A Mortal Bane (3 page)

Dulcie returned with a pot of stew and a pasty, which she placed by Magdalene’s position at the head of the table. Meanwhile, Magdalene had brought a crock and the polished pitcher from the wall shelves and proceeded to pour ale for her women and herself, and wine for the guest. Then, before she sat down, she served everyone a portion of thick stew, which she dumped on the trencher with a slice of pasty beside it. Letice cut up Ella’s food and there was a short silence while everyone tasted the meal, broken at last by the guest’s compliments on the fine ragout.

“Dulcie is a good cook,” Magdalene said. “She came to me from a cookshop in Oxford. They could not keep her because she could no longer hear the orders. To me, her deafness is not important. In some ways it is a nuisance to have to shout or use gestures, but on the other hand, she cannot overhear what might be better unheard.”

“That is a comfort to some, I suppose, but not to me,” her guest said. “There are very few who would be interested in anything I had to say.”

Oh dear, Magdalene thought, this is a man who is concealing an important purpose and is not accustomed to doing so. A more practiced deceiver would never have denied a need for secrecy but laughed and agreed that all men had secrets. Magdalene kept her eyes on his face, careful not to glance at the pouch on its broad strap, which he had not set aside with his cloak. That pouch. Did it mark him a messenger?

“No, no,” she protested, laughing lightly. “Every man has things of interest to say. If you tell Sabina how lovely she is, she would hang on every word, I am sure.”

“And that would be a kindness,” Ella put in, “because, you know, she cannot see herself in a bowl of water or a plate of polished brass.”

“You are a sweet creature to think of that,” Sabina said to Ella, “but I am sure our guest has more amusing subjects to talk about.”

‘Truly, very little. In fact, I would be happy to hear any news of England, since I have been absent for some time. It is clear that the king is not in London. Has there been more rebellion that has carried him out to the field?”

“No, thank God,” Sabina said. “I do not know whether you were here when the Scots came down into Northumberland, and even to Yorkshire, but a great battle was fought at Northallerton, which was a victory for the English.”

Magdalene wondered, as Sabina told of the battle of the Standard and how it was Queen Maud who had traveled north to negotiate a truce, whether their guest could be a royal messenger. He certainly seemed interested when Sabina said the king was at Nottingham and assured him the news was reliable and had come to her from a well-informed client. But the man did not dress like a courier, nor was his bearing that of a man accustomed to wearing armor.

Almost as if he had heard her thought, the guest said he was glad to hear the country was at peace, because he had some traveling to do, and without asking directly, he drew from Sabina the information that King Stephen would likely be fixed at Nottingham for a little while. The king, Sabina added in explanation, was examining the treaty Queen Maud had made with King David of Scotland. Letice tapped her knife and spoon together and everyone except Sabina turned to look at her. She made a few gestures; Magdalene nodded.

“Someone told Letice that what is delaying the king’s confirmation of the treaty is the dissatisfaction of the barons of the north.”

“They are the most affected,” the man said, but his eyes were on Sabina’s hand as she walked her fingers over the table toward her cup.

Wondering if he were feigning lack of interest, Magdalene enlarged on the theme. ‘The barons do not like the terms, which might give the Scots some advantage if the treaty were to be broken, particularly because the truce arranged by the pope’s legate last November did not hold. But since Waleran de Meulan’s twin brother, Robert of Leicester, was involved with the queen in the making of the treaty, it is likely that Stephen will approve it anyway.”

The man shrugged. “It is the business of the English and the Scots,” he said, making his indifference clear. “What is of more interest to me is that Letice can say what she needs to say, even without a voice.”

“Sometimes,” Magdalene replied, “but only to those who know her well. I have been thinking about teaching her to read and write—”

“Teaching her to read and write!” the man echoed, looking shocked. “What for? And who would teach a whore such things?”

