Season of the Fox (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 2)

by Denise Domning

  Faucon’s brows rose. That Tom would say as much out loud to a stranger suggested that unlike the men of the hue and cry, Bernart was not so well-loved in his own household, at least not by his manservants.

  He extended his hand, offering Tom the half scissors he held. “Perhaps it would be better to search for the bolt once your master’s body has been removed,” he suggested.

  “Holy Mother!” Tom cried out as he saw the bloody blade. Rob looked up from the floor. His face went ashen and he crossed himself.

  “Aye, I fear you’ll have some cleaning to do,” Faucon said. “This was used to cut your master’s throat and end his life. Tell me, for I need to know. How did the man who took your scissors from you do it without you noticing, especially since they are as precious as you say?”

  Rob sat back his heels. His hand trembled as he took the blade from Faucon, then he turned his gaze to the floor. “I care for my master’s tools. I would never allow anyone to take so precious an implement from me, certainly not without the master’s permission. My scissors weren’t missing when I left the storehouse for our meal. I placed them on my worktable as I always do, on top of the fabric I was cutting. The scissors are heavy and so you now know, sir, since you’ve held that blade. That’s weight enough to restrain the fine linen I cut. Otherwise, the fabric is so thin that even the smallest breath of air can send it drifting.”

  Faucon remembered seeing the breeze lift the length of cloth off a table when he entered the linsman’s courtyard. Then he frowned, catching the full meaning of Rob’s comment. “You were at your meat but your master was not at the table with you?” he asked.

  Such a thing was almost unheard of. The man who purchased the food always presided over the meal he gave as a gift to his household. But then, in this household it was the woman who made that gift.

  Rob shrugged but Tom replied. “Such a thing is not unusual for the master these days,” he said uneasily, his gaze shifting to the side.

  “Your master never eats with those who serve him?” Faucon persisted.

  Again, Tom shifted uneasily. “Nay, he always joins us, it’s just that he’s always late. It happened only occasionally until he returned from that London trip. Since then, it’s happened so often that we no longer wait for him to join us before beginning our meal. If we did, we’d never be able to finish our afternoon tasks.”

  Faucon looked askance at that. There was something strange afoot in this household, something strange indeed.

  Tom continued. “Only when Mistress Alina can no longer tolerate the master’s absence does she go to fetch him.” His words faded into silence as he looked at his brother. “Rob,” he whispered, “he came into the storehouse and took your scissors so he could do this terrible deed.”

  “God help me,” Rob pleaded, his request for heavenly intervention a bare breath. He came to his feet, backing carefully into the doorway before he briefly raised his gaze to meet Faucon’s.

  “Master Peter must have taken my scissors when he came creeping in through our gate like a thief in the night, intent on wrongdoing. Fie on me! Hadn’t I just honed the edge to its sharpest? The mistress had told me there would be a special piece for me to cut right after the meal ended, and I should be ready to get to it the moment I returned to work.”

  “And this request, was it unusual for your mistress to make?” Faucon wanted to know.

  That made Rob frown in surprise. “Nay, not so much,” he answered hesitantly. “She’s always doing odd pieces.”

  Tom came to his feet and joined his brother in the doorway. “It’s become our mistress’s habit to ask Rob for these cuts ever since the master bought back this scissors. As I said, these scissors make a wondrous cut, so much cleaner than any other.”

  Well, that was one question satisfied. It had been planning and not passion at the root of Bernart’s death. But whose planning?

  “Why would Peter the Webber wish to murder your master?” he asked of the two.

  They stared back at him, their expressions identical, both empty and confused. And, a little frightened that a knight might be asking them such a question.

  Faucon smiled. “Pay me no mind,” he said. “Instead, do your master one final service as you bear him to where the inquest jury will view him. Know that I’ll suggest to your mistress that place should be the courtyard, but wait to take him until she confirms this with you. While you wait, search for your bolt as you will. Let me know if you find it.”

  Leaving Bernart in the care of his servants, Faucon made his way back up the stairs to the hall door. It now stood open wide. Inside, Gisla, her hair once more neatly plaited, and three men, dressed in tunics the same color as those worn by Rob and Tom, were clearing away the remains of the aborted meal. While the servants removed the implements and platters, Gisla was putting sodden bread trenchers into a large alms basket for distribution to Stanrudde’s poor.

  Mistress Alina’s apprentices and journeywomen had also returned to the chamber, but their activities were far less useful and definitely not profitable. Yet trapped in their distress, they had gathered into the sunlit bays, not to ply their needles but to clutch together, murmuring and sighing like unhappy doves.

  Faucon stepped inside the room, catching Gisla’s eye. She set her basket on a bench and joined him. He wasn’t surprised to see she had scoured her hands, doing so until her fingers were reddened. Once again, she offered him no sign of respect as she stood before him. Perhaps her rudeness was the result of being raised in a household that was turned on its head. Placing women above men was like declaring Man had the right to sit in judgment of God.

