Marie, coming to join Michielle and Blanche in trying to comfort her, glared at him. His thoughts racing far away from Guilllemete’s grief, he backed away, retreated to the hearth, and knelt down to make a show of adding wood to the fire. He had thought Guillemete and Alain accounted for each other through the time when Alizon was killed and Durevis stabbed. Now it seemed they did not. And if what Ydoine said was true—that M’dame had released Alain from going with her—then Alain had lied when he said he had forgotten to go with her. Why? The lie had made sense when Joliffe supposed it was to hide he had been secretly meeting Guillemete, but Guillemete said he had never come to the minstrels’ gallery.
But there was only Guillemete’s word that they had been supposed to meet at all.
But Guillemete surely, surely, had not killed her sister.
But why would Alain? And why attack Durevis afterward?
Joliffe had rarely been satisfied with knowing merely the what of things. The why was what drew him, and mixed in with the why was always who, because who explained why—or else why explained who—nearly every time. Part of the trouble these past days was that with both who and why unknown, his foremost questions had been about how.
Now he was come on a knot made by someone’s lying, and the why of that lie had to lead somewhere.
He took himself slowly through it again. Alain said he forgot to go with M’dame and that was why she was angry at him. Yet Ydoine said M’dame had told him he need not come with her. And while Guillemete said Alain had never meant to go with M’dame, she also said he had failed to meet her as he said he would, despite he had not gone with M’dame.
Of course Guillemete might be lying to protect herself, not understanding it were better she and Alain could say where both were at the time Alizon died. Or she could be lying about ever meaning to meet Alain, her claim to have waited for him in the minstrels’ gallery false. Or Ydoine might be lying when she said M’dame had excused Alain from going with her.
But was Guillemete sharp-witted enough to lie that thoroughly and hold to it so believably? And why would Ydoine lie about what M’dame had said? And why would M’dame tell Ydoine she had told Alain he need not come with her, if she had not indeed told him he need not come? Alain’s claim to have forgotten looked more and more to be an outright lie.
But why say he had forgotten, if the simple truth was that M’dame had freed him from going? And why not meet Guillemete in the gallery? Always supposing Guillemete was telling the truth about not meeting him there, and almost surely she was. Where had he been if not with M’dame and not with Guillemete? Where had he been when it seemed he was not anywhere he should have been?
The thought that had to come was that he had been with Alizon in the garden.
But why?
Why be there? Why kill her? Why try to kill Durevis?
Why?
Chapter 25
Joliffe would have gone in search of Alain with those questions—or perhaps to Master Wydeville, but as he stood up and turned from the fireplace, he saw Alain was yet again in the bedchamber doorway, staring angrily, stubbornly around the chamber.
Silently damning Foulke for not having got better rid of him, Joliffe started toward him, hoping to have him away before either M’dame—busy over Lady Jacquetta—or Guillemete—now weeping on Michielle’s lap—knew he was there. And because he was moving toward him, Joliffe saw the backward jerk of his head as if he had been brutally slapped, saw his eyes widen, his mouth twist open in—disbelief? denial?—or just plain rage, because in the next moment a suffusion of blood darkened Alain’s face and his mouth clamped shut in what could only be read as rage and outrage.
Joliffe flashed a look to where he was staring, saw that M’dame was just moving aside from where Sir Richard still sat with Lady Jacquetta, holding her close to him with one arm curved around her waist while his free hand lay on her skirts over her stomach in a gesture of care and worry and familiarity.
A gesture of possession too plain to be mistaken.
Sir Richard leaned to whisper something very near in Lady Jacquetta’s ear, and Alain started toward them, rage raw as madness on his face, drawing his dagger as he went.
Even had Sir Richard seen him coming and instantly believed what he was seeing, there would have been too little time for him to move away from Lady Jacquetta, to rise and draw his own dagger in defense. But he did not see.
It was M’dame, turning away as she was at that moment, who saw and understood and, weaponless though she was, made to come into Alain’s way.
