A Mortal Bane(136)

“Whatever must be done were better decided in private,” Father Benin interrupted.

William and the bishop agreed at once. Each, Magdalene knew, had his own plans for the contents of the pouch, but both realized that their arguments had best be made out of public hearing. She returned to her scrubbing as the prior led the others not to the monks’ entrance, but out the main door. Her surprise lasted only a moment before she realized that the prior wished to avoid the chapel where Brother Godwine lay—as Baldassare had lain before him.

The thought brought a pang of regret into the relief she felt over the discovery of the pouch. Her hope that the killer would betray himself either by searching for it in her house or trying to discover whether she knew what had become of it had not been fulfilled. No one had searched after the stable had been turned over…except Bell.

Magdalene swallowed and scrubbed harder. No. That was mad. Even if the bishop and Bell were both monsters, what reason could Winchester have to order Baldassare’s murder? The messenger would have delivered the bull to him in any case. And neither of them could have any reason to kill Brother Godwine or meddle with the church plate.

William? No, she knew him well. He was likely enough to order a murder without a second thought, but she was ready to swear on her life that he had not known when Baldassare would arrive and had hoped, until she sent him news of the messenger’s death, that Baldassare would come to Rochester and accept his escort to the king. And William would have no more reason than Bell or the bishop to attack Godwine.

She reached the bottom, moved her stool, rinsed and wrung out her rag, and began to wash a new area of wall. She hardly realized what she had done. All she could think of was that Godwine’s death might have nothing at all to do with Baldassare’s. Or it might. Godwine was the porter at the gate. He might have recognized someone who had come in that night and not left, or had done some other suspicious thing. Had not Brother Patric said Godwine wished to pray over something that troubled him? But how did that fit with the open safe box? The faked plate? The candlestick used to kill him? Surely Brother Godwine had surprised a thief and died of it.

By dinnertime, Magdalene had got no further in her thoughts, but more than half the church had been purified and more townsfolk were coming in to help clean. Magdalene gathered her women and took them home to eat, rest, and welcome the day’s clients. They found Bell waiting for them, tired and frustrated.

“We still have not laid hands on Beaumeis,” he said to Magdalene as soon as Dulcie had disappeared into the kitchen and the other women into their chambers. “He did not show his face once at his lodging, nor in the cathedral, nor to any friend, nor in those haunts known to his friends.”

“Maybe for good reason,” Magdalene said, sinking down on the bench and wearily placing her elbows on the table. “He may have given up on getting the pouch when he did not find it in Buchuinte’s house and fled, but one thing troubles me. I cannot imagine how he could have gotten hold of the keys of the priory. No one trusted him enough to lend them to him or, probably, to allow him even to touch them to do an errand.”

“That may be true, but his absence from his lodging last night is very suspicious. And Godwine may have let him into the priory. How would we know now that Godwine is dead? Most significant is that he had the most compelling reasons to want Baldassare dead, for if Winchester did not get the bull, surely Baldassare would have spoken out about having carried it to England.”

“But how could Beaumeis have gotten the candlestick?”

[page]“I can guess that. Say Godwine went to look at the candlesticks because he had noticed something different about them. Remember he told Brother Patric he was troubled. Say he took the candlestick out and was examining it and Beaumeis came in with the intention of searching for the pouch. If Brother Godwine had been kneeling behind the altar, Beaumeis would not have seen him—whatever light he carried would have mingled with that of the altar lamp—and Godwine might not have noticed Beaumeis. If Brother Godwine then rose and saw Beaumeis, he could have challenged him, asked what he was doing, possibly even remembered that he had seen Beaumeis after Vespers on the night Baldassare was killed.”