Then had he had help? An accomplice from among other victims of Sir Clement’s tormenting, willing to share the risk and not likely to become a greater threat to Sir Philip than Sir Clement was? Who had been in a position to do what needed to be done at the table in the hall?
Jevan, of course, with access to every dish he had served to his uncle there. He could have easily introduced poison to some dish before serving it. And Guy and Lady Anne had both been there, in reach of the dishes after they were served. It had been Guy who took the bottle and cup from the aumbry here in Sir Philip’s room, before Sir Clement’s final attack. Had they planned that far ahead, to have poison to hand here if Sir Clement failed to die in the hall?
It would surely have been best if he had died at the table, saving the peril of giving him more poison. That brought her back to the continuing question of how he could have been poisoned there and no one else affected. Unless… she had read somewhere that a poison taken in small doses long enough would be rendered harmless to the person taking it.
That was too complicated. Surely that was too complicated, involving too many people—Sir Philip, Guy, Anne, possibly Jevan—over too long a time. Unless she could find they were acquainted before now and had been in contact with each other months ago.
Frevisse realized she had lingered a dangerously long time in a room where she had no right to be. Belatedly she realized there was one last place to look, and brought the stool from the table to stand on so she could see the aumbry’s top. Nothing was there, not even an appreciable accumulation of dust; Sir Philip’s servant was thorough at his work.
Careful to replace the stool exactly, she went to open the door enough to look out. There was no one there, and she slipped out and down the stairs, still thinking. It would be simplest if God had indeed struck Sir Clement in the hall, meaning to give an awful but not fatal warning, and then a human hand had taken advantage of the moment to poison him in Sir Philip’s room. Only Guy and Sir Philip had handled the cup of wine. Guy had opened the bottle—and by its cork it had been opened before. Had there been chance for someone else to put something into the cup as it went from the aumbry to Sir Clement’s hand? She had not been watching. She did not remember. It was possible, though it would have been far easier to have put the poison in the bottle beforehand. And it needn’t have been Sir Philip, though it was his bottle and his chamber. Anyone might have chosen his—or her—time and come in to do that, just as Frevisse had chosen hers. Though that carried the risk of someone other than Sir Clement being poisoned.
Who was desperate enough to do any of this?
Sir Philip, who might have had no better chance to be rid of Sir Clement’s threat. Lady Anne, who was in love with Guy but threatened with marriage to Sir Clement whom she openly detested, according to Robert. Guy, Sir Clement’s heir, wanting Lady Anne for himself, hating his uncle. Jevan Dey, tired of Sir Clement’s insults and torments.
They had all been there. And the physician, but he at least had no reason to want Sir Clement dead. Or no reason that Frevisse knew of, she amended.
She had reached the bottom of the stairs and was crossing the antechamber to return to her aunt when the chapel door began to open behind her. Instantly, because it was easier than having someone wonder why she had been up to Sir Philip’s room, Frevisse swung around, to seem that she was just coming toward the chapel.
Lady Anne, coming out, bent her head in slight, silent greeting, and would have gone past except Frevisse said, “Please accept my sympathy on Sir Clement’s death.”
The girl’s face had been quiet, her summer-blue eyes down after her glance at Frevisse. Now she looked up, a corner of her cupid mouth slightly awry, as if something amused her that she knew should not. “Thank you.”
Frevisse asked, “Is Sir Philip in the chapel?”
“Sir Philip?” Lady Anne’s puzzlement was clear. “Who… ?”
“The priest who was with Sir Clement at… the end, yesterday.” Frevisse dropped her voice and eyes as if not wishing to intrude on or add to Lady Anne’s grief.
“Oh. I didn’t know his name. No, I haven’t seen him today.”
She walked on. Frevisse went with her, asking with seeming casualness, “Will you be leaving soon, as soon as…” She paused over the words, delicately short of mentioning matters that might be distressing to the girl.
With no apparent distress, Lady Anne said, “As soon as the crowner says we may, yes.”
“And you’ll take Sir Clement’s body with you?”
“Oh, no. Some of our people will follow after with it. With the cold, we’ll ride on as fast as may be.”
Frevisse said in a discreet tone, slightly changing the subject, “He wasn’t a well-liked man, was he?”
“He was a hated man,” Lady Anne said without qualm. “By a great many people.”
“And now you’ll be free to marry Guy, won’t you?”
Lady Anne stopped to look at her wide-eyed. “How do you know that?”
Frevisse made a light gesture. “People gossip and I can’t always help hearing them.” More to see Lady Anne’s response than because it was her own opinion, she added, “He seems a goodly young man.”
Lady Anne’s smile brightened her eyes to dazzling. “He is! Oh, indeed he is!” A little mischievously, she asked, “Did the gossips also know we’re to be married as soon as the banns have been cried?”
