

‘And justice be damned,“ Gilbey agreed grimly. ”He’s reckoning what a pretty profit he’ll make out of his share of our property if we’re found guilty and how much he’ll make off it even if we aren’t, and since there’s not much profit to be had in finding a poor man guilty, we’re his murderers of choice.“

‘More than that,“ Perryn said, ”if he settles for us being guilty, then the true murderer goes unfound and that’s as bad a wrong.“

Elena paused in holding out a goblet to Frevisse. “Worse still,” she said quietly, “is that it has to be someone of the village and they’ll go on being here, with none of us knowing who he is.”

In the silence that answered that, Frevisse took the goblet Elena was holding out to her, before a small knock at the door made them all look that way, to see Dickon Naylor looking over it uncertainly.

‘You weren’t at your house,“ he said to Perryn, plainly unsure of his welcome, ”so I came here…“

‘Come in,“ Gilbey snapped. ”Don’t stand there looking lost. That ass of a crowner let you go, then?“

Shutting the half-door carefully behind him and snicking the latch, Dickon answered, “He’s finished for today, he says. He’s sent everybody home.”

‘Finished?“ Frevisse repeated, surprised along with Perryn and Gilbey.

‘I don’t see any guards with you,“ Gilbey said as Dickon crossed to stand beside Perryn. ”We’re not for it yet, then?“

Perryn took the boy’s hand and pulled him down to sit on the bench beside him while Dickon shook his head and answered, “After you left, Master Montfort tried to lead the men back to where he’d had them before you came in…”

‘Damn him,“ Gilbey said.

‘… but they wouldn’t go.“

Frevisse had never paid the boy much heed but seeing him now, she realized he was not much the “little boy” she had been thinking him when she thought of him at all. He was already well into the lanky growth that came on some children earlier than others, and there was enough of his father in the contained way he had answered just now that she thought it likely it wasn’t only in body he was ahead of himself. Attending more to his answer than she would have earlier, she asked, “What happened after we left?”

Dickon regarded her gravely. “Just that. Master Montfort wanted them to say the hood and belt were reason enough to find Simon and Gilbey guilty of Tom’s murder, and Hamon might have, just to make trouble, like, but the rest of them dug in their heels and wouldn’t. They said it didn’t make sense, the hood and belt being there when both men couldn’t have been. Even Bert said there was more looking to be done before things should be called settled, but I think that was because he liked the color Master Montfort’s face was turning and wanted to see how purple it would go. Then Hamon went along with them.”

‘What’s this about a hood and belt?“ Elena asked.

Gilbey told her, briefly, both about them and what had passed with Montfort, ending, “So all he’s got is nonsense and no proof of anything.”

‘But it’s your belt?“ Elena said.

‘Oh, aye, it’s my belt, right enough, and Simon’s hood, but they’ll do Montfort no good.“

‘Unfortunately,“ Frevisse said, ”Montfort is able to believe whatever he wants to believe, ignore whatever he wanted to ignore, unless he’s forced to go another way. We held him off a while with mention of Lord Lovell and Abbot Gilberd and putting questions to him that he didn’t like but none of that will keep him back for long, set against the chance for profit your guilt offers him.“

‘You mean disproving Gilbey and Simon could have been there together isn’t going to be enough?“ Elena said.

‘Not if he wants to believe in it, and that brings us to the need to prove who did kill Tom Hulcote.“

Gilbey rapped impatient knuckles on the table top. “How likely are we to be able to do that?” he said scornfully.

‘Not likely at all if we don’t try,“ Perryn said curtly. He rubbed a large hand over his face, took a deep breath, and looked to Frevisse. ”You have some thought on how to do it?“

For answer, she asked, “What do we know for certain about Hulcote’s death?”

She waited but no one said anything, all of them— Dickon, too—waiting with gazes fixed on her.

‘Begin this way then,“ she said. ”He was last seen alive late on Saturday, yes? By whom?“

There was a pause, the others looking at each other, before Perryn said, “By me.”

Frevisse failed to choke off her surprise. “By you?”

‘Near as I’ve heard anyway.“ Perryn was faintly defiant about it, understanding it was not to his good to have been the last who saw Hulcote living.

Frevisse rethought how to ask the next question, but there seemed only the one way. “He was by himself?”

A unreadable mix of expressions crossed Perryn’s face and he shifted awkwardly where he sat, as if the bench had suddenly become doubly hard under him, before he answered, “Nay. He was with me.”

