Study of Murder, The (Five Star Mystery Series) (27 page)

“Anthony does much better,” I observed. “You must be a fine nurse.”

The lass flushed as she picked up the empty soup bowl. “I am glad of that, sir.” She stood there awkwardly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Sir,” she finally asked, “how does my father? Have you seen him? I heard in the market today that the assizes have been called.”

“I have heard that as well,” I answered. “I have not seen your father in a few days but he is safe enough for now.”

“But what if he is hanged after the assizes?”

“He swears he is innocent and I think he is. Let us hope the jurors find him so.” I sounded stuffy even to myself, and I knew little of English practices of justice. In my homeland, even if he was guilty, the man could have paid an honor price and that would have been the end of it.

“Then who murdered Master Clarkson?”

I could not answer the lass’s question and so said nothing. Avice finally left, leaving her question hanging in the air behind her, and I sat for a time, watching the flames in the fireplace flicker lower until I nodded off. I came awake with a jerk and nearly fell off my stool when Widow Tanner came in to bank the fire. I thanked her for dinner and for feeding the boys, and dragged myself upstairs.

Donald and Crispin were still working on the parchments while Anthony snored on my bed. I left them to it and went into Donald’s room, collapsed on top of the bed without even removing my outer clothes and again fell into slumber.

I woke in the morning with a start. Again I had dreamed of Mariota, adrift in some strange vessel. I struggled to remember, but it was all confused. Mariota in some large glass vessel, or mayhap it was one of Vintner Gibbes’s abandoned casks, adrift in the sea. I gave up and rubbed at my eyes, trying to push fragments of my unpleasant dreams from my mind.

The sun was full up and beside me on the bed Donald lay, snoring with his mouth open. I stood up, rearranged my disordered attire and peered into the other chamber. Both Anthony and Crispin still slept, looking like little angels in a stained-glass window, although I very well knew them to be no such thing. The kitten lay wedged between them, also asleep, stretched out on its back with its four paws in the air. None of them looked as though they would wake anytime soon.

I glanced at the metal candlestick on the table and saw that the candle had entirely burned away. On the desk next to the candlestick lay a pile of the cleaned parchments. I bent to look at them and picked up the top sheet, the drawing of the strange crenellated orb. The next page had a similar drawing. The third sheet was full of the same writing I recognized from the previous parchments, that strange script in an unrecognizable language.

Since the attack on Anthony I felt increasingly certain that these parchments had something to do with the murders. Clarkson had sold them to Bookman, I recalled. Perhaps they had some value, and Berwyk had seen them and recognized that as well, and for that reason Bookman had stabbed Master Berwyk. I gathered a few of the cleaned parchments together, bundled them up in my scrip and scribbled a note to the lads, then left the house.

As I walked down Canditch I saw the undersheriff near the pie-man’s stall. “Muirteach,” he hailed me as he paid the vendor, “I’ve news.”

“Yes?”

“We’ve finally found that Walter of York. The chapman?”

“Was Jonetta with him?” I prayed that the lass had been found safe, but the man’s next words dashed my hopes.

Grymbaud shook his grizzled head. “No. The man denies she was ever with him.” He bit into his pie.

“Where was he found?”

Grymbaud chewed awhile, then answered. “Well out of Oxfordshire, on his way home, in the village of Heptonstall. Close to home, he was. We’ve checked out his story and folk in the villages he visited remember him passing through, alone. No one remembers seeing the girl with him.”

“So either he is telling the truth—” I said.

“Or he’s slain the poor girl and secreted her body away close to town here.”

I shuddered.

“Did you find anything from Mistress Bookman yesterday?” asked Grymbaud, changing the subject before he took another bite.

“Nothing of import. I think the attack on the lad had to do with these.” I pulled one of the parchments out of my bag and showed it to the undersheriff, who took it with his free hand. “If they have value it might have been a reason for Bookman to slay Berwyk.”

The undersheriff squinted at the parchment, holding it upside down. “Gibberish, it looks like.”

“We’ve made no sense of them. But Bookman had them secreted away, so it’s possible they’re of some value. His wife found them and thought to sell them.”

“And do you know where Bookman got them?”