So for all his courtesy, he has a churchman’s attitude toward women, Magdalene thought. “What for?” she repeated. “To ease her spirit. So when she is bursting with a thought and cannot find a way to say what is in her heart, she could write it. And who would teach her? I would.” She laughed aloud at his expression. “From whom did
I
learn? Why, of course, from a churchman who did not wish to pay me in coin. I have found it a useful skill.” Then she laughed again. “I am sorry that you cannot read him a lecture on the evil of teaching deep mysteries to such fallible creatures as women, and whores at that. He is some years dead, poor man. He kept his purse strings drawn tight, but I liked him anyway.”

“Because he did not think you weak and fallible?”

“No, because he knew what I was and found me no worse, if no better, than the rest of humankind.”

He shook his head, smiling. “I cannot complain that what he did would not much help to save your soul when I am here—which surely will not help to save mine.”

“That is easily amended,” Sabina said, faultlessly using her knife to spear right through the chunk of meat on the last piece of gravy-soaked bread. “If you are troubled, you have only to follow the path in the back garden to the gate in the church wall. It is just on a latch. You can go through, around the apse of the church, and into the north door. Cross in front of the altar to the south door, which leads into the monks’ quarters, and I think you will find a bell that will summon a priest.”

“How convenient,” the man said, his full lips twitching. “Is the offering expected as high as the price here?”

Magdalene shook her head. “I, who have been treated with forbearance, can ill afford such a jest. The prior of the monastery is a gentle man of tender conscience. He has never been here himself and I believe him of a perfectly pure life, but I imagine that he writhes with the pain he thinks such sinners must feel and wishes to provide relief. If bad conscience draws from those who sin among us a substantial offering, well, it is not
exacted
by the church.”

Before he could answer, Ella said suddenly, “One of the brothers told me I was excom-com-communicate and damned. He was very angry.” Tears stood in her bright eyes. “Is that terrible bad?”

“For some, it might be,” the man answered gently. “I do not think it applies to you, my child.”

‘Thank you,” Sabina whispered in his ear. “She is truly an innocent. She does not understand the demands of her body, only obeys them. And I do not believe she has the power to control herself any more than an infant can control its bowels.”

He squeezed her hand, and found Magdalene was smiling at him. He raised a brow. She nodded. He smiled at Letice, leaned across and touched Ella’s cheek.

“Perhaps next time,” he said to her, and then turned to Sabina. “Are you ready?” he asked. She nodded, smiling.

Ella and Letice retired to their rooms almost as soon as the door of Sabina’s chamber closed behind her and her client. Magdalene took her embroidery, pulled the candles close, and sat working for some time to make sure that the new client would take no undue liberties with her woman. There was no indication that the man would turn nasty, but anyone who arrived without a recommendation from a known client made Magdalene uneasy.

There was something else about the man that made her uneasy. She was certain he was foreign, and his interest in the whereabouts of the king implied that what he carried in the pouch might be for or of interest to King Stephen. Normally, what she and her women learned from or about their clients, except for public news, was kept secret. They might discuss it among themselves, but they did not sell information or spread it with gossip. However, Magdalene was indebted for many favors and kindnesses to William of Ypres, and William was being supplanted in King Stephen’s favor by Waleran de Meulan. So, should she send William news of this man’s coming?

She sighed and raised her head, blinked smarting eyes. She did not know his name or even from where he came, though from his accent, she suspected Italy. Would her information be of any value? She blinked again and rubbed her eyes. She was, she decided, too tired to think the matter through and there was no need to do anything until morning. Possibly by then, Sabina might have learned enough, or the man himself might say more during breakfast. Finally she rose, walked silently down the corridor, and pressed her ear to Sabina’s door.

After a moment she heard Sabina laugh and her client exclaim over his own laughter, and she smiled and turned back to the common room. There she carefully put away her work and extinguished the candles on the table and the torchettes on each side of the room, replacing the one near the front door with a fresh one, which she left burning.

There was light enough when she left the door of her room open to undress, fold her clothing onto the chest that stood against one wall, and slip into bed. Because the client seemed a good man and clearly desired privacy, she was troubled by her intention of mentioning him to William, but William was an old friend.

