[Stephen Attebrook 10] - The Corpse at Windsor Bridge

by Jason Vail

  “What am I supposed to see?”

  “He had a knife,” Gilbert said, indicating the leather scabbard of a small utility knife dangling from the belt, the kind of knife that everyone carried, including most women. “It’s not here.”

  “Do you think it fell out?”

  “Do you? They’re normally held pretty snugly.”

  “Yes, they are. Someone accosted him, he pulled the knife and then was overpowered?” Stephen speculated.

  Stephen was going over the man’s back head to toe when the chapel door opened and three women entered.

  Two of the women, who had the look of ladies’ maids, recoiled in horror, hands over their mouths, and gasped.

  The other woman, a lady by her red silk overgown with slit sides covering a light blue satin gown covered with yellow flowers and white silk wimple, said in continental French without turning to look at them, “You may go. There is no need for you to see this.”

  “But, my lady,” one of the attendants gasped in court French, “to leave you alone here, with two men? We cannot!”

  “I suspect I will be safe enough. Leave the door open, if it troubles you.”

  The two attendants curtseyed and went out, standing just outside, peering in.

  The lady stood still, hands at her sides, head high, her face composed as a statue’s. Only a slight twitch at the corners of her small mouth betrayed any agitation. She was young, no more than twenty, her skin smooth and pale, appearing more so when matched with her black hair. In the spare light of the chapel, dim and almost grey, she seemed beautiful, although she had a long, narrow face that left her just short of it in actuality. Yet, a striking, attractive woman nonetheless.

  She strode across the chapel and stood above Stephen and the body.

  “What happened to him?” she asked. “How did he die?”

  “I don’t know,” Stephen said. He knew he should rise, bow, or something, and tried to rise, but his right ankle failed him and he collapsed to his knees. He bowed his head slightly. “You’ll have to forgive me, my lady. I have an injury.”

  The lady ignored his excuse and said instead, “I am told you are an expert on these matters.”

  “Even experts don’t know everything.”

  The woman’s nostrils flared. “I have seen that. Will you be able to tell, eventually?”

  “I can’t tell you that either, for certain.”

  “He was murdered, though.”

  “I would say that is a good guess.”

  The woman knelt. Stephen sensed a perfume that must have been expensive. She held a hand over the tonsured head as if she meant to touch it. The hand hovered there and then withdrew. “Blood of the devil,” she muttered, not in continental French, but in Castilian.

  “Poor Giles,” she said, reverting to French, and snapped. “Turn him over. I want to see his face.”

  “That’s not wise, my lady,” Stephen said in Castilian. “You will not know him. He is … deformed.”

  The lady’s head jerked up. “You understand me?” she asked.

  “Sí,” Stephen said.

  “You are not Castilian. Where did you learn to speak like that?”

  “On the border with Andalusia.”

  “An Englishman in Andalusia. You must have been fighting the Moors.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well.” She paused and drew a breath. “Please turn him over, then. If you would be so kind.” Although her tone was no longer harshly commanding and was phrased as a request, there was no mistaking the order in it. And there was about her the air of a woman used to having her commands obeyed.

  Stephen did not know who she was, but she clearly was well-connected. He sighed, grasped the shoulders and turned Giles on his back.

  As he did so, the lady picked up the gold chain and crucifix. She cupped them in her hands, one over the other and held them close.

  He watched the lady for some sign of revulsion at the ugliness of the corpse, but her face was frozen rock hard. Then the mouth trembled.

  “A friend of yours?” Stephen asked.

  “Yes. He was my confessor and chaplain. I will keep this in remembrance of him.” She put the chain and crucifix in her belt pouch, stood and paced away. “I simply can’t believe he’s dead. Who would want to murder such a gentle soul?”

  Silence reigned for a moment.

  “Why are you here?” Stephen asked.

  The lady’s eyes narrowed. She regarded Stephen as if affronted at being asked. Then the eyes relaxed and returned to Giles. “I wanted to know if he suffered in death. Clearly, you cannot tell me.”

