by Jason Vail
“He says it’s worth a lot of money to the right people. And he needs the money. He’s drowning in debt. That new house of his in the city cost a pile, and then there’s the furnishings. You’d think the King lived there.”
“Enough to kill people for it?”
“Well, I don’t know. The fire was my idea.”
“To cover up the mess,” Gilbert said.
“The chamberlain and his wife recognized me, as well. They’d have reported me to the sheriff for sure. Couldn’t have that. I’m sick of running. Been running most of my life. This job with Mapuleye, it makes for an easy life most of the time. Are we done now? You got what you need? Can I go?”
Stephen cut Hugo’ bonds and stood up. “Sure. Not a peep about what we talked about.”
“Right,” Hugo said, eyes shifting as he climbed to his feet. He staggered out of the room without a look at any of the others.
“We should have killed him,” Nigel FitzSimmons said.
“We might have done, but it would be too easy to connect us with it,” Stephen said. He gestured toward Walter, “With him especially. And I can’t have that.”
“Where does this leave us?” FitzSimmons asked.
“It leaves us with those in the household, my lord,” Gilbert said.
“Well, you best get on with it first thing tomorrow,” FitzSimmons said.
“There is a complication,” Stephen said.
“Well, take care of it and don’t waste time.”
“I’m wanted myself for a little charge of murder,” Stephen said. “I’ve given surety to appear and answer, but I doubt FitzAllan will honor it. If you’ve talked to Lady Margaret, you know the story.”
“She mentioned something about it.”
“I can’t move about the city, nor approach FitzHerbert’s family, until I have the question of my freedom settled. I’ll need your help getting FitzAllan off my back. Does he know your position?”
“No, but he knows I have Lord Simon’s ear.”
“Then we must see him together right away. Is he at the castle?”
“Yes. He got back from Ross-on-Wye this afternoon.”
“Meet me at the castle gate first thing in the morning.”
“Very well.” FitzSimmons nodded and went out.
“It’s a shame to do nothing about Hugo,” Gilbert sighed as they shut the door on the chamber and headed toward the stairway. “A man who would burn a house with others in it is certain to kill again.”
“I know,” Stephen said.
Chapter 22
Stephen got a full night’s sleep for a change, and was well rested when he arrived at the castle’s main gate a short time after sunrise. The rain had moved on and the sky was remarkably clear and blue, full of the promise of a warm late summer day, awash with sunshine, although it was cold enough at the moment for him to see his breath.
He wrapped his frayed brown cloak around shoulders and loitered some distance from the bridge over the moat. Some of the workers mistook him for a beggar and shot him a hard glance.
Beggars were not allowed outside the gate except after dinner time, when they were given the scraps from the noon meal. Some of the workers going in pointed Stephen out to the gate wardens and one of them came out to ask his business.
“I haven’t asked anyone for charity,” Stephen said, keeping his head down out of fear he’d be recognized. “I’m just standing here, waiting.”
“For what?”
“I’ve a job. I’m waiting for the man who’ll give it to me.”
“I don’t believe you,” the guard said. “Be away or you’ll earn a knock on the head.”
“Ah, here he is now,” Stephen said, relieved to see Nigel FitzSimmons, in black from head to toe as always, striding through the gate.
“There you are,” FitzSimmons said as he drew up.
“Sir,” the guard asked, “do you have business with this reprobate?”
“I am afraid I have,” FitzSimmons said. “Come along!”
“Right, sir!” Stephen said.
It was a long walk across the bailey to the hall. FitzSimmons walked fast, and Stephen had to struggle to keep up.
“Walk behind me,” FitzSimmons said, as he noticed others making their way toward the hall from their accommodations in the towers. “It’s an embarrassment to be seen with you.”
“Is it me, or the way that I appear? No, I’ll wager it’s both.” They reached the stairs to the hall. “Well, we’re here. You first, since you insist.”
The hall doors were open as doors often were in good weather, and the servants were setting up tables and putting out benches for the breakfast of those privileged enough to dine in the hall. The fire burned high on a pavement of stones before the dais, giving warmth to the cluster of the early arrivals near it.
Stephen threw back his hood as he entered. Someone gasped, heads turned in his direction.
A servant dashed up the stairs as Stephen and FitzSimmons reached the hearth.
“Good Lord, Attebrook,” a minor lord holding a manor in the southwest by the Abbey Dore sputtered, “what has become of you!”
There was a great deal of muttering and disapproval from the other minor lords and gentry present, since it was never done to wear the shabby clothing of the lower classes, even if staring poverty in the face. The words “The disgrace …” and “shameful” could be heard more than once, although there were a few who regarded Stephen thoughtfully and made no comment.
Percival FitzAllan appeared at the top of the stairs. He gazed down at the spectacle with his hands on his hips with a triumphal air. “Surely, Attebrook, you can’t have come to give yourself up.”
“No,” Stephen said. “We have other business.”
“Other business?” FitzAllan asked as he descended. “We have no other business.”