And Joliffe, who only understood because his just-past thoughts had already wide-awakened his suspicions, likewise saw and moved almost all in a single instant, throwing open his loose clerk’s gown to come at his own dagger—John Ripon’s jest of a dagger but a dagger nonetheless—wrenching it from the sheath at his doublet’s belt as he flung forward, reaching M’dame a bare, gasped instant before Alain did, shouldering her violently aside as he grabbed leftward, seizing Alain’s dagger-wrist in the way Master Doncaster had made him do and do again in practice. Alain twisted, trying to lunge past him, past M’dame, to come at Sir Richard, maybe at Lady Jacquetta, but Joliffe, still holding his dagger-wrist, had followed through with his own dagger, driving it in low and deep below Alain’s ribs—again just as Master Doncaster had made him do again and yet again until there was no seeming thought to it, only reaction to action.
Except that this time it was not wooden blade jarring against padded jerkin but sharpened steel sinking through clothing and into a man’s flesh. Into a man’s guts.
For the time of short-held breath Joliffe and Alain stood frozen, staring into each other’s eyes, almost as close as lovers, both equally disbelieving what was done.
Then Joliffe let go of his dagger and Alain’s wrist, and Alain staggered a backward step, let fall his dagger, buckled at his knees, and sagged to the floor, to kneel there, his arms slack at his sides, his head bent forward to stare down at the dagger hilt sticking so strangely out from his doublet’s front.
Somewhere in the room someone began to scream.
Then there was much screaming and suddenly far more people in the chamber than there had been—Foulke and Mathei and other men—and M’dame was giving sharp orders that had Foulke lifting Alain under the arms, another man taking his legs, to carry him from the room while Mathei saw to crowding the other men out, freeing her to turn on Sir Richard, held where he was by Lady Jacquetta clinging to him, crying wildly against him, and say, “Keep her here. Let her see nothing more,” before ordering at everyone else, “Isabelle, help him with her. Wine. The oil of lavender. Valerian. Michielle, stand at the door. Close it behind me. Let no one in. Guillemete, that’s screaming enough. Marie, take her out. Not through the parlor, fool! By the corner stairs. Somewhere away until she gathers her wits. Blanche, you and your wailing go with them. Ydoine, bring water, cloths, wine.” Turning finally on Joliffe still standing frozen, rigid-legged, in the middle of it all.
“Come,” she said. “You need tending.”
Joliffe, still feeling in repeating horror the thrust of his blade into Alain’s flesh, did not know what she meant. Only when she took his right arm and drew him forward did he feel the pain and, surprised, jerk a look down at his left arm where a long slit in the upper sleeve of his black gown was darkly wet with apparently his own blood. He made a strangled sound and let M’dame draw him from the bedchamber into the parlor and to the window. There she ordered him to sit.
With his legs gone suddenly shaking under him, he did, an appalled part of his mind trying all the while to refuse sight of Alain across the room. Trying but failing.
The squire had been put into a chair; was sitting braced at a rigid backward slant against its tall back, gripping the arms with white-knuckled strength and no longer staring at the dagger hilt still standing out from his doublet but up at Bishop Louys bending over him.
Joliffe vaguely supposed that was where all the men in the bedchamber had s
uddenly come from. The bishop, after changing from his funeral vestments, must have been coming to see how his niece did and had walked in on this. His men were now jammed together at the parlor’s outer doorway, kept there by Foulke and Mathei, but someone among them would have gone for a doctor by now, Joliffe thought. He was trying to think of anything but his arm’s increasing pain. Of anything but the pain and Alain. Of anything but . . . He made to fumble open his gown one-handed. M’dame put his hand aside and deftly undid it for him, then his doublet. Cauvet and Foulke appeared beside her and together helped ease gown and doublet off him, baring his shirt with its blood-soaked sleeve. Using the tear already in it, M’dame ripped it wide, baring his arm. Joliffe took one look at the slantwise slice across the flesh of his upper arm and turned his head away, sickened.
Foulke, on the other hand, said approvingly, “It’s not deep. With a good cleaning and some stitches, you should mend fine. Be stiff for a while, that’s all.” Then to M’dame more than to Joliffe, “What happened in there?”
