6 The Murderer's Tale

by Frazer, Margaret

  “Dame Frevisse.”

  She had been too intent on her own thinking to notice Dame Claire sitting an arm’s length aside from her at the end of the grassy bench beside the arbor’s arched way into the rose garden. Embarrassed at her absentmindedness— no, her other-mindedness—Frevisse joined her, no need for greeting between them and her mind already going back to Giles until Dame Claire asked, “Don’t you want to know what I found out?”

  Frevisse tried to remember what it was Dame Claire had been supposed to learn and remembered and said, “There was no blood on anybody’s shoes, was there?”

  “No.” Dame Claire contained a smile to the corners of her mouth. “But how could you be so sure?”

  “Because the shoes Master Giles wore yesterday are missing.”

  The dancers were standing up again, demanding a slow measure this time while the psaltery player protested her fingers needed longer rest than this. Their friendly argument filled up the space of Dame Claire’s silence, until she finally said, “And you think that means—what?”

  Frevisse held her answer, feeling at it before she said more carefully than she might have, “I think that it is an uncomfortable chance that I saw what could have been part of a bloody footprint between the bodies and that Master Giles’ shoes should choose today to go missing.”

  “And you think Giles was there when Martyn was killed, or afterward sometime, and chose to say nothing about it?”

  Frevisse, gazing down at her hands folded in her lap, did not answer that.

  So low even Frevisse could barely hear her, Dame Claire said, “You think it was Giles killed Martyn, don’t you?”

  Still looking at her hands, Frevisse moved her head down in a single nod.

  “But all you have against him are his missing shoes and a possible footprint,” Dame Claire pointed out. “And the footprint is gone so we can’t be sure it was a footprint and we can’t see if there’s any blood on Master Giles’ shoes. In brief, you have nothing.”

  “We have a likelihood,” Frevisse said.

  “We have a likelihood that’s very possibly grown from your dislike of him.”

  “I haven’t—”

  “You do dislike him.”

  “And so do you.”

  “But I’m not looking to find him a murderer. You’ve taken against him the way you take against Domina Alys—”

  “With good reason in both cases!”

  “In her case you maybe take more against her than you should, you’re so utterly against her. In his case you’ve taken against him more than any evidence warrants.”

  Frevisse bit back a sharp reply to that. The music and dancing had begun again. So long as they kept their faces neutral and their voices down, no one was likely to heed what they were saying. She waited until she was sure of her face and voice before she said, “He’s lied and lied again about his cousin. He’s lied about the way Lionel’s fits take him, to make it seem more likely he would be frenzied enough to kill. He’s lied about how it was between Lionel and Martyn…”

  “He knows how it was between them far better than you can after hardly two days.”

  Dame Claire was being reasonable, but knowing that did not stop Frevisse’s surge of impatience. “He lies. His wife says one thing and he says flatly the opposite.”

  “Then maybe she’s the liar, not him.”

  “Edeyn?” Frevisse put all her disbelief into that. “Just now, in their chamber, before he came in, she told me how it is when a fit comes on Lionel. Then Giles came in and told me a different tale, and I saw her face while he did. She hardly believed what she was hearing.”

  “Or she wanted you to think so.”

  Frevisse started to reply but stopped herself, trying to see the matter as Dame Claire did. What might have been a footprint, now gone. Missing shoes. Her dislike of Giles fed by her certainty that he was both cruel and a liar. Giles’ version of Lionel’s fits against Edeyn’s and—this Dame Claire did not know—the very fact that Edeyn knew so much when she was not supposed to showed she was willing to lie, to Lionel if no one else. There was nothing there to put before a crowner and expect him to appeal a man.

  Into her hesitation, Dame Claire urged gently, “And consider that it may after all have been Lionel indeed. Lionel believes it.”

  “If I have to consider someone other than Giles, there’s Petir, the dismissed servant. He might be lying when he claims to think it was more Giles’ doing than Maxtyn’s that he lost his place. Though I doubt his brain could stretch so far to manage a lie like that.”