Stephen handed FitzAllan the copy of the surety he had received from Walter Henle. “First, there is this. I have given surety to your deputy to answer the charges against me, and it has been accepted. A copy of it was sent to Windsor.”
“To Windsor,” FitzAllan said, bending over the parchment and pretending to read it. “Why should I care about that?”
“So his grace the King will know of your high-handedness with his loyal subjects. Perhaps he will reflect on your fitness for your post.”
“You are impertinent.”
“The prospect of rotting in your gaol has damaged my manners, as I am sure it would do yours if things were turned about.”
“All right, then.” FitzAllan’s fingers brushed the document away. “That’s one trick played. Are we done? Must you ruin breakfast with your presence? Especially as … undressed as you are?”
“There is something more.”
“What?”
“I was asked by Geoffrey Curthose to look into the manner of Lord Rogier FitzHerbert’s death.”
“I think you can put aside that pledge. He’s no longer with us. Burned up in his house, I’m told.”
“Yes, it was a tragedy. But I made a promise to him that lives on, and there are others who are interested in this inquiry, like Sir Nigel here.”
FitzAllan’s attention had been so fixed on Stephen that he had not noticed Nigel FitzSimmons standing right behind him.
“Your pardon, Sir Nigel,” FitzAllan said. “But what has this person to do with you?”
FitzSimmons cleared his throat as if what he had to say caused him difficulty. “It is not so much what Attebrook has to do with me but with our common cause. Kenilworth is interested in the truth about Sir Rogier’s death. There is doubt that he killed himself, and suspicion that someone might have murdered him.” The reference to Kenilworth left no one in doubt about whom FitzSimmons spoke: Kenilworth was Simon de Montfort’s stronghold and where he made his base.
“Murder? Why, for God’s sake?” bellowed FitzAllan.
“That is something Kenilworth dearly wants to know, and why I was sent here. To further that inquiry. I trust you will not interfere.”
“I have no interest in interfering with something deemed so important.”
“That includes leaving Sir Stephen to do as he must.”
“Does it?” FitzAllan stroked a lip. “I suppose. As long as he does not escape justice in the end. He’s a dangerous fellow, I must warn you. Trouble follows him around like a bad smell.” He chuckled. “As you know to your own loss.”
“I understand,” FitzSimmons said. “I understand very well.”
“Will you keep me informed of how things are going?”
“Certainly.”
“Oh, and Attebrook, how did you get out of gaol?”
“I am good at picking locks,” Stephen said.
“And at lying, too,” FitzAllan said. “Well, I’ll have it out of you eventually.”
“No, you won’t.”
Chapter 23
“Just like you two,” Harry said as Stephen sponged himself down in the barnyard in preparation for putting on his usual clothes. “You missed the biggest thing to happen around here since King Henry came to visit — lolling around in the town enjoying its fruits rather than carrying on a proper investigation as you were supposed to do, leaving the hard work to me.”
“What are you talking about, Harry?” Stephen asked as he wiped his face with a wet rag and then his shoulders. He wished it was warmer. He could no longer see his breath but it was still chilly, even though the day was two hours old now.
Harry waved a hand toward the monastery buildings visible behind a line of columnar poplar trees planted to form a fence around the core structures of the priory, some of the leaves beginning to turn a brilliant yellow-orange at the edges. “There! Go see for yourself!”
“What hard work was that, Harry?” Gilbert asked, gazing in the direction indicated.
“Why, I had to climb on a stump and turn around,” Harry said. “And then I had to ride over on the back of my pony over there to get a closer look.”
“You managed all that without help?” Stephen asked. “I am impressed.”
“Yes, and I didn’t fall off. It was quite thrilling, although I risked death to do it.”
“What will we see if we go there?” Stephen asked.
“A plot of newly turned earth.”
“My, that is suspicious,” Gilbert clucked, “especially since it’s a bit early for autumn plowing.”
“Where is this turned earth?” Stephen asked.
“In the cemetery,” Harry said. “All the monks turned out to see off whoever they planted there. It was at night. Who holds a burial at night? All the candles made a great show.”
“You know who it was?” Stephen asked, although he could not see what relevance the answer might have.
“I have a good idea, but you may want to ask the prior about it.”
“Care to give us a hint?”
“No. I’ve done enough. I’m tired now. Joan! Are there any of those eggs left?” Joan, who was in the barn, could not be heard to answer. “I guess she can’t hear me,” Harry said, letting himself down from his stump, and swinging toward the barn on his fists.
“Should we go see?” Gilbert asked.
“I suppose,” Stephen said. “It shouldn’t take long.”
“They buried someone at night, by candlelight,” Gilbert mused as they trudged along the narrow cart lane to the priory. “Who would merit such a funeral?”
“I have no idea. Probably one of their own who died of the plague. Who else would they need to plant so quickly? Dead and done, that’s what it sounds like.”
Gilbert stopped dead. “You think there’s plague there?”
“Could be.” Stephen grinned. He tugged Gilbert’s sleeve. “Come along. We won’t be long. We can shout our questions through the door if you’re worried about contagion.”
“A person with his wits about him always worries about contagion,” Gilbert said.
