A Mortal Bane (4 page)

She had been speaking quietly, but suddenly she huddled in on herself and began to shiver. “It is forbidden! So I was not allowed—”

“Sabina,” Magdalene interrupted sharply, “do not be such a goose. Do you think God would have a man murdered just to warn a whore away from a church? That is the work of the devil, not of God. Besides, you pray in the church all the time and the place was never before strewn with dead bodies.”

Sabina, who had been crying quietly, sniffed and lifted her head. “No. But it was so horrible. I was laughing, you see. I had heard the sacristan cry out ‘Who is there?’ and then someone running and I thought it was a pair of lovers Brother Paulinus had frightened away. After I heard him close the door, I went to the porch, and…and….”

She shuddered and began to cry again, and Magdalene patted her shoulder comfortingly. After a few moments she asked, “Are you sure he was dead?”

Sabina sobbed harder. “There was a knife sticking out of his neck, and blood, so much blood, a whole pool….”

She started to raise her hands to her face, but Letice seized them and pushed them into a basin she had set on the table. The bottom was black with wood ash, and Letice used one hand to rub that over Sabina’s and the other to prod Magdalene and point to the candles. Magdalene nodded but went to check the shutters before she lit the candles. She knew the Watch kept an eye on her house and did not want them to notice lights glinting from the windows on this night.

When the candles were lit, Letice examined Magdalene carefully and helped her wash away any spot of blood that Sabina’s hands had transferred to her body. Magdalene then put on her bed gown, and she and Letice went over every inch of Sabina, her gown, her under-tunic, her cloak, her shoes, her staff, which Letice had found lying in the corridor, even the tips of her hair, cleaning all as well as they could.

“There, love, there,” Magdalene soothed. “You are clean. Your clothes are clean. Forget this. Forget the man. No one will ever know he lay with you. We are not to blame if the person he met killed him, and we must not be called guilty so that the real killer can escape.”

“But—”

“No. Put it out of your mind. There is no way for anyone to connect him with this house at all, unless by misfortune he was seen leading his horse—oh, my God, his horse! It is still in our stable.”

The three women froze. The horse. All realized that the horse could not simply be led out into the street and driven away. The clattering hooves would surely wake someone and attract the Watch.

“The beast cannot be loose in the streets while the body is on the church porch,” Magdalene said slowly. “We will have to get it into the churchyard.”

“How?” Sabina cried, shaking more than ever. “It is impossible! Oh, forget me. Let me confess that I found him and let them do what they will to me.”

Magdalene slapped her gently and then shook her. ‘This is no time for hysterics, even though you have cause enough. First of all, we do not abandon our own. Not in this house! Secondly, no one will do anything to you if you obey me.”

Letice sat down beside Sabina and put an arm around her, but with the other hand she pointed toward where the stable was, then cupped her hand and blew into it.

“Yes,” Magdalene said. “As Letice points out, even if you sacrificed yourself, you silly girl, the horse would not disappear into thin air. It would still be in our stable.” She stared at the floor for a moment, then said, “Letice, go wake Dulcie. She will have to stay with Sabina while you and I move the horse.”

Between signs and words repeated several times, though not so loudly as to wake Ella, the situation was explained to the maid. Dulcie did not seem surprised or frightened, and Magdalene suddenly wondered if the cookhouse she had come from was in a place where dead bodies were not uncommon. The question seemed answered as Dulcie calmly examined Sabina’s clothes and said they would need washing or the stains Letice’s wiping could not remove might set. Not to worry, she said to Magdalene, she would make sure no one knew she was washing clothes. The garments would soak well under pots and dishes, and dry hidden behind herbs near the fireplace. Then she gave the half-fainting girl a rough hug and led her away toward her room.

One problem solved. Magdalene told Letice to put on shoes and take a cloak, and followed that advice herself. Then she found a dark lantern on the bottom shelf. She lit it, but the thread of moon and starlight was enough and they did not need it to find the stable. Carefully closing the door, Magdalene unshuttered the lantern completely and then stood stock-still, staring openmouthed at the disorder.

