A Mortal Bane (25 page)

“Not that. Only that because a mercenary’s trade is not condemned like a whore’s, a mercenary can afford a slip or two in honor and honesty and expect it to be overlooked. A whore, who is thought to be evil by nature, must take care
never
to be dishonest with those whose trust she desires.”

“Yet there
is
that bond between us, that we both sell our bodies.” His lips tightened. “And if Waleran de Meulan has his way, I may be forced into true whoredom, selling myself to others than the king.”

“I do not believe that,” Magdalene said.

“No.” He shook his head. “I have given my faith and I will hold by it.” His mouth twisted. “Perhaps for the same reason as you. Waleran, who exacts lands and honors from the king for ‘love’ rather than for service, can afford a little betrayal here and there. I, who have been granted lands and honor for service, cannot.”

“Nor would you wish to,” Magdalene exclaimed. He stared at her, then snorted with wry laughter and tightened his grip in appreciation of her defense of his honor. She gasped with pain but smiled up at him. “William, love,” she said, “do let me help you undress. My skin is going to look like fishnet tomorrow from being bruised by your armor.”

For the answer, he gave her an even tighter squeeze, making her squeal. Then he let her go, allowing her to untie the laces that held his hood. When that hung loose, he bent double at the waist; Magdalene pulled the hood over his head as he lifted his arms even with his ears. She transferred her grip to the sleeves and hauled them forward. The whole mail shirt followed as William backed away, and Magdalene gathered it to her, staggering a little under the weight but holding it firmly until she could lay it out on top of her chest. Free of the armor, he sighed deeply and went to sit on her bed.

As if the relative silence was a signal, there was a scratch on the door. Magdalene let Dulcie in with a laden tray. She hurried to bring the small table from against the wall and set it beside Lord William. Dulcie deposited the tray and went out. William looked at the food blankly.

“You really are tired, love,” Magdalene said. “Why not sleep for a while. I will be here whenever you want me.”

He did not seem to hear her. “I hardly believed it when Somer told me the pope’s messenger was dead,” he said, his mouth hard. “I thought I had a way to remind Stephen how ill Waleran had advised him.” He ran a hand through his matted hair. “Ernulf, Bishop of Rochester, agreed it would be wise for Winchester to be legate. He promised to speak to the pope in Winchester’s favor. Well, all of them would, even the Bishop of Worchester, despite Waleran’s order that he should not.”

“Perhaps
because
of Waleran’s order?” Magdalene suggested, not because she cared, but because any hint of opposition to Waleran de Meulan would please William.

“That did not matter. They all trust Henry and were glad Stephen asked for legatine powers for him. But I wanted to put the bull into
Stephen’s
hands so that
he
could give it to Winchester himself and smooth over the breach between them. Ernulf agreed that that would be better than having the bull delivered to Winchester by the papal messenger. He said he would suggest it to the pope if he could, or try to convince the messenger to stop at Rochester—

“Oh, my God,” Magdalene interrupted, “was it your man the messenger was supposed to meet? Winchester’s knight is convinced that the man Baldassare met killed him.”

“Meet? How could I arrange for anyone to meet him? I had no idea when he would set out or arrive. I hoped Ernulf would get the pope to instruct him or convince him—you say his name was Baldassare?—to have himself set ashore at Rochester instead of London. I would have provided him with a safe escort to Nottingham, gone with him myself directly to the king, been with him when he gave Stephen news of…Magdalene, what was in his pouch?”

“I do not know,” she said, sighing with regret over the lie, but knowing that if she told William the truth, he would insist that the pouch be unearthed from its hiding place so that he could deliver the contents to the king. The exposure would be her death warrant. “I know he was carrying a pouch; I saw it. But he took it with him when he went out.” She uttered a frustrated sob. “How could I know he was going to his death? He told us he had to meet someone, but he was not in the least apprehensive. He joked and laughed with me and with Sabina, who liked him so well that she has been weeping every time she is reminded of his death.”

William let out an explosive, exasperated breath and said, “Now see where all your honor and honesty gets us? If you were like other whores, you would have been in his pouch and his purse—

Magdalene poured a cup of wine and put it into his hand. “And you would be none the wiser for it, even if, like a common whore, I decided to extract a few more pence from your purse by selling you information. If I were like other whores, I would not have been able to make head nor tail of any writings he carried.”