“He got them from Clarkson.”

The undersheriff grunted and wiped at his mouth with the parchment. “So perhaps Berwyk killed Clarkson over the parchments, and then Bookman slew Berwyk in turn. But I don’t see much use of this parchment except for an arse-wipe.”

“What of Delacey?”

Grymbaud made a face. “I questioned him but the braggart swore he had benefit of clergy and that he was innocent besides that. And it’s true, the little turd. That’s the worst of it. We’ve no evidence or witnesses to say he did the murder, and he does have benefit of clergy. A great mess of stinking perverts, all these damned scholars. And their parchments.”

“Here,” I interjected before Grymbaud could throw the parchment away on the muddy street, “let me keep this for a time.”

“Well enough, Muirteach. Well enough.”

“And what of Walter of York?”

“We’ve got him here in the castle gaol. Until we can find what happened to that girl or find her body. What might be left of it, if the crows and wolves have left any trace. We’ve the evidence of that master that the chapman was seen leaving town with Jonetta.”

“Mistress Jakeson will take this hard,” I observed.

“Indeed,” the undersheriff answered. “It’s no easy thing to lose a child. I lost three in the pestilence. My eldest would have been well grown by now.”

“I am sorry,” I said awkwardly.

Grymbaud shrugged. “Most all of us lost someone. The saints turned a blind eye to our prayers. They did us no good.”

I knew, for I had lost my mother as a lad to the plague as well.

The undersheriff continued. “But this lass was not killed by the pestilence. If she’s dead, it’s by man’s work. And a man will hang for it.”

I could not even argue with him that Jonetta might still live. It did not seem likely.

I bade Grymbaud farewell and left him, still scratching at his beard. I continued on my way down the street. It was in my mind to visit Balliol and seek out Delacey. Mistress Bookman had told me she had sold parchments to a couple that resembled Delacey and DeVyse.

When I reached Balliol, the new gatekeeper glowered at me but let me in when I gave him half a farthing. I surmised he was doing well enough at his new post, and thought Ivo had not taken such advantage of his position in the past. The assizes were to be held the next day and as of yet I had done nothing to help the old man. I pushed the thought out of my mind guiltily as I opened the wooden door to the old hall.

At table in the central room I spied Delacey finishing up his breakfast, some bread and white cheese along with a mug of ale. His face flushed unpleasantly as he saw me enter the room.

“What is it you are wanting, Muirteach? Are you not satisfied at having set Grymbaud on me?”

“You yourself told him there’s no evidence against you. And you’ve benefit of clergy, as you also pointed out. You’re safe enough, no doubt. I came to ask you something.” I sat down, uninvited, at an empty bench opposite the table from Delacey. He said nothing but waited, his mug set down on the table and his arms crossed over his chest.

“Where is Brother Eusebius?”

“At his early lecture, I presume. What’s that to do with me?”

“Nothing. I want to know what you had to do with some parchments you bought, the day before yesterday it was, at Adam Bookman’s stall.”

“Parchments . . . oh, those. Dickon bought them, not I.”

“Perhaps. Mistress Bookman remembers seeing the both of you there.”

“What of that?”

“Why did you purchase them?”

“Dickon needed some parchments. It’s easy enough to soak and clean these.”

“Is that all?”

“What else should it be?”

I noticed there was an empty mug on the table and poured myself some ale from the pitcher, ignoring Delacey’s irritated expression.

“Do you remember that parchment that the lads gave to Berwyk?”

“Aye. The one in code, that Ralph showed us?”

“When your Dickon cleans the ones he bought I’m thinking he’ll find these are the same.”

“What of it?”

I grew disgusted with Delacey’s bravado and stood up to leave. “I’m thinking that these palimpsests are tied somehow to the murders. Ours were stolen. If your Dickon values his parchments then I’d advise him to hide them well. And to watch his back. The lad Anthony was attacked over the sheets he owned.” With that I left the room and the hall.

