Gisla gave a shriek as she understood her Crowner’s meaning, and who she was. Lifting her hems, the girl raced away from what remained of her family, rounding the corner of the kitchen to disappear into the garden.
Still Faucon watched Nanette. The master needlewoman stood with her shoulders squared, her spine straight, a soldier preparing for battle when the war was already lost. Her chin lifted until it was at the same angle as the woman who was her better, made so by simple right of birth. Still, she said nothing.
Faucon wondered if Nanette would ever again speak, even on the day the hangman wrapped his noose about her neck. For of the three who had plotted Bernart’s death, Nanette alone would be unable to call upon witnesses to speak to her character and prove her innocence. Despite her mastery of her craft, despite the profit she brought into Bernart’s home with her needle and through those she trained, she had never been more to him–to anyone who knew her heritage–than the child born to sweep ashes from the hearth. For that reason alone was Bernart now dead.
Hodge was weeping silently now, tears streaming down his face. In the pleykster’s reaction Faucon saw there’d be no need to open the sack he carried, the one containing the tunic Hodge had worn when he drew the half-scissor across his dearest friend’s throat. Hodge was not as rich as Bernart. Unlike Gisla, he couldn’t afford to burn a serviceable garment. Instead, he’d tried to bleach the blood from his tunic. As the launderers at the convent had suggested, all he’d achieved was to remove the color, leaving darkened splotches where Bernart’s blood had forever marked his tunic.
Nor did Faucon need to look at Hodge’s shoes. It had taken no more than the mere mention of the pleykster’s name to Gisla’s shoemaker to elicit the man’s hearty and disbelieving laugh. Who would ever think that a man as big as Hodge would have so small a foot?
Alina shifted closer to her lover, the father of her children. As she leaned her head upon his shoulder her eyes closed. There was nothing but sadness in her expression. Faucon wondered if she regretted the miracle of her mother and those ribbons given to a queen. If not for them, Hodge might well have been the man her father chose for her. Where Bernart’s ambitions would have naturally driven him into a trade that could feed his greed, just as Roger’s joy at working with his hands would have sent him seeking out what he now did, there could have been no more straightforward a trade for Hodge than turning linen into braies and head scarves.
Nanette yet stood where she was, silent and still.
Otto, son of Otfriend, joined Faucon. “Is it time, Sir Crowner?”
“It is,” Faucon replied, then looked at the three. “Hodge the Pleykster, Alina, daughter of Elinor, Nanette of Stanrudde, I do accuse you of both planning and murdering Bernart le Linsman.”
The words struck Hodge like a blow. As he jerked, he set Alina off balance. She stumbled back from him crying out. With a great howling moan, the pleykster pivoted toward Nanette. She sidestepped him, then backed into the doorway and disappeared. Two of the town’s soldiers picked up their heels, racing past Faucon to chase her. They need not have hurried. There was no escape for her in Bernart’s fine home. Like a dragon’s treasure cave, there was only one entrance and exit from the structure.
“This is all on that woman!” Hodge screamed after her. “I wasn’t going to do it. I loved him!”
Tears streaming, he looked at Faucon. “But she threatened Alina. She said she’d tell the world the truth about our babes if I didn’t ply the blade! I couldn’t let her do that.”
His fury spent, he collapsed to sit on the courtyard floor. Alina drifted down next to him, taking his hand. He looked at her.
“You know I loved him,” he told her. “I loved him as much as I love you. I swear I wasn’t going to do it. I wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t put the damned scissors in my hands.”
With that, the last unsettled piece in Faucon’s mind slipped into its proper place. He would find Rob’s missing bolt in Nanette’s possession. When Alina had returned from the workshop that second time, doing so in distress, Nanette had left the table to do what her mistress could not and force Hodge to do the deed as he promised. It was Nanette who had taken the scissors from Rob’s table and parted them outside the workshop. It was she who had put the separated tool into Hodge’s hands before sending him into Bernart’s workroom to kill her lover.
