[Stephen Attebrook 10] - The Corpse at Windsor Bridge

by Jason Vail

  “You gave him the cross.”

  Leonor nodded. “It was a foolish thing to do.” She glanced at Isabel. “I regretted it as soon as I did so.” She threw up her hands. “When I broke it off later, I demanded he return it. But he refused. His heart was broken and he was never the same afterward. He drank, he moped about, he followed me like a puppy. He said it was a remembrance of me. If he could not have my heart, he would settle for that.” She reached into her collar and drew out the cross. “It was a gift from my mother. If Edward found it in Giles’ possession, the secret would have come out. There is no telling what Edward would do, to me, or to the child.”

  “And you played on Giles’ concern for the child by claiming it was his,” Stephen said to Isabel. “He had to die so there was a chance the child would live.”

  She remained motionless, but a tightening of her lips was as good as a confession.

  “It was necessary,” Isabel said at last.

  “I suppose it was after all,” Leonor said. “But such a waste. Such a tragic waste.” She looked balefully at Isabel but said nothing more.

  There was silence in the graveyard for some moments.

  Leonor looked down at the freshly turned earth. “He doesn’t deserve to lie here, if what you say is true. Suicides have no right to burial in consecrated ground.”

  She turned back to Stephen. “What will you do with this knowledge?”

  “Nothing,” Stephen said.

  “But what will you say to Edward if you are pressed?”

  “If he ever asks, I would say the trail is cold. But it is most likely the spies killed Giles when he refused to steal your secrets for them.”

  “Even if you have to swear by God?” Leonor asked.

  “If it saves an innocent life, then I think God will eventually forgive me.”

  “You are a peculiar man, Sir Stephen. To risk your soul for a stranger.” Leonor drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “I think not. By your leave, your grace.”

  Stephen bowed and left the yard.

  Chapter 22

  They left Windsor the next day, which was Sunday, and took the southern route home through Reading, Swindon, Cirencester and Gloucester to avoid lands held by Montfort adherents. Being low on ready cash, they could not afford a horse for Ida, so she rode the mare while Stephen walked.

  It took six days to make the one-hundred-forty miles and Stephen had to walk the last twenty miles barefoot, as his boots gave out.

  When they emerged from the forest at Ludford manor and Stephen glimpsed Ludlow from the high ground across the Teme, he almost broke down and cried with relief that they were nearly home.

  Ida stopped the mare in the middle of the bridge and looked back at Stephen, who was limping along more slowly than he had been. She dismounted and waited for him.

  “Let me see your feet,” she said, bending down. “Good God, what a mess!” she added as she lifted one as a farrier might a horse’s hoof. Ida set the foot down. “At least you’re not bleeding. Get on the horse.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Stephen said. “It’s not far now.”

  “I said, get on the horse, you fool.”

  “But how will it look? Me riding, and you walking.”

  “I don’t care how it will look. I’ve had enough of your stubbornness! You’ll ride from here out.”

  She scowled at him with her hands on her hips.

  “You have a lot to learn about married life,” Gilbert said, looking back, forgetting that Stephen had been married before. “You can’t fight a woman when she is in that sort of mood.”

  Grumbling, Stephen mounted the horse.

  Through Broad Gate and up the hill to Bell Lane they plodded, and a more welcome sight there never was as they turned in, Stephen’s house in view across from the Broken Shield Inn.

  Stephen grimaced with pain as his feet hit the ground when he slid off the horse. He stretched and flexed his shoulders, which ached. Then he looked in the front window into Harry’s shop where he could hear noises of industry. Joan, the pretty blonde housekeeper, was turning the crank on a hand lathe while Harry, who had once been a legless beggar and now found work as a legless woodcarver, applied a cutting tool to shape it.

  “What do we have there?” Stephen asked.

  Harry and Joan turned with a jolt.

  “God’s whiskers! One interruption after another!” Harry exclaimed. He said to Joan, “Keep turning! We’re almost done!”

  Joan did not comply, however. She leaped up and called into the hall for Stephen’s little son Christopher and rushed out into the street. She stopped short at the sight of Ida.

  “You’re back!” Joan cried in surprise. Her eyes wandered from Stephen to Ida. “How did you manage it? Mistress Bartelot said you were to be forced into a foul marriage with some loathsome fellow!”

  “It is a rather long and shocking story,” Ida said. “Filled with danger, intrigue and death.”

  Joan tapped her foot and crossed her arms. “Why is life like that where our lord and master is concerned? Well, get you in. You’ll want supper. I’ve a good bit of soup left from dinner over the fire and the bread’s not stale yet.”

  Gilbert took the mare and led her through the gate to the inn’s stable, while Stephen picked up Chris, who had just run out of the house.

