“Used a hammer, you think?” Sir Roger said.
“Or some such device. A rock would serve, or a small block of wood, such as would have been used to thrust the bodkin into Sir Henry’s brain.”
“Lady Margery wishes to return to her home,” Lord Gilbert said. To Sir Roger he continued, “What shall we tell her? When she leaves she will take the guilty with her.”
“Good riddance,” the sheriff said. “But tell her that if she wishes for her husband’s murderer to be discovered she must remain until the man is found out.”
I saw Lord Gilbert’s lips draw tight at the thought of Lady Margery remaining longer in Bampton Castle. Sir Henry was, at first, a welcome guest, but my employer had found his wife to be a greater burden even than Sir Henry had become. Little could please her. Her loaf was stale, or there was not enough wood delivered to her chamber to take away the morning chill, or the musicians and jongleurs Lord Gilbert provided for entertainment were unfit.
I produced the bloody scrap of linen from my pouch and displayed it before Lord Gilbert and the sheriff. Before it became so stained it had been purest white.
“To what use was this put, you think, before it was used to mop up a dead man’s blood?”
Sir Roger took the cloth from me and examined it. “Could be some fellow’s kirtle,” he said.
“Or some woman’s,” Lord Gilbert replied.
If this was so, the murderer was likely some gentleman in Sir Henry’s household, for grooms, or even valets employed by one so impoverished as Sir Henry was said to be, were unlikely to wear linen. Plain wool must do for such folk.
Next I held the bodkin before me. “To what purpose was this first put? Or was it made for the purpose of murder?”
Both men shrugged, being unfamiliar with tools. Men in their employ might know better the answer to that question.
“The farrier might have made such an object. Or Edmund,” Lord Gilbert said.
Edmund the smith is not a friend. His past behavior has required that I speak to him firmly, even threaten the fellow upon occasion. This was not a task I enjoyed, as the smith, like others who follow his craft, is a beefy sort while I am shaped like a reed along Shill Brook.
“Your farrier has already seen the thing,” Sir Roger said. “If he knew of it, seems to me he would have said, it being found in an odd place, where it was not needed to be.”
Lord Gilbert nodded approval of this theory. So it was left to me to seek Edmund Smith and learn what I could from him. I placed awl and bloody cloth in my pouch, bid Sir Roger and Lord Gilbert “Good day,” and set off for the castle gatehouse. As I left the solar I heard Lord Gilbert direct John Chamberlain to bring wine. The sheriff, whose duty this should be, would enjoy a cup of malmsey, or perhaps claret, while I sought enlightenment from a strapping man who dislikes me. His wife cares little for me, as well, but I have already written of that tale.
CHAPTER 5
Being in no hurry to seek a favor of the smith, I lingered at the bridge over Shill Brook to watch the bubbling stream make its way to the Thames. How long, I wondered, would it take a twig to float to London