A Play of Treachery (29 page)

Left there with a candle, Joliffe had drowsed with his head on the table until jarred awake by the door from Master Doncaster’s opening and Master Roussel coming in. At the same time a slow tread up stairs beyond the room’s other door brought Master Wydeville, who now stood tapping his fingers on the table and looking as if he wished there were a way to pry more out of Joliffe.

Master Roussel, with a hip hitched on the table’s edge across from Master Wydeville, said, “Secrets. Whose secrets? This Alizon’s? What secrets would she have that he would want? Her own or someone else’s?”

“Secrets worth a secret meeting and murder?” Master Wydville said. “I would have to think they were someone else’s.”

“Then what else he said at the last—could he have been trying to say ‘Lady Jacquetta’?” Master Roussel asked.

That matched one of Joliffe’s own thoughts in the time he had had to think about Durevis’ final slurred sounds, and wearily Master Wydeville agreed, “That’s what I have to fear. That the secrets have to do with Lady Jacquetta.”

“Secrets that this Alizon was going to tell to him?” Master Roussel mused. “Or secrets he was going to tell to her? Or was it secrets
for
Lady Jacquetta, that this Alizon was to take to her? Was she killed to stop her telling secrets, or to stop her hearing them?”

“All questions we’ll ask Master Durevis when he comes back to his senses,” Master Wydeville said. “That and some few other things.”

“Questions to be asked of Lady Jacquetta, too?” Master Roussel suggested.

Master Wydeville nodded slowly. “When I know more, yes, she’ll have to be asked things, too.”

“You’ve put someone to watch this Durevis where he is?”

“Two men. With order to sleep turn and turn about, and eat and drink nothing given them there. The surgeon could be part of whatever it is, rather than simply the first one Durevis came to.”

Joliffe, not liking the feeling he was a tool that had served its purpose and been set aside, to go unnoticed until needed again, asked, “So is Master Durevis somebody’s spy?”

“We have to think so,” said Master Wydeville. “Whether French or Burgundian we don’t know yet.” He looked at Master Roussel. “Which is more likely?”

“We can only guess until he says, but my guess would be Burgundian. Did he come with Lady Jacquetta, when she married my lord of Bedford?”

“No. He came a year ago, when some of her people returned to her brother’s household and others took their place. There’s been no sign he is a spy. Meaning he’s a skilled one, if he is.”

“He only began to be particularly friendly with Lady Alizon after Shrovetide,” Joliffe said.

“True,” Master Wydeville said. “Before then, he favored none of the demoiselles more than another.”

“Until his quarrel, if that’s what it was, with Lady Jacquetta in the garden,” Joliffe said.

It came to him belatedly that this was something he might have done well to tell Master Wydeville at the time, but Master Wydeville only nodded now, showing no particular surprise. Because he was not surprised? Joliffe suddenly, sharply, wondered, while Master Roussel asked, “Are we going to suppose, for now, this Durevis has told true what happened in the garden?”

Master Wydeville looked at Joliffe. “You saw his wound. Could he have given it to himself?”

“Not where it was in his back. He might get his arm twisted around to there, but not deliver a dagger-blow like that one.”

“It was a dagger?” Master Wydeville asked.

“A narrow-bladed one, I’d say. Assuredly not a sword.”

“It was a narrow dagger that was used on Alizon,” Master Wydeville said. “I saw the wound with the coroner. But I’d judge it was not used expertly. Not by someone used to such work. It lacked the look of an experienced kill.”

“A woman maybe did it?” Master Roussel asked.

“I would doubt it. There was considerable strength behind the strike. But it was not under the ribs and up, not a clean in-and-out.” That was the dry judgment of an expert considering a problem, well-removed from the reality of a steel blade driven into a girl’s soft, living flesh. “He struck between ribs, and the blade partly cut into a rib, deeply enough that a hard and twisted jerk was needed to wrench it free and have it out. The wound it made was large enough to account for how much she bled in the very few moments it must have taken her to die.”

“Master Durevis’ wound was likewise poorly done,” Joliffe offered.

“So, all in all, what he says and what we saw in the garden fit together. Someone was there before him and killed Alizon, waited for him, stabbed him, and ran away. By way of the gate, he said. Not out the door.”