  “If it could stretch to murder, it could stretch to lying,” Dame Claire pointed out. “You have to see him as a possibility. There could be others. At least look for them.”

  “Who? Who except Giles gains from it?”

  “What does it gain Giles?” Dame Claire returned. “He doesn’t gain from killing Martyn. He’ll only inherit if Lionel is dead. If he were going to kill anyone, he would have killed Lionel, not Martyn.”

  “And be the first one suspected because he was the one with most to immediately gain from Lionel’s death?” Frevisse had already thought through that possibility. “No. Kill Martyn and make it seem Lionel’s doing and gamble on the very great likelihood that, since Lionel’s lands can’t be forfeit because he acted in a kind of madness, they’ll be given into his own hands as the heir. This way, he’s rid of Martyn—he loathed Martyn—is virtually rid of Lionel, who I doubt he likes any better, and will likely have the Knyvet lands for his own. That’s a great deal of profit from one murder, a profit I can see Giles being willing to gamble for. A worse gamble would be for anyone else to bet on Lionel living very long once Giles has the keeping of him.”

  “You’ve just been arguing it wouldn’t serve him to murder Lionel.”

  “There are ways enough for an ill-kept prisoner to die without leaving proof it was outright murder. And if ill treatment isn’t enough or Giles’ patience runs out, there are always poisons or else simple starvation that’s claimed to be a wasting sickness when the crowner comes. Giles won’t stick at a second death when the first has been so easily, safely, profitably done.”

  “But there’s still no proof he’s done any murder at all,” Dame Claire insisted. “Say what you will, believe what you will, there’s still no proof that Giles had any hand in Martyn’s death!”

  Frevisse bit back a sharp reply to that because, hate though she might to admit it, Dame Claire was in the right.

  Into her hesitation, Dame Claire urged gently, “You have to consider that Lionel did it indeed.”

  Stubbornly Frevisse answered, “Lionel in the kind of frenzy Giles described or in the sort of attack on him that Edeyn tells of could never have slit anyone’s throat so neatly. And Martyn would never have had his back to him.”

  “Maybe that part of the attack was over. Maybe he was fully quieted and Martyn could have been turned away because there was nothing to watch, because he thought it was over, but the demon brought Lionel’s body up and killed him then.”

  Frevisse shook her head, refusing that.

  More strongly Dame Claire said, “Think on it. Consider it a possibility. Remember, we don’t know what happened last night. The demon may very well have changed its ways and have taken Lionel differently than it ever has before.”

  Staring at her hands clenched together in her lap, Frevisse said, “I can find it easier to believe that Giles did it than that Lionel’s demon has changed its ways.”

  “That’s because you dislike Giles even more than you do Lionel’s demon. That colors your judgment, the way your dislike of Domina Alys colors your feeling toward everything she does. I can see it,” she went on quickly, cutting off Frevisse’s quick reply to that, “because it’s been true of me, too. These days since we left St. Frideswide’s I’ve been bringing myself to face that, so I can better bend myself to obedience when we go back. We both have to remember to judge not or we may be judged.”

  “It must be easier for you tha
n for me to forget what Domina Alys is like,” Frevisse said tersely. “And you’d better consider that it’s better to judge and be sure your judgment is fair than to leave the world to go down in chaos and unjustice because you didn’t dare to judge.”

  “The soul’s salvation doesn’t depend on our judging others.”

  “The salvation of someone else’s soul might!”

  They had forgotten to mind their voices. Now the music faltered and there was giggling from player and dancers, bringing Frevisse and Dame Claire abruptly back to realization that they were not alone and had been, at least at the last, overheard. Still too angry to be embarrassed and angry enough that she knew she had better leave before she said more, Frevisse rose, turned her back on the other women, dropped her voice to Dame Claire’s hearing only, and said, “Even if I can’t prove anything, I can tell Lady Lovell what I suspect and hope that influences her judgment enough to keep Lionel out of Giles’ hands.”

