Season of the Fox (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 2)

by Denise Domning

  He smiled down at the young man. “Lastly, you may set aside all thoughts of her hatred, I think. Your little love will happily help your father fulfill the promise he made me at yesterday’s inquest. Your sire means to see the two of you wed as soon as possible once your name is cleared.”

  As Peter heard these words, the boy sagged back into the chair as he shed the greatest of the many worries presently chewing at him. “I pray that day arrives,” he muttered, “and when it does, I’ll bless it as a miracle.

  “As for the tale you want,” he continued, “I’m not sure what I have to tell you, save that I came at the hour suggested by our code. If Gisla’s held nothing back, then I suppose you know when we met in the workshop I entered by climbing in through that last window.”

  “So I do,” Faucon replied. “But I care less about what happened in the workshop than what occurred as you made your way toward Bernart’s home, before you climbed the wall to reach the window. Mistress Gisla told me that you usually came to her on the days when you stopped at Master Hodge’s shop.”

  Peter nodded. “Aye, and that’s what happened yesterday. I left fabric for Master Hodge, then made my way toward Master Bernart’s house.”

  “Tell me this. Might Master Hodge have asked you the previous day if you would have fabric for him on the morrow?”

  Peter’s eyes widened. “He did,” he answered in surprise.

  “And was the pleykster in his shop when you arrived yesterday?”

  “Nay,” the boy replied, shaking his head. “I left what I brought with his journeyman. Nory said that his master had departed an hour or more earlier and that he wasn’t certain when Master Hodge might return. But as it happened, Master Hodge was on his way back to his shop at that very moment. His path and mine crossed as I wended my way from his shop toward Gisla’s home.”

  “He was carrying something. What was it?” Faucon asked.

  Again, the lad eyed him in astonishment. “Aye, he had a sack over his shoulder, but how do you know that?”

  Faucon smiled. He knew because the convent’s launderers were concerned about removing blood without removing color. “How did he seem to you?”

  “Strange,” Peter replied. “Not at all like himself. Master Hodge is like my own uncles. There’s never been a time when I saw him on a lane that he didn’t rush to embrace me, offering greetings and conversation. But yesterday he never looked up as he walked past me, even though I called to him. Perhaps he didn’t hear me.” Peter’s voice trailed off.

  Faucon waited for the boy to understand what he already knew, that it had been guilt keeping the master pleykster’s gaze fastened to the earth yesterday. It took a moment before Peter blinked.

  “You cannot think that Master Hodge had a hand in Master Bernart’s death?” Peter protested. “That’s not possible. As much as my father now hates Master Bernart with all his heart, Master Hodge loved Gisla’s father.” Even as Peter tried to convince himself of this, he failed. His brow creased. “But he never looked at me, not even when I called him,” he said again.

  “What was Master Hodge wearing?” Faucon asked.

  That made Peter frown in thought. “His leather apron for sure, but what he had on beneath it I can’t say I noticed,” he replied uncertainly.

  “Ah.” Faucon paused as his bits rearranged themselves for a last time. “But he definitely wore his apron?”

  Peter nodded. “Of that I’m certain.”

  “Tell me this,” Faucon continued. “Mistress Gisla says that you and she avoided meeting at the hour of None, doing so because she wasn’t free, that being the hour of her household’s midday meal. She also said that you should have known she wouldn’t call you to her at that hour, that you should have known the message false because of that. Why, then, did you come at None?”

  The boy shrugged. “I was worried. Gisla and I had talked much about her father’s plans, both for her and her mother,” he said.

  Faucon smiled at that. There was no such thing as a secret in Bernart’s house. Save for one.

  “Gisla’s been so distraught of late that I came even though I knew the hour was wrong. I feared something awful had finally happened,” Peter finished.

  “And so it had,” Faucon replied. “By any chance did you see someone in the courtyard when you first arrived yesterday?”

  Again, astonishment filled Peter’s gaze. “How is it you know these things?” he asked. Faucon only shrugged and smiled.

