A Mortal Bane(11)

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.

[page]“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?”