A Mortal Bane(60)

Winchester watched Bell bend a slice of meat in half with his knife, push the point through it, and raise it to his mouth. “That is strange,” he said slowly. “I think you will have to ask Prior Benin—no, he is away at the mother house of his order and will not be back until tomorrow, so he cannot be faulted for this. It is Brother Paulinus, the sacristan, who is in charge.” Winchester smiled thinly. “Yes. Ask Brother Paulinus why I needed to hear this news a day late from a whore. And what else?”

Bell smiled also. Then, between chewing and swallowing, he told Winchester everything he had seen and learned, including the position and shape of the wound, which implied Baldassare had known and trusted his killer, and the fact that with the guesthouse gate locked at dark and the porter on duty at the priory gate, it must be one of those within the walls who was guilty.

“Or someone who came in before the gates were locked,” Winchester said. “But let us deal first with those known to us. You have questioned the women and do not believe them guilty?”

Bell shrugged. “No, not of murder.” Except Magdalene, he thought. She knows too much of murder. But he went on smoothly. “The mute is too small. Baldassare slept with the blind woman, Sabina, but I cannot see how she could have placed the knife so cleanly. And the idiot…no. One must experience Ella to believe her, but murder with a knife is not possible.”

[page]“Mute? Blind? Idiot?” Winchester said, shaking his head doubtfully.

Bell laughed. “I had forgotten you have never been there and know none except Magdalene. She says she chose her women on the ‘hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil’ principle and that her wealthy and powerful clients are more comfortable with women they believe cannot identify them.”

“Very well. I never thought Magdalene or anyone she controlled guilty. She is too clever to get caught with a dead body so near her as the church porch or to permit so bloody a death. If she were guilty, her victim would be clean and neat and no one would ever know how, when, or where he had died. So, the monks and their guests?”

“I will have no trouble questioning the monks. I have already told Brother Godwine, the porter, that the way to escape the pope’s blame for allowing his messenger to be slaughtered on their doorstep is to find the killer and see that Baldassare is avenged.”

“Very good. Very good indeed.” Winchester hesitated, surprised by Bell’s expression, and then asked, “Why do you look so black?”

“Guests,” Bell snarled through set teeth. “Those women so befuddled me that I forgot to ask the names of the men who were with them the night Baldassare died.”

“Ah, well,” Winchester said indulgently, “that is not something that a few hours will change. Nor will the men disappear. Mostly the same men come there, and all her clients are recommended by others.”

“But she took Baldassare—”

“No, he had a recommendation of sorts,” Winchester said, his voice cold and his lips stiff. “Richard de Beaumeis told Baldassare to go to the Old Priory Guesthouse—only, he called it the Bishop of Winchester’s inn.”

Bell was surprised by the bishop’s controlled rage when he mentioned Beaumeis, for the name meant nothing to him, but the last phrase explained it. “I think that pup needs a lessoning,” he remarked, his hand dropping to his sword hilt.

“Not from you,” Winchester said quickly. “He knows you as my man. It will only give him another cause to complain of my persecution to his new master ” —the bishop’s mouth pursed and twisted as if he had swallowed a bitter draught— “the Archbishop of Canterbury.”