  “You’ll likely influence her to think you’re a fool,” Dame Claire hissed back.

  “Better a fool than a coward!” Frevisse snapped and left her.

  Chapter 20

  The problem was one Giles had failed to consider ahead of the time. How exactly should he act now, with having a murderer for cousin and needing to deal with that and the problems that came with it? No one would expect particular grief from him over a servant, so Martyn’s death was no trouble beyond a few pointed comments concerning his insolence. A murdering cousin was another matter, and Giles rather thought he had talked too much at the beginning; but everyone else had been equally talking and welcomed what he could add and so it had probably not been noticed out of the ordinary. Besides, he had used it as a chance to make it clear how dangerous Lionel was and in need of close confinement. Now it was probably better to begin emphasizing more strongly than he had his concern for Lionel’s well-being.

  Lady Lovell could be worked on that way, being a woman. Her husband had entrusted too much authority to her over the years so that she tended to trust her own mind, but that could be allowed for, and since Lord Lovell listened to her, she was worth the trouble needed to influence her.

  She had had the problem wearing at her the whole day now. She would be tired and willing to listen to him if he offered to ease the matter for her. That was why he had deliberately waited until now to approach her, in the pause before supper when she was with her women in the Pleasaunce, enjoying the day’s end.

  Edeyn had wanted to come out, complaining she was tired of being inside. She wanted to see Lionel, too, to be sure for herself he was no worse than she had been told. Under excuse of worry for her in her condition, Giles had refused her both. He was beginning to find her attachment to Lionel tedious. He fully intended for her to see Lionel but not until Lionel was sufficiently broken and he himself had leisure to enjoy the scene, not now when he had other things to hand.

  He took his time going to Lady Lovell where she sat under the birch trees on the greensward. Most of her women, a few squires, and some of the household knights who had not gone with Lord Lovell were there around her, and even the tall nun who had been with Edeyn. In fact the nun had Lady Lovell in talk, probably trying to woo money for her nunnery out of her. He strolled by various paths among the formal garden beds, giving greeting to the few women walking there but absentmindedly, as if he were in brooding thought, to let them see how deeply he was troubled. Only when he walked long enough to be sure he had been noticed across the greensward as well did he turn his way toward Lady Lovell, who was still in talk with that damned nun.

  He edged among the seated, lounging gentlemen and ladies, paused to talk with some, receiving their regrets and comments so he could reply with troubled gratitude to show how burdened he was with what had come on him. When he finally reached Lady Lovell, she gave him only a look and a nod for greeting, indicating she meant to go on talking with that idiot nun for a while longer.

  Their voices were too low for him to hear any of what they said, so to seem at ease and not appear to eavesdrop, he sat down on his heels beside Sir Rohard. The old dotard had been a knight since Agincourt twenty-odd years ago and was showing his years by a tendency to talk of nothing but his past experiences. Even a present murder was worth nothing more than a passing mention of sympathy before it led him on to talk of one he remembered in Calais twenty years ago. Giles pretended to listen. Sir Rohard needed no more than an occasional vague sound from his listeners, to show they were still awake, Giles supposed, and that left Giles free to watch Lady Lovell’s conversation for a chance to break in there.

  The chance did not come as quickly as he wanted. He could still catch nothing of what they said, but as his glances away from Sir Rohard became more frequent he realized the two women were likewise sometimes glancing at him and that their glances were… he found the word he wanted: assessing.

  He did not like to be assessed, particularly by women, particularly by Lady Lovell, and especially just now. Women’s attempts at intelligence invariably led to trouble. What was the nun playing at? he suddenly wondered. Now he came to think about it, he had seen her too many places today, and God knew where else she had been. To see Lionel for one, and then to see Edeyn, and that was one place too many right there.

  He remembered the silence there had been when he had walked into the room, and the looks she and Edeyn had turned on him. It was after that Edeyn had begun to mention that she wanted to see Lionel and be restless at staying in the room. What had the nun said to her? And what was she saying now to Lady Lovell?