He downed the wine in three long swallows. “And now the pouch is gone, likely destroyed.”

“No, not that. Winchester’s knight—his name is Sir Bellamy of Itchen—believes Baldassare was not carrying the pouch because there was no mark of cutting it loose from the strap, which also was spotted with Baldassare’s blood where the pouch should have covered it. Bell—”

“Another benefactor that you oblige with your favors?” William interrupted sharply.

Magdalene laughed around the spot of ice that had suddenly appeared in her belly. If William turned jealous, she would have another dead man on her conscience. Bell dead? No! Because she did not dare look up, she took the cup from where William had set it and refilled it. He took it from her and she reminded herself that William had never been jealous. He had always accepted that she was truly a whore. And then the curve of her lips grew more natural.

It was not the favors of her body of which William was jealous but his place as her benefactor—which was silly. No one could ever take that. William had taken her out of a house where she had to spread her legs for any man who came, set her up in her own place where she could choose her clients, let it be known that he was her protector so that she would not be persecuted, recommended her to the Bishop of Winchester as a good tenant for the Old Priory Guesthouse, where she would—if she could find Baldassare’s murderer and free herself of suspicion—end up rich enough to retire…. No, William would always come first.

She put her hand on his and squeezed it gently, then drew her eating knife and cut some strips of meat which she rolled into bite-sized pieces. Piercing one, she handed the knife to William.

“Bell is Winchester’s knight, not his own man,” she said, “and must do as he is told. As to my favors—he would wish it, but I would be an idiot to take his coin. He is supposed to be investigating a murder in which I am suspect. How much would anyone believe a solution that cleared me if he were sporting about in my bed?”

Around the mouthful he was chewing, William said, “Cold as yesterday’s roast, are you?”

“Until this murder is solved. I am like to be gutted and hanged if it is not.”

“Not while I hold some power,” William said calmly, taking another drink of his wine and using Magdalene’s knife to spear another piece of meat. “But you had better tell me this whole tale from the beginning. Then maybe I will be able to make some sense out of it.”

So Magdalene began with the arrival of Baldassare at her gate, recounting everything he had said as closely as she could remember. She did not get very far, however. As soon as she mentioned Richard de Beaumeis, William said, “Who? Say again.”

“Richard de Beaumeis. He had been a student at the priory and came here to lie with Ella whenever he could scrape together the price. A nuisance he was, always whining about the expense but not willing to go where the price was cheaper.”

William was staring at her and apparently had not listened to her complaint, because he said, “Are you telling me that Richard de Beaumeis was in the archbishop’s Household and traveled from Rome in the company of this messenger…ah…Baldassare? And that Beaumeis was the man who recommended that Baldassare come to the Old Priory Guesthouse?”

“Yes, love. Why do you think it so strange? I did not realize that Richard had a mischievous streak, but he was just playing a joke on a foreigner…was he not?”

“Like hell he was!” William roared, banging his hand down on the table so hard that everything on it jumped and Magdalene just managed to catch the pitcher of wine before it tipped over. “Beaumeis is the man whose ordination was arranged so that Winchester would be away from the ecclesiastical conference when Theobald was elected archbishop.”

“Oh, dear heaven,” Magdalene gasped. “I knew what had happened, of course. You told me yourself. But if you gave Richard’s name, I did not remember it. But even so, William, I cannot see—”

“If Beaumeis was in the archbishop’s Household, Theobald must have been told how his ordination was interrupted. Perhaps Theobald was even told that Winchester believed Beaumeis knew why his ordination had been set for that day and refused to complete the ordination later. Likely as not, Theobald himself then completed the ordination. He must have felt some guilt over Beaumeis’s state, even if he was not party to the arrangement to gull Winchester.”

“We will never know the answer to what Theobald knew,” Magdalene said slowly, “but it should not be difficult to discover who completed Beaumeis’s ordination. I am sure someone at St. Paul’s will know that, and Sir Bellamy has the Bishop of Winchester’s authority to ask questions.”