“Master Queton went mad and came at me with his dagger.” She met Joliffe’s sudden look at her with a straight stare that defied him to say otherwise. “Master Ripon stopped him.”
Cauvet said, “You needed those lessons after all, Ripon. Well done.”
“I doubt Master Doncaster will be pleased,” Joliffe said, making a shaky jest of it. “I think he intended I go unwounded.”
“Better wounded than dead.” Foulke sent a sobered look toward Alain. “You’ve done for him, anyway.”
Ydoine appeared with water-filled basin, a perilously held pitcher of wine, and clean cloths. M’dame told her to set them down beside Joliffe on the window seat, told her to see what help Lady Jacquetta might need, and sent Cauvet and Foulke away with thanks and, “People will want to hear from you what happened.” With them gone, she said to Joliffe, “I will only clean this and bind this for now. The surgeon can see to the stitching.”
Joliffe accepted that with a silent nod and made teeth-gritted readiness for what would come, as across the room Bishop Louys’ voice rose, insistent at Alain.
“You must confess. You are going to die. If you do not confess, I cannot shrive you and save your soul. Do you understand? You must confess.”
Alain, braced in the chair as if trying to back away from the pain in him, said, his own voice rising, choked and wild, following his own thoughts as if unhearing Bishop Louys, “I said she was lying. She laughed. She said it would be no secret soon enough. She said she was going to tell him. She laughed.” He writhed and gasped out, “Oh, God. Pain.” He seemed unable to get air enough into his lungs but panted, “She was going . . . to . . . tell him. It. Hurts. It . . .”
He made to grab the dagger’s hilt. Bishop Louys caught his hand and held it in a firm grip, demanding, “Who? Who was going to tell? Tell what to whom?”
M’dame pressed a wine-soaked cloth to Joliffe’s cut, ordered, “Hold that there,” and left him, going rapidly to Bishop Louys and saying something close to his ear.
He gave her a sharp and startled look. She returned a stare that he met for a long moment before he swung around and ordered at the men still at the parlor doorway, “Out. Everyone. Let in the surgeon when he comes. No one else. Out.”
They went. Alain had come enough back from wherever he was going to glare at M’dame and choke out, short-breathed, “You. You told me. I was to stop her. You said. She shouldn’t. Tell Remon anything.”
“You only had to keep her from meeting him,” M’dame said coldly. “I did not tell you to kill her.”
“She went. Before I could stop her. She was going to tell him. Even after I followed her. There. That lie. Those lies. She. Said I was a fool. That Lady Jacquetta . . . Lady Jacquetta . . .” He coughed, gasped with the pain of it, coughed again, and blood came out of his mouth.
Urgently, Bishop Louys said, still gripping his hand, “You have to confess. You have to make contrition. Then I can absolve you. Do you understand? You are going to die. I’m trying to save your soul.”
Alain, laboring for breath, stared at him as if unable to make sense of that until a spasm of pain stiffened him. Braced back in the chair again, he gasped, “I killed. Her. Because she was. Lying. But she wasn’t. In there. I saw. She.” Tears rose and spilled and washed down his face to mingle with his blood beside his mouth. Struggling for air enough for words, he gasped, “My lovely. My lovely. Lady. How could. She. With him. How . . .”
He coughed and more blood came, strangling off his words. Bishop Louys, maybe taking what he had said for sufficient confession and contrition, set to steadily praying, signing the cross again and again over him.
M’dame returned to Joliffe, took the cloth, put his hand aside, and set to cleaning the wound. Fighting to keep his words steady, he asked, low-voiced, “Was that the way of it? You set him simply to keep Lady Alizon from Master Durevis?”
“I told him to keep her from going to him,” M’dame said, going steadily on at his arm. “That was all. He failed at it. So he followed her to the garden. Angry at him for that, she foolishly told him what he did not want to hear about Lady Jacquetta. Then she mocked at him for doubting it. He lost his head and in his own anger killed her. Then he waited to kill Master Durevis, too, because to his mind it was Master Durevis’ fault he had killed Lady Alizon.”