“They didn’t know that, no.” Frevisse found the girl’s smile infectious, and was glad Lady Anne’s slender body precluded suspicion that desperate need more than desire was behind her eagerness to marry.
But such great love, long thwarted by Sir Clement as it had been, could have grown desperate for that reason alone. Was Guy’s desire for her as great as hers for him?
But Lady Anne was going on about his virtues with all the certainty of youth that they would be enough to bring them happiness. “He’s handsome. Anyone can see that. And brave. You should see him on the tourney field. And Sir Clement’s heir. He’ll have everything now that Sir Clement is dead. I think that’s why Sir Clement hated him. Sir Clement never wanted anyone to have anything of his. How disappointed he must be to find himself dead and everything gone into Guy’s hands.” She was clearly delighted with the idea.
“I actually heard him call Guy murderous during that quarrel in the great hall.”
“He was always saying things like that! Miserable man.”
“But Guy never fought him over it?”
Lady Anne’s pretty face tightened into an expression of deep disgust. “He never would. He said he owed Sir Clement duty as head of the family. But that whole business of him trying to murder Sir Clement always made me so angry.”
“Guy tried to murder him?”
“No, of course not.” Lady Anne laughed. “Sometime before I was his ward, for Christmas or Michaelmas or Lady Day or some such, Guy brought him marchpane for a gift. Sir Clement had a greedy tooth for sweets and should have been well-pleased. Rude, as always, of course, but pleased. Instead he raged that Guy was trying to poison him and even threw the marchpane—all of it—on the floor!” The waste of so much sugar, butter, almonds, and whatever else delicious might have been in the expensive treat clearly appalled her.
“Why? Did the marchpane make him ill?”
“He didn’t even taste it! He just looked at it and threw it down! Afterwards he was forever calling Guy a murderous whelp or something like, but Guy never heeded and neither did anyone else. Everyone knew what Sir Clement was like.”
“Then it was very good of you to have been in the chapel praying for him.”
Lady Anne made the expression of amused exasperation used by women indulging the man they love. “Guy says it will be best to show what courtesy we can toward him, now that we won’t have to do it much longer. But I doubt prayers will do Sir Clement any good, do you? I think he went straight to hell and there’s the end of it.” They had reached the door to the series of rooms the women guests had shared; by no
w Lady Anne and her women would be nearly the only ones left. Lady Anne, letting Frevisse see she was ready to be done with her company, made her a pretty little curtsy and said, “If you will excuse me, Dame.”
Frevisse bent her head in acceptance and farewell, but before she could go her own way, Guy came from the room as if in haste to somewhere else.
“Guy!” Lady Anne exclaimed, moving eagerly toward him and holding out her hands to him.
He caught and kissed them, right and left. “I came to see if you were back from prayers yet and you weren’t. Are you all right?”
Lady Anne made a face of distaste. “I’ve prayed all I can stomach for him and I’m not doing any more. You didn’t come. You said you would.”
“I said I might. I’ve been seeing to what can be done so we can leave as soon as the crowner finishes with us.”
“Has he come yet?”
“Not yet, but soon, I should think.”
“He shouldn’t even be needed. Everyone saw what happened. It was an act of God. The bishop’s word alone should be enough for it. Shouldn’t it?” she appealed to Frevisse.
“You would think so, but the law has its own way about these things.” To Guy she added, “Lady Anne and I have been talking of your uncle.”
“My cousin,” Guy corrected politely. “Or rather my father’s cousin and so mine once removed.”
“And the farther removed the better,” Lady Anne said.
She was holding on to Guy’s arm now, ready to go away with him, but Frevisse continued her relentless gossiping. “Lady Anne was telling me how he’s kept a quarrel with you these many years.”
“Oh, yes.” Guy smiled with rueful good humor. “The infamous marchpane.”
Jevan appeared behind him. “My lord,” he said.
Guy looked over his shoulder—toward but not directly at him—and said curtly, “Yes?”
“There’s a question of what can be packed and what you’ll want while you’re still here.”
“You can’t decide?”
“It would be better if you did.”
“I’ll see to it,” Lady Anne said. “I have to ask my maid about something anyway.”
She kissed Guy’s cheek lightly. Beyond Guy, Frevisse saw Jevan’s face was bleak with a control that did not quite hold before he stepped back with a bow to let Lady Anne go past him.
Frevisse remembered something she had wanted to ask and said brightly, “Oh, Lady Anne—and you gentlemen, too—I was wondering… Master Broun who was with Sir Clement at his death—God keep his soul—Master Broun was saying he saw the mark of a hand on Sir Clement’s face.” She lowered her voice impressively, much as the physician had done. “A red mark as if an inhumanly large hand had slapped him. I had to admit I didn’t see it, but I was wondering if you had? It would be such a great wonder.”
Lady Anne said after a moment’s hesitation, “Why, no, I never saw anything like that.”
“Nor I,” Jevan agreed.