  “You have requested your father’s body be brought into the hall,” Faucon said, burying his disapproval of her and her household behind a quick smile. “However, I’ll be calling the inquest jury to confirm the verdict of murder, doing so before nightfall. I think it might better serve you to place your sire in your courtyard where all can see him without intruding upon your mourning. Once your neighbors have rendered their verdict and viewed him, you may care for him as you will.”

  There was the slightest softening in her expression. “Ah, you said as much before. I wasn’t thinking,” she added. “Aye, I’ll see he’s taken to the courtyard for you. My thanks.” Her words were flat and lacking in all gratitude.

  Even knowing what this might cost him, Faucon couldn’t resist testing her. “By the bye, I struggle to convince myself that Peter the Webber killed your sire.”

  Her eyes flew wide. Her face whitened and she began to crumple. Startled, he grabbed her by the upper arms to steady her. Her head bowed, her breath coming in tiny gasps, she wrapped her hands around his forearms, holding herself upright. When she had regained her composure and steadied on her feet, she opened her hands to push back from him, her head yet bowed.

  “Mary, please save him,” she whispered.

  Then, she fled past Faucon and down the stairs, shooting him only the swiftest of glances as she went. It was all he needed to see of her face to know that Gisla la Linswoman loved her betrothed with all her heart.

  Startled and pleased that he had generated that bit of information with so little effort, he added it to all the other bits he’d collected thus far. The need to speak with Peter the Webber once again niggled at him. Forty days was too long to wait. The sooner the webber told his tale, the sooner Faucon could drive his true prey out into the open and have him arrested.

  He shifted to look at the women gathered to the south side of the chamber. To a one they now watched him in an interest far bolder than was appropriate for their sex. He nodded to them.

  “Your mistress was the first finder. As required by the law, I must take her oath, doing so in our king’s name. Who among you will lead me to her and stay at her side to comfort her as I say what I must?”

  “I will, Sir Crowner.”

  One of the older women came to her feet. As tall as he, her plaited hair was fair and her head uncovered, suggesting that she remained unmarr
ied. Time had been kind to her, despite that she was in her middle years, adding only faint lines at the corners of her eyes and either side of her mouth. That left her yet a pretty woman with a round face, blue eyes and the lush lips that men found attractive.

  The needlewoman shook out her skirts as if to brush off the day’s upset, then looked at the others in the bay with her. “Aye, we’ve all done enough mourning and moaning for the now,” she told them. “On the morrow we’ll be called to honor our master at his wake. It will reflect poorly on our house and us if we open our hall when it’s at less than its best. Up Ella, Tilda and Jeanne. Run to the warehouse and fetch the covering cloths for the frames.”

  “Aye, mistress,” said all three of the youngest girls as one, leaping to their feet.

  Their use of the title ‘mistress’ piqued Faucon’s interest for it pronounced the older woman accomplished at her trade. But if that were so, why did she still live with her master, or her mistress as was the case here? In every occupation, including his own, there was a time for learning and a time for leaving. A squire became a knight after he’d mastered the skills of dealing out death, whether man-to-man or on the battle-field. Once a squire received his coleé and his title, he departed from his foster father’s home to make his own way in the world. Then again, perhaps a woman’s trade was different than those practiced by men.

  As the three young girls trotted past him and down the stairs, this mistress spoke to the other women. “Bestir yourselves, all of you. First, see to it that our work is folded away and properly protected, and the frames moved into the corners where they cannot be disturbed or marked by unthinking hands or curious fingers. After that, we’ll all of us be in the kitchen, else there won’t be anything decent to feed those who come to pay their respects upon the morrow.”

  That elicited groans from a few of those she commanded, but they all did as she bid. As these women began gathering up their work, the needlewoman crossed the hall to join Faucon. She offered him the show of respect that the daughter of this house had not.

  “I am Mistress Nanette, Sir Crowner.” She pointed toward the door across the landing. “Mistress Alina is in her chamber. If you will?”

  Faucon exited the hall ahead of her, only to stop when they were both on the landing, hoping she would allow him a private moment. “I must tell you, Mistress Nanette. This house and its trade are like none I’ve ever seen.”

  That made her smile, the movement of her mouth filling her face and blue eyes with lively amusement. “I can imagine our work must seem strange indeed, especially to a newcomer. I expect I’d say the same were I to see this house and what we do for the first time. But I long ago forgot my amazement over how the Lord saw fit to turn us all upon our ears, and now only remember how much it was to my benefit.”

  Faucon cocked his head at that, the motion encouraging her to continue. She did.

  “I came into this house as barely more than a babe, the extra daughter of a poor man sold to the master as a kitchen lass. And that’s what I did–swept ashes from the oven and hearth–for several years. Of course, that was back when the apprentices in this house were still all lads learning how to make flax into linen, then how to turn that fabric into the braies and head scarves that one expects from a lindraper.”

  “What changed?” Faucon asked when it seemed that Nanette might go no further with her tale.

