The Girl in the Ice (A Stephen Attebrook mystery Book 4)

by Jason Vail

  “Go away.”

  “You’re going to sleep like that, with your legs hanging off?”

  “When you go to breakfast, I will command the entire bed and I will lie as my mother instructed me on the proper use of beds.”

  Coaxed by Gilbert’s not always gentle tugging, Stephen sat up and allowed him to remove the coat and shirt. Gilbert sighed. “Oh, well. You shall have more scars to match those you already have. At least they didn’t damage your face. A woman rarely looks at a man’s back even after you’re married.”

  Gilbert stood and deposited the shirt, which was crusty with dried blood, on the floor in a corner. “I don’t think that’s worth salvaging after all. Up now, let’s see the rest of you.” He pulled Stephen erect and drew down his hose, working them over his feet. “Not as bad on the legs,” he said, “but bad enough. You came all the way from Clun last night on that?” Gilbert’s finger poised inches away from Stephen’s butt.

  “From Bucknell.”

  “Where’s that? I don’t recall the place.”

  “It’s farther than Clun.”

  “I see. A heroic accomplishment, though I don’t think anyone will put it in a poem. ‘The ride of the bloody arse.’ Yes, it lacks something in the literary realm.”

  “Oh, shut up. Are you done now?”

  “Yes, I think so. Just don’t lie on your back. You’ll soil the sheets. It will cost us extra to have them laundered. Meanwhile, I shall fetch a poultice. You’ll need something if you’re not to catch an infection. That could kill you.”

  Gilbert did not return for quite some time, but when he finally showed up, he brought bread and cheese for breakfast, a pot of some evil smelling mustard thing for the poultice, and Lady Margaret.

  She was such an august person that the innkeeper himself rushed in with a stool and a cushion, which he placed beside the bed, and due to her presence registered no objections to Stephen’s use of the bed. He might have stayed to watch the proceedings, but at her glare of dismissal, he went out and shut the door. Unmarried women were not supposed to be alone with men in the rooms of inns, for fear that the authorities would think them dens of prostitution that either had to be suitably taxed or put out of business should they refuse to pay. But in this instance, the innkeeper made an exception, since the lady could hardly be suspected of such low work.

  “Well,” she said as Gilbert drew down the sheets to expose his back and legs, “you’ve returned. Not altogether in one piece, I see. What have you learned?”

  “Thank you for your concern.”

  She smoothed Stephen’s temple. Her fingers were cool and left a waft of scent. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

  “Does she look glad, Gilbert?”

  “Oh, yes. She is positively beaming with joy,” Gilbert said, applying a linen cloth soaked in that vile mustard poultice.

  “If she has to smell that thing, I doubt she’s beaming. It’s worse than a chamber pot in the morning.”

  “She’s beaming behind the grimace,” Gilbert said.

  “I wonder what that looks like,” Stephen said. “Well, you might as well know right off, as I might die soon.” Quickly, he told her what he had learned in Bucknell.

  “That does not sound very certain,” Margaret said when he finished.

  “He does have a habit of leaping to conclusions,” Gilbert said, having finished with the poultice and washing his hands in the basin.

  “They’re going to mount another raid?” she asked. “You’re sure about that?”

  “Within the next few days.”

  “Where?”

  “That I didn’t learn. Only that FitzAllan is behind it all. He picks the targets and sends a guide to Walcot and Pentre when he wants them to take action.”

  “That’s not enough for us to stop them.”

  “It’s enough for you to catch them on the way back.”

  Margaret sat still, a hand on Stephen’s arm. She squeezed the arm. “That may have to do.”

  She rose and swept out of the room.

  “Not even a word of thanks for all my work and suffering,” Stephen muttered into the pillow when she had gone. “And I thought she cared for me.”

  “She is quite busy, saving the kingdom and all,” Gilbert said. “Well, I suppose that depends on your point of view. Here, have some breakfast.”