Her doubts kept her wakeful until she heard soft voices in the corridor. After a while she heard the key scrape in the lock, but she did not hear Sabina’s footsteps returning. Surely he was not taking Sabina with him? Magdalene lay listening anxiously and then snorted gently at her own silliness. Probably his meeting place was close…even in the church itself, and he had told Sabina he would not be long away. The evening was mild. Likely Sabina had decided to sit in the garden and wait for him rather than chance she would fall asleep and not hear him knocking, which would cause him to ring the bell and wake the whole household.

A meeting in the church and churchly opinions, Magdalene thought sleepily, and the very sober, but rich clothing. A church messenger? The idea was somehow satisfactory; her eyes closed, her breathing deepened.

Chapter Two

19 April 1139

Old Priory Guesthouse, After Compline

It seemed only moments later, but it could have been hours, when Magdalene was startled awake by a clatter, a thud, and then Sabina’s voice, thin with terror, crying her name. She sprang from her bed, grasping at the bed robe that hung from a peg nearby on the wall, but did not stop to draw it on.

A shadow blundered into the wall, and the thin, breathless, despairing cry came again. “Magdalene!”

She dropped her bed robe, caught at Sabina’s groping hands, and drew the girl into her arms. Sabina was panting and shaking, totally disoriented by fear.

“He is dead,” she whispered. “Dead.”

“Who?” Magdalene whispered in return. “Who is dead?”

Sabina’s voice rose to a thin wail. “He. He. The man I lay with.”

“Your client is dead?” Magdalene’s voice also rose. “He died in your bed?”

A hand grasped Magdalene’s shoulder and squeezed hard. She only barely prevented herself from shrieking with shock, managing to swallow the cry because the hand had released her. Letice ran to shut Ella’s door.

Magdalene closed her eyes and swallowed, whispered, “Thank you,” when Letice returned. But Letice put her hand on Magdalene’s mouth and drew her and Sabina from the corridor into the common room.

There, where the still-burning torchette gave better light, her eyes widened and her mouth opened with shock. She touched Magdalene and then seized Sabina’s hands, which she raised into the light and held before Magdalene’s eyes. Magdalene drew a gasping breath. Sabina’s hands were covered with blood.

“What happened?” Magdalene whispered, beginning to tremble herself. In her mind rose an image of her own hands also stained red with fresh blood. “Did he try to hurt you so that you had to turn the knife on him?”

“No, no, I did not,” Sabina whimpered. “I did not. Oh, God help me. If you think I killed him, who will believe me?”

“I will believe anything you tell me, Sabina—” Magdalene had reason enough to say that with passion; no one would have believed her, either. “But if the man is dead in your bed—”

“No! Not in my bed. On the church porch.”

“On the church porch?” Magdalene echoed.

From Letice, standing beside them, came an audible sigh of relief. Then, as if released from a paralysis of fear, she dragged her eyes from the dark stains on Sabina’s hands and garments, snatched up a half-burned candle from the table and lit it at the burning torchette. Seeing her hurry down the corridor puzzled Magdalene, but not enough to draw her mind from the wonderful fact that the dead man was on the church porch, not in Sabina’s bed. There was no reason for anyone to associate him with her establishment.

She drew a breath of relief so deep that it stretched her chest and abdomen, which made her aware of a stiffness on her skin. A glance showed her that she was marked with splotches of drying blood. Her eyes fixed with loathing and horror on the marks, and a scream struggled in her throat, but at that moment Letice came back. Magdalene realized Letice had come from the kitchen with water for washing the sticky mess from Sabina—and from herself, too. She pushed away the memories that were twisting her mind.

“Come,” Magdalene said softly, leading a shaking and sobbing Sabina to the bench at the head of the table. “Sit down before you fall. How did you come to find the poor man?”

Sabina drew a deep breath, straightened her back, and released the hold she had kept on Magdalene. “He asked to be let out just after the bells rang for Compline,” she said, “and of course I closed the door behind him so he would not think I was trying to hear where he went. But he had told me he would not be long, that his meeting place was near, so I thought I would wait in the garden. It was lovely, not cold, and I could hear the service being sung in the church. So after all was quiet and I was sure the brothers had gone to bed, I thought I would just step in and say a prayer.”