[Stephen Attebrook 10] - The Corpse at Windsor Bridge

by Jason Vail

  “Who, the Prince? Everybody’s heard of him.”

  “I was speaking of de Twet.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, did you know Father Giles?” Stephen asked.

  “I may have seen him a time or two.”

  “When did you see him?”

  “He went out on occasion.”

  “When?”

  “In the evenings. I saw him a few times when I was going off watch,” the gate warden said.

  “Where did he go?”

  “I couldn’t say. Didn’t pay no attention.”

  “Who might know?”

  “Robbie might be able to tell you.”

  “Who’s Robbie?”

  “He’s sergeant-in-charge of the gate on the first night watch,” the warden said.

  “Where is he now?” Stephen asked.

  “Asleep, most likely at this hour.”

  “Does he have quarters in the gate?” Unmarried wardens usually slept in one of the towers on either side of the gate.

  “Nah, he lives in the village,” the warden said.

  “Where, exactly?”

  “You going to bother him now?”

  “I’ll wait till noon. He should be up by then, shouldn’t he?” Stephen asked.

  “It’s the last house on the right in Morstreet,” the warden said.

  “Where’s that?” Stephen asked.

  “Go past the churchyard to the fork. Take the left. It’s the road to Stanes.”

  “Now, about Sir Adam,” Stephen said.

  “What about him?”

  “I must see him.”

  “I expect he’s busy now. All the prince’s court are preparing for Father Giles’ funeral Mass.”

  “When will that be?”

  “At the third hour.”

  “I suppose we could just go down and wait until he shows up,” Stephen said to Gilbert, who was admiring the stones of the tower.

  “Go down? Where might that be?” the warden asked.

  “At that little chapel on the way to the river.”

  “Oh, the Mass isn’t to be said at Saint Mary’s. They’re having it at Saint George’s Chapel.” The warden hooked a thumb behind him to the church in the lower bailey a short distance away. “Because of the smell. I hear the body fouled the air of Saint Mary’s. Can’t have folks gagging and choking and catching some terrible disease during such a solemn occasion. And I heard the king was going to be present. He don’t like dank smells, and we can’t make the king unhappy, can we? Easier to do it here, you know. Less fuss.”

  It was clear that the warden was not going to budge about letting them in, so Stephen said, “I would like to see the officer of the watch.”

  “Ah, you would, would you?” The brow of one eye dropped as if he had something in it. There was nothing like asking to see a man’s superior officer to ingratiate yourself.

  “Yes. Now. Before the sun goes down.”

  “All right, all right.” The warden turned to one of his fellows standing in a tower door. “Bill, fetch Sir Roderick. This gentleman wants a word with him.”

  Bill disappeared and footsteps could be heard as he ascended the stairwell.

  The sound of footsteps resumed after quite a time, then a short, broad and balding man emerged from the doorway.

  “What is it, Harry?” the knight asked. He seemed a bit irritated at being summoned.

  “My lord,” the warden said, “this man wants a word with you.”

  Sir Roderick’s grey eyes wandered over Stephen and Gilbert.

  “I remember you,” Roderick said.

  Stephen nodded. “We arrived yesterday, to deliver men for service in the army.”

  “Right, with a herd of cattle too, wasn’t it?”

  “The prince has engaged us to look into the death of Father Giles,” Stephen said. “Perhaps you’ve heard about it.”

  “I did, in fact. Don’t know why it’s necessary. We scoured the town only two weeks ago. I doubt we left much for you to uncover.”

  “That may well be. But I am obliged to try, like it or not. I need access to the castle to do this. Your man here insists that I need a pass.”

  Roderick sighed. “He’s just doing his job. We can’t be too careful around here. There’s a great fear of spies, and there’s talk of a move to assassinate the king and the prince. Can’t allow just any old Tom or Dick in. You understand.”

  “Fully. So, we will need a pass. For the both of us.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ll inform the watch that you’re permitted to enter.”

  “Day and night.”

  “Certainly.”

  Stephen paused before replying, thinking about something Roderick had just said. “So, Father Giles disappeared two weeks ago?”