  Despite the pain, general discomfort, and the nauseating odor of the poultice, the proffer of bread and cheese brought Stephen’s head up. Gilbert held the cheese so Stephen could take a bite.

  “That is not bad,” Stephen said. “Did you find the girl?”

  Gilbert, who had taken command of the cushioned stool, folded his hands on his ample stomach. “Well, yes, I managed to. Finally, anyway. Who would have thought that the world needed so many Sharps. The town is bursting with them.”

  “And? And?” Stephen demanded, only now turning on his side so he could see Gilbert. “What did you learn?”

  “There is a problem.”

  “What sort of problem?”

  “The poor girl is mad, quite mad.”

  Chapter 27

  “Mad? How?” Stephen asked. “There are all sorts of madness. Some people see visions, some hear voices, some are harmless, some commit terrible crimes. Remember that fellow who climbed on the roof and had conversations with invisible people.”

  “Yes,” Gilbert said, recalling the incident, which had ended in tragedy when the fellow had fallen off and broken his neck. “As to the girl, I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I did not see her.”

  “Then how do you know she’s mad?”

  “Her family told me.”

  “Ah, and they have no reason to deceive you.”

  “Why should they have? They seemed truthful enough. Quite helpful and friendly. Though, I must admit, they were quite firm.”

  “Firm, no doubt, that she was not fit to have visitors.”

  “That’s true. So you think I was fooled, this old man who’s seen so much of the world?”

  “We’ll know that when we question the girl.”

  “That will have to wait, I’m afraid, if you’ve a mind to do it yourself, as I suppose you should since you indicate a lack of trust in my ability to inquire. You’ll not be fit to rise out of that bed for some time.”

  Gilbert was right about that. It was a week before Stephen could do more than totter to the chamber pot without help. Even then, an old man with a cane could have beaten him in a race across the street.

  His recovery was aided by the fact that in the evening of the first day, Walter and James arrived with servants and a litter, and removed him to Margaret’s house in the town, where he got a clean room on a fine, soft bed, far superior to the rack that masqueraded as a bed at the inn, and the attentions of the town’s best physician instead of Gilbert.

  “I cannot have you die on me,” Margaret said when they had settled him in. “My conscience would not abide it.”

  “I am glad to know you have one,” Stephen said. “I was beginning to doubt it.”

  “Well, it is a hindrance to those with power and those who work for them, I admit, so I must often suppress it. Do you care for literature? I suppose that is a silly question, as you are a man, and worse, a soldier. Never mind. You shall have some anyway.” She settled on a high-backed chair by the bed and opened a small book.

  “Literature about what?” Stephen asked.

  “Just be quiet and listen. Perhaps you might learn something useful. Your mind certainly could use a sharpening.”

  “Gilbert is right about her,” Margaret said toward the end of the week. “She is mad.”

  “How would you know?” Stephen asked. He could lie on his back now if he wanted to, although that was still a bit painful, so he was on his side facing her. Margaret had been in the middle of reading from the Historia Regum Britanniae. They had reached the part in book four about Julius Caesar’s invasions of Britain.

  “I have
made inquiries. You and Gilbert are not the only ones capable of that sort of thing.”

  “Ah.”

  “This is the point where you thank me, and compliment me on my cleverness.”

  “That would only fuel your self regard. What have you learned about her?”

  “She was, as you said, the lady’s maid to Rosamond Pentre. Her family is in trade here in town, cutlers, as the name Sharp suggests, but they are wealthy, and a good enough family for all that. Quite well off enough that Pentre would consider engaging her for that purpose.”

  Stephen nodded. It was not uncommon for tradespeople to put their children in service to the gentry. The daughters of wealthy men especially benefitted from the arrangement, for it helped the girls marry into the landed class. The infusion of money such a marriage could bring was often welcomed by debt-ridden men. “You’re sure that the girl is Marjory?”