  He tried to listen past the drone of Sir Rohard’s voice and caught instead a piece of the conversation between the two women beyond him sitting beside and a little behind him. “… over soles,” the younger was saying.

  His attention abruptly refocused, Giles leaned slightly their way to hear them better.

  “There in the rose garden?” the older woman asked. “They were actually arguing?”

  “Trying not to look angry, mind you, being two nuns and all, but angry they were and arguing.” The girl was holding in giggles. “Over soles. That one—” Giles had shifted his head slightly to see them out of the corner of his eye. The girl tipped her head toward the nun with Lady Lovell. “… turned so angry over it, she stood up and left the other sitting there.”

  They both smothered laughter behind their hands. Sir Rohard finished firmly, “And that was the end of that. There’d be no more rebels coming out of that French village.”

  With only the vaguest thought of what the old fool had been babbling about, Giles said at random, “And that wasn’t the only time for you either, was it?”

  “Not by any means.” Sir Rohard drew willing breath and went on while Giles tried to hear what else the women had to say, only to find their talk had gone on to something about one of the squires. His mind turned restlessly back. What had the nun said about soles that made the other nun angry? She had been asking about his shoes this afternoon, he remembered. She had learned from that fool Nan that they were missing. What else had she learned? What was she playing at and what was she saying to Lady Lovell that had them both so dour-faced? She could not have actually found anything. Not his shoes surely. That was… impossible?

  The mere fact that he hesitated on the thought, that he had to pause in doubt at all, infuriated him. There was supposed to be virtually nothing more for him to do but let this thing run its course, until he had Lionel in his keeping. That was the way he had planned it. Now it looked as if it was not going to be that simple after all.

  “In those days they hadn’t it in their heads yet we’d crush them whenever they rose up,” Sir Rohard was saying.

  Giles interrupted him. “I pray your pardon, but I have to see how it goes with my wife. With everything that’s happened today, she’s keeping to her bed and it’s best if I’m not gone from her too long.”

  “Ah, to be sure.” Sir Rohard nodded vague agreement. “A lovely lady. Of course.”

  Giles doubted th
e old fool even knew who Edeyn was. He rose, bowed briefly to him and toward Lady Lovell who did not see it, being head close to head with that nun, and retreated back toward the house with a more restrained walk than he wanted to have.

  There were other ways this could be settled.

  But damn to hell people who made complications where there did not have to be any.

  Chapter 21

  When Frevisse had finished, Lady Lovell sat silently, deep in thought. Her face had always seemed best suited to serenity, and though by now Frevisse knew how readily it could quicken with laughter, it was disconcerting to watch the subtle growth of anger in it as she settled into decision.

  “If that has indeed been Master Giles’ way,” she said quietly, “I’ll see to it that matters go very ill for him after this.”

  “Whether better proof can be found or not?” Frevisse asked.

  “If nothing else, by what you’ve said, he’s been unfaithful to his cousin in everything he’s done and said today. I doubt you’ll be the only one who says so when I ask Master Holt and others what they’ve heard. At the very least I’m satisfied Giles should have no care of Lionel when this is done. As for the rest, there’s not enough for crowner or sheriff to act against him and that’s a pity.” Lady Lovell’s anger was very deep. “But you’ve found enough to make me wary, and my lord husband when I tell him. Do you think there’s any chance you can learn more?”

  “As things stand now, no.” Frevisse hated to admit that but saw no way around it. After leaving Dame Claire she had paced the garden until her anger had quieted and then set about finding out what else she could in the while before Lady Lovell was free to listen to her. What little she had found out had not been much use.

  The question of Petir had been easily taken care of. His fellows in the stable had readily told her that his evening had been spent dicing with them first in the great hall and then in the stables. They had laughed over it because for once he had won more than he lost and had made them go on playing later than they should have. When they had settled to sleep in the loft, Petir had gone to his usual far corner, with no way to the ladder for him except by stepping over four other men and, no, he had never gone out until they all did in the morning because one of them was an especially light sleeper and would have known if he had.