“I still don’t understand how you knew that all three together had arranged the linsman’s death, Sir Faucon,” said Abbot Athelard. The Churchman was middle-aged, portly and good-natured, his hair so thin and fair that it was hard to tell where his tonsure ended and his hair began. He wore a simple habit, albeit decorated around the sleeves with needlework that wasn’t as fine as that done at Bernart’s house.
As the abbot spoke, he picked up his bejeweled cup and sipped at his wine. A wave of his hand indicated that Faucon should do the same. “Do you understand it, Oswald?” Athelard asked of the other man with whom Faucon had shared this rich meal.
Oswald de Vere, Bishop William of Hereford’s grandnephew and private secretary, was the august visitor for whom the abbot had held aside the guest house. Although ten years Faucon’s senior, there was no mistaking that he and Oswald were kin. Nay, they were more than kin, they were de Veres. They shared the same black hair and dark eyes, lean cheeks and long nose, both of them hiding the too-pointed chin given to the family under a neatly-trimmed beard.
Faucon’s cousin stared distractedly down into the remains of his meal. Although trained in the Church, Oswald was no monk. Indeed, as Faucon watched his cousin, he was grateful that his mantle and pin were of good enough quality to make him seem less of a ragtag relation. Oswald wore his own clothing, a fine red tunic beneath a rich blue mantle. The purple stones in the pin that held his outer garment in place sparked in the light of the dozen candles the abbot used to restrain the shadows in his private hall.
“Oswald?” Faucon prodded when his cousin still didn’t offer an answer to the abbot’s question.
The older man looked up with a start. “What did you say, Pery?” he asked, using Faucon’s pet name, Pery being short for Peregrine, a play on the meaning of Faucon.
“The abbot was asking about the three who plotted to murder the linsman,” Faucon said. It wasn’t like Oswald to drift, especially when there was an influential man at the table with him.
“My pardon. My thoughts wandered for a moment. So tell us. How did you know?” Oswald asked, bringing his attention back to the abbot and his future.
“It was how Mistress Alina told the tale of finding her dead husband in the workshop. She and Mistress Nanette were very careful about the story, relying on each other to supply pieces. Later, when I heard Mistress Gisla tell her side of the tale, I found they’d done the same to her, making sure she knew only what they wanted her to know.
“And then there was the matter of the tally sticks,” Faucon added with a laugh. “Neither of the women spoke a word when I asked why Master Bernart’s tally sticks might have been locked away if the linsman was hard at his counting. They couldn’t say anything. Mistress Alina didn’t know Nanette had locked away the sticks after the pleykster had done the deed. Since Mistress Alina couldn’t say anything about it, neither could Mistress Nanette, not without potentially contradicting the other or revealing something untoward.”
He grinned at Oswald. “When you next see our uncle, tell him that this was an incredibly successful day for him. Mistress Alina’s estate is all I anticipated, while even the pleykster’s meager trade proved to have more value than I would have imagined.”
The man who’d seen to it that Faucon received that parchment and wax seal testifying to Faucon’s rights as Coronarius offered a weak grin at that. “I knew you would do well at this, Pery. I said as much to our uncle when he told me he’d settled on you as the first of the Coronarii for this shire. Well done.”
At the head of the table, the abbot nodded, offering another warm smile. “Although I wasn’t initially convinced
our shire needed such a man, not when we already have a sheriff, I must admit you’re changing my mind, Sir Faucon. I doubt Sir Alain could have done as well with the linsman’s murder, or have brought the matter to a close so swiftly. Only two days, Sir Faucon, and peace is restored to our city. Well done, indeed.”
“You are kind to say so, Father Abbot,” Faucon said, very much enjoying what he’d just stolen from Sir Alain. Aye, if he’d been the hare in this encounter, then, as hares were occasionally wont to do, he’d just delivered a vicious and stunning blow to the fox who chased him.
***
Colin’s plum wine was tasty and heady. Faucon lifted his horn cup in salute to the brewer, then took a second sip. The monk grinned, and raised his own simple wooden bowl to his lips and drank.