  “Not yet.”

  “When you know, I want to hear it.”

  “And whom should I ask for if I have something to say?”

  “I am Isabel Gascelyn, lady in waiting and cousin to Princess Leonor. You know of her, of course? Prince Edward’s wife?”

  Isabel went out of the church into the fading light of an approaching evening.

  Gilbert grasped his heart and fell back against a wall when Stephen told him who the lady was.

  “You thick-headed lout! You mean, you were arguing with a Spanish lady? Someone close to the princess?” Gilbert gasped. “How could you not know who she was?”

  “Did you know?”

  “Well, no. But it was clear she is someone at court. Everyone knows you must tip-toe around such people.”

  “Did it sound like an argument?” Stephen asked.

  “Some people might have thought your tone was impertinent, although I have no way of telling about your words once you began conversing in that foreign tongue.” Gilbert shook his head. “Whatever — you are ruined at court. Simply ruined. Did you not give the least thought to the fact you might need Edward’s favor to get your manor back? And here you’ve shown disrespect to one his wife’s courtiers! That will surely get back to him! It surely will!”

  Stephen stooped for the linen sheet. His older brother William had inherited the family manor, Hafton, upon the death of their father. Then William had died unexpectedly last year. According to law, Stephen should have the manor as William’s closest male relative. But William’s widow, Elysande, had possession of it claiming by right her daughter, Ida, and the argument that William had adopted her and made her his heir. She was a stubborn, determined woman, and the claims would have to be settled by lawyers, judges and appeals to the crown. Meanwhile, the crown technically held seisin of the manor because Ida, at nearly seventeen, was not yet married and the proper heir was identified and had sworn fealty to the king.

  “Did you happen to think to ask for a needle and thread?” Stephen asked.

  “Yes,” Gilbert said, digging into his belt pouch. “Here. Always prepared, always thinking ahead, unlike some people here.”

  Stephen accepted the needle and thread and turned back to the corpse. “Why don’t you go check on the progress of the gravediggers. I’ll shroud him. There’s no telling how long it will be for a friend to show up to do it, and the sooner he’s buried the better for everyone. We can’t leave him to lie here overnight.”

  Chapter 3

  Stephen and Gilbert remained at the chapel until the grave was dug, and Giles lowered into it and covered up. In the ordinary case, the deceased went to his rest surrounded by friends and family, accompanied by an appropriate funeral service with fine words, praises and final prayers. But the body was so corrupt that it seemed a violation to leave it unburied, so it was a hasty and lonely departure. No one else was there but them and the gravediggers. No priest nor monk came from the little chapter house by the chapel to give a prayer or say anything. It was a sad end for anyone, let alone someone who had, in life, been well connected. For he had been that, if Lady Isabel had known him and the prince wanted to find out who killed him.

  “I can’t stand it,” Gilbert said, as the gravediggers filed out of the yard. “This isn’t right. Let us pray for him, at least, even if we didn’t know him.”

  He lowered his head, and Stephen
did likewise. Gilbert muttered a brief prayer in Latin so low that Stephen could not make out what he said.

  He didn’t ask to be enlightened. They crossed themselves and left the yard.

  It was dark by the time they rode up to the west gate, which had closed for the night.

  Stephen hammered on the barbican gate, and one of the wardens opened a little panel at head height to get a look at him. The warden demanded, “Show me your token.”

  “I don’t have a token,” Stephen said. “I’ve been on business for the prince. It kept us late.”

  “No token, no admittance after dark. Those are the rules, unless you’re a messenger.”

  “I’m not a messenger.”

  “Then get out of here and quit bothering me.”

  As Stephen was about to turn away, the inner gate in the main wall and then the barbican gate opened. Ten men came through. One of them gathered the men around him and said, “Be back here in two hours. If you’re not, you’ll have to sleep in the ditch.”

