A Mortal Bane(83)

Seynturer, married to a frigid, fanatically religious wife who had taken all too seriously the Church pronouncement that one should eschew any sexual congress except for the purpose of procreation, was one of those regular clients who came through the priory gate to conceal his visits. Having been told, with significantly raised brows, that the gate between the Old Priory Guesthouse and the priory was now locked, he had leapt to the conclusion Brother Paulinus desired and assumed the whores were guilty.

Desperate to assure himself his secret would be kept, Seynturer had come to the front gate, hooded to hide his face. He was livid with fury, excoriating Magdalene for “her crime”—less, it seemed to her, because he minded the murder than because it might lead to his exposure—and demanding that she keep his use of her establishment a secret. Although she felt like bursting into tears and shrieking curses at the sacristan, Magdalene dared not make a counteraccusation. She made herself laugh lightly.

“If you can prove to me that you are innocent of murder,” she said, “you need not fear that any of my women will spread the news that you are our client. Silence is part of our service.”

He gobbled at her, incoherent with anger for a moment, then gasped, “You are mad!”

[page]“Why? After all, it is as likely that you are guilty as that we are. More likely, perhaps. For all I know, you and Messer Baldassare were deadly enemies. As for us, it is in our interest to protect any who come to our house from harm. Your own reaction should be proof that I speak the truth. If one client is hurt, the others abandon us.”

He stared at her, hesitating because he recognized the good sense in what she said, yet he still protested, “But—but you are whores! And you were here, where the murder was committed. I was at a guild dinner on Wednesday. Many guilds have their dinners on Wednesdays.”

That was an interesting piece of information, Magdalene thought—and true, too, she believed. She realized, now that the fact had been brought clearly to her mind, that few craftsmasters visited the Old Priory Guesthouse on Wednesdays. She nodded slowly.

“We were here, but all of us were together, all of us behind locked doors. I cannot make you take my word, but I will take yours that you are innocent, and I will protect you to the best of my ability.”

That was not a lie. She had already given Bell his name, but she would certainly urge Bell to be discreet. Nonetheless, it would do no harm to lay a base to push blame elsewhere.

Before he could speak again, she went on. “But you must know that if you gave yourself away to the sacristan, there is no way I can silence him. It is he who is mad, driven not by any evidence against us, but by his own hatred of carnal weakness. If he guessed— She shrugged.

She explained yet again how ridiculous it was that she or her women should choose so stupid a way to kill—making a great mess and scandal by stabbing Baldassare on the church porch instead of protecting themselves by quietly poisoning him or strangling him in bed and dumping the body in the river. By the time she was finished, Seynturer looked rather shamefaced, his conviction that he had leapt to the wrong conclusion strongly reinforced by the knowledge that if those of the Old Priory Guesthouse were innocent, his relationship with them would be less likely to be uncovered. Magdalene then assured him that the killing was being dealt with by the bishop’s knight. Sir Bellamy of Itchen. That seemed to be a clinching argument, and their innocence was assumed since the bishop’s man had not delivered them to the sheriff.

He told her that though he believed her, he could not come again until the gate was reopened. But then Sabina entered, having taken Basyngs out the back and washed and tidied herself, and Seynturer laughed uneasily and said, since he was already in the house, he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, paid his three pence, and followed the smiling Sabina to her chamber.