The horse was there, calmly lipping up some of the oats that had fallen from the bin in which they were stored. Clearly, someone had been searching through the feed for something hidden beneath it. Around the beast’s feet was fresh hay strewn from bales broken when they had been tossed here and there. The saddle was hanging half off the rack on which it had originally been placed, and the saddlebags now lay on the ground open, their contents scattered over the floor.

“Oh, heaven,” Magdalene whispered, raising the lantern and looking around. ‘The murderer must have been here searching for….”

Letice cocked her head on the side.

“For what?” Magdalene asked the question aloud for her in case she had guessed wrong, and when Letice nodded, answered it. “I have no idea. I wonder if…no, this is no time for wondering. Let us gather up everything that belongs in the saddlebags and rid ourselves of this sign of guilt.”

As Letice gathered, Magdalene stowed as neatly as she could manage, although her hands began to shake from time to time. She did not waste any effort over excessive neatness however, partly because she did not know how neat the guest had been but more because she wanted the bags to seem to have been searched. When she had closed them and was about to lift the saddle to the horse’s back, Letice stopped her, pointed to the horse, and made an arch with her hands. Then she walked the fingers of the left hand into the half arch that her right hand maintained and showed them getting stuck.

“You are right,” Magdalene said. “I think we can get the horse through the gate, but certainly not wearing the saddle. You will have to carry the saddle while I lead the horse.”

It was strange, Magdalene thought as she slipped the bit between the animal’s teeth and fastened it to the halter, how everything tonight conspired to bring back memories of her life as Arabel de St. Foi. First the blood…. She pushed that thought away. And now the more pleasant memories of being mistress of her own small farm, of saddling and riding, dealing with horses….

Silly beasts, she thought affectionately, so beautiful but so brainless. Everything frightened them. She paused as she was about to set the lantern down in a clear corner and close its shutters so she could open the stable doors. It would be hard to persuade a horse to pass through that low, narrow gate, especially in silence. It might balk or whinny. Magdalene bit her lip and then unwound the scarf that she had automatically used to cover her wealth of honey-gold hair. What a horse could not see would not cause it to balk. With soothing words and slow motions, she put the scarf over the horse’s head so that its eyes were covered.

Except that Magdalene kept glancing at the moon and cursing herself for not remembering when it had risen and what hour its present position indicated, they had no trouble. The horse followed the pull on its halter docilely, and once Magdalene had pulled its head down level with its shoulders, passed through the gate without difficulty. On the other side, she removed her scarf and led the willing animal, who smelled fresh grass, into the graveyard. There she resaddled it, Letice helping as she could, leaving the girth somewhat loose, as a man might do who wished to ease his horse when he dismounted for some time but intended to continue his ride later.

Then Letice handed her the saddlebags. Magdalene gave Letice the rein and started to lift the bags—and a light appeared in a window in the second-story dorter. Magdalene dropped to the ground, pulling Letice with her but keeping hold on the horse so it would stand still. Both huddled down on the ground, praying that if a monk on his way to the privy saw the animal, he would be too sleepy to do anything about it.

In a moment the light winked out. Magdalene jumped up and swung the saddlebags over. With shaking hands, she tried to fasten the straps to the loops on the saddle. One was half tied when she heard a bell. It was a faint, small bell, but she feared it might be the bell that woke the ringer to sound Matins, or worse, that the monk who made the light had seen them and was summoning others. She and Letice fled, silent, clinging to each other until they had latched the gate in the church wall behind them.

When they came near the back door, Letice pulled very gently on Magdalene’s hand. Although she was shaking with fear and fatigue, Magdalene shook her head. “I am sorry, love,” she murmured. “I know you are tired, but we must put the stable to rights. You know some of the monks wish to be rid of us. If Brother Paulinus decides he could accomplish that by saying the poor man came from this house, the stable must not look as if any animal had been there.”

Letice sighed but followed without any further urging. Together they heaved the displaced bales into position, raked the hay and any soil in it out to the manure heap at the side, and swept the grain from the floor. When they were sure no one would guess that an animal had been stabled there that night, Magdalene took up the dark lantern, blew out the candle in it, and they returned to the house. Dulcie was waiting. She had emptied the wash water and put the bowl away, dried the table, straightened the benches, and put out the candles, so there was no sign of disturbance or disorder.