  “Walked right out this gate on a Saturday evening just as we were closing up.”

  “Did you see where he went?”

  “The last look any of my boys had of him, he was walking across the marketplace.”

  One of the servants Stephen snagged in the hall rapped on the door of the chamber in the chamber block.

  “What is it?” a man’s voice called impatiently from within.

  “A visitor, my lord,” the servant replied.

  “What’s his name?”

  The servant looked inquiringly at Stephen.

  “Stephen Attebrook,” Stephen said. “And Gilbert Wistwode.”

  “That’s Sir Stephen,” Gilbert said.

  “Of course,” the servant said. “Sir Stephen Attebrook and his man, Master Wistwode!”

  “A moment!” the voice called back.

  “I’ll leave you to it, sir,” the servant said. He hurried away.

  Stephen and Gilbert waited in the hallway. Around them were thumpings, murmurings, voices calling out for this and that article of clothing, valets rushing in and out of chambers on this floor; in short, a hubbub of activity.

  “Do you think they’re all getting ready for the mass?” Gilbert asked. “It seems a bit much for a lady-in-waiting’s chaplain.”

  “There must be more to the man than we know,” Stephen said.

  The door opened. A man about Stephen’s age stood before them. He was tall, but not as tall as Stephen. His black hair was cut unfashionably short and his beard was also trimmed close and came to a square below his chin. He was dressed in yellow and green stockings but no shoes or boots, a linen shirt so white and fresh that the sun glinting off it would blind the eye, all fashionable and new. The man’s dark eyes wandered up and down Stephen from his battered, travel-worn boots, stained and patched stockings and muddy coat.

  “Sir Stephen Attebrook, are you?” the fellow said.

  “I assume you’re Adam Rykelyng,” Stephen said.

  “In the flesh, unfortunately.” Rykelyng frowned and half turned. “Oh, you might as well come on in. When I heard about you, I knew you’d show up at my doorstep eventually. We might as well get this over with. You’ve caught me in the middle of dressing for Mass.”

  “Sorry,” Stephen said as he entered with Gilbert behind him.

  Rykelyng plopped on a bench and began pulling on new, well tooled shoes made of flimsy leather that bore more of a resemblance to a slipper than a shoe. “You’ll have to excuse me while I finish. What do you want to know?”

  He felt around behind him for a flagon and two cups. He gave Stephen one of the cups, poured wine in both of them. “Sorry there’s nowhere else to sit. You can use the bed, if you want.”

  Stephen settled on the bed while Gilbert remained standing by the door.

  “I’m told that you were in charge of the search for Father Giles,” Stephen asked.

  Rykelyng made a face. “Yes. Damned sorry duty that turned out to be.”

  “What is your connection with Prince Edward?”

  “I’m a household knight.”

  “Ah, of course.”

  “I’m told you’re a knight yourself. You hardly look like one.”

  “Knighte
d in Spain. I don’t have any property, though.” When people of the gentle class said property, they meant land. Stephen had none, although he had a chest with gold and silver buried beneath the floor of his hall; a rapidly depleting chest that would be empty before long.

  Rykelyng chuckled without humor. “I know how that is. I just came into an estate myself — married a little heiress who came available.”

  “Tell me what you know about Father Giles’ disappearance.”

  Rykelyng drank from the cup and rested it on a knee. “All I know is that he walked out the main gate on a Saturday evening two weeks ago and was last seen crossing from the barbican into Morstreet. Two days after the Feast of Saint Nicholas, it was.”

  “No one saw him enter any of the inns or taverns? There’s quite a lot of them on Morstreet.”

  “Yes, it’s practically wall-to-wall sin and perdition there. Well, my first thought was he went to the Golden Swan. Giles had been going there quite a lot recently. Drowning some sorrow, or something. He wore a sad look those last few weeks. But, he didn’t, as far as I found out.”

  “What did you do to find out?”

  “I went round to the Swan myself and asked the proprietor. He said he hadn’t seen Giles that night. So, I sent men to ask at every house and place of business in town. Not a sign of him.”