  “Well, no one has seen her since she returned. You’ve no idea what she looks like?”

  “Few spoke of her at Bucknell, much less discussed her appearance.”

  “Hardly surprising, I suppose. Who pays attention to servants, after all? A decent girl, apparently, from all accounts, pious, well behaved, naïve, mannerly — not the sort that anyone would notice.”

  “You say that as if you do not approve of her.”

  “The world is full of such people. They are put here so others can take advantage of them.”

  “So there was no sign of madness before the Pentres engaged her?”

  “If there had been, I doubt they would have taken the risk. No, she came back from Ludlow in this state. Walked all the way alone, my informant said. In December, during the troubles and in the worse weather.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “No, she apparently hasn’t spoken a word since her return.”

  Stephen sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I suppose I should go and see her.”

  Margaret closed the book. “You should get dressed first.”

  “Yes, that would be appropriate. No point in frightening the girl more than she already has been — if she is Marjory and she is mad.”

  “She won’t speak to you any more than she does anyone else, you know,” Margaret said as they approached the corner at Saint Mary’s Church at Doggepol Lane.

  “I have to see for myself,” Stephen said. Despite the speed of his recovery, he was having trouble keeping up with her. “I have to see, and then we can put this whole business to rest.”

  “And not know the answer?” she asked. “How can that be a rest?”

  “I suppose you cannot always know the answer. Sometimes even if you know the answer, you cannot do anything about it,” he said, thinking of the Saltehuses and what they might do with the knowledge he would give them about the deaths of their family and friends. Would they be satisfied just knowing? He wouldn’t if it was him. He’d want revenge, however he could get it. “I wanted to know who she was,” Stephen said about the girl in the ice. “I’ve put a name to her. That’s all I intended.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Gilbert said from behind him. “You wanted to know how and why she died.”

  “And if we’ve reached a dead end? How can we force a mad girl to reveal her secrets, assuming that she has any.”

  “Yet she must know something,” Gilbert said. “She must have seen something that drove her mad.”

  “Now who is jumping to conclusions,” Stephen said.

  “It’s a reasonable conclusion. Admit it. You’re just giving up. Why?”

  Stephen did not answer for a few steps. “I’m tired. I just want to go home. I’ve had enough.”

  “You’ll feel better in a few more weeks, and then you’ll be sorry. Wait ’til Harry hears about this.”

  “Don’t you bring up Harry.”

  “Who’s Harry?” Margaret asked.

  “No one,” Stephen and Gilbert answered together.

  “He must be important if you care about his good opinion.”

  “No one cares about Harry’s opinion,” Stephen said. “It was just a joke, wasn’t it, Gilbert.”

  “Hmm, yes.”

  “None of this is anything anyone should joke about. This is life and death,” Margaret said.

  “We never joke about such things,” Stephen said. “We are serious, sober men. Aren’t we, Gilbert?”

  “Oh, yes, serious and sober. To a fault.”

  “Yet it seems you just did, or tried to,” Margaret said, knowing when she was being deceived and not liking it any. “And it was a very lame joke, to my ears.”

  “I have no sense of humor, lady,” Gilbert said.

  “You can count on that,” Stephen added.

  Margaret was not convinced, but she did not press the point as they rounded the corner. To the right was Castle Street which led north to Shrewsbury Castle. They turned left onto what people called Le Cokerowe Street and headed downhill to their destination.

  At the exact point where another lane emptied into Le Cokerowe Street, both Gilbert and Margaret halted before a shop whose sign contained a silver dagger resting on a barrel helmet and entwined with a grape vine.

  “This is the place?” Stephen asked.

  “It is,” Gilbert said.

  “Curious sign.”

  “It means they own that tavern there as well.” Gilbert gestured toward steps which lead down to a cellar beneath the shop.