The lane ran through the fence of poplars, which was even more grand and imposing close up, and straight through an actual fence of stone. Stephen pressed into the yard and stopped at the porter’s house at the outer gate.
The porter’s assistant made them wait while he fetched that august official, who took his time about showing up.
“What can I do for you, sir?” the porter asked, taking Stephen’s measure and putting him where he belonged on the social scale, which was the minor gentry.
“Anyone die here recently?” Stephen asked.
“Die here?” the porter asked. “No.”
“No cases of the plague?” Gilbert asked anxiously.
“Good Heavens, no! What have you been hearing?”
“Nothing about the plague,” Stephen said. “But there was a burial here the other night, before the rain. In the dark.”
“I don’t know about that, sir. I retire early. Soon as the sun goes down, it’s bed for me. I’ve got to be up early, you know. Lots to do. Though I did hear some singing. I thought it was Compline, though it seemed a bit late for that.”
“Well, then,” Stephen said, “I’d like to talk to the prior.”
“I’m sure he’s busy, yes, very busy.”
“Of course, he’s busy. But I’ll have to ask him to give me a few moments.”
“I suppose it don’t hurt to ask if he’s free. This way, then.”
The priory was like any other, the church, a small stone affair that could be mistaken for a simple dwelling, on the south side, with the range — refectory, dormitory, kitchen, scriptorium, and chapter house — on the north.
A cemetery lay within the outer stone wall to the south of the church, but Stephen did not spot any fresh grave.
They went through into the cloister and crossed on a gravel walk of white stones to the chapter house.
“If you would wait here, sir,” the porter said, and went inside.
He emerged after some time and admitted them into the house. The ground floor was the meeting room for the brothers. There couldn’t be more than a dozen or so, judging from the few benches there. They climbed a stair at the side to the first floor, where the porter knocked on the door and received permission to enter. He opened the door and shut it when they entered.
The prior, a large bronze cross on a chain around his neck, had turned from the window where he was writing something, a pen still in his hand.
“Careful there,” Stephen said, pointing to the pen, which was about to drip ink on the prior’s habit.
“Ah!” the prior said, snatching up a rag to catch the drip. “Thank you. Ink stains are such a problem to get out sometimes.”
“A hazard of the profession,” Stephen said. “But not eradicable without some scrubbing. It’s the ink under the fingernails that’s really hard to get off.”
“You do not look the sort to have been much at risk from such a mishap,” the prior said, setting down his dangerous pen. “If I had to judge, you have more the air of a man of war.”
“I’ve been that. Before that I spent a short indenture as a lawyer’s clerk.”
“And you ran away, I’ll wager. Not that I can blame you. The law can be tedious stuff.” The prior smiled. “I have no aptitude for it myself, which is why you find me in these modest circumstances and not at the cathedral or some other grand place. Now, what brings you to our house? The porter mentioned you had an interest in our recent burial. Who are you, that this matter should concern you?”
“I am Stephen Attebrook of Ludlow. And I suspect you know my interest.”
“I see.” The prior folded his hands in his lap, his face troubled. He drummed his fingers on the table while gazing out the window at the brilliant fence of poplars. “What gave it away?” he asked at last. “It is supposed to be a secret.”
“I have a confidential informant. You buried him two nights ago, by candlelight, you and I believe all the brothers.”
Gilbert tugged at Stephen’s sleeve. “Him?”
Stephen smiled, for now he knew why the burial was important. For Gilbert’s benefit, he said, “It wa
s Sir Rogier after all. It is in consecrated ground, is it not?”
The prior nodded. “Out there. It is a pleasant spot, by the fence near the poplars. Sir Rogier was the one who had the trees planted when he was a young man. He was fond of them. He told me once of the pleasure he got from seeing them sway in the wind across the field.”
“I trust that he endowed the priory with other benefits?”
“He had our church built as well. It is a small thing, but there are not many of us.”
“And the hospital, too?”
“Yes, without his generosity, we could not have begun that good work.”
“And you allowed his burial in consecrated ground because you know he did not kill himself, not because of his generosity.”
“It would have been sinful otherwise. But I believe strongly enough in it to give his lordship a decent resting place. Not some hole in the ground near a rubbish dump, which is what had been planned for him.”
“Why do you believe it?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“This is not a belief you got out of thin air.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“You were not there that night.”
“Of course, not.”
“So, you spoke with someone who was.”
“I heard a confession from someone who was.”
“You are a priest as well?”
“The priesthood is not required of a monk, but I am one, so that the Holy Mass can be said here, and all the rites of the Church performed.”
“The name of that person would not violate the confidentiality of a confession.”
“I feel it would in this instance.”
“You are shielding someone who can help solve his murder and catch his killer.”
“That is the price that must sometimes be paid.”
“Did you fetch the body yourself?”
“Or any of the brothers?” Gilbert added.
“No,” the prior said, looking uncomfortable.
“Your informant brought the body here,” Stephen said.
The prior looked even more uncomfortable.
Stephen plowed on, “The act of bringing a body here is not a part of a confession.”