“He was just all welts all over,” Guy said. “Maybe it was on his other cheek than the one I saw,” he added helpfully.
“No, I saw both sides of his face,” Jevan said. “There were only the welts, no pattern to them.”
“Oh. That’s that then,” Guy said, and added, “Go on with Lady Anne.”
Jevan bowed, and as he followed Lady Anne away, Frevisse asked Guy, “You’ll keep him in your service?”
Guy shrugged. “For a time anyway. He’s knowledgeable about Sir Clement’s affairs so he’ll be useful awhile.”
“And then?”
“He was Sir Clement’s dog. I’ll be rid of him as soon as may be. He can find employment elsewhere.”
“But he didn’t like Sir Clement any better than you did.”
“He served him nonetheless. And he has too much of his look. I don’t want him around me.”
“Did Sir Clement make provision for him, or will he have nothing when you let him go?”
The impertinence of her questions had begun to penetrate his absorption with his own affairs. Frowning, he said, “I’ve no idea.” And added, “If you’ll excuse me, my lady.”
Chapter 14
Very few of the other guests were to be inconvenienced by the crowner’s coming. Only those who had been nearest Sir Clement at the feast supposed they had to stay, but they were precisely the people Frevisse wanted to talk with, and since the morning was worn away well toward ten o’clock and dinnertime, she guessed they could be found in the hall, a warm and convenient gathering place.
They were there, a lady and five men, three of them booted and cloaked for travel, standing at one end of the dais, out of the way since the servants were busy setting up the tables only in the lower part of the hall, in token that the family would not be dining here this midday. With a touch of dismay, Frevisse realized she did not know any of them by name, but as a member of the family she had reason to approach them, to ask after their well-being, and join politely in their conversation. She and the lady exchanged slight curtsies; the men removed their hats and bowed to her; she bent her head to them. Their talk had broken off at her coming. To set it going again she said, “I hope you’ve been made comfortable. If there’s anything you need…” Her gesture indicated it was theirs to ask for.
“We’re doing very well, thank you, my dear,” the lady said. She was middle-aged, wide, and comfortably matter-of-fact. “How does poor Matilda?”
“Very poorly at present, I fear. It’s all been too much for her, with Uncle Thomas’s death and then that dreadful trouble at the feast.”
“Bad business,” one of the cloaked men said, shaking his head. “Bad business all around. Not a good way to go, and a pity it had to happen here.”
“It was bound to happen somewhere. He’d asked for it over and over,” one of the others said. He gave a knowing wink. “Is there any of us who haven’t heard him bluster for God’s judgment a score of times at the least?”
“I thought he’d done it less often of late,” said one of the men not dressed for travel. “The times I’ve been with him this past year or so, he seemed less given to it.”
“Not that you spent any more time in his company than you could help! St. Roche, but that man was a plague to everyone around him.” The cloaked man shook his head with a bitter grin of remembrance, then bethought himself and added, “God keep his soul.”
“The devil more likely. But there’s no denying his sheep had some of the best wool this part of Oxfordshire.”
“That’s young Jevan’s doing, not old Clement’s. Old Clement wasted his brains in looking for quarrels, but that youngling knows what he’s about with sheep.”
The talk veered off to wool and overseas prices, confirming Frevisse’s thought that the men ready to leave were likely merchants. The other two, because they had sat at the table near Sir Clement, must be knights, and one of them did not join in the general talk but stood gravely a little behind the lady who, though probably his wife, was taking knowledgeable part in the wool talk. Frevisse eased toward him and said aside from the flow of the conversation, “You were seated near to Sir Clement at the feast, I think?”
The man was tall, with a soft voice. “I had that misfortune, yes. Next to the young lady.”
“Sir Clement quarreled with you during the feast, didn’t he?”
“Over a matter of grazing rights that was settled in court three years ago, but since legality never mattered to him, he brought it up whenever we had the misfortune to meet. Like Jack says”—he nodded at the merchant who had claimed to see a mellowing in Sir Clement of late—“he’d lost some of his edge at making new quarrels, but he could still hold to his old ones well enough.”
“So he hadn’t truly changed his ways?”
The man gave a faint, mild smile. “He’d maybe worn out his fondness for saying ‘May God strike me down’ so often, but he could still make life a hell for anyone in his reach.”
“Still, Ralph, he’d given up fisting anyone in the face who
displeased him,” put in the other knight. He had sat next to Guy at the feast, Frevisse suddenly remembered. “I’d noticed that of late.”
“Ah, that’s because he was growing too old for it, Sir Edward,” Sir Ralph’s lady said.
“Maybe it finally came to him that someone would fist him back someday if he went on the way he was,” the shorter and rounder of the merchants said.
“Someone should have, and a long time ago.”
There were noddings and general agreement. They were plainly enjoying the chance to cut at Sir Clement now that it was safe to do so.
The Bishop’s Tale Page 12
