"Not even if someone consumed every drop that jar could hold," Colin added quietly, still standing next to the chest.
Rather than soothe the knight, Sir Adam's triumph and certainty dissolved into something darker. "What is this?" he snarled. "What has this little whore given you to purchase your protection? The bell!" he answered himself, his eyes flying wide as if all was suddenly clear to him.
He raised a fist in threat. "She took the bell after she killed Robert, and now she's offered it to you so you look the other way! No man takes what should be mine!"
The insult rolled over Faucon. Rage tore through him, the emotion was far colder than the air in this chamber. With every fiber of his being he wanted to deliver a deadly retort to the man for his slur. Had his right hand not been around Idonea's wrist, he would have drawn his sword.
"Have a care with your accusations, Sir Adam, unless you intend that we should meet upon the field," Faucon warned, his words chipped from ice.
Edmund touched a finger to his employer's left fist. "Sir," was all the monk said.
It was exactly what was needed for Faucon to regain control. As rage ebbed, disbelief followed. What sort of fool spouted so lethal and impossible an insult to a man he barely knew? Sir Luc and Lady Bagot were right. Sir Robert's marriage had driven Adam of Bagot completely mad, and the knight was all the more dangerous for it.
"What say you, Sir Adam?" Faucon demanded, his voice still cold. "Do I put your insult up to momentary madness on your part and help you search the storeroom? Or do we repair to Offord's bailey and settle the question of my honor between us as men are wont to do?"
Sir Adam's brows rose slowly. His mouth half-opened and confusion filled his gaze, as if he struggled to understand what his Crowner had just said.
Footsteps rang out from behind Faucon. Head down as he balanced the four clay lamps and an unlit torch in his arms, Eustace came to a stop beside Faucon. "This should be enough—" he started to say as he raised his head. His words died as he glanced uneasily between the two knights.
"But she killed Robert. There is hemlock in her potion," Adam insisted weakly, sounding as confused as he looked.
"What will it be?" Faucon spoke over him, pitying Lady Bagot and forgiving Sir Luc for his dishonorable behavior. Sir Adam's younger brother was right. Someone had to protect Lady Offord from this madman.
"Choose now, and choose wisely," Faucon warned.
"Nothing in this last sack, save walnuts," Eustace reported. The tiny circle of light cast by his lamp marked his progress from the back corner of the storeroom toward the ladder. Bags of nuts and grains crunched as he moved.
While the bailiff had offered to search the darkest corner of the storeroom, Colin had explored the area around the barrels containing brined foods. As that had been the easier chore, he now sat on the chest Lady Bagot had left open yesterday, the one that Faucon had once again opened and closed today. Brother Colin held his lamp in his lap, its flame just bright enough to show Faucon the weave of the monk's well-worn habit.
"Then we are finished," Faucon replied to the bailiff. He stood beside the ladder guarding their burning torch. They'd jammed it in between the rungs, but it kept tilting.
They were the only searchers. Edmund had returned to the hall on the excuse that he needed to note that Prior Thierry had been cleared of the charge of theft. Faucon's clerk had taken with him his employer's request that Alf include Lady Offord in his protection. Idonea had fled the chamber the instant Faucon released her wrist, which he'd only done after she vowed not to stray from the hall, not even to her dairy hidey-hole.
As for Sir Adam, almost from the instant his Crowner has asked him to choose, he'd once more begun his descent into that strange stupor of his. When it came time to begin the search, he had instead knelt at the side of Sir Robert's bed and begun to offer up prayers for the soul of his father-by-marriage.
"So, sir," Eustace said, as he came to stand near the ladder, "what now?"
What now, indeed. Once again, Faucon shuffled those pieces of his. For the first time since he'd arrived at Offord, a pattern began to form.
"Eustace, now that you know Prior Thierry was able to breach this door," Faucon lifted his hand to indicate the open square above their heads, "and attempt to take the bell, are you still certain it couldn't have been spirited away from Offord's walls?"
