Season of the Fox (A Servant of the Crown Mystery Book 2) (10 page)

Faucon nodded. He’d known a few with this sort of character. Generally, they’d been men of much charm and wit, but, because they lacked all honor, their word could never be trusted. The proof that Bernart was of their ilk was in the manner of his death. Departing life on the edge of a blade was a common fate for those who broke their word too often.

That made him reconsider the affection shown by the hue and cry. If Bernart had been this sort of man, it was hardly likely he’d be that beloved by his community. Or that so many men would be set on delivering instant justice to his murderer. Who then did they love, if not Bernart?

“How was it that you happened to be in the workshop at the instant of your husband’s death?” he asked.

“I had come down from the hall to call my husband to the table for our meal,” she replied, supplying the answer he expected.

“And when you stepped into the workroom you saw Peter the Webber. What was he doing when you entered?” he asked carefully, hoping to guide her where he needed her to go.

“Aye, I saw him,” Alina shot back, her words as sharp as the scissors used on Bernart. She looked directly at him, her dark gaze no less well-honed. “He was kneeling at Bernart’s side as my husband lay on the floor, bleeding his last. The bloody blade was still in his hand.”

It took all Faucon’s will not to react as she described seeing the impossible. “What did you do when you saw this and realized what Peter had done?”

That made the widow frown. She glanced at Nanette. The other woman reached out a hand in invitation. Alina twined her fingers with Nanette’s, then shifted on the bed to better study Faucon.

“What did I do?” she repeated in confusion. “What else, save what I just vowed to tell the justices when they come? I screamed that he had done murder to Bernart. I called for my household to take him.”

“So she did,” Nanette agreed. “We all heard her from the table.”

“But even before I raised my voice, Peter had seen me and was racing past me for the door,” Alina said, speaking over the other woman. “I followed him into the courtyard, still screaming of murder and calling for my servants and neighbors to stop him.”

“As you should have done,” Faucon assured her, smiling a little. “And then you returned to the workshop?”

Again, his question startled her. She looked at Nanette. “Did I return?”

“You did,” the needlewoman told her mistress, her tone soothing. “You were very distraught. I found you at Master Bernart’s side. You were trying to close his wound with your hands. I had to drag you away from him. I brought you up here while Mistress Gisla remained in the workshop.”

Alina’s sighed at that. “Aye, you took off my bloodstained gowns and dressed me in these fresh ones.”

“Can you tell me where the tally sticks are that Master Bernart was using before he was attacked?” Faucon asked.

His sudden shift of subject caught both women off-guard and left them staring at him, wide-eyed. “Tally sticks?” Mistress Alina asked at last. “What tally sticks?”

“I am but assuming,” Faucon offered with a shrug. “It’s the way Master Bernart had arranged his coins on the counting board, as if he were calculating wages. I’m surprised that he would do such a chore without also recording to whom and how much he paid.”

Again, both women looked startled. Oh aye, something strange was afoot in this house. Mistress Alina was no simple housewife, but an accomplished tradeswoman in her own right, as was Mistress Nanette. It was impossible that they wouldn’t know which tools Master Bernart used to do so important a chore. This was especially so with something like the payment of wages, a task that occurred with regularity.

Faucon shook his head, dismissing his question. “It was but a thought. I’m told that Master Bernart had a habit of remaining in the workroom while the household was at its meat.”

Mistress Alina pressed her fingers to her temples as if to ease a pain and looked into her lap. His heart sank, sure this was a sign that she was done with him when he wasn’t finished with her. He waited for her to either refuse to answer or command him from the room, both of which she had the right to do. She surprised him.

“Your questions are so strange, sir,” she said, lifting her head to look at him again. “What does it matter why my husband was in his workroom and not at our table? Is he not still just as dead?”