  His question made Mistress Nanette’s eyes sparkle. “Mistress Elinor, the old master’s wife,” she replied. “She was a woman who couldn’t bear waste. She took the scraps left from her husband’s projects and turned them into ribbons decorated by her hand with colorful threads. It was a skill she’d learned from some relative, and one that gave her joy. This she did only to please herself but the old master didn’t complain. Although the time she stole for her bits and pieces might have been used for his business, her work always sold, even if it didn’t generate much additional profit for the house.

  “Then one day her designs caught the eye of our abbot, the one who ruled before this new one.” The movement of her hand and sharp lift of her brows as she spoke suggested she thought little of Abbot Athelard. “He begged the mistress to make him a few yards in a specific pattern. It was a gift, he told her, but didn’t mention for whom his gift was intended. Shortly after she had delivered what he requested, a royal messenger arrived. Our old queen–our present king’s mother–sent words of praise for Mistress Elinor’s work and asked for more ribbons, yards and yards more, in that same particular pattern. The price offered for the work was, indeed, princely.”

  Faucon’s brows rose at that. Nanette laughed at his surprised look. “Exactly our reaction, sir. You cannot imagine the panic created by such a request! In an instant, the master gave up head scarves and undergarments, making room instead for the mistress’s new frames. Every nimble finger in the household, mine included, even though as a servant I had neither the right nor the coin to tread where apprentices did, was put to work satisfying our queen.”

  Her smile widened into a pleased grin at the memory. “That day, I went from a life of drudgery to one that filled my heart with joy, doing so at no cost to me or my family. As you can see from our present house, Mistress Elinor did better than please her new customer. More requests followed, and, as others of the royal court saw our work, they weren’t just from our queen. Before long, our old master owned the fields in which the flax was grown, the looms in which the threads were woven, and the pots in which the finished fabric and our threads were bleached so Stanrudde’s dyers could give them the most fashionable hues.

  “Thus did the growing and processing of flax into linen, and the preparation of linen fabric for our handiwork become the trades that the old master taught to those of his apprentices who stayed after the change. All his journeymen left to find new masters, not caring for, or perhaps not seeing the advantage for themselves in our strange new trade. Meanwhile, Mistress Elinor began training her own apprentices, including me. She liked my use of colors,” Nanette added, her gaze softening and filling with fondness for her former mistress.

  “The others call you ‘mistress,’ but if that is your proper title, why do you yet remain in the house?” Faucon asked, more from curiosity than any need to probe. Just as he had been granted the right to call himself ‘knight’ instead of ‘squire’ after his ceremony, journeymen couldn’t be called ‘master’ until they’d been judged competent in their skills by their peers.

  Nanette looked at him as if his question surprised her. “They name me so because I have earned that title. I completed my masterwork, one that fetched me a pretty penny, too.”

  “Then, why haven’t you left to form your own house?” he persisted in confusion.

  That made her laugh again. It was the sound of a woman well-pleased with her life. “Form my own house? Where would I put such a house? Nor do I have an interest in any other sort of commerce. Nay, there are only a very few who can afford to buy what I and the other women in this house have learned to make. I know well what my talents are and they don’t include dealing with the sort of fine folk who buy our wares. That was the skill the old master discovered and nurtured in Master Bernart, and why the master married him to Mistress Alina. Master Bernart knows...” she paused to sigh, her eyes suddenly glistening.

  If the manservants of the house resented their master, it seemed that wasn’t the case for the women here. She cleared her throat and began again.

  “The master always knew just what to say to please bishop and baron alike. It’s a skill that he passed on to his daughter. Although,” she paused, then sighed again.

  “Although?” Faucon asked, daring to pry where he had no right. But her tale stirred more questions than it answered.

  “Although Mistress Gisla is a woman,” Nanette finished with a shrug. “I wonder how well the high and mighty will like trading coins with her instead of the master they expect. Despite what skills we might have in our trade, men expect to deal with other men when they make
a purchase, especially one as costly as those made here. What a pity none of the master’s sons survived.”

  “Such is the world in which we live,” Faucon said.

  She nodded at that. “And that is why I’m content to serve out my days here, saving what I earn for that time when my fingers are no longer nimble enough to ply my needle. Meanwhile, I happily train Mistress Alina’s apprentices so that they can do what I have–support their families as they claim a life far easier than they ever expected to own.”

  Then, restoring the cobwebs to her memories, she started past Faucon toward the door on the opposite side of the landing. Her expression remained amused, as if she yet laughed inwardly at the idea of owning her own trade. “Come with me, sir,” she said, already starting through the opening, “and ask your questions of our mistress.”

  The chamber beyond the door was the mirror image of the hall, lined with columns and bays, each bay set with a tall window, but the shutters were closed, leaving the room cloaked in shadows. Enough light streamed in through the open door behind him to reveal that each bay was filled with neatly stacked pallets and folded blankets. If this house was similar to the others Faucon knew, then this was where the female apprentices and journeywomen, as well as any female servants, slept. As a rule, all a household’s womenfolk, no matter their age or rank, slept close to the protection of their master and out of the reach of the household’s male members, who generally made their beds in cellars, kitchens or workshops.