“Yes,” Joliffe said. “So whoever it was had to have been waiting outside the gate. The garden has no hiding places.”

“Taking a raw chance that the afternoon shadows and the leafless trees at the greensward’s end would hide him from someone chancing to look out an upper window,” Master Wydeville said grimly. “Which they did.”

“We are supposing that this Durevis has not lied, did not bring the other man with him,” Master Roussel put in. “Then was betrayed by him.”

“Alizon was stabbed some while before he found her,” Joliffe said. “Long enough for her blood to have begun to thicken.”

“That would not take long. It was a cold afternoon,” Master Roussel pointed out.

“It would still take at least a little while,” Joliffe returned.

“For now I think we have to follow what he has said happened,” Master Wydeville said. His weariness was becoming more marked. “Questions are already started at the
hôtel
of who was where when in the afternoon. There’s always hope someone chanced to see something and has not thought about it yet.” He rubbed at his face. “That will be for tomorrow, though. Tonight . . .”

“There is still the matter of Tom Kechyn,” said Master Roussel.

Master Wydeville dropped his hands with a sound not quite a groan. “Kechyn. I had forgotten. You had him out of Paris easily?”

“No. There was trouble at the end. I’m worried that word came as fast as we did, that there will be watch and search for him here in Rouen.”

Master Wydeville swore, but he was thinking while he did because he followed with, “Then best he be away more quickly than they will suppose likely. The
Bonhomme
sails on the dawn tide. He will have to take his own chances at Honfleur, but he should be ahead of pursuit enough by then if he sails now.”

“Perrette came in this afternoon. She could see to having him aboard.”

“Good,” Master Wydeville agreed. “Did it go well with her?”

“So she said, the few words we’ve had. She’ll tell you more later, surely.”

Master Wydeville accepted that with a nod. “I haven’t asked you, either, how matters go in Paris.”

Master Roussel paused before answering tautly, “I would not go back there if I did not have to.”

“What of your father?”

“He still thinks there may be hope. I wish he was out of there.”

“So do I,” Master Wydeville said grimly. The silent pause between the two men then had many unsaid but understood things between them, before Master Wydeville added, “Take Master Ripon to go with Perrette and Kechyn. He can serve to guard their backs.”

Something to eat and the chance to lie down and sleep were what Joliffe had been hoping for, but seeing Perrette again would be good, and he dragged himself to his feet as Master Roussel stood up from the tabletop and Master Wydeville left the room. In silence, Master Roussel lighted the small wick in the oil of a shallow clay lamp he had brought with him, put out the candle, and still in silence, led Joliffe out the other way and across Master Doncaster’s practice room to where another poorly painted wall-hanging hid another low door that let them into what plainly served the Roussels as a storage chamber. Handing the lamp to Joliffe for a moment, Master Roussel shoved a large and apparently heavy willow-woven hamper to block and hide the door, took back the lamp, and led the way down through the house, first by way of ladder-steep stairs into a bedchamber where no one stirred, either behind the bedcurtains or on the blanket-humped truckle-bed beside it, then across that chamber and down more stairs to a passage and along it to the expected kitchen door. It was shut, and although there was candle-glow along its sill, there were no sounds beyond it. Master Roussel made an uneven pattern of knocks on its wood, paused, then opened it wide, all the way back to the wall.

To be sure of no one behind it, Joliffe thought as he followed Master Roussel into the room’s welcome warmth, and wondered what it was like to live a life where you could not be sure of going into your own kitchen safely.

A man unknown to Joliffe sat on the bench near the hearth, leaning wearily forward on his arms. Beyond him, Perrette was turning from the fire with a thick slice of newly-toasted bread on a long-handled fork. Master Roussel’s lamp guttered out as he set it beside the candle already burning on the table, and the man straightened, to greet him with, “How does it go? Anything further amiss?”

“You’re to sail with the present tide,” Master Roussel returned. “The sooner you’re in England with what you know, the better. Perrette, will you be able to get him to the
Bonhomme
unnoted, do you think?”

Having closed the door, Joliffe was going toward the table as Perrette slid the toasted bread from the fork onto a wooden cutting board beside a quarter of cheese while answering, frowning, “Yes. Probably. Will they be looking hard for him?”

“I don’t know. Possibly.”