A half dozen tallow lamps again sat upon Colin’s cluttered table, their flames jigging and dancing as they drove back the depths of night. The monk had just returned from singing the Compline service. After redressing Faucon’s back, he’d offered this potent stuff as a way of celebrating his Crowner’s success this day. What else was there to do at this hour save enjoy each other’s company until Colin left to celebrate Matins and Faucon at last sought out his pallet?
“I’m glad she’s gone to stay at Roger the Webber’s home, rather than returning to her own bed,” Faucon said of Gisla. “That house will be a painful place for her from now on, I think.”
Alina’s daughter had run to Peter when she left the wake, where she’d wept out the whole tale to her love. To Roger’s credit he’d already stated that it made no difference to him if the girl who wed his son were Bernart’s child or Hodge’s bastard. Not that Faucon didn’t think it was greed driving the webber. After all, Gisla was still heir to all her mother owned, and that was everything, since none of it had ever been Bernart’s to pass along. Moreover, the skills Gisla had learned at Bernart’s knee could only improve any man’s estate.
“So what do you think? Will she part with coin to see her mother released?” Colin asked. “I say she will.”
The guard had taken Bernart’s murderers to the town’s sole keep tower, the place that served as Stanrudde’s gaol. There the three would stay until someone paid the fees required to restore their freedom.
“Her mother for certain,” Faucon agreed. “But not Mistress Nanette, I think. I cannot know this, but I suspect it was at Nanette’s insistence that Alina lied about the plans for Gisla to marry Peter. With Peter dead, the two planned to see Gisla wed to that London goldsmith. With Alina’s heir removed, Nanette could have then moved the trade to some other place, perhaps even London, making an alliance of her own with that mercer. That would have left Alina free to marry Hodge.”
Faucon shook his head as he thought of the pleykster. “I expect he’ll have to fund his own release as well, having no kith or kin of his own.”
“And you’re certain that the coins were left on the board as a payment for Sir Alain?” Colin asked, once more shaking his head, this time at how blatantly their sheriff’s aid could be purchased.
“Aye, I’m certain. That’s why the tally sticks were locked away,” Faucon said, emptying his cup. “Nanette didn’t want to give Sir Alain any chance to discover just how rich Bernart was. Like many men, I expect Bernart was paying less than he owed his king in tax, thus also shorting Sir Alain.” Alain’s pay was a percentage of the tax he collected.
Nor did Faucon doubt that Alina’s message to Sir Alain about her husband’s death had gone out the day before Bernart had died. He wondered how she’d conveyed to Alain what she’d wanted from him, if she’d stated it boldly or if there were some sort of ribbon that told a corrupt sheriff the coins on the bloody board were his once he’d rendered the correct verdict.
However, unlike those who plotted Bernart’s death, Alain knew he’d never even see those coins. That hadn’t stopped him from using Alina’s warning to set his dogs on his new Crowner. Colin poured a little more wine in his own cup, then offered more to his Crowner. Faucon shook his head, although in regret. The morrow would come too soon. It wouldn’t do to ride four hours to Blacklea on the morrow with an aching head, not when those same dogs might be waiting for him along the way.
“I take it your pattern found its mate this morning,” Colin said as he rose to put the jug back on one of his many shelves.
Faucon laughed at that. “Do you know, I never took those linen bits from my purse? I asked Peter who made Gisla’s shoes, just because I had to start somewhere. By the bye, William the Shoemaker returns your greetings with his own, thanking you again for that concoction you last gave him.”
“Do you mean to say you never even asked after Alina’s pattern from Will?” Colin asked in surprise.
Faucon gave a quick lift of his brows at that, his smile pleased. “I wasn’t looking for Alina’s pattern, or Nanette’s even though she’s the taller woman. Nay, I simply walked into the man’s shop, offered your greeting and asked about Hodge the Pleykster. That’s when your shoemaker started laughing, and told me the tale of a big man with small feet.”
The monk’s brow creased at that. “But how did you know?” he demanded. “I was so certain it was Alina who did this. Moreover, what of it if Hodge’s feet are small for his size? How could you know he was the one you sought, if you didn’t match your pattern to the one Will has in store?”