He followed where she led him, daring to press a little further. “I wish to discern if Peter the Webber knew where Master Bernart would be at this particular hour, and also if he knew that your husband would be alone and unguarded. Aye, and if Peter might have realized he would be able to enter your courtyard and home unseen. Is it possible that others outside your household were aware of your husband’s habit of not joining the midday meal?”

“Others? How can I say what others do or do not know?” Alina demanded of Faucon, at last sounding like the powerful mistress of commerce he expected her to be.

“Come now, Mistress,” Nanette chided gently, patting Alina’s hand as she spoke. “It’s no secret, either within these walls or without, that Master Bernart has been avoiding our table for a good while. Say what you know you must. Confirm for Sir Crowner that Peter the Webber knew very well he would find the master alone in his workshop upon the hour of our meal, and that there would be no one to watch his entry into our yard. Also tell him from whom Peter might have learned such a fact.”

Alina’s expression crumpled at that. Sudden tears glistened in her eyes. She pressed a hand to her mouth, still looking at Nanette.

“You cannot believe that she would have done such a thing?” The words slipped unsteadily between her fingers, more cry than question.

“Who else could have told him?” Nanette replied with a sad shake of her head.

“Nay,” Alina moaned, “she wouldn’t have. For all that was wrong in Bernart, Gisla loves her sire.”

“But I think she loves Peter more,” Nanette countered, “and so do you. Her father hurt her deeply when he informed her he was negotiating a marriage contract for her with that Londoner.”

Faucon glanced between the women. “You’re saying that Mistress Gisla told Peter her father would be alone in the workshop during the household’s meal this day?”

“So it would seem,” Alina sighed.

Tears slipped unnoticed down her cheeks as she grieved for her daughter the way she didn’t mourn her husband. “I have only recently learned that my daughter has been trysting with Peter, doing so against all that is right and proper. Indeed, she may even now be with child by him.”

The words were both an admission and a dismissal. After offering his condolences, Faucon departed the chamber, leaving Nanette to comfort her mistress as best she could. Descending the stairs, he once more stopped in the doorway of the workshop.

Bernart’s body was no longer inside, but the congealed pool of blood that had formed beneath him remained on the floor. Faucon thought the stain left by the merchant’s passing would linger long after they removed the gelled mass. Indeed, it was likely that this fine floor would retain the traces of his death for the lifetime of his house.

“Pardon, Sir Faucon,” Edmund said from behind him. “I need my desk and the stool.”

Faucon stepped aside, allowing his clerk to enter. As Edmund began to gather up his scribing implements, he asked, “Did you receive the widow’s oath?”

“I did,” Faucon replied.

“Then I can add her name,” Edmund said, his back to his master. “I believe we’re almost ready for the inquest. The house servants have brought a worktable into the courtyard and placed their master’s body upon it. I’ve asked them to find a second table for Elsa of Stanrudde’s body, but they’ve paid me no heed. I think you’ll have to command them to do that, as well as send them to fetch her remains. Lastly, I’ve found the witnesses we need to testify to the fact of Master Bernart’s birth. Perhaps they will also stand as guarantors for the widow.”

Here, the monk paused, craning his neck to look at his employer. “Imagine my surprise at discovering we both know one of the men among them.”

“We do?” Faucon asked in his own surprise. Neither he nor Edmund hailed from this shire nor had they known one another until two weeks ago. The possibility of coming across any man with whom they were both acquainted was far-fetched indeed.

“Aye. It’s that lay brother who assisted us at the miller’s death. He was at one of the merchant’s homes, treating the children of the house for some ailment or the other,” he returned with a brusque and not-at-all approving nod, then went back to packing his basket. Like many Benedictines, Edmund prized his learning the way Bernart had prized his fine house and treasure chests. It wasn’t in the clerk to approve of an uneducated man being allowed to join his order.

