A Mortal Bane(33)

Sir Bellamy looked down at Guiscard de Tournai, who wore dark but rich clerical robes. The clerk was seated on a stool set about the middle of the table. A brazier burned at his elbow and a sheet of parchment lay before him.

“Where the devil have you been for the last three days, Guiscard?” Sir Bellamy asked.

The clerk lifted his head. Although he was seated and Sir Bellamy loomed over him, he managed to give the impression that he was looking down his nose. “I do not see that it is any of your affair, but I do not mind telling you. I was in St. Albans, visiting my mother.”

“Sorry.” Bell smiled, one side of his mobile mouth lifting higher than the other. “I forgot. You go to visit her whenever we are in London.”

Guiscard, who always pretended to be deep in the bishop’s confidence and indispensable, often annoyed him, but Bell swallowed his irritation because he understood; Guiscard was only a physician’s son—worse, a butcher’s grandson—and he felt the need to be important, to make himself the equal of the better-born secretaries. Still, he visited his “common” mother. Bell now felt guilty, and ashamed.

“You are a good son—” he began and stopped.

A tall woman, holding her veil modestly before her face, approached the table. There was, however, nothing else modest in the woman’s manner. She had not lingered on the outer edge of the quiet area, waiting to be gestured forward. After casting him a single glance that dismissed him, she came to face the clerk.

“I have urgent news for the bishop, Master Guiscard,” she said. “Would you please tell him I am here and that if he has the time, I would like a few words in private.”

Bell blinked, partly at the demand but equally at the assurance in the low, rich voice. It was quite plain that the woman expected Guiscard to recognize her and to accede to her request.

The clerk glanced at her and then away, as if he did know her but did not wish to. However, he spoke in a civil if colorless voice. “The Bishop of Winchester does not receive women in private. If you will leave your name and describe your business, I will see that he is informed of it as soon as he has time.”

“Do not be ridiculous,” the woman began, then sighed. “Sorry, Master Guiscard. I thought you would recognize me. I am Magdalene la Batarde of the Old Priory Guesthouse. You must remember. William of Ypres recommended me to the bishop and you came with an offer to rent the guesthouse. You showed me the house. Really, I must speak with the bishop. I assure you I would not intrude on him without good reason.”

“I do not care who you are,” Guiscard retorted sharply. “Only the king himself could expect so busy a man as the Bishop of Winchester to put aside all his affairs to attend to him on the moment. For such a woman as you—”

“I tell you my news is urgent and the bishop needs to hear it,” she exclaimed, her voice rising.

[page]“Whore!” Guiscard snarled. “How dare you! Get you out—”

Bell stood up, troubled by Guiscard’s reaction and by the woman’s urgency. He knew what the Old Priory Guesthouse was; he had been the one sent to clean out the nest of vipers that had gathered there over the years until word of the excesses came to Henry of Winchester. So the woman probably was literally a whore, not merely so named because Guiscard was annoyed with her. But if the woman was William of Ypres’s whore, she had a powerful protector, and it was not likely she would have come to Winchester unless her news concerned the bishop himself.

“Guiscard,” Bell began just as the door opened and the Bishop of Winchester himself came out.