  The group broke up and fanned out across the marketplace to the taverns and inns identifiable in the dark by the lights around the windows and the riotous noise floating across the way that was only partly muffled by the walls.

  “I don’t fancy sleeping under any more trees,” Gilbert grumbled, drawing his cloak close about him against the descending chill. “And we’ve missed supper.”

  “You never forget about your stomach, do you,” Stephen said.

  “It is the most substantial part of me, after all,” Gilbert said, patting his belly with some pride. “I hate to see it diminished.”

  “I don’t want to be responsible for harming such a national treasure. We’ve quite a choice here, it seems.” Stephen gestured toward the dozen or so establishments doing business after dark. “Pick one. As long as the food doesn’t lead me to vomit and the beds are free of bugs, I’ll not complain.”

  “Very well,” Gilbert said, finger on his lips. “That one.” He pointed to an inn across Morstreet from a large church some distance away, where four of the soldiers were just going in. Light from the doorway illuminated a sign over the door bearing a golden swan with one webbed foot on top of a small barrel that was tipped over and pouring a stream of liquid into the mouth of a frog. “If they like it, I doubt we’ll be poisoned.”

  “Clever,” Stephen said reining the mare around toward the inn. “I hope it’s not too expensive.”

  “Can’t we claim this as expenses? We’re still on Geneville’s business.”

  “Yes, I suppose we can. We’re not likely to see any reward from the prince when this is done. He probably expects us to work out of love for the crown.”

  “Let’s just hope it doesn’t take too long. A week of knocking our heads against a stone wall and then declaring the mystery unsolvable should do it, don’t you think?”

  Stephen slumped in the saddle. “Maybe.”

  “It should. After all, the man went missing a week or more ago. They made an inquiry and learned nothing. How could the prince realistically expect more out of us?”

  “If he was a rational man, he wouldn’t. But I’ve a feeling he isn’t rational about this. We’ll just have to see.”

  Stephen put up the horses in the stable behind the inn and went inside. Gilbert already had a table in a cold corner, a small thing shielded from the fire by the bodies occupying the other tables.

  Stephen squeezed his six-foot frame into the small space between wall and table. He was taller than most men and was always having to curl up like this, or bumping his head on door frames and ceiling beams.

  He removed his knit cap, which he tucked into his belt, and ran his hands through his long black hair to keep it from falling into his face, thinking it was in need of a trim. Barbers could be expensive, though. Maybe better to wait until they got back to Ludlow, where Joan, his housekeeper, would do it for free. He didn’t like to pinch pennies, but he was getting low on ready cash. He once had quite a bit of money, but he had given Gilbert and his wife a large portion of it for a quarter interest in their Ludlow inn, the Broken Shield, so they could pay off a loan. The inn, however, was not doing well owing to the winter and the coming war between supporters of the king and the barons rallying around Simon de Montfort, which curtailed travel. It would be a long time before he saw any return.

  Gilbert broke the loaf in half, and drank from his mug. “Not bad. Tastes fresh.”

  “Is there any meat or cheese? And what about butter?”

  “That’s coming.”

  While he waited, Stephen’s gaze wandered to those crowding the inn. It was doing brisk business for a Friday evening, and there was hardly a spare seat at any of the tables. Servants hurried to and fro with mugs of ale and food, squeezing through gaps between the bodies and fending off efforts to snatch refreshment not meant for them. In the far corner, Stephen caught a glimpse of the earl who had summoned him from the castle, Gilbert de Clare, with his head against that of a handsome blonde woman who was intent on what Gilbert was saying, nodding now and then, smiling, and occasionally making a brief comment. The blonde girl, who was dressed as a well-off merchant’s wife might be, put a hand on the earl’s arm, a gesture of shocking familiarity. Yet de Clare did not seem offended. He looked glum at something the woman said and nodded agreement.

  Not far away, Stephen spotted another of the young nobles who had been in Edward’s escort earlier. He had a pretty girl on his lap. The young fellow removed the girl’s yellow scarf and tossed it away. They then kissed passionately and the young man ran a hand up her skirt. She opened her legs for the wandering hand.