"I am, with all my heart," the bailiff replied. "Last night was a desperate moment, what with Sir Robert dying. Only a man as powerful as the prior could ever have locked us out of Robert's chamber, and only that locked door could have given him enough time to find the key, open the coffer, and take the bell unwitnessed. But even that would have exposed him, since all of us at Offord would have known he was the thief once the bell's absence was discovered."
Faucon nodded at that. "And do you also still maintain that Prior Thierry couldn't have taken the bell from the coffer and left Offord with it hidden on his person?"
"I do," Eustace said in complete certainty. Then he added, "And, before you ask, Offord has had no other powerful visitors who could have breached Sir Robert's bedchamber, certainly not since we all last saw the bell. The little ladies had it out to make merry at midsummer."
"So I was hoping you might say," Faucon told the man with a smile. "Now tell me that Sir Robert journeyed away from Offord at least once since his return with Lady Offord from the Michaelmas court."
"How could you know to ask that?" Eustace cried, the torchlight bright enough to reveal astonishment on his face. "He did indeed leave us for a time. It was more than a fortnight ago, just after he recovered from his second ailment. He went without a word as to where, and returned just before Sir Adam and his family moved in for the winter. They stay at Offord throughout the season to avoid depleting all of Bagot's stores before spring, then Robert moves to Bagot with them until we at Offord begin to collect summer's bounty," he offered in explanation.
"How did Sir Robert seem, both before he left and after he returned?" Faucon wanted to know.
Creases formed on the bailiff's brow as he thought. "Sir Robert has not been himself since his marriage, perhaps even before then. However, I would say his heart was lighter when he left than when he returned," the knight's milk-brother replied at last. "I remember asking him what weighed so heavily, but he told me he couldn't yet say, and I didn't press."
Faucon grinned as Eustace confirmed the tale those pieces of his were beginning to reveal."Sir Robert removed the bell from its box and took it with him on that journey," he said.
"It's not possible that you can know that," Eustace protested. "More to the point, where would he have taken his bell without that box, and for what reason?"
"He took it to a place where he thought he might trade it for coins," Colin answered for his Crowner. As he spoke, his lamp shifted in his lap and its tiny flame set to dancing. "Am I right, Sir Faucon?"
"You are," Faucon agreed.
"But this cannot be," Eustace said in vehement denial. "Sir Robert would never have sold the bell. I told you, he had promised it to Lady Offord as her dower. He would never have been forsworn."
"I don't believe Sir Robert intended to cheat Lady Offord," Faucon said quickly. "Instead, he meant to sell the bell so he could leave her its value in coins. Perhaps he feared Prior Thierry would succeed in claiming it, leaving Lady Offord with no dower at all."
But if that had been his intention, then Sir Robert must have expected to die before his sickly wife. With that, a different possibility unfolded. Idonea was right— her father was a canny tradesman. He'd married off a defective daughter, a girl that others had rejected, at next to no cost, and lifted his line into the gentry. Even without bearing a child, Idonea returned to her family as Lady Offord, having added her title to her dowry and increased her worth. All this her father had done to help a knight keep his prized possession out of the reach of another knight.
Sir Robert's only reason for marrying had been to punish Sir Adam for trying to bully his way
into control of Offord.
Indeed, Robert had chosen Idonea precisely because she was a sickly girl unlikely to bear children or live to an old age. That was why he'd made his bell her dower. For as long as Idonea lived Adam couldn't touch the bell, and neither could the Church. Nor could Idonea's family, a widow's dower must remain intact for it returned to her husband's family upon her death.
That was also why Robert had exploded on the night of his death, beating both his wife and Sir Luc. He knew he hadn't planted a child in Idonea's belly. But any child by her, whether his or another man's, would have ruined all, and stolen his grandson's inheritance.
"But why leave the coffer? The box is worth at least half as much as the bell," Eustace asked, looking baffled.
"Because Sir Robert didn't want anyone to know the bell was gone. As long as the locked coffer remained in the storeroom, everyone would assume the bell was still inside it," Faucon told him, and yet another piece fell into place.
