A Mortal Bane(54)

Buchuinte stepped through the gate and held out his hands to Magdalene, who took them with a beaming smile and pressed them gently. Suppressing an insane desire to leap out, draw his sword, and smash the smile off that confident face, Bell silently watched them enter the house. He stood glaring at the door after it had closed, cursing the man who was about to have what he could not. And then he took a deep breath and reminded himself that he could, too, have it—for the price of five silver pennies—and had to swallow, and swallow again, as sickness rose in his throat. That was not how he wanted Magdalene.





Chapter Seven



21 April 1139





Old Priory Guesthouse



“Oh, Master Buchuinte,” Magdalene said as soon as she had closed the door of the house behind her, “the most dreadful thing has happened. There has been a murder, right on the north porch of the church.”

“A murder!”

“Yes, and of a papal messenger—”

“What?” Buchuinte roared, making Magdalene gasp and draw back. “A papal messenger? You mean Baldassare?”

“Oh, heavens,” Magdalene breathed. “You knew him?”

The man’s dark skin had turned a sickly gray. “When?” he asked. “When did this happen?”

Magdalene wondered whether he had deliberately ignored her question, but she answered his. “Wednesday night, we think. We only learned on Thursday morning when—”

“Wednesday night?” Buchuinte echoed, his dark eyes nearly popping from his head. “Wednesday? The day I was here? You mean Baldassare was here, too?”

“No. That is, yes, he did stop here but he did not stay with us.” She put a hand on his arm. “Oh, do come and sit down, Master Buchuinte. I can see that you have had a dreadful shock. I had no idea you knew Messer Baldassare, or I would not have spoken so bluntly.”

“I cannot believe it,” he muttered, following her to the table and dropping down on a bench. He looked up, but his eyes did not see her. “He had told me he had to meet someone that night and could not stay. That was why I did not send a messenger to cancel my appointment here.”

“Did he say whom he would meet? And where?” Magdalene tried to keep her voice low and without inflection.

“No. No. He spoke of the meeting only because I said I would change my plans for the afternoon. He told me he could not stay because he was later than he had expected to be in arriving at London and a meeting he had arranged was set for that very night. He said that he would come back to London and visit with me after he had delivered a message to the king.” Buchuinte passed a hand over his face and shook his head. “Perhaps he would have told me more but did not wish to speak too freely before his traveling companion.”

“Was he on ill terms with the man?” Magdalene asked. Baldassare had seemed more amused by Beaumeis’s misdirection than angry. Did Buchuinte, who had been in her house on the night Baldassare was killed, have some reason to make it seem Baldassare and Beaumeis were enemies? That doubt was settled immediately.

“No, not at all,” Buchuinte said, still looking dazed and as if he was answering while his mind was elsewhere. “I would say he and Richard de Beaumeis liked one another. But Beaumeis was a churchman, a dean in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s service, and what Baldassare was carrying might have been something the pope wished to have kept secret until the person who was to receive it had the news.”

“Did they leave together, Beaumeis and Baldassare?”