  An inn often had its own stable of whores, but this establishment seemed to have more than what it should ordinarily support. There were at least seven of them, all dressed better than the average whore, and distinguished from the local women about the tables by their yellow scarves. In addition to being better dressed, they were all young and good-looking, some of them actually pretty, and they circulated about the throng of men, laughing and joking with them. Now and then, one of the whores would depart for the upper chambers with men in hand, while others came down and started their game of flirtation and selection again.

  One of them, a small thing with bright red hair, reached Stephen’s table and settled on his lap. She put her arms around his neck, and said, “I’m Jennet, handsome, and you are?”

  “Stephen Attebrook.”

  “Just come in? I haven’t seen you before.”

  Stephen nodded. “This afternoon.”

  “And whose party are you with, not that it’s my business?”

  “My own.”

  “Oh! You have your own men? I’ll say, I’ve seen leading men better dressed. You can’t have brought many with you, now, can you.”

  It seemed like pointless banter, but there was something about the questions that made Stephen think she was really interested in the answers. Why she would be, he was not sure.

  “Just my friend here,” Stephen said, nodding toward Gilbert.

  “He doesn’t look like much of a soldier,” Jennet said, pouting her lips.

  “I’m not,” Gilbert volunteered as a servant delivered trenchers of sliced pork, cabbage soup and a bowl of butter. “I’m an innkeeper.”

  “An innkeeper? Looking to snoop out Johnnie’s trade secrets, are you?” Jennet laughed. It was a hollow laugh, though, as if she was disappointed with what she had heard.

  “Johnnie?” Gilbert asked, dipping a chunk of bread into the cabbage soup.

  “That’s him, over there,” she said, indicating a tall, well-built man with wide shoulders and a brown beard by the taps. “It’s his inn you’re in.”

  She ruffled Stephen’s hair. “Finish your supper, my pretty lad. I will be back for you.”

  It was odd to be addressed as a “pretty lad” by a girl who couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen, and Stephen was twenty-seven.

  Jennet eased herself out of Stephen’s lap, took a few steps and settled o
nto another man’s lap, and began asking him similar questions.

  “That seemed a bit off,” Gilbert said.

  “It did,” Stephen replied. He smoothed his hair and tried a slice of pork which was tender and delicious, not the boot leather he had expected.

  “You think she’ll be back?”

  “I have a feeling she will not.”

  “Not handsome enough after all, then?”

  “You know looks have anything to do with it.”

  “Of course, not. You could look like a dead chicken, which you often do in the mornings. Did she lift your purse?”

  “No, it’s still here.”

  “Well, then, a real mystery for a change.” Gilbert tucked into his supper in earnest, not really interested in solving it.

  “I suppose it is.”

  Across the hall, a mud-spattered man dressed in black with the thigh-high boots of a professional courier climbed the stairs behind one of the pretty whores, who made a show of wagging her ample behind in his face.

  De Clare spoke into the blonde woman’s ear. She giggled. He rose and extended a hand to her.

  The woman smiled up at him, and said something Stephen could not hear over the hubbub. De Clare chuckled. The woman drew on a blue woolen cloak with silver stitching on the hem and accepted de Clare’s hand, and the two ventured up the stairs as well.

  Chapter 4

  Stephen and Gilbert presented themselves at the castle barbican the early following morning and stated their business to the sergeant in charge of the watch, who leaned on his spear and eyed them with suspicion.

  “I need to speak to Sir Adam Rykelyng,” Stephen said.

  “Do you have a pass?”

  Stephen handed over Geneville’s letter.

  “This says that you’re delivering mounted sergeants for the army,” the warden said. “I don’t see no mounted sergeants.”

  “I delivered them yesterday.”

  “Then your business here is done. Be away.”

  “Prince Edward asked me to inquire into the death of one Giles de Twet. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”