Thus had Sir Robert called for the prior when he knew he was dying, and why he'd agreed to be alone with Prior Thierry. He'd wanted the Churchman to open that coffer and see it was empty. No doubt he hoped the Churchman would believe the bell was forever out of his reach. Perhaps he also hoped that the prior would reveal it was missing to Sir Adam for the same reason.
"That Sir Robert returned disappointed from his journey means one of two things," Faucon continued. "The first would be that he sold the bell and suffered over giving up a beloved object. If that were so, wouldn't we have found a purse containing coins to match the bell's value in one of these?" he asked the bailiff, the sweep of his hand indicating the two chests near the ladder.
Eustace's resistance began to ebb. "If there were such a purse, it would have been stored here. But we found no purse," the bailiff added quietly.
"Which brings us to the other possibility for Sir Robert's disappointment," Faucon continued, " and it is two-pronged. Either he found he couldn't bear to part with the bell, or he discovered that no honest man would give him the coins he wanted for it because it is what Prior Thierry described, a sacred object." And a dishonest man wasn't likely to offer the full worth of the bell for just that reason. "Either way, it means Sir Robert returned with the bell yet in his possession."
"But why didn't he return it to its box?" Colin asked.
Eustace caught a startled breath at the question."Because he knew the prior meant to take it from him."
"Not the prior," Faucon said with a shake of his head. "It was someone else, someone he had once trusted deeply and no longer did. You were right, Eustace. There could never have been a theft, and there never was. The bell is still at Offord, hidden in some place known only to Sir Robert, a location he took with him to his grave."
That had Faucon sighing. Sir Robert had been a fool not to give his bell to the priory the moment it was identified as a holy object. Instead, the knight had kept his precious bell and it had cost him his life.
Extinguishing their lamps and smothering the torch, they returned up the ladder to the bedchamber. Sir Adam yet knelt at the side of Sir Robert's bed. If the knight prayed, he was doing so while staring vacantly at the draperies that enclosed Sir Robert's body. Faucon left the man to his shattered thoughts and returned with his fellow searchers to the hall.
Will slept on his pallet, rolled onto his side, his legs bent and his arms relaxed. That said Colin's brew had delivered on its promise. Faucon's brother suffered no more, at least for the moment.
Alf had returned to the bench he'd used at the morning meal. Not far from him, Idonea and Lady Helena sat on the rush-strewn tile floor, facing the hall door, their backs against the warm hearthstone. Both girls had their heads bent as if concentrating on something in their laps.
Just then Martha's poppet rose into view above the leaping flames. Martha followed, holding her plaything high as she came to her feet. The child leaned over her sister to give the toy to her step-grandmother. Apparently the little lady's term of punishment had come to an end.
More than ready to be done with this place, Faucon stopped beside Edmund at the end of the high table. Both Colin and Eustace stopped with him. Edmund once again had his writing tools spread out before him.
"All is well?" Faucon's clerk asked, his gaze shifting briefly in the direction of the tower door.
"All is well," Faucon assured him, and was suddenly anxious for a private moment with his clerk. Edmund deserved more than the simple thanks Faucon had already shared with him. As for Faucon, the better he came to know this man, the more he liked him, in spite of the complications he ever seemed to create.
"All is well for me," Faucon amended with a smile. "As for you, I fear you'll be making free with your knife. The bell was not stolen," he said.
"Not by the prior," Brother Edmund agreed.
"Not by anyone," Faucon told him. "I believe that for his own reasons Sir Robert hid the bell here at Offord. It may never be found."
As he spoke, he caught a sharp movement from the corner of his eye. It was the little lady. Martha had snatched her toy back out of the widow's hands.
"Hey!" Idonea cried in surprise. "If she's to wear a gown, I have to fit it to her," she chided her step-granddaughter. "I promise I won't poke her with the needle."
Clutching her poppet close, Martha shared her frown with her sister and her stepgrandmother, as well as the men behind her.
"Do you want her to be dressed or not?" Idonea demanded.
Martha relented. "She wants a gown," she said, giving the plaything back to Idonea.
"You're certain?" Edmund asked at the same time, looking aggrieved over the idea of scraping ink off his precious parchment.