  “Could he have left town?”

  “I doubt it. None of his property was gone. His valet said he left behind in his chamber money and jewels enough to buy two manors. Every parcel of clothing was where he left it, and his valet insisted that nothing was missing, except for the stuff that was out for washing, and that consisted of his traveling clothes. His horses were in the stable. A fine coarser he is, too. Worth a pretty penny. Giles was not the sort of man to go anywhere on foot if he could ride.”

  “Why were Father Giles’ traveling clothes at the laundry, sir?” Gilbert asked.

  Rykelyng regarded Gilbert with narrowed eyes as if surprised that he was in the room.

  “My assistant,” Stephen said. “He often thinks of things I don’t.”

  “Because they were dirty, I suppose?” Rykelyng said shortly.

  “Had he gone anywhere recently?” Gilbert persisted.

  “I didn’t ask,” Rykelyng said, his answer even more short than the previous one.

  “No matter,” Stephen murmured to steer the questioning away from this subject. Rykelyng clearly didn’t like being asked about it, especially by Gilbert. “Where can we find this valet?”

  “His quarters are in the upper bailey.”

  “And his name?”

  “Winnefrith. He has a crooked back. You can’t miss him. Assuming you get into the upper bailey. Now, it’s getting late. I have to be going.”

  Stephen and Gilbert left Rykelyng to finish dressing and went down to the garden. Bordered by the chapel, the chamber building and the hall, it had the look of an abbey cloister, crisscrossed by white gravel walkways between large bunches of rose bushes, which were bare. They crossed to the gate where they had a good view of the chapel doors.

  The space before the main doors of the chapel had begun to fill up with people, all from the upper gentry in their fine clothes.

  Stephen watched for a crooked-backed man. Surely, Giles’ valet would come to pay his respects for his master. But no crooked-backed man could be seen.

  “You can manage for a while, can’t you?” Gilbert asked after a period of fruitless waiting. “I have need of the privy.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Stephen said.

  Gilbert nodded and hurried into the chamber building, for they had detected the presence of a privy by the stench off the main door.

  A hush fell over the crowd and all faces swung toward a procession coming round a corner of the chapel. It was King Henry. Stephen had never seen the king before, and was surprised at how ordinary and unimposing he looked. He was of average height and slender build. He wore a gold circlet upon wavy brown hair which fell to the shoulders. His face was squarish, a look accentuated by a beard trimmed to a square below his chin just as Rykelyng’s. The mouth was small and framed by moustaches that had been allowed to grow out so they sagged around the corners. His brown eyes had a dog-like air, soft and friendly. The king smiled at this man and that, greeting many by name as he walked toward the chapel.

  Edward came behind his father, towering over everyone with his great height and long legs, and just behind him was a dark-haired woman of great beauty. This had to be his wife, Leonor, since the woman Isabel Gascelyn followed her with three other ladies-in-waiting.

  Behind the royal procession were a number of high-ranking men. Stephen recognized Gilbert de Clare, frowning and his eyes downcast, as if something was bothering him, and other barons and earls.

  Beside de Clare was another man Stephen knew well, and wished he didn’t, Percival FitzAllan, the earl of Arundel. There was bad blood between them. FitzAllan suspected — rightly — that Stephen had played a role in the burning of one of FitzAllan’s castles by partisans of Simon de Montfort. And as a result, FitzAllan had tried to ruin Stephen with a cocked-up charge of murder.

  But the greatest shock of all was the girl who followed FitzAllan: a small, pretty blonde girl of sixteen in an expensive blue silk gown with two hatchet-faced women on either side of her who hung close as if there was some danger that she might sprint away — Stephen’s step-niece Ida. She was the last person he expected to see at Windsor Castle, and her presence made him uneasy.

  FitzAllan had seized custody of her last year when Ida’s mother claimed that Stephen’s brother had adopted the girl and made him his heir, thus depriving Stephen of the inheritance of his home manor, Hafton.

  The girl saw Stephen peering through the gate. Her blue eyes flashed with hope. Her lips moved: “Help me.”