“Because Bernart’s workshop table was so tall and, consequently, so was his stool,” Faucon replied. This had been one of the insights that had awakened him this morn. “All day yesterday the idea of a smaller man slashing Bernart’s throat bothered me, although I couldn’t say why. Then last night, your Richard Alwynason ended the life of one of my attackers with the same stroke. It wasn’t until I’d slept on both deaths that I understood what I’d missed in the workroom. Bernart’s stool had him sitting high and the cut across throat started high. That meant the man behind him had to have been tall enough to start the cut from that point. Neither woman could have dealt that blow from such a starting position.”
Faucon turned his cup in his hand, staring into its empty depths as he shook his head. “Even more importantly, I don’t think Master Bernart would have allowed either his wife or his leman to come up behind him, not without turning to look at her. He was angry with Alina because he couldn’t be shed of her and angry with Nanette, who had unreasonably expected them to continue running their trade together once he took it to London. She may even have expected him to marry her, something I’m sure he would have cruelly refused to do. In his mind, she was barren and he wanted a son. And perhaps a younger wife.”
Then Faucon raised his empty cup to once more salute the monk. “Nay, I cornered my prey because of you, who knows this town like his own face. You told me there was only one man left in Stanrudde whom Bernart hadn’t betrayed. Thus, Master Hodge was the only one Bernart would trust enough that he wouldn’t look up when that man came to stand behind him. What makes this ironic is that Hodge was, in fact, the one man who had betrayed Bernart, doing so over and over as he bedded Alina. He’d even set his own seed into her womb because Bernart could not.”
The praise had Colin grinning. He made a show of tugging at a forelock he didn’t own. “My thanks, Sir Crowner. Glad I am that I could be of assistance.” Then he sobered. “Will any of them hang for what they did, do you think?”
“Who’s to say?” Faucon replied with a sigh, almost regretting that delivering the punishment owed to murderers wasn’t one of his duties as a servant of the crown. Nay, his only purpose was to identify them and confiscate the king’s portion of what they owned.
“Were I to guess, I’d say Nanette will,” he continued. “Unlike Peter, whose witnesses came forward immediately to pronounce his innocence, there’ll be no one she can call to swear to her character. Even if she protests that she wasn’t Bernart’s leman, using the fact that she’s never come to childbed, she remains an unwed woman. Now that the charge of fornication has been made, she’ll be stained forever by it, no matte
r the truth.” For that reason, Faucon was glad of his certainty before he’d labeled her thusly.
“Hodge will call his witnesses and they will come,” Colin said. “He has many friends in this town.”
Faucon nodded. So he’d seen at the hue and cry. “He could, but I think he won’t. His guilt is destroying him,” he countered. “Moreover, Hodge has already admitted he did the deed, speaking the words for everyone at Bernart’s wake to witness. He even went so far as to state the Nanette forced his hand by threatening Alina. Nay, if anyone lives beyond this act, it will be Alina. That she’ll do only because I know how much silver she has in store.”
“Poor Alina,” Colin murmured. “Unlike her daughter, she will never marry the one to whom she gave her heart.” He shook his head as if he grieved for Bernart’s widow when Faucon wasn’t certain the woman deserved it.
“Save for Gisla and Peter, who aren’t yet wed, I don’t know anyone who ever has married to please their hearts,” Faucon replied, shooting a quizzical look at the old man.
“I did,” the monk replied and smiled.
Although Faucon had intended to get an early start for Blacklea the next morning, Abbot Athelard had insisted he remain to share the midday meal. With no answer to acceptable to the churchman save ‘aye,’ Faucon lingered until it was well after Sext when he finally convinced Athelard that it wasn’t safe for any man to ride home in the dark.
After sending a message to Edmund that they’d be on the road in a half an hour, he went to the stable to see to his courser. Legate had enjoyed two days filled with hay and oatcakes, and even raised a complaint when his master began to check his shoes. But by the time Faucon had his saddle in place, his big white steed had resigned himself to returning to their more rural life.
“Sir Crowner? Oh, please be here,” a man called.
Faucon turned, his hands still working the saddle’s girth. “I am here,” he called back, lifting his head to see who came.
Season of the Fox (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 2) Page 16