Rising and going to the table, the man who must be Kechyn drew the board, bread, cheese, and a knife toward himself and said, “If it’s Ambroise le Jeusne heading the hunt, they’ll be hunting hard.”

He had began to cut a piece of cheese, and Perrette asked Master Roussel and Joliffe. “Are you hungry?”

Master Roussel said, “No.” Joliffe said, “Yes.”

She turned the fork and offered it to him handle first. “So am I. Thank you.”

Joliffe took one of the slices of bread lying already cut on the table, speared it on the fork, and went to crouch on his heels beside the low fire, leaving Perrette and Master Roussel to sit down on a bench opposite Kechyn and begin talking of possible ways to have him safely and—for preference secretly—to the ship, to keep the hunt up for him here in Rouen while he was well away. Not knowing who Kechyn was or why he was hunted or by whom, Joliffe only somewhat listened at first, intent on getting food into his hungry stomach. He surrendered the first slice of toast to Perrette. When he came with his own to sit on the bench, Perrette, without turning from her talk, handed him a piece of cheese already cut. He did not interrupt their talk with thanks but settled to eating, finally taking a full look at the man Perrette was expected to get unnoticed to a ship.

His first thought was “small chance” if any kind of watch at all was being kept. To the good, the man was only of average build and probably height, but he was an even-featured, rosy-cheeked Englishman with curly yellow hair. A hood might serve to cover the hair, but anyone looking for him would be watching for something as obvious as a close-fastened hood; it would merely draw their suspicious heed to his face, and it was an open, easily remembered face.

That was Perrette’s thought, too, it seemed. She was arguing they should wait and send him with some pilgrims leaving for Canterbury and other English shrines in a few days, saying, “Better he reach there alive and later than be dead here because of our over-haste.”

“If I thought keeping him a few days hidden would better his chances, I would agree,” Master Roussel returned. “But I greatly doubt they will. He would have to be moved from here, as well. I’ve nowhere for him, and neither Wydeville’s nor Doncaster’s is altogether safe anymore.”

Around a mouthful of bread and cheese, Joliffe said, “I know how to get him away.”

Master Roussel, Perrette, and Kechyn all looked at him as if he had suddenly appeared from nowhere. Joliffe swallowed the bread and cheese and said, “I’ll show you.”

It did not take long. Some grease from the pot kept near the hearth for greasing pans served to flatten the man’s curls, and ashes combed into it turned his hair a weary gray. Then Joliffe asked for honey, lard, and brown flour. Master Roussel, probably with a wary thought of what his wife would have to say about this rifling of her kitchen, found them and brought them to where Joliffe was now straddling the bench with Kechyn seated facing him. Master Roussel was about to sit down with Perrette on the table’s other side to watch whatever Joliffe would do next, but Joliffe asked, “Can you get me some women’s clothing?”

“Hai!” Kechyn protested.

“Not for you,” Joliffe said and added to Master Roussel, “A gown that will cover me, and a coif and a headkerchief. Very plain if possible.”

By the time Master Roussel returned with a faded green gown, a coif, and headkerchief, Joliffe had almost finished with the man, who now had a round, fat nose, lumpy cheeks and a dull-fleshed face.

Master Roussel, stopped in the doorway with a soft exclaim. Perrette, who was having trouble holding back from laughter, looked around to him and asked, “Yes?”

“Yes!” Master Roussel agreed.

Joliffe stood up and stepped back to judge his work, wiping his hands on a cloth and warning, “It won’t hold for long, so we had best leave now. Give me the gown.” He was glad to see it would go over his doublet. His cloak would serve, hopefully, to hide the unlikely shape of him in it.

Master Roussel handed him the gown while looking a question to Perrette, who answered, “It seems the fellow had an overly merry last night in Rouen. His two lady-friends are loath to part with him. Or maybe we fear he will not find his way to his ship on his own.”

When Joliffe was ready, Kechyn took up a strapped sack he must have brought with him. Led by Perrette, they went out by way of Master Roussel’s rear yard into the alley but only a short way along it before she opened a well-oiled gate and led them into a passageway so narrow it was barely there between two houses that joined above it, roofing it into pitchy darkness. Lesser darkness at its further end showed where it ended at a street, partly blocked by another gate at which Perrette ordered in a whisper, “Stand.”