“How long have you known all this?”
“He told me that day.”
“But you told no one.” Not even Master Wydeville? he did not ask.
“There were still Lady Jacquetta’s secrets to keep.”
“They can’t be kept much longer.”
“But for as long as they can be, they must. When there was no more need for silence, I would have told, if he was not found out before.”
Only the slightest tremble in M’dame’s voice betrayed she was not as steady as she outwardly showed, and somewhat less harshly than he might have, Joliffe said, “Meantime you meant to keep him from Guillemete.”
“He could not see why he should not talk with her, despite he had killed her sister. I could not allow that.”
She covered the wound with a folded pad of clean cloth and began to bind it in place with a strip of other cloth. The pain of that welcomely distracted Joliffe from Alain’s increasingly desperate struggle to breathe, but it also kept him from more questions before a bustle at the outer door brought in a man who must be the surgeon, carrying a box that would have his implements, and a priest from the chapel, carrying another box that would have the things necessary for the Last Rites. But from somewhere else Master Wydeville was also suddenly there, gripping Joliffe by his unhurt arm and lifting him to his feet, saying, “Best you be out of here. M’dame, too.”
Both obeyed, M’dame gathering up Joliffe’s doublet and gown and following as Master Wydeville took him back into the bedchamber.
Lady Jacquetta was now on the bed, propped up on pillows, with Sir Richard sitting beside her, his arms around her as she sobbed against his shoulder. It was a quiet sobbing, though, and Ydoine and Michielle stood by, ready with a damp cloth and a goblet. A glance must have satisfied M’dame that she was not immediately needed there, because she asked Master Wydeville, “What now?” with a look at Joliffe.
“I’m sending him to my house. Best to have him well out of the way for now.” Master Wydeville nodded at Joliffe’s doublet and gown. “Let’s have those on him as best we may. Master Ripon, you will keep to your feet, no matter how much you feel like falling down. Do you understand?”
Joliffe understood but did not know if he answered except by staying upright. Nothing around him seemed fully real. He found he had begun to shiver and could not stop and let them dress him, making small effort to help them nor resisting when Master Wydeville led him to the corner stairway and down it all the way to the garden, where he was given over to Pierres, who somehow was waiting there, and took him from Master Wydeville and away.
Without Joliffe being quite clear about any of it; they came
to Master Wydeville’s house. There, he was grateful beyond measure when allowed to lie down on a bed in a room that turned slowly around and around him while Pierres piled blankets over him and brought a fire-warmed brick to put in the bed beside him. The shivering, that had been coming and going, stopped, and Joliffe, cradling his arm that now ached rather than outright pained, would have welcomed sleep’s oblivion as escape from what he kept seeing in his mind, but a surgeon came instead of sleep, and he had to sit up and be undressed again and the wound unbandaged for the surgeon to see. The man, after a little prodding that reawakened all the pain, pronounced the wound well-cleaned and stitched it closed, bandaged it again, told him to use the arm as little as might be for a few days, gave him a draught to dull the pain, and left him to Pierres, who put him under the blankets again with a newly-warmed brick.
“Sleep,” Pierres said.
Whatever the surgeon had given him to drink made that order easy to obey, Joliffe vaguely hoping as he slipped away that when he awakened, all this nightmare would somehow never have happened.
Chapter 26
Despite the surgeon’s draught, Joliffe’s sleep was unquiet and shallow, and he awoke from it to find Master Wydeville standing over him, a lighted candle in his hand and darkness beyond the chamber’s window.
The thought with which Joliffe had gone to sleep was the first that came to him as he came awake, and he asked, “Is he dead?”
Master Wydeville set the candle down on a chest beside the bed. “He’s dead. The surgeon said there was no hope. So when Bishop Louys had finished with him, they took the dagger out and he died.”
Joliffe did not know what he felt and tried to hide he was feeling anything by struggling to sit up. Protecting his hurt arm made him awkward, and Master Wydeville helped him, shifted the pillow to behind his back, then said, stepping away but watching his face, “You have not killed a man before this.”
A Play of Treachery Page 30