  “Aye, I saw Mistress Nanette. She was standing at the corner of the house nearest the kitchen. I ducked beneath the wall as soon as I saw her, but I was certain I moved too late, that she’d already spied me. I crouched there for a moment, even though I expected her to cross the yard and confront me. When that didn’t happen, I called myself fortunate and regained my feet to move onto the wall and climb into the window.

  He offered Faucon a sour twist of his mouth. “Now you’ll tell me that she had seen me.”

  “So I shall,” Faucon replied with a laugh, “and so she had. Take heart, Peter the Webber. Although I leave you now, I go promising that I’ll be back as soon as I can. As much as I hope that means returning this very day to open the door to your cage, it’s possible that may not happen. Should that be the case, take my warning to heart. If you value your life, you’ll say nothing of our conversation to anyone, not even to your little love.”

  Especially not to Gisla. She wouldn’t easily bear what she learned out of such sharing. Moreover, she might later unburden her heart to one who didn’t deserve her trust.

  Peter blanched. “Many thanks,” he said weakly. “I am taking your words to heart and will do as you say.”

  Faucon took a backward step. “One more thing before I leave. Do you by chance know who makes Mistress Gisla’s shoes?”

  “Why are we here? It’s almost noon. I thought you meant us to be on the road to Blacklea after Terce mass was finished,” Brother Edmund asked irritably as he shrugged his basket of tools off his shoulder. Setting it on the ground next to the simple wooden table, he sat on the bench across from his employer.

  The alewife’s house had proved to be of higher quality than Faucon expected, given the clientele mentioned by Temric FitzHenry last night. Standing on the corner where the alley met the chandlers’ lane, the woman’s two-storey home had bright blue shutters and a sparkling new coat of whitewash. Her yard, a spit of open land between her home and that of her nearest neighbor, was grassy and sprinkled with clumps of late-blooming wildflowers. It was surrounded by hurdles, tall panels made of woven branches and lashed together to form a fence, no doubt serving to protect her neighbors from her customers.

  The alewife’s son, a disreputable-looking lad with dark hair and eyes, stopped next to Faucon and stretched out his hand. When he received his promised sliver of coin, the boy departed with a wink and a nod.

  “That was our agreement last night,” Faucon replied, “but dawn shed new light on the matter of Bernart’s death. Prepare yourself,” he warned his clerk. “This time, we’ll be tallying assets and noting values for our king, doing so until your fingers ache all over again.”

  Faucon couldn’t stop his grin as he said these words. By God, this felt right and good. Not only had he run a merry chase to its end, but he would now walk away with the prize he craved.

  “What!” Edmund cried out. “You went to the church, leaving me waiting at that lay brother’s shed? How could you take the words of the webber’s confession when I wasn’t there to record them?! Why didn’t you call for me to come with you?” he finished.

  The hurt in his clerk’s voice made Faucon look askance at the monk. “I didn’t call for you because you asked for permission to attend Terce mass and I gave it to you. While you worshiped, I made my way back and forth across this town, seeing this man and that as I found what I needed. I didn’t call for you because, on the whole, I didn’t know where I was. As for Peter the Webber, aye, I entered the church to speak with him, but not to take his confessio
n. The webber has nothing to confess, save perhaps that he’d been meeting illicitly with Mistress Gisla.”

  Here, Faucon paused to lift his cup. “Nay, you’ve missed nothing so far this day, save much walking and a decent cup of ale. Is it a fast day still? If not, would you care for something to eat before we make our way to Bernart’s home?”

  “I’ve already broken my fast, sir, doing so with my brothers,” Edmund retorted, still aiming his narrow-eyed gaze at his employer. “Something happened. What do you know that I do not?”

  That made Faucon laugh aloud. There was so much he knew that Edmund did not. But that wasn’t what his clerk meant.

  “Nothing worth mentioning has happened since we parted last night, Brother Edmund,” he assured the monk, and didn’t feel as though he spoke falsely. “When I awoke this morning, I simply saw where this trail leads me. Now here you are at my side as you should be, ready to help me do our duty to king and crown. Know that this is one instance sure to please my uncle.”

  He offered this last like a honeyed plum, knowing very well how much Edmund wanted to please Bishop William of Hereford. Indeed, the monk’s frown instantly disappeared.