William’s brows rose, marking his notice of Magdalene’s use of “Sir Bellamy” instead of “Bell,” but he did not allow himself to be distracted from the main point. He said only, “So Beaumeis would no doubt feel himself obliged to Theobald—and probably hate Winchester for his own reasons. Now, I do not know Theobald of Bec, but I doubt he is an idiot. He must have realized how he would be overshadowed if Winchester received legatine power before he could even return to England and show himself in the pallium bestowed by the pope.”

“Yes, Theobald was aware of that. I assume that was why he sent Beaumeis back to England with Baldassare. Beaumeis told Buchuinte that Theobald wanted news of his receipt of the pallium and the pope’s honorable reception of him to come to Canterbury before Winchester was announced as legate.”

“He could have asked Beaumeis to destroy the bull—or bewailed the pope’s making Winchester legate in such a way that Beaumeis was bound to understand his desire….”

“But would Beaumeis perform so dangerous an act? He is not very strong or brave, and he is very selfish.”

“And ambitious, too? Can you imagine what preferment he might be able to wring from Theobald if he threatened to spill the tale of the stolen bull?”

“And he probably hated Winchester.” Magdalene sighed and nodded. “Yes, to assuage his spite and gain a lifelong hold over the archbishop, he would have dared. And he could have estimated the time they were to arrive and told Baldassare he had been asked to arrange a meeting with the papal messenger.” As she said that, she frowned. “But is that not nonsense? He was in Baldassare’s company on the whole voyage from Italy. Could he not have stolen the bull then?”

“Not if he had a brain in his head. That would make him the only person for hundreds of miles who could want the bull. Here in England, there might be many who would wish to seize it, either to hold it for ransom from Winchester or to destroy it. Who in Italy or France could care about a legate in England?”

“But would not Baldassare know him?”

“Maybe that was why Baldassare died. Perhaps he was not supposed to recognize the man he met, but knew Beaumeis too well for a disguise to work.”

That was when Magdalene shuddered and rubbed her arms to warm them against an inner chill. She had not really believed Richard de Beaumeis could gather the will to murder in cold blood, but if Baldassare had recognized him, Beaumeis could have drawn his knife and struck once in an hysterical panic. They would have been standing close, talking—as Bell said.

“Horrible,” she whispered, and then, “No. Buchuinte says that Beaumeis left his house long before Baldassare did.”

William, who had been staring down into his wine cup, looked up. “Well, I can discover when he arrived in Canterbury, and I can have my men ask along the way about his passing. Now tell me the rest of the tale.”

So she did, from Baldassare’s decision to stay in the whorehouse once he heard there was a short way to the church, to Sabina’s finding his body on the north porch. Then she described Bell’s investigation and conclusions and was relieved when William only grinned at her. He stopped her a few times to ask questions, like why she and Sir Bellamy were so certain the killer had to be inside the walls, but in general, he just listened intently until she suggested that there might have been another piece of news that Baldassare was carrying that was important and asked whether the pope could not have included a letter to the king stating his decision about Stephen’s right to the throne.

“If the decision had been made,” William replied, yawning, “and it may have been, because I doubt the pope would waste much time over it. I expect he did send a letter. It makes sense to send one messenger with both documents. But there has never been any doubt what that decision would be. William de Corbeil, who was then the pope’s legate as well as Archbishop of Canterbury, had accepted Stephen as the rightful king. The pope is not likely to reverse that decision.”

“No, but one of my clients felt that there was a great difference between that old approval by a legate and the pope’s personal decision recorded and sealed by the curia. He seemed to fear that an attack by the empress was planned and that her partisans would feel that news of the pope’s decision would discourage men from flocking to her banner. If so, it would certainly be worthwhile to destroy the document and, perhaps, the messenger, who might know what he carried and cry aloud of the theft.”

“One of your clients—”

William’s stare challenged, but Magdalene ignored it. He knew she would not reveal the name of a client unless the need was acute. She said, “This client could not have been involved with the murder. He was in Berkhampstead on Wednesday night, fetching his son home from fostering. However, he might well fear invasion. He comes from the south, although he never told me exactly where his lands lie.”