  They all trooped into the hall, including Harry who had given up work on his project and swung behind them on his great muscular arms. Stephen put Chris down and sank into the house’s lone chair, which was reserved for his use, although there were fresh wine stains on one of the arms showing that people had sat in it in his absence. Ida brought up a stool and put his feet upon it, as she called for Joan to fetch a pot of lard from the pantry.

  Ida was rubbing some of the lard on the soles of Stephen’s feet when Felicitas Bartelot appeared at the top of the front stairs. Shock made the deep vertical lines on her mule-like face stand out even more than usual.

  “Ida!” Mistress Bartelot cried as she hurried down the stairs as fast as her voluminous skirts allowed. “What are you doing here!?”

  “I’ve come home,” Ida said, smiling but not ceasing application of the lard with her thumbs.

  “Ow!” Stephen said.

  “Be quiet,” Ida said. “And hold still.”

  “Stop that right now!” Mistress Bartelot said, pointing a gaunt finger at Stephen’s feet, a muscle in one cheek twitching with undisguised revulsion at the sight of the stump with Ida’s hands upon it. “A lady does not do such things!”

  “Well, I am sure that wives do so now and then, even gentle ones,” Ida said.

  “What are you talking about?” Mistress Bartelot screeched.

  “We had to declare ourselves married in order to get me out of FitzAllan’s hands,” Ida said.

  “You’ve … married … him?” Mistress Bartelot’s finger changed its aim from Stephen’s stump to his head.

  “It looks as though we might be,” Ida said. “My freedom depends on people thinking it’s true.”

  “It is most unsuitable!” Mistress Bartelot said. She put a hand to her temple and began to sway. She might have fallen if Joan had not taken one of her arms and steered her to a nearby bench.

  Mistress Bartelot pressed her face into her hands. “You cannot be married to that man. It is so wrong!”

  Joan stood back from Mistress Bartelot once it was clear she would not topple over. She crossed her arms again. “You’re actually married?”

  “We declared ourselves so,” Stephen said. “In front of Prince Edward and other leading figures of the realm.”

  “Oh, my,” Joan said, sinking beside Mistress Bartelot.

  “There is more to this than meets the eye,” Harry said, regarding Stephen and Ida suspiciously.

  “We’ll tell you all about it later,” Stephen said.

  “Well, before you do that, you might want to see this.” Harry propelled himself to the table and pulled
himself up on one of the benches beside it with remarkable agility for a man with no legs; the people of this house were used to this sort of thing but it always startled those who did not know Harry. He held out a roll of parchment to Stephen. “It came by messenger yesterday. We don’t know what it says, but it has a fancy seal on it, so it has to be important.”

  Ida brought the parchment over to Stephen. His heart skipped several beats when he saw the seal. He was familiar with it from his legal apprenticeship. It was the Privy Seal of the crown.

  He unrolled the parchment and read it.

  Ida bent over his shoulder for a look. But Stephen had allowed the parchment to curl up again.

  “What does it say?” Ida asked.

  “You remember that Hafton is held directly of the crown,” Stephen said quietly.

  “Yes. Father mentioned it.”

  “Prince Edward, in the king’s name, has taken possession of Hafton and dispossessed us. You and me, specifically, by name. It is not spelled out, but two guesses to whom he has given it to in our place.”

  Ida slumped onto the arm of Stephen’s chair. She put her a hand on Stephen’s shoulder and laid her head against his, disregarding Mistress Bartelot’s scandalized expression.

  “FitzAllan’s revenge,” Ida said.

  “I am afraid so,” Stephen said.

  Epilogue

  A week after Stephen and Ida returned to Ludlow, another messenger bearing parchments arrived from Windsor.

  He was a handsome young fellow dressed all in black from thigh-high boots to cloak and hat, and he stepped into the front hallway without knocking or asking a by-your-leave after Harry shouted over the counter at his question that, yes, indeed, this was Sir Stephen Attebrook’s residence.

  The messenger jumped back, however, when Harry swung to the doorway, looked up at him, and barked, “State your business, sir!”

  “Are you sure you belong here?” the messenger stammered.

  “I damned well do,” Harry said. “This is my shop. I repeat, sir, what do you want?”

  It took a moment or two for the messenger to recover, for the sight of Harry, especially when his temper was aroused, was disconcerting. He was a solid block of legless fury that came no higher than a man’s hip, yet gave the impression of being much larger; perhaps it was the shoulders and arms, which were massively muscled.

  “I have a letter for Sir Stephen,” the messenger said.

  “Do you require payment?” Harry asked, as it was the custom for the recipient of a letter to pay for its delivery.

  “No, that is taken care of.” The messenger unslung a wax-covered black leather tube from his shoulder, unfastened the lid and extracted a rolled-up parchment. “If you are a shopkeeper, which is hard to believe, what business have you with me? I come for Sir Stephen.”