  “Well then,” Edmund said, “we should be off to do as we must.” With that, his clerk sprang to his feet as he snatched up his basket’s strap. Slinging it over his shoulder, he looked at his employer, blinking rapidly. “My pardon if I seemed to chide a moment ago. That wasn’t my intention nor is it my place to do so.”

  Another apology! And a statement that seemed to indicate Edmund knew his place. Faucon wasn’t sure if he should gape or laugh.

  “I heard no chiding,” he replied as he came to his feet, “only my clerk doing his duty and keeping me within the bounds of the law.”

  Bending, Faucon reclaimed the hempen sack that lay beneath his bench. As he threw it over his shoulder, he felt very much the city man. “Brother Edmund, if you would please accompany me to Master Bernart’s wake. I’ll be needing you ready to note any confession that might be made.”

  As they’d done yesterday, Faucon and his clerk wended their way through the city to the linsman’s home. With his mind easy, Faucon looked about him, beginning to understand how a man could come to prize such a crowded existence. Overhead the sky was that particular blue given only to autumn, and clear of any sign of rain. The wind was just strong enough to carry away most of the smoke that generally hung like a pall over a place such as Stanrudde.

  From every home’s lower level window came cries extolling the quality and necessity of the wares made within the shop. Costermongers pushed their carts along the lanes, offering everything from nuts, both shelled and roasted, to soap to salted fat which, the seller proclaimed, would turn even the plainest of potage into a feast. A wee girl sang out a ditty as she offered posies made from autumn flowers and colored leaves. Stubble-fed geese, an autumn delicacy, honked and flapped from where they were tethered to a butcher’s window.

  At the place where the old city met the new, a dozen men of the town guard waited. Rather than Temric FitzHenry, the man at their head this day was their true captain. A commoner, Otto, son of Otfried, was a gruff old soldier, bald as a babe with but half an ear on the right and a scar that crossed his face from brow to jaw. He hadn’t asked Faucon to prove his right to make arrests within this town’s walls. Nay, the tale he’d heard of the previous day’s inquest had been proof enough for him.

  With the guard at his back, Faucon lead the way to where the colorful crowd of folk spilled out through Bernart’s gate and into the lane. While the elder folk mingled, chatting as they ate and drank on the richness of the linsman’s purse, their youngsters ran along either side the wall, shouting and laughing as they played some game.

  “For shame,” Edmund muttered as he eyed the happy crowd, “for shame on all of them for laughing and playing. This is no wake. It’s a disrespectful show, a perverted fair. Master Bernart died both suddenly and unconfessed. These folk should be on their knees, their hands clasped, as they beg our Lord to help shorten the merchant’s stay in Purgatory, especially on this day.” It was All Souls Day today.

  Faucon glanced at his clerk, a little surprised that the monk wouldn’t know that this was the way of wakes held by folk whose souls weren’t bound to the Church. “I think Master Bernart didn’t much inspire his friends and neighbors to pray on his behalf.” Such a courtesy didn’t belong to men who broke their word as often as Bernart did.

  “Perhaps his term in Purgatory is well earned? As you said yesterday, it’s easier to thread a rope through the eye of a needle...” Faucon said, offering half the passage Edmund had quoted.

  His clerk looked at him, his brow creased. True concern for the merchant’s soul filled his dark eyes. “But they could be helping him. Such frivolity and gluttony on their part is simply wrong.”

  Faucon couldn’t argue that, nor had he any interest in doing so. Instead, he started through the gate, Edmund at his side. As those inside Bernart’s courtyard saw their Crowner with the town guard at his back, they fell silent. Even the children ceased their play as they watched their Crowner and his clerk make their way toward the house.

  Two of the three tables from the hall now stood near the home’s grand doorway. Cheeses, breads and the dishes Mistress Nanette’s charges had spent the night creating filled them, along with pitchers of drink. Faucon expected the third table had remained in the hall and that Bernart’s linen-wrapped body now lay upon it. If that were so, then the grieving widow had left her daughter and Mistress Nanette to mourn her husband while she attended to her guests.

