Chains of Folly

by Roberta Gellis

  “Yes, my lord. He did not confess in so many words, but he cursed me for interfering and said it was ordered that you not be hurt. That seemed sure enough evidence to me.”

  “Do you believe that no harm was intended to me?”

  Bell paused, thought a moment with pursed lips, and then nodded. “Well, I certainly believe that if Mandeville gave the order, he would insist you be kept safe. He would know that if you were truly hurt or killed the king would pursue the guilty party until ten times vengeance had been taken—”

  “You believe the king would wish to avenge my hurt?”

  Winchester sounded a little uncertain and very pleased.

  “Oh, yes, my lord. King Stephen can be told tales of you that make him act foolishly, but if you lay wounded or, God forbid, dead, all he would remember is that you were his brother, playing together as boys, and every service and kindness you have ever done him. The king is not a cruel or vengeful man, but even I, who I promise you would be the first pursuer on Mandeville’s trail, would come to pity him.”

  The bishop laughed. “Even if I were not there to pay your wages, you would pursue?”

  Bell did not laugh in return; his nostrils flared. “To the death. And with no knightly care for honor. Where there is too much power and no heart and conscience, one must use the means that come to hand.” Then seeing Winchester’s troubled expression, he did laugh. “You have given me work of such interest that every day is a new adventure for me. I will never find another lord as satisfactory. Have I not the right to punish the man who deprives me of such a master?”

  That the bishop was pleased and flattered and that he knew Bell was speaking only the truth as he felt it was obvious, but he said only, “To each his own pleasure, but the man who arranged the attack is now dead. The scandal over the woman died without even a ripple. I have Gloucester’s letter and the king has not mentioned it. I could wish this investigation was at an end before the conclave begins.”

  Bell wondered if Winchester was hinting that he accept Gehard’s death as punishment for his sins, and forget about the murder, but he did not want to leave the puzzle unsolved. He nodded and said, “I hope it will be, my lord.”

  Winchester did not follow the hint, if it had been one, with an order. He said, “So what will you do now?”

  Bell smiled. “That, of course, depends on you, my lord. If you travel or have any special task for me, I am yours to command. If not, I will go tell Magdalene what poison was used. She said she knew someone who might be able to tell us which apothecaries were likely to sell such substances. Once we know that, if we can find the man who sold the stuff, we may have a good lead to the poisoner.”

  The bishop snickered. “I should have remembered with whom you shared your ferreting. By all means go, but do not let your pleasure in the hunting delay your unweaving of the crime as soon as may be.” Then he grimaced slightly. “That was unfair.” He felt in his purse and withdrew two pennies. “Whore Magdalene may be, but she and her women have truly exerted themselves to solve this problem without thought of profit. When you speak to my clerks of account, tell them that the Old Priory Guesthouse is to be remitted a full week’s rent. And,” he handed Bell the pennies, “buy some sweetmeats that will give them all pleasure…and you, also…as my visible thanks.”

  Bell opened his mouth, but the bishop waved him away and he could do nothing but bow and go. He felt a flicker of irritation because he was being teased about a pleasure he had not tasted in far too long. Still, he was growing more and more sure that was a decision totally within his own power. He checked when he added the bishop’s two pennies to his purse that he had five more to offer Magdalene.

  A brief chuckle when he thought of her indignant reaction and his pointing out that being treated as a whore was at her own insistence, made the bishop’s chief clerk comment dryly on his good humor.

  “That is because I have found extra work for you,” Bell said with spurious soberness, and laughed again when the clerk drew an indignant breath.

  He then explained what the work was, asked for pen and parchment to write down the names and guilds to which the merchants belonged, and made his peace. The clerk assured him that over the next day or two he would have an answer for each man. Bell thanked him, apologized for his jest—which the clerk was now ready to laugh at too—and set off for Magdalene’s house.