  Then she disappeared into the chapel.

  What was Ida doing here with FitzAllan?

  The shock of seeing Ida left him stunned and unable to think, and the crowd had mostly gone into the chapel when Gilbert showed up at Stephen’s elbow.

  Gilbert looked anxiously at Stephen’s face. “What’s happened?”

  “Ida’s here. I saw her. With FitzAllan.”

  “Oh, goodness.” Gilbert glanced at the chapel. “No sign of Elysande?” Elysande Attebrook was William’s widow and Ida’s mother.

  “No. I would have expected her to be with Ida if she’s here.”

  “You know what this means — he intends to press Elysande’s suit before the king. The usual procedures of the law be damned.”

  “I suppose he does,” Stephen said. Since Hafton was a crown manor granted to his family by the king, the matter could be disposed of in the crown court than by the king himself. In fact, in the usual run of things, someone of Elysande’s stature could not expect to make an appeal directly to the king and get a ready hearing; she was a gentlewoman, but of the lower gentry like Stephen himself, and people that low could not count on gaining the king’s attention. But FitzAllan, who was one of the realm’s great men, might do so on her behalf. And how better to present the case than with the prospective heir dangled, a young marriageable girl, before the king?

  If that was the case, it was not hard to guess how things would turn out. The king needed FitzAllan’s support far more than he needed that of a little man like Stephen. FitzAllan, after all, could raise a hundred men or more for the king. So, the judgment was a foregone conclusion. He would remain a landless man with no income, facing poverty again when his money ran out. Then it would be back to the garret chamber at the Broken Shield Inn that he had inhabited when he first came to Ludlow.

  When the crowd filed into the church, Stephen and Gilbert left the garden. They intended to enter the church and continue the search for Winnefrith, but guards at the door turned them away. The Mass would be for the nobility and well-connected alone.

  The Mass went on for more than an hour.

  At last, the king and the royal party emerged into the wan December d
aylight. The king headed uphill toward the upper bailey. The magnates and their retinues who were privileged to have access to the more refined precincts of the castle streamed after the king.

  Stephen was about to follow the king when Prince Edward, his wife and her ladies-in-waiting came out of the church with a priest. They went toward the gate on the other side of the lower bailey.

  “A private graveside service?” Gilbert guessed.

  “That would explain the priest,” Stephen said. “Since none came yesterday.”

  “Still no sign of Winnefrith,” Gilbert said, peering around the jam of the gate. “Ah! Wait!”

  Gilbert pointed to a stooped figure who had come out of the stable and trailed after the prince’s party.

  “Do we go after them?” Gilbert said.

  “I think you know the answer to that,” Stephen said, stepping out toward the gate.

  He limped toward the gate, unable to move at his usual rapid pace, so Gilbert was able to keep up without trouble.

  When they rounded the northwest corner of the castle, Edward’s party was passing through the gate of the little chapel at the foot of the hill.

  Stephen and Gilbert entered the yard and paused at a corner of the chapel, where they had a view of the graveyard behind it. The prince’s party was standing with bowed heads as the priest spoke a funeral service over a tilled mound of earth.

  “Do you see him?” Gilbert whispered.

  Stephen leaned around the corner for a better look at the graveyard. “No,” he whispered back.

  Gilbert’s stomach gurgled, and he put his hands upon it. “Shall we go?”

  “Not yet.”

  “But there are no servants here, either,” Gilbert said. “The dining hall is our best chance to find him.”

  “Let’s go around to the other side,” Stephen said as the graveside service ended and the prince turned away from the grave. He ducked back because the prince was leading is party this way. “Maybe he’s there.”

  As he cleared the far corner, Gilbert bumped into a short man whose muscular right shoulder hung below his left. He had grey hair, well combed, and wore a blue cloak over a green wool coat and yellow stockings. His lined face said he was fifty if a day, and a flap of skin hung from the point of his chin to just above the collar bone. He rubbed that chin with a blunt-fingered hand where Gilbert’s forehead had injured it.