  Alina stood before the half-open door, her stance sideways to him. Once again Faucon noted what he’d almost missed yesterday. Although the widow wore white to pronounce her mourning, there was no sign of yesterday’s tears or distress on her face.

  Although Mistress Alina hadn’t yet noticed him, the man who had no doubt bleached the fabric of her gowns to their present ghostly hue had. Hodge the Pleykster’s gaze shifted from his Crowner’s face to the sack Faucon carried over his shoulder. He paled, his mouth pinched. His eyes began to water.

  Only as Hodge folded his hands as if in prayer did Mistress Alina notice the change in her yard. She shifted, her chin lifting to a haughty angle as she saw her Crowner. There was none of Master Hodge’s concern in her gaze. Why, when Alina believed, just as Bernart had, that the silver in her chests gave her power over her own fate?

  “Sir Crowner,” she called out, “why come you to us this day, bringing these soldiers and disturbing my husband’s wake?”

  As Faucon halted in front of her, Edmund yet beside him, he lowered his sack to the ground at his feet, making a show of it. “Why, Mistress Alina, I come as is my right and to do my duty to my king. I mean to make my arrest in the matter of your husband’s murder.”

  A surprised murmur rumbled across those watching, but swiftly died away, leaving the only the relentless sound of the city’s heartbeat. No one in this yard wanted to miss a word of what came next. Indeed, Faucon wondered if the tale of Bernart le Linsman’s wake might live on long after the merchant’s legacy was forgotten.

  Alina frowned at him. “What do you mean? If you’ve come here to do that, then I think me you’ve come to the wrong place. The man who killed my husband is across town, enjoying the benefits of sanctuary, while my husband lies cold and dead in his hall.”

  “Now mistress,” Faucon chided with a shake of his head, “you of all people know that’s not true. Peter the Webber couldn’t have killed your husband. By the time Roger the Webber’s son crawled into the workshop through an open window, Bernart le Linsman was already dead.”

  This time, there was nothing muted about the sound of surprise that exploded from those watching. Edmund shifted sharply to stare wide-eyed at his employer. Alina paled. Hodge moaned and took a step to the side, as if to distance himself from her, when it was far too late for him to do that.

  Behind them, the massive door creaked open. No doubt drawn dow
n the stairs by the change of tenor in the yard, Mistress Gisla stepped outside to join her mother. She also wore white. Today as yesterday, her nose and eyes were reddened in grief for the man Faucon now doubted was her sire.

  Mistress Nanette followed Gisla out of the doorway. Unlike mother and daughter, the master needlewoman wore blue. This, when Faucon thought she of all three women ought to be wearing the color of mourning. Save that Nanette had been the one to plan her lover’s death.

  “Why are you here, Sir Crowner?” Gisla asked, her voice thick with tears. Then forgetting all caution, she cried, “Has something happened to Peter?”

  Faucon offered the girl a quick smile of reassurance, wishing he could spare her these next moments. She didn’t deserve what would follow. “Take heart, mistress. Your love is well and safe, and so he will remain. He waits eagerly to fulfill his father’s promise as regards your marriage.”

  Hoping that would be enough for her, Faucon again looked at her mother. “Mistress Alina, who is the father of the child you bear?”

  The only sound in the yard was Alina’s sharp gasp. She betrayed herself by lowering her hand to cup the slight bulge of her womb.

  “You are with child?!” Gisla cried, her face alive with confusion as she stared at her mother.

  Hodge swayed, his eyes closed. Only Nanette remained unmoved by this revelation. Instead, she aimed her hard and angry gaze at Faucon.

  Alina caught herself and reclaimed her authority. “How dare you speak such words to me on this day of all days? Aye, the Lord granted me a miracle. I am with child. Bernart’s child, just Gisla and her brothers were of his line.”

  Faucon shook his head. “I think not, mistress. I think Bernart’s thrusts were empty, that he never had seeds to sow in you, not even when you were first wed. Had he, then I think the woman he preferred would surely have come with child at least once. Yet she never did, not in all the years he used her.” As he spoke, he let his gaze shift to Nanette.