"As certain as we'll ever be if we don't find the bell," Faucon told him.
His clerk gave an irritable sigh. "Then off it comes," he grumbled. He picked up his knife, then hesitated, still watching his employer. "What should I include regarding the manner of Sir Robert's death?"
"Nothing as of yet," Faucon replied with a sigh. No matter how he rearranged those pieces of his, the tale they were supposed to tell remained as scrambled as ever.
"Perhaps you'll never know," the monk said quietly, as if avoiding a declaration of suicide was the same as declaring that a man had not taken his own life. Such an earthly deflection would hardly save a soul from suffering its rightful punishment for the ultimate sin.
That left Faucon gnawing on the conundrum of Sir Robert's passing. It was certain that the man's life had ended at a ruinous moment, when his treasury was bare, and as his son-by-marriage sought to steal his independence, and just as he discovered that someone he'd once trusted dearly intended to steal a precious artifact. Those were certainly reasons for a man to contemplate his own death. But by consuming hemlock?
Faucon twisted and turned this in his mind, and still couldn't make suicide fit. Sir Adam said he had sparred frequently with Sir Robert. A hesitant step, a weak wrist, turning an instant too late. These were all possible avenues to certain death, one that didn't cheat a man of his heavenly reward.
"Come with me," he said to Colin and Eustace as he started toward Alf.
At Faucon's suggestion, Eustace brought a bench around to the inside of the table so he and Colin could sit across from the soldier and their Crowner as they talked. While the girls at the nearby hearthstone chatted quietly and sewed, Faucon said to Eustace, "Tell Brother Colin about Sir Robert's recent illnesses."
Nodding his agreement, Eustace looked at the monk. "Two times since Sir Robert returned after Michaelmas court, he overindulged at his meat and became ill. Each time he complained that his stomach was afire and his legs ached. These illnesses caught him, and those of us who serve him, by surprise. Sir Robert has been hale and hearty these past years."
Colin's snowy brows lifted. "How long before your master arose from his bed, free from his complaint?" he asked the bailiff.
"Truth be, I was startled that he even agreed to take to his bed," Eustace said, with a wry twist of
his mouth. "Sir Robert wasn't the sort to allow any illness to lay him low. But Lady Bagot pleaded to care for him, and because I knew she loved him, I added my voice to hers. He agreed. She even got him to take that tonic she makes. To both of our pleasure, his pains began rapidly to ebb and he didn't once complain over her ministrations," the bailiff said on an amused breath. "As for how long, I don't think he stayed abed for more than a day or two each time. And when he arose, it was in complete health."
"You're certain he didn't complain of lingering effects or permanent deficits?" the monk pressed.
"If there were any, Sir Robert never mentioned them to me," Eustace replied.
Colin grinned. "Hemlock," he pronounced again.
"What?" Eustace cried in surprise. "Are you saying Sir Robert was poisoned as Sir Adam charged?"
The ladies at the hearth fell into an instant silence. Faucon glanced at them. All three were staring boldly at the men seated around the end of the table.
Moisture filled Idonea's eyes. "There was poison?" she whispered, then lowered her gaze back to her lap where it belonged, doing so only to hide the fact that her tears were falling.
A frowning Martha looked at her sister. "What is 'poisoned' and why is Idonea crying?" she whispered loudly.
Lady Helena shot a swift glance at Faucon, blushed, then turned to her sister. "Hush, Martha. It's none of our concern, that's what it is. Now lower your gaze as you know you must," she chided softly, sounding like her mother. As Martha did as she was told, Helena put a reassuring arm around her step-grandmother.
Faucon looked back at the bailiff. "That's what I'm beginning to believe, but belief is useless to me. Help me, Brother Colin," he begged the monk. "Tell me how that taste could have been disguised so thoroughly that Sir Robert might have drunk enough of it to end his life."
"I cannot," Colin said with a shake of his head. "You know that, having tasted it. Hemlock would never be a poisoner's first choice."
"Then, if not drink, could it have been added to his food?" Faucon demanded on a frustrated breath.
The Final Toll Page 14