“Poor creature’s asleep,” Dulcie said. “Cried herself t’ sleep. A strange sight it be t’ see tears oozin’ out from under those closed lids. Poor child. As if she didn’ have enough trouble of her own.”

“She will have no more from this,” Magdalene said, facing her maid and speaking as slowly and clearly as she could. “You never saw that man here. We knew nothing of him.” When Dulcie nodded, she sighed and added, “Since Sabina had nothing to do with it, I hope she will soon forget.” With lips thinned to a hard line, she went to put away the dark lantern, then came back to take the maid’s hand. “Thank you, Dulcie. You can go back to bed now.”

The old woman bobbed her head. “No need of thanks. You done fer me. I do fer you. This be my house much as anyone else here.”

When she had stumped away to her pallet in the kitchen, Magdalene put her arms around Letice. “Thank you, love. I do not know what I would have done without you. Is there anything else you can think of that we have left undone?”

Letice started to shake her head, then made her sign for Ella.

“I do not know what we can do about her.” Magdalene sighed. “Pray that she will have forgotten the stranger or not remember what time he was here. To say anything to her will only fix his presence in her mind.” She sighed again. “I am almost too tired to breathe. Let’s go to bed and pray that we will have time to think and clean up any loose ends in the morning.”

That prayer was not answered. Soon after Prime, the bell by the back door began to ring and ring, and went on ringing until it pierced Dulcie’s deafness. She crawled from her pallet, unshuttered a window a crack, and peered out. A tall, lean monk with ascetic hollows in his cheeks and dark circles under his eyes, carrying a staff, was yanking on the rope as if he wished to tear it down. Dulcie opened the shutter all the way.

“It be too early,” she cried. “The ladies be asleep.”

He shouted something at her, but Dulcie was sleepy and angry and did not try to make sense out of what was a dull cacophony to her. She shook her finger at him. “You should be ashamed ‘f yourself, monk that y’ are, t’ carry on so. If y’ be so hot y’ cannot wait till th’ ladies wake, hold it in yer hand or go down th’ street t’ th’ common stews.”

The monk’s face turned crimson and his eyes bulged from his head with fury. He rushed toward the window, waving his staff as if he would strike Dulcie with it. She drew back and was about to slam the shutter shut when Magdalene came into the room.

“Who is—”

By then, the monk was leaning in the window, holding the shutter back with one hand, and screaming that he had never touched a whore and never would.

“Brother Paulinus!” Magdalene exclaimed. “What is wrong? Wait. You will hurt yourself. Let me open the door.”

“Don
’
y’ do it, dearie,” Dulcie cried, shoving on the shutter. “He’s been locked up too long, he has. He’s gone all horny in th’ brain.”

“Hush,” Magdalene said, barely choking back a laugh and putting her fingers over Dulcie’s lips. Then she added loudly, “Brother Paulinus is very holy. He does not wish to use our services.”

Dulcie looked at her inquiringly, but since Magdalene had said what she did to pacify Brother Paulinus, she made no attempt to explain, only rushed to open the back door. As soon as she saw the sacristan, she had remembered what had happened the night before, which, half asleep as she was, had at first slipped her mind. It did not happen, she told herself, pretending to fumble at the lock with the large key. Last night was a night like any other, quiet. We worked; we talked; we had no guests. I am frightened only because the brother is so angry, because I do not understand what could have brought the sacristan of the priory here at this hour.

The lock gave. Magdalene pulled at the latch and the door flew open, almost striking her. She jumped back with a cry.

“I am so sorry Dulcie misspoke to you,” she gasped. “She is deaf and did not understand what you were saying to her. What can I do for you, Brother Paulinus?”

“What can you do for me? Nothing, you filthy whore! To save your own soul, you can confess your crime and prepare to pay for it!”

Magdalene’s jaw snapped shut. Despite many encounters with the monk over the years she had lived and worked in the Old Priory Guesthouse, and the fact that he was not alone in insulting her because of her profession, she could not quite come to terms with Brother Paulinus. Good intentions never held in his presence, and she never managed to act properly submissive. She did not know why others who said virtually the same things did not irritate her half as much.