A Mortal Bane(153)

“A Master William, a clerk, he said.”

The bishop’s face showed his anger and disappointment. “But there is no Master William—” He stopped abruptly and uttered a bark of laughter. “I am so surprised and shocked that my wits are wandering. Of course he would give a false name. Very well, bring in the goldsmith.”

[page]While Bell and the bishop had been talking, Magdalene had risen, pushed the stool under the table, and stepped back against the wall, now a foot or so to the right of Winchester. In rising, she had stepped on the trailing edge of her long veil so that it fell on the floor. Her mind was on the discussion they had had and she absently picked the veil up and stood staring down at it, holding it loosely in her hands without draping it over her head again. She was as shocked as the bishop, hardly able to believe the near conviction she shared with him and Bell. It seemed strange to know someone so long and never suspect that kind of evil in him.

She looked up but was careful not to stare. And it was strange also that so momentous a truth had been uncovered without in the least affecting anyone but those who had uncovered it. Everyone else seemed most innocently occupied with his own immediate concerns. Then the door opened and Bell quietly ushered in a tubby man with a red nose and a blue bruise on his temple. Placing himself so that his body shielded the goldsmith from casual scrutiny, Bell guided him toward the table. The prior turned to look, but Magdalene thought he could see little except the back of the man’s head. The prior looked anxious, but there was reason enough for that if he thought the bishop was going to be diverted to business other than the reconsecration of his church.

Master Domenic meanwhile was bobbing a whole series of bows to Winchester and babbling in an awed whisper about how much he was honored by the bishop’s approval of his copies.

“They were good copies,” the bishop said, also quietly. “At first we could not tell them from the originals.”

No guilt disturbed Master Domenic’s expression; in fact, he beamed. “Oh, were they compared? I did not know that would be possible. I knew the originals were Master Jacob the Alderman’s work and were borrowed and had to be returned quickly, but I thought….” His brow wrinkled. “Surely Master William told me the copies were to go into his master’s chapel in Oxford. Oh, well, it does not matter. As long as you saw them, my lord, and appreciated the work.”

“Oh, indeed I did,” Winchester remarked dryly. “They were brought to my attention” —irresistibly his head was drawn around, and his eyes fixed for a moment before he went on— “by some very unusual circumstances.”

The goldsmith had naturally followed the direction in which Winchester had looked. “Why, there is Master William,” he said with pleased surprise, his voice much louder than it had been when he spoke to the bishop.

In that moment, Guiscard de Tournai looked up from the parchment on which he had been trying to squeeze the priest’s and archbishop’s phrasing into a space too small for it. His expression changed the goldsmith’s pleasure into doubt as he realized that “Master William” should not be scribing at the Bishop of Winchester’s table, but in Oxford with his copies of the candlesticks.

“I only wanted to express my gratitude, Master William, for bringing my work to the bishop’s notice,” Domenic said, his voice now somewhat tremulous with uncertainty and his eyes shifting swiftly to gauge the bishop’s expression.

“You fool!” Guiscard shouted and snatched up the knife with which he had sharpened his quills.

The roar of his voice startled everyone into immobility, except Bell, who thrust himself between the goldsmith and Guiscard, pushing the tubby man back so hard that he staggered well away from the table. Bell started to draw his sword, but Guiscard had no interest in a worthless revenge. He leapt instead for the bishop, right past Magdalene, who was as frozen as anyone else, and before Winchester could move, he had seized the bishop’s head in his left hand and with the right pressed his knife, which was small but very sharp and with a keen point, to the bishop’s neck, just under the ear where a big vein pulsed.