Not that cheap or dear would matter that much to either Suffolk or Lord Lovell. They could both afford to pay well for a task well done. The trouble was that she did not know—had no way of knowing—whether either of them was so base as to buy a man’s death, had no way to know whether this manor of Rickling was worth that much to one or the other of them. Had Montfort already decided which way he meant to go and the losing lord somehow learned of it—or knew Montfort well enough to suspect it—and decided to be rid of him in hopes that the next escheater might be more inclined his way?
That was possible. But how probable? And somewhat sharply she asked, “Had Master Montfort made up his mind on the Lengley matter?”
‘He’d not have told me.“ Master Gruesby was reproachful again, then unexpectedly had a question of his own. ”Have you learned anything of yet?“
What she had mostly gained thus far were questions but she gave him what she could. “I’ve talked with Sister Ysobel, the nun in the infirmary.”
‘Master Christopher had already done that,“ Master Gruesby said with a firmness that surprised Frevisse and she returned, a little shortly, ”There was more to be had from her than Master Christopher waited to hear. She says very few words passed between Master Montfort and whoever else was there, nor did it sound like there was a quarrel between them. That means that almost certainly the murderer came ready to kill him. Came meaning to kill him.“
For once Master Gruesby’s eyes were fixed on her face. He even seemed, from what she could see of his brow above his spectacles’ thick rim, to be frowning slightly, as if listening very hard as she went on, “Also, the murderer has to know Goring and the nunnery well. That he knew of the garden and how to reach it unseen and was certain he could safely kill Master Montfort there all argues that. Or else there’s someone else, who told him what he needed to know.”
Master Gruesby blinked at her from behind his thick lenses. “Someone else,” he said, seeming to like that thought no better than she did. His gaze slipped away from her face and past her shoulder, to hang for another moment before he brought himself to look at her again and say, “A woman. It would more likely be a woman than a man who knew so much about the garden. And all. It being a nunnery.”
Frevisse had thought of that, too. Nor would the woman have to be a nun. Besides Lady Agnes there would be any number of other women over the years who might, like Domina Elisabeth, have been there while visiting an ill friend or kin. Or girls now grown to women who might have been at school in the nunnery. Like Nichola. Like the woman with Juliana just now.
‘But then,“ Frevisse went on, ”it surely had to have been someone Master Montfort knew or had been given reason to trust or he’d not have met with him secretly?“
She made it a question, to see how Master Gruesby Would answer, and after a moment’s hesitation he granted, “Yes.” He hesitated again, then offered, “Or else he thought he knew who he was meeting. But someone else came.”
A well-taken point which brought up another and she asked, “Have you learned yet who brought him the message, written or otherwise, that sent him to the garden?
Master Gruesby blinked. “No.”
‘But you or someone else has tried to find out.“
‘Yes. Of course. Yes. It’s one of the things… one of the things Master Christopher tried to learn right away.“
‘What did he find out?“
‘No one says they know anything of any message brought to him here. Master Christopher thinks it must have been given to him during the morning, while he was out.“
‘He was out during the morning? Where?“
‘Here in Goring. To talk with various people. About the Lengley matter. With Lady Agnes and Master Lengley and Master Haselden. And with the Champyons.“
‘He went to them instead of having them come to him?“
Master Gruesby bobbed his head up and down.
‘Did you go with him?“
‘One of the yeomen did. I didn’t.“
‘The man’s been questioned?“
‘Of course. Master Christopher asked him about everything. But he was left outside every time and knew nothing.“
‘Every time?“
‘Every time.“
‘He never heard anything that was said?“
‘Never. He only knows that Master Montfort came away cheerful at the end of it all. I saw that, too, when he came back to the guesthall. That he was cheerful. It was…“ Master Gruesby gave a small, vague flutter of his hands.
‘Unusual,“ Frevisse finished for him. Unusual and worrisome, because the only times she had seen Montfort anything like cheerful were when he had thought he was going to have his own way about something. What had he succeeded at this time? ”When Master Christopher talked to Stephen, Master Haselden, and the Champyons, did he ask about this?“
Master Gruesby bobbed his head again. “But all they said, all of them, was that he’d asked things about the inheritance and the Champyons’ challenge, and nothing was said that wasn’t already known, by him and everyone.”
So Montfort had somehow had a message of which there was no trace, from someone he might or might not have known, whom nobody else had seen.
Frevisse’s jaw was beginning to hurt with holding her voice so forceably level as she said, “Then there’s also the question of how the murderer came to the garden wall at all. There’s still no word that anyone was seen along there about the time Master Montfort was killed?”