  However, instead of crossing the road and going through the churchyard and Magdalene’s back garden. Bell walked down until the street between the priory and the bishop’s house ended at a small boat pier. To the right was a rough and narrow lane, rarely used, but far enough above and away from the river to allow him to cross to the High Street that came from the bridge. There he turned left. It was near dusk and many of the peddlers were heading home so he was able to buy at very good prices.

  He found two large leaf-wrapped packets of candied violets somewhat broken apart but deliciously sweet, then a large bag of cherries—the bag had some red stains, marking a crushed fruit or two but Bell ran his hand in and found most of the cherries were sound—and last he took from a vendor the whole leavings of his stall, a woven grass basket full of mixed berries. Last, just as the bells of St. Mary Overy began to ring the Vespers, he found a milkmaid and bought a whole pitcher full of heavy yellow cream.

  He was always greeted with warmth by Magdalene’s women, but his purchases were fallen upon with squeals of joy and, in her enforced silence, claps of the hands and skips of delight from Letice. However, he was also rushed to the table, where the evening meal was already laid out. They needed to eat quickly, Ella said, if they wanted to enjoy his largesse. Diot brought the wine he said he would prefer to ale this night, and Magdalene squeezed his hand when he sat down at his corner of the table.

  “You have a tale to tell, I expect,” she said, smiling at the fruit, and then, glancing briefly at Ella, told him there would be a full house of “guests.”

  Although Bell wrinkled up his nose as if he were dissatisfied with that information, actually he was rather pleased. He would not have minded, of course, if Letice or Diot heard what he had to tell Magdalene—Ella was the only one from whom he had to hide the fact that murder had been done—but he was uneasily aware that he wanted to talk to Magdalene alone.

  They lost no time in eating the fine meal Dulcie provided and topped it off with bowls of berries drowned in the cream and drizzled with honey for extra sweetness. The bell rang. Bell grabbed a handful of the broken bits of the violets and another of the cherries, then looping his sword belt over his arm, went off to his room. Ella chewing happily on cherries went to answer the gate—they were expecting Baby Face again; he was always a bit early. Nonetheless, aware that Sir John might by now have reached London, Magdalene watched warily from the doorway.

  This time Ella remembered to look out the gate without undoing the chain, and Magdalene nodded praise and then hurried back to sit by her embroidery out of the way of her terminally shy client. Ella pranced in leading her prize and rushed to offer him the violets and cherries, which were still on the table.

  “Did you remember to latch the gate again, Ella?” Magdalene asked.

  “I did,” Master Gerome said. He blushed furiously when he spoke, but then, as he came forward to pay his five pennies, he added, “The violets and cherries are very good. Thank you.”

  Magdalene was nonplussed. With any other client she would have taken that as an invitation to a conversation. With Master Gerome she did not know whether to speak or not, but he had not hurried away, so she said with a little emphasis, “Thank you for remembering the gate. Ella is always so glad when you come she sometimes gets a little forgetful.”

  “She is? She is not…ah…ordered to…to be…willing? I—” he blushed even darker “—I am aware I am…excessive.”

  Magdalene thought that if the kitchen fire had failed she could have lit her candles at his ears, but she only remarked with a touch—but not too much—of indignation, “No, indeed! None of my
women needs to be with a client she does not like. I assure you we have business enough in this house. And I have sufficient protection not to fear to turn away any client. Ella truly enjoys being with you.” Magdalene chuckled softly, beckoned and murmured to him, “Look at her. She knows she must not interrupt when I speak to a client, but if she could, she would drag you away to her room at once.”