Hopefully keeping her thoughts hidden, Frevisse asked, “Doing what?”

‘Quarreling.“

‘Over what?“

Perryn did not try to hold in his bitter disgust. “Over Matthew Woderove’s holding, surely. Tom wanted I should tell him I’d change my mind over the holding, let him have it after all, or at least tell him you’d not have it either.”

‘Did you?“ Gilbey snapped.

‘How likely do you think it?“ Perryn snapped back. ”Nay, I told him naught. I was going into church to see how it was there and he overtook me at the church gate, demanding, like there was nothing else in the world but him and that damned holding, and I was that angry at him for it that when he wouldn’t let it go, I told him I wouldn’t even tell him what day of the week it was if he’d asked me, and I certain as hell wasn’t going to tell him about the holding.“

‘And then?“ Frevisse asked.

‘Then he cursed me and said I’d be sorry for it and flung away along the field path there, and I went into the church.“

‘Did anyone see or hear the two of you there?“

‘Not that I know of. They might have. But if they did, they saw him go off alive and well.“

And angry. Angry enough to come back later, when Perryn was home and quarrel with him again?

Frevisse did not ask that, only, “No one has admitted to seeing him after that?”

‘Not anybody.“

‘He was at the alehouse,“ Gilbey said. ”Folk have said so.“

‘But that was before he met me,“ Perryn said. ”The sun was just to the horizon when he left there, Bess has said. It was half gone below when I was talking with him.“

‘You didn’t tell the crowner that,“ Gilbey said.

‘Right enough, I didn’t! That’s all he needs.“

‘If somebody else saw you, they might,“ Gilbey persisted.

‘If somebody else saw us, they saw us quarreling and wouldn’t have kept it to themselves this long, given the way tongues run on wheels around here. It would have been all through the village long before Tom was found dead and you know it.“

‘But you said nothing about it to anyone?“ Frevisse asked.

‘What was to say? That we’d quarreled? No new tidings in that. I had other things I was worried on more than him. I doubt I even thought on it again until after I knew he was dead, and that didn’t seem a good time to say aught about it.“

‘Judging by his body, then,“ Frevisse said, ”we can guess that he was killed sooner rather than later after you last saw him.“

‘Aye.“

‘And it’s certain the body wasn’t put into the ditch until soon before it was found. That tells us someone kept it somewhere the while between. Why?“

The men and Elena passed puzzled looks among themselves before Elena said, slightly a-frown with uncertainty, “Because they couldn’t move it until then?”

‘Why not?“ Frevisse asked. ”It’s easy to understand why they couldn’t leave it where they’d killed him if it was somewhere that would give their guilt away as soon as it was found, but what was different about Monday’s night that made it a safer time than Saturday or Sunday’s night to move the body?“

They all thought again a long moment, before Gilbey said impatiently, “There was naught particular about Monday night. Nothing about Saturday or Sunday either.”

‘It rained once in there,“ Dickon offered.

‘At dawn on Monday,“ Perryn said. ”Just before sunrise and for a little afterwards, not in the night. There was no rain any of those nights. And what would rain have to do with moving the body anyway?“

‘The moon?“ Elena asked but answered for herself, ”No, there wasn’t that much difference in it from one night to the next those nights.“

‘Nor point in waiting in hope of an overcast night when he couldn’t be sure of one,“ Frevisse added. Not when waiting meant the risk of a decaying body betraying the murderer’s secret.

‘And if an overcast night was what he wanted, why didn’t he use the overcast there was Sunday night before the rain?“ Elena asked.

‘Aye,“ Perryn said, impatient, frustrated. ”Why wait until the next night?“

‘To give him a chance,“ Frevisse said, ”to lay hands on your hood and Gilbey’s belt.“

Chapter 13

Perryn stared at her as if he understood what she had said but disbelieved she meant it. Then belief caught up to understanding and angrily he said, “Yes.”

Gilbey looked from Frevisse to him and back again and demanded, “What d’you mean?”

‘Some one took them to make us look guilty,“ Perryn said.

Gilbey shot to his feet.
“What?”
Watching him, Frevisse said levelly, “Whoever the murderer was, he kept the body hidden until he could have something of yours and Perryn’s to leave with it, to make you both look guilty.”

Gilbey dropped back into his chair. “Damn the bastard.”

‘Gilbey,“ Elena said.

‘Pardon, Dame,“ Gilbey muttered, not thinking about it. And added, after a moment’s thought, ”But damn him anyway.“