A Mortal Bane(152)

[page]The bishop smiled. “It was not so bad as that,” he said. “The butcher had grown rich, and his father had come up in the world. He was a physician, and a good one. He was my own physician until he died some years ago.”

Bell suddenly stiffened to attention and his glance flashed across the room. However, the bishop’s voice had been low, no doubt because he did not wish to waken curiosity about his easy conversation with a whore, and no one in the room was taking notice. Brother Patric was listening with an expression of mingled joy and anxiety to what Father Benin was saying; Brother Elwin and some of the other monks were nodding agreement, and the infirmarian had a hand on Brother Patric’s arm. Knud had moved to stand nearer the sacristan, who was staring across the room at a window, his face pallid and stone hard. Buchuinte was now listening intently to the priest of St. Paul’s and nodding, while the archdeacon seemed to have won some argument, because Guiscard was using a pumice stone to smooth over a line he had scraped off the record he was writing.

“A physician?” Suddenly the laughter was all gone from Magdalene’s voice, and Bell turned to look at her. Her eyes had become unnaturally large as she stared at Winchester. “A physician,” she repeated. “My lord, was he always meant for the Church, or did he first study to be a physician?” she asked urgently.

Bell stared at her, startled again by the quickness of her mind. She never forgot anything, it seemed, and saw the significance of the man’s first training.

“What does it matter?” Winchester asked, puzzled but also slightly amused by her interest.

“It does matter, my lord,” Bell said, coming quickly to the table and leaning forward across it to speak softly. “I cannot remember whether I troubled you with a description of Baldassare’s death wound, but it was delivered in one clean stroke by a man who knew just where to put his knife. That wound always made me doubtful of Beaumeis’s guilt. I thought it must have been dealt by a man accustomed to bearing arms—and I wasted a great deal of lime discovering where Magdalene’s noble patrons were on that night. Fool that I was, I never thought that a butcher or a physician would have the same knowledge.”

Winchester’s face had frozen, the half-smile still on his lips. “He did study to be a physician,” he said, the smile disappearing into a grimly set mouth. “It gave him Latin and made him specially good at writing a clear letter of explanation. He wrote more simply than a clerk trained in theological disputation. I told you I knew his father and that he had attended me. He was a good man, and when he came to me and asked if I could find a place for his son because the young man hated being a physician, I was glad to do it.”

“Then he would know exactly where to put a knife,” Bell said even more softly, nodding. His eyes flicked around the room again, came back to Winchester, and he took a deep breath. “And there is no one in St. Albans for him to visit. His mother died two years ago.”

‘Two years ago,” the bishop repeated.

“Well, my lord,” Bell said, still softly but now with a brisk intonation, “we will have proof very soon, I hope. The goldsmith I was about to send for came all on his own and is waiting in the hall without.”

“Came on his own,” the bishop repeated, as if he did not understand what Bell had said. He was a little pale and had some difficulty preventing himself from staring.

“Yes. Master Domenic knows we found the craftmark. He is very proud of his copies and thinks you wish to order more work from him.”

“This is no time for worrying about a thief. We must—” Winchester blinked and shook his head, seeming to remember that the thief and the murderer were almost certainly the same person. “Did he name the man who ordered the copies?” he asked eagerly.