  As with all the shops along the street, it had its shutters down for business, and Stephen could see rows not only of knives, the normal fare of a cutler, but daggers and shirts of mail along the far wall and helmets arrayed upon a table beneath them like so many severed heads. To one side were racks of swords, and a shelf of spearheads and axe blades. Noting Stephen’s interest, a man in a billowing red coat called out, “We have the finest steel from Germany, sir! Come see!”

  Stephen stepped toward the counter for a better look, but Margaret said, “Not now,” tugged his sleeve, and led him to a passageway through the building. They came out into a courtyard with a well in the middle, and beyond it a large stone hall backing up against the town wall that any gentryman would have been proud to call home. It even had steps of stone rather than wood.

  They climbed those steps to the first story, and knocked on the door.

  Presently, a servant answered and asked their business.

  “We’ve come to interview Marjory Sharp,” Margaret said. “I am Margaret de Thottenham. This,” she indicated Stephen, “is Sir Stephen Attebrook. He is deputy coroner for Herefordshire, and wishes to interview Mistress Sharp about a murder.”

  “Mistress Sharp is not seeing anyone,” the servant said.

  “If you do not produce her, you can answer for obstruction of justice to the sheriff.”

  “One moment,” the servant said. He shut the door.

  “If history is any guide,” Gilbert said, “the door will stay shut.”

  “Oh?” Stephen asked.

  “Yes, that’s how I was treated last time I was here.”

  “It better not stay shut,” Margaret said.

  This time, history did not repeat itself. The door opened and the servant stood aside so they could enter. Like the better gentry manors, the hall proper was separated from the entrance by wooden paneling with doors allowing admittance to the hall, and the pantry and buttery on the left. The servant beckoned them toward the hall and followed them in.

  “Lady Margaret, and Sir Stephen Attebrook to see you, sir,” the servant intoned.

  The man spoken to rose from his chair behind the table, which was covered with papers that appeared to be business accounts. “Lady Margaret,” the man said, “what’s this about a murder? What could my poor Marjory possibly know such a terrible thing?”

  Margaret did not answer this question. Instead, she introduced Stephen, neglected Gilbert, and identified the man as Buckwell Sharp, a fit-looking fellow but with the flesh sagging beneath his chin and thick gray hair. Yet Sharp’s question still hung in t
he air afterward, so Stephen answered it, “We aren’t sure. That’s why we’re here. To find out.”

  “Well, I’m afraid you’ll find out very little. My daughter is,” he paused, genuine regret and pain on his face as he seemed to struggle for the right words, “unable to speak.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Some terrible shock, perhaps?”

  “I cannot say. I’ve had her examined by the finest physicians in Shrewsbury, but none has any explanation.”

  “It is said on the street that she has gone mad,” Gilbert said.

  “And who are you?” Sharp asked.

  “Gilbert Wistwode.”

  Sharp glanced at Stephen and Margaret as if to ask who Gilbert was.

  “My clerk,” Stephen said.

  “She is not mad,” Sharp said sharply. “Disturbed perhaps. But not mad. It will pass, in time.”

  “You hope,” Gilbert said.

  “Must I talk with this man?” Sharp asked.

  “He is useful,” Stephen said. He thought he heard Gilbert mutter, “Thank you,” under his breath, but he wasn’t sure. He said, “I’m told that she was engaged as the lady’s maid for Rosamond Pentre.”

  “That is true,” Sharp said. “Who was murdered, if I may ask?”

  “The lady.”

  Sharp looked stunned. “I had no idea! Surely you cannot think —”

  “Of course not. But she may have witnessed it and can tell us about the men responsible.”

  Sharp shook his head. “This is hard to believe. When did this happen?”

  “Early December. At the height of the great storm. It is our understanding that your daughter returned alone during the storm, that she walked the entire way from Ludlow. Alone.”

  Sharp was quiet for a long moment as if considering what to say. Finally, he nodded. “It’s true. The wards found her in the morning shivering within the English gate. They brought her straight here. She hasn’t uttered a single word since.”