What irritated Edmund made Faucon grin. Offering no word to his clerk, he turned and exited into Bernart’s courtyard. As Edmund said, the merchant’s bloody body now lay on a short wooden worktable, the one that had held Rob’s delicate fabric. The table had been placed to one side of the yard where men might file past him with ease, circling around the table to return to the gateway so they could exit. A half-dozen men were gathered behind the corpse. Two of the men wore clothing expensive enough to pronounce them the owners of the nearby homes. Crossing one man’s breast was a thick gold chain. The medallion hanging from it bore the town’s emblem stamped upon its face, naming him one of the city’s aldermen.

Standing next to the worktable, examining the dead merchant, was Brother Colin in his black habit. This day found the former apothecary hatless, exposing his shorn ring of white hair to this afternoon’s bright light. Once again, the monk carried his leather pack upon his back, but this time there was no spray of freshly-collected herbs dandling from its top.

“Brother Colin!” Faucon called in greeting, still grinning.

The monk looked up. His dried apple of a face creased even more as he smiled. “Sir Crowner,” he called in return.

Colin’s pleasure as he once more encountered the shire’s Coronarius wasn’t reflected on the faces of the men gathered near Bernart. Instead, they watched Faucon with their arms crossed, shoulders squared and expressions wary. As Faucon stopped next to the monk, he offered the man his hand in greeting, as if Colin were a comrade-in-arms rather than a former merchant who now walked a religious path. In truth, Faucon thought of them as equals. Both of them were committed to revealing the hidden tales told by the bodies of dead men. When Brother Colin accepted his hand, the watching townsmen stirred in surprise. Then again, it wasn’t often that a Englishman didn’t bow to a Norman or that a well-born knight offered a hand to a commoner.

“So how goes your hunt thus far, sir?” the monk asked.

“Very well,” Faucon replied with a smile. “This is becoming an interesting chase, when I didn’t imagine it could be at first. Yet here I am, only an hour after beginning my task, and already my trail begins to twist and shift in unexpected ways.”

Beneath his snowy brows Colin’s dark eyes took fire in interest. “Is that so? Then I pray our Lord grants you the time and opportunity to follow it to its rightful end. Should you need a ready ear, I am here.”

Faucon choked back his laugh. It was good to know that Colin wasn’t beneath begging. Two weeks ago, the monk had served as tutor, schooling his new Crowner in the means and manners of a miller’s death. Now he wanted to discover how well his student did in his new vocation, as well as prying out every detail Faucon had gathered thus far about Bernart’s passing.

“My thanks, indeed, but I fear you’ll need to wait a bit before I have time for conversation. I intend to call the jury in a few moments, hoping to complete the inquest before the moon rises.”

Again, the monk’s snowy brows lifted. “So soon?”

“What else can I do?” Faucon returned in the pretense of helplessness. “I can hardly wait forty days to conclude this matter if Master Bernart must be buried before that.” This seeming fact wasn’t precisely true and by Colin’s slow smile Faucon saw that the monk knew as much.

Enjoying that Colin stewed, Faucon shifted to face the waiting merchants, ready to introduce himself as he had done so often this day. To his surprise, the men who only moments before had eyed him in something less than welcome now watched him as if he were someone they recognized but couldn’t quite remember. Their arms were open and their expressions relaxed.

“Master Manfred, Master Gerard,” Colin said, lifting his hand to indicate the better dressed among the men, “this is Sir Faucon de Ramis, or Sir Crowner as he prefers to be called. As of two sennights ago, it is now Sir Crowner’s responsibility to hold our inquests. It is also his right to assess and confiscate the king’s portion from the estates of those who do murder in our shire.”

Faucon shot the monk a startled sidelong look at this last piece. Although Colin’s explanation of his duty as assessor was accurate, that part of his position wasn’t something Faucon expected to be emphasized, especially not to men who had wealth worthy of royal notice. Apparently Stanrudde’s former apothecary knew the folk of his city well indeed. Both merchants smiled and nodded at this. It said that the assessment of estates was another place where Sir Alain had trod too heavily over the years.