A Mortal Bane(21)

“The pouch,” Magdalene breathed. “He never took it off or put it aside, even when he was eating. If he did not trust the man he was to meet, he could have decided to leave it here. He would have thought that you would not see him hide it and thus it would be safe from you and from the rest of us. He stood on the chest, you say?”

[page]“I think so.” Sabina’s voice was tremulous. “Or maybe he opened it, although that is less likely. I would have heard the latch and the hinges, I think. Still, you and Letice had better come and look through all my things. Who knows what else he might have hidden?”

Magdalene agreed but bid Sabina wait while she looked carefully at the common-room chest and the area around it where she had laid the dead man’s cloak the previous afternoon. He must have taken the cloak when he went out to the church, but there was the possibility that something had dropped from it. There was nothing, not even any strands of the fur lining caught on a rough edge or splinter. Magdalene pushed the chest forward, but there was nothing behind it or on the floor. By then, Letice had returned and indicated that the stable was clear of any sign that an animal had been left there.

They went to Sabina’s room then, and the worst was over at once. Magdalene, the tallest of the women, set a low stool on the chest there and, steadied by Letice, climbed up. Behind the horizontal beams that supported the floor of the loft, there was a hollow. Stuffed into that, just beyond easy reach, was the supple leather pouch the dead man had carried. It was a good, safe spot; had not Sabina said she heard the man climb on the chest, they probably would not have found it.

Magdalene uttered a small sigh of disappointment as she pulled the pouch from its concealment. “You were right, Sabina,” she said, climbing down, the pouch caught in the crook of her arm. “But I could wish you had not been, or had remembered this last night.”

“I am sorry,” Sabina whispered.

Magdalene sighed. “Oh, no, love, of course you could not. You were half out of your mind.” Shrugging, she dropped the pouch onto the bed beside Sabina. “Still, too bad we could not push it into one of the saddlebags. Now one of us will have to go downriver and drop it in.” Then she bit her lip and added, “Letice, go and lock the back door. We will need some warning if Brother Paulinus remembers he was too busy demanding a confession to be practical and search for signs of the man’s presence. He might get a rush of sense to the head and return to do that.”

“What will you do with the pouch?” Sabina breathed.

“Hide it between my legs. Thank God, it is soft. I can wrap it in a rag and say I am bleeding. After the shock Ella gave him and our looks and laughter over his desire to question a known whore ‘alone,’ I do not think he will demand a search of my flux rags. If he does, I will simply refuse and say he wants to find an excuse for a lewd examination. Now,” she said when Letice returned, “let us search carefully. Not even a curly hair should be left behind.”

She and Letice were thorough, unfolding and shaking out every garment in the chest, looking behind it and under it, taking the mattress off the bed and examining the frame and straps. Behind the chest they found one Italian silver coin, which Magdalene laid atop the chest. When they were through searching, she picked it up again and sadly rubbed it between her fingers.

“Poor man,” she sighed. “He seemed a cheerful, kindly person.” Then she looked from the coin in her hand to the pouch, which was lying on the bed. “He was richly dressed and riding a fine horse,” she murmured thoughtfully. “And his purse was full of coins, but they were small coins. I saw when he emptied the purse into his hand to pay the fee I named. He had perhaps ten whole pennies, some halfpence, and a handful of farthings. Who will lay odds with me,” she went on, looking from one woman to the other, “that there is more coin in this pouch?”