I walked rapidly up Canditch and passed the widow’s, wondering briefly if the lads were awake yet. The little dog Rufous came bounding toward me in the street, barking, but he quieted when he smelled my hand. I decided I’d not mind the company, missing Somerled, and let the dog tag along beside me. I turned up the street that led north and passed the walls of the Austin Friars’ on the right, walking rapidly with Rufous up the street. I passed the Benedictines’ college on the left, then Vintner Gibbes’s house, until I reached the area where Phillip had found Mariota’s ring in the mud. With the dog by my side I turned off the road and into the yard of the abandoned house. It looked as I had left it, the loose shutter still flapping in the breeze. I looked about for the barrel but did not see it. Perhaps Vintner Gibbes had come and fetched it back.

I found a log in the back and rolled it over under the window, with Rufous yapping at my heels in excitement. Standing on the log I was able to hoist the dog up and push him through the window, then make my own way through after him. The dog barked excitedly while I awkwardly wriggled in. The bench still stood below the window where Phillip and I had left it and I landed on it with a thump.

The empty hall looked just as it had before and the house seemed undisturbed. But Rufous ran through the dusty rushes barking wildly until he came to the side room where he nosed excitedly about the trunk. My heart sank as I looked at it—a large wooden chest with a complex iron lock. I pushed at it and jiggled it, but the lock stayed stubbornly shut tight. The little dog kept yapping.

The lock was somewhat rusted, old, and I surmised that perhaps I could break it if I could just find a mallet or some such tool. I walked back into the main hall but saw nothing of use. So I climbed the bench, wormed my way through the window again, my bad leg quivering with the strain, and searched around outside the house until I found a large rock near the back edge of the yard, close to the woods, that might serve as a hammer. Then I repeated the somewhat laborious process of climbing back into the house, my leg now starting to ache in earnest.

Rufous yipped, glad to see me, as I landed heavily once again on the bench. I sat up, brushed myself off and walked back into the side room with the chest. The lock looked still sturdy, the rust not too far advanced. I pounded at it for some time, my arms aching while Rufous sat by, watching attentively, one ear cocked up. Finally, the lock cracked and the lid opened a little, and I was able to pry it up, smashing my knuckles in the process.

The old leather hinges creaked as I raised the lid. I peered inside while my heart hammered in my breast. But all I saw was empty space. The trunk held nothing.

Discouraged, I collapsed on the floor against it. I am not sure what I had expected to find, perhaps some putrid remains. I felt relief, at least, that it had not been what I’d feared the most. Slumped against the trunk, I leaned my back against its bulk and closed my eyes a moment, the empty chest sliding a little from my weight. I felt a furry warmth in my lap and a wet tongue and realized Rufous had crawled in my lap and was licking at my ear. I patted the dog absently a moment before I opened my eyes, pushed the dog out of my lap and made to stand up, leaning my hand on the trunk as I levered my body up.

Rufous barked again and I bent down to pat him some more when I spied something in the floor—a joint in the wood planks that looked overly wide. Curious, I shoved the chest further aside and saw a wooden trap door with an iron ring for a handle on it.

I tugged at the ring and with effort was able to pull the door up and open. I peered down into the blackness. A wooden ladder descended into the undercroft, dimly lit by the light from the upstairs room. Rufous continued to yap. I took a deep breath and began to climb down the ladder.

The undercroft was a large room. I stood on the packed dirt floor and looked around. A faint light filtered down from the open trap door. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light I realized the cellar was not empty. Some large vats sat on the floor and in the further recesses of the space I saw a table and what looked like wooden coops of some kind.

A scent in the room teased at my nostrils. Something foul, like waste, and perhaps the acrid scent of fear. From above, the little dog still barked and I found I was glad of the companionship.

I walked closer, feeling my way past the vats and over to a table. A lantern stood there with a rush light lying nearby. I placed it in the holder and found flint and tinder there and struck a light. As the rush light caught and flickered, lightening the darkness, I saw a pile of parchments on the table. I picked one up and recognized the script and figures. Ink, quills, and pots of colors sat on the table as well.

A rustle from the corner startled me and I glanced up, peering into the darkness. In the furthest recess of the undercroft—I judged it to be under the furthest end of the great hall—I realized one of the strange coop-like structures held a white form and my heart began to pound frantically.

“Mariota!” I called, my throat tight. I thought I heard a faint cry and my heart began to pound like some wild thing.