  “Then I would like to make a permanent arrangement to be with Ella three nights a week—if possible Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I have a guild meeting on Wednesday night. And if I could then pay four shillings for three months? I know that sometimes Ella is free for a night so over the time I am sure you would make up the discount you have given me. If Ella is still happy at the end of that time, I would extend the arrangement—in three month periods—permanently. I would also be willing to pay in advance…”

  “I can see why you are a successful man of business, Master Gerome,” Magdalene said. “If you will make that four shillings and six pence, I will agree. You will have nearly two free nights out of twelve.” She waited for Gerome’s nod, then gestured to Ella to come closer. “Love, here is Master Gerome who likes you so well that he wishes to come to you the same three nights every week. But only if you wish it. Would you like that, dearling? If you prefer—”

  “Three nights a week?” Ella interrupted, smiling beatifically. She went and took Gerome’s hand and kissed his cheek. “Oh, you are satisfied with me and happy. I will always do my best to please you, I promise, even if your coming again is a sure thing. Oh, yes, Magdalene. I would like that. I would like him to come even more often…”

  “Ella!” Magdalene said in gentle warning.

  Master Gerome’s face was incandescent again, but he managed to say, “I am not sure I would survive that,” as he turned away to follow Ella to her chamber.

  Chapter 15

  Magdalene sat quietly looking at her embroidery frame. With Ella out of use three days a week, she would have to shift one or two of Ella’s steady clients to Diot. Probably that would cause no trouble, but Diot’s time was getting more filled than Magdalene liked and of late Letice was also busy. It seemed that her countrymen had discovered and liked the amenities of the Old Priory Guesthouse. They paid in strange coin, once or twice even in gold, but silver was silver and weighed the same in the goldsmith’s scale no matter what figures were stamped into the metal.

  The other two clients arrived close on each other’s heels. Magdalene added the ten pence to the five Gerome had given her and pulled the embroidery frame close. For a time, half a candlemark or so, she embroidered peacefully. When she heard the door of Bell’s room click, she looked up with a frown. Bell hesitated, a brow raised in question.

  “I am going to need another woman,” she said to him. “Blind, if I can find one who is pretty and can be taught to manage herself.”

  Bell nearly choked on the last of the crystal honey that had crumbled off the violets that he had just licked off his hand. He was hearing his mother speaking to his father, new come from the stables. “Trude is some five months gone with child. I will soon need another maid…” He swallowed hard against the combined pain and pleasure that roiled in him. A bound woman speaking to the man from whom she had a right to help, that was what Magdalene sounded like.

  Taking the time to seat himself on Ella’s stool—why not choose the one with the comfortable cushion—let Bell control the odd mixture of emotions that racked him. “You want me to look at the girls that are left in the churchyards?”

  Mingled with his surprise and pleasure at the intimation that he was again part of Magdalene’s household, he was a little shocked at the idea of being asked to recruit an innocent girl—Bell considered that thought and dismissed it. No girl left to the charity of the Church and pretty enough to work at the Old Priory Guesthouse was likely to be innocent; more likely she would have been used by men all her life. The priests tried to prevent that once the girl was left with them…well, he hoped they tried to prevent it.

  Magdalene looked up, smiling. “Mary help me for being witless. I never thought of that. I was just saying aloud what was in my head. But it is a very good notion, Bell.”

  “A very good notion for me to make a whore of a helpless girl?” His voice, although not raised—he was subconsciously aware of the business of the house progressing behind the closed doors of the corridor—was full of indignation.

  “What are the odds that a girl abandoned or so unhappy that she has run to the protection of the Church has not already been broached?” Magdalene raised her brows. “You know I would never take a woman who did not understand and accept the life I offer. Would not the girl be better off here, well fed and cared for, safe from hurt?” She laughed gently. “It was you who brought me Diot, after all.”

  “She was already a whore. I brought her from a house where she was in danger of great hurt, not from a churchyard where she expected to be succored.”

  Magdalene shook her head and then bent it over her embroidery again. She realized that Bell was not really arguing, that he just wanted to hear said aloud what they both knew to be true. “You know where they go from the churchyard,” she said. “If not to their graves most likely into one of the stews. The Old Priory Guesthouse is better.”