  At this moment, Ida, having heard Harry acting like a guard dog, came out from the hall. Even though she was supposed to be safe from FitzAllan, Harry had declared he didn’t believe it, and he was likely to attack anyone barging into the house uninvited.

  “Letter for Stephen, my lady,” Harry said.

  “I’ll take it, thank you,” Ida said, anxious that Harry not tackle the messenger, who seemed harmless, and throw him to the ground.

  The messenger handed over the parchment with relief at not having to surrender it to someone as obviously disreputable, disrespectful and ill-mannered as Harry. “Your servant, my lady.”

  “And I am yours, sir,” Ida said.

  The messenger left.

  “You’re just going to stand there?” Harry said. “You’re not going to read it?” He sounded as worried as she felt.

  “I shall read it, Harry, and you’ll find out what’s in it in due course. Now back to work. You are wasting the day.”

  “Poor Stephen, having to put up with the likes of you,” Harry pouted at the denial of his request. “I had no idea when you came here that you’d turn out like this.”

  “Like what, Harry?”

  “So bossy. You make Joan and Edith Wistwode seem mild.”

  “Why, Harry, I did not think you capable of flattery.”

  Ida withdrew into the hall, where she examined the letter with more care. It was sealed with an elaborate seal in blue wax, but she could not identify it.

  She broke the seal with her dagger and spread the letter out on the table, weighing down the corners with spoons and cups. She bent over the letter, her palms on the table supporting her weight.

  She straightened up and tapped a finger to her mouth.

  “What is it?” Joan asked from the central hearth fire where she was tending a cauldron. “More bad news?”

  “Could you run up to the castle and fetch Stephen, please? He needs to see this right away.” Stephen was on castle guard again, the only source of their income for the foreseeable future.

  “Of course,” Joan said and dashed out of the house with the alacrity of someone reporting a fire.

  Stephen and Joan rushed in some time later.

  “Is there trouble?” Stephen asked. Joan had told him of the arrival of the letter, and Ida’s urgent request that he come immediately, and to his mind the letter could only mean bad news. They had already fallen farther than any of the gentry cared to, but there was always more room at the bottom.

  “Have you ever heard of a place called Halton?” Ida asked.

  “It’s two miles, two and half from here,” Stephen answered, bewildered. “Why?”

  Ida pointed to the letter.

  Stephen read the letter silently, his expression changing from concentration to consternation and astonishment.

  The letter said:

  From Her Grace, Princess Leonor, to the Honorable Sir Stephen Attebrook, Knight, Greetings. —

  It has come to our attention that you have been dispossessed of your manor due to unpleasant circumstances of which you are aware and which we need not go into. We understand that this may put your family in straights that you may not deserve. In view of the invaluable service which you performed in the attempt to determine and to punish the murderer of our late servant and friend Father Giles de Twet, God rest his soul, even if unsuccessful, we think it mete that said service should not go unrecognized. Consequently, we are eager that you should be enfeoffed of our manor at Halton, if that is agreeable to you, with the understanding that you hold it from us as your lady, and shall come and do homage and perform knight service for it.

  Stephen straightened up and turned to Ida. He was too stunned to speak.

  “You turned her down once at Windsor,” Ida said. “What will you do now?”

  Historical Note

  Edward I’s wife is known to history as Eleanor of Castile. She was born in 1241 at Burgos, the daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile and Joan, countess of Pontheiu, a French county centered around Abbeville between Normandy and Flanders. Her birth name was Leonor. English writers in the 13th century rendered her name as Alienor or Alianor, and eventually the name was recorded as Eleanor.

  Although the marriage of Edward and Leonor was arranged for political reasons, history records that it apparently became a love match, or at least one in which there was mutual affection. Edward is one of the few English kings who is not known to have had any mistresses or bastards. Leonor bore him at least fourteen children. All but five daughters and a son died as infants. She died herself at the age of thirty-nine on 28 November 1290. Edward was sorely grieved.

  But history is never the whole story, and happy marriages do not always start off that way, or remain happy all the time. Who knows what troubles Edward and Leonor may have had that escaped the chroniclers?

  One of the couple’s fourteen children was a daughter, Katherine, born sometime during the spring of 1264. She died in September 1264, and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

  In addition to being very beautiful, Leonor had a reputation as a shrewd businesswoman and she actively acquired lands and estates in her own name. What little that shines out of the chronicles a
bout her reveals an intelligent and capable woman.

  The making of a marriage was done much differently in the 13th century than it is today. No one was required to officiate, although the Church was pushing for priests to do so. All that was required was for the two people involved to exchange declarations of the intention to marry. It was advisable for this exchange to take place before witnesses, so that if there was a falling out and one sought to escape the marriage by denying the exchange of vows, the other of the parties had evidence of them. But witnesses were not required.