‘Questions have been asked.“ Master Gruesby sounded almost reproachful that she would doubt it. ”Nobody saw anyone. It was a cold day. With a wind. I remember. People weren’t out.“
‘So whoever it was wasn’t seen.“ Frevisse supposed she must resign herself to that. ”But at some point he had to cross the ditch that’s there and the water would have been cold and it flows strongly, I’m told. However he got across it, he would have been cold and soaking wet afterwards and had to have gone somewhere. Why wasn’t he noticed then?“
‘Oh.“ Master Gruesby’s gaze veered away from her and back again. ”He wouldn’t have been. There wasn’t any water in the ditch that day. Or very little. At most he would have wet his feet. Would have muddied them. Probably nothing more.“
Only desire not to be overheard kept Frevisse’s “What?” between her teeth in a harsh but hushed demand.
‘The mill,“ Master Gruesby said. ”The wheel needed repair. It was being done that day. The sluice was closed. The ditch was drained from early morning until late afternoon. All there would have been was some water standing in the bottom of it. And mud.“
She had been troubled over a problem that was no problem, Frevisse thought. Worse, another problem took its place, because it would hardly have been a secret in Goring that the mill was shut down for the day, the ditch emptied. It was the sort of thing everyone in Goring was likely to have known. But, “How far ahead were the repairs decided on?”
‘How far ahead?“
‘That day? The day before? Longer? Was it because of a sudden-come problem with the wheel or something foreseen and planned?“
Master Gruesby’s eyes widened as he understood. “You mean, did the murderer have a long time or a little to plan the murder. I… we don’t know. I don’t think Master Christopher has considered that.”
‘Then you’ll find out.“
‘Yes.“
Something else came sharply to her. “Wait. If the mill was being repaired, where were the workmen? Didn’t they see anyone along the ditch?”
‘The workmen.“ Master Gruesby shrugged unhappily. ”They were at dinner. They’d been given a hot meal as part of their day’s wages. In a tavern up the street from the mill.“
Another question returned to her. “Has Rowland Englefield’s story of where he was that afternoon ever been better looked at?”
Master Gruesby made a small sound that might have been a fretful sigh before he said, “Master Christopher sent a man there. Into that place. He didn’t say he
was there for that. He just… made talk. And listened. From what he heard, Master Englefield was there. Just as he said.”
‘At the time Master Montfort was killed?“
Toward his toes Master Gruesby whispered, “I don’t think anyone keeps close time there.”
No, they probably did not, Frevisse thought and held back from saying tartly they probably wouldn’t notice, either, if Rowland had come in muddy-booted and dripping as if just back from a stroll in the mill-ditch, would they? Instead she went another way, asking, “The lands that were divided between the two Bower sisters, Rose and Cecily, how are they entailed? What ways can and can’t they be inherited?”
Master Gruesby brightened. Happy to be on sure ground, he said confidently, “The lands are entailed to descend in the right blood, entire by the male line or, if the male line should fail, to be divided equally among such female heirs as there may be.”
Frevisse sorted that out. “That means if Rowland Englefield has no children, at his death his properties will go to his sister.”
‘Yes. Except for such as are dowered to his widow for her lifetime. And if there are no males by a collateral line.“
‘Which there are not or there would have been no division between Cecily and Rose at their father’s death.“
Master Gruesby bobbed his head in agreement to that.
She had gathered most of that already from other people’s talk but it helped to have it plainly laid out and she asked, “If it’s proven that no heir to Rose is yet living, then her share—this manor of Rickling—reverts to her nephew Rowland or else to his heirs, yes? Meaning his sister Juliana if he sires no legitimate children.”
Master Gruesby bobbed his head in further agreement.
Which meant that for Rowland the straightest way to have this manor of Rickling would be not by way of Montfort’s death but by Stephen’s.
And for Juliana the straightest way to it would be over both her brother’s and Stephen’s dead bodies.
Not that it was Stephen’s dead body she wanted.
Frevisse removed her mind firmly from that uncharitable thought, to turn the problem another way. Since it seemed that Montfort’s death did not directly serve the Englefields, did it serve Stephen? Or Master Haselden, for that matter, because his stake in Stephen’s legitimacy was high. And the answer to that was that if Montfort had determined to decide against Stephen, then, yes, his death might be useful, in the hope his successor would decide otherwise. But how would either Stephen or Master Haselden—or anyone, come to that—have known what Montfort was going to decide?
Unless his business with them all that morning had been to tell them so. Or to ask for reasons—meaning bribes—why he should favor one side over the other. If that had been what he was at, then someone might very well have decided his death was a simpler way to go than bribery.
With nothing else she thought she could learn of Master Gruesby, she said, “I’d best go. Please, I pray you, tell Master Christopher I want to talk with him.” Master Gruesby bowed and she added to the top of his head, “Tell him, too, that he had better ask more strongly after that dagger.”
Chapter 16
She had learned what she could for now, Frevisse thought, but escape was most of the hall’s length away through the crowding of people. By weaving her course carefully, she kept well clear of where Lady Agnes was in heads-together talk with several other women but instead came face to face with Nichola just turning away from two other young women now drifting away toward the tables for more food or drink. As momentarily without anything to say as Frevisse was, Nichola paused, before good manners caught up to her and she said, “My lady, you haven’t even anything to drink? Would you like me to bring you something?”
‘No. Thank you, but no,“ Frevisse said, returning the courtesy, only just stopping herself from speaking as if to a child. Nichola was very young but not a child, was a wife and well along toward being a woman, and of everyone Frevisse had yet met here, she and Sister Ysobel seemed to be the best-hearted and least given to doing harm. ”In truth, having done my duty here, I’m trying to escape.“
Nichola smiled with delight. “I’d go with you if I could. Isn’t it dull? I thought there’d be someone different to see. The sheriff maybe or even Lord Lovell or that maybe he’d send his son. That would have been reasonable, I think. Master Montfort was escheator, after all. But it’s all just people I’ve seen before.”
‘There’s Master Montfort’s family,“ Frevisse pointed out.
‘They’re all dismal and weeping. And what can you talk to them about except Master Montfort being dead? And that’s no good. I didn’t even like him.“
‘You met him?“ Frevisse asked, carefully not showing great curiosity.
‘Oh, yes. The times he came to visit Father. They knew each other from Lord Lovell’s and when he was hereabouts he’d stop in to talk and be fed. Mother always hated it when he came. I don’t think even Father liked him but Master Montfort was someone you didn’t want to not like you, if you see what I mean.“
Frevisse saw. Montfort had had power to make other people’s lives difficult and had never paused, that she had ever seen, over using his power to do exactly that if he had the chance. It had indeed been better to keep on his good side. Even if she had never managed to do it.
‘Stephen says we’ll maybe go to Lord Lovell’s for Christmas next,“ Nichola chatted on. ”Just he and I. He says that I should be one of Lady Lovell’s ladies for a while sometime and that would be lovely, I think. He says we’ll go to London sometime, too. I wish I could have been there for the queen’s coming.“ When there had been processions in the streets and ceremonies everywhere to welcome Margaret of Anjou, a girl hardly older than Nichola but brought from France to be young King Henry’s wife. Nichola sighed. ”Though even going to Oxford would be a change. I’ve never been further than Walling-ford and that was just for one day and a night, and then straight back here we came and it was all some business of Father’s anyway.“
Frevisse almost said something tedious about the time would come for Nichola to go places and see things but remembered how much she had disliked having things like that said to her when she was young, and before she found something else to say, Nichola looked past her and stiffened into sudden silence. Frevisse turned her head to look, too, and saw Stephen and Juliana standing together in talk together farther along this side of the tables. Or not so much in talk together, Frevisse amended, as Juliana talking at him, her hand on his arm to keep him there while Stephen, with a small, round cake in one hand and a goblet in the other, looked more as if he wanted to be somewhere else.
‘I don’t like her,“ said Nichola stiffly. ”She won’t leave him alone.“
Frevisse held back from asking, “Does he want her to?” and managed to say instead, “They’ve met before this?”
‘Oh yes.“ Nichola’s voice was cold with scorn. ”She came up to him before the inquest, when we were on our way to Lady Agnes’s, and spoke to him. There in the street, in front of everyone. Before that, she even came to see him at home but he wasn’t there and Father wouldn’t have her in. He just kept her in talk in the hall awhile and saw her out again. Mother says that to do those sort of things she must have no manners.“
‘What does Stephen say?“ Frevisse asked, knowing she should not.
‘Oh, he says it’s because he knew her husband in Lord Lovell’s household that she likes to talk with him, but I think it’s because she wants him and Mother says that, being a man, he’s probably fool enough to be flattered that she does.“
So much for keeping thoughts out of Nichola’s head, Frevisse thought wryly but aloud said only and mildly, “Just now he looks as if he might want rescuing.”
Nichola brightened. “He does, doesn’t he? Should I, do you think?”
‘Most assuredly.“ And again knowing she should not, added, ”It will annoy Lady Juliana.“
Nichola smiled with mischief. “I’d like that. She annoys
me. If you’ll pardon me, my lady?”
Smiling, too, Frevisse nodded her pardon and Nichola went, making her way among people toward her husband and Juliana. Frevisse, for her own part, went on toward the door again, reaching it but lingering before going out, long enough to see Stephen, as Nichola came up to them, move to meet her, smiling and holding out the cake and goblet to her. Nichola, sensible girl, smiled up at him as she took them and was still smiling as she turned to speak to Juliana, who was no longer smiling at all.
Frevisse’s last sight of them was of Nichola standing very close beside Stephen, her claim to him clear, and Frevisse took out-of-doors with her the thought that the girl seemed likely to hold her own far better than Lady Agnes thought she could. From what Frevisse had seen of her, she was not weak, merely young, still learning life, but had already discovered she need not obey everything she was told to do and shown she could think for herself. At a guess, there was more of her father than her mousey mother in her, and very possibly the time would come when she would surprise them all. And maybe Stephen more than anyone.
The Clerk’s Tale Page 20