  That was true enough, and below the moral objections he had been taught, Bell was aware of a warm pleasure in the exchange with Magdalene. Man of the house was the way she spoke to him; the man who had the right to be consulted in any decision made about the household and who was obligated to contribute to it. A stronger sense of pleasure, near delight, flowed over Bell. That was something William of Ypres would never have. Not, Bell thought, choking back a laugh, that it was anything Lord William would ever want.

  He sighed and shrugged. “I suppose so. And a blind girl could not even hope to be taken as a servant. I will look and ask about. But this is not something we must urgently do tomorrow. More important now is that I know what poison was used to kill Gehard and what Gehard’s men—I do not think he had any friends—say about who had reason to kill him.” And Bell went on to tell her what he had learned.

  “So Linley left a message for Gehard to meet him after Gehard was dead.” Magdalene picked up on that immediately.

  “Which might mean he did not know. But Sir John knew Gehard also and Gehard would have wanted that letter for Waleran. Could he have told Nelda somehow?”

  Magdalene shook her head. “How? It is a long way from the Tower over the bridge to Nelda’s rooms.”

  “No, earlier. Gehard’s man said he was always after Sir John to tell him where he went and why. Sir John told Lord Hugh about the letter. Why not his own lord’s man?”

  “And it is true that they both used Nelda.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind. The man Gehard spoke to, the one he threatened and said he would get ‘it’ for Gehard…could that ‘it’ have been Gloucester’s letter?”

  “Why should Sir John give Gehard Gloucester’s letter? No, that is too farfetched. How could Gehard even know about the letter?”

  “Sir John must have gone to the Tower to give Mandeville the letter. He was telling everyone else about it. Perhaps he told the captain and Gehard heard.”

  Magdalene stopped embroidering to shake her head and laugh. “You are really reaching for the moon. Besides, Sir John wasn’t in London to poison Gehard. He had ridden off to Oxford or Devizes to bring the letter to Mandeville.”

  “Did he? That was what we decided between us, but what if he did look at the letter when he spoke of it to Lord Hugh? What if he realized it was gone? What if he then went back and tried to get it from Nelda and killed her and failed to find the letter by searching her rooms and obviously did not think of searching her body.”

  “But why put her in the bishop’s chamber?”

  “A sop to Mandeville? That is the best reason, but he could also have done it because Linley knew he used Nelda and that she stole and he did not want Linley to find her there dead in case
someone had heard him announce himself to her—which your little mouse did hear. We had better try to find out who sold the poison tomorrow.”

  “Yes, you said you knew what poison was used. What was it?” In her interest Magdalene anchored her needle into the cloth on which she was working.

  “Wolfsbane, also called monkshood or mother of poisons.”

  “Oh! I have heard of monkshood. I remember my mother showing us the plant and warning us that when not in flower it might be mistaken for wild white radish.” She frowned. “She told us that we must not ever touch it, that all parts were deadly poison and might even harm us through our skin.”

  Bell looked down at his hands, which were lightly clasped between his knees. Magdalene had never previously mentioned any life before she was a whore in Oxford. He hardly knew whether to pretend he had not heard… No, she would know at once that he had heard and that he marked her words as important. Better to act as if they were commonplace.

  “You were born in the country?”

  Inside, Magdalene froze. God help her, she had all but told Bell from where she came. If he enquired around the St. Foi estate, he would discover far too much. Many years had passed, but she had no doubt that in that quiet place the disappearance of the abnormally beautiful wife of St. Foi after his murder was still remembered. Next she would confess to him what she had done. She took her needle from the cloth and peered at it as if to judge the length of thread.

  “Yes,” she said as if it did not matter. “A small manor far west of Oxford—” The truth was that she came from the north, beyond Lincoln. “I would prefer if you did not try to discover more. There is really nothing much to learn. My life there was without interest…even to me.”

  “As you like,” Bell said, “except—” he saw her stiffen and was pleased with the device he planned “—I would like to know whether you would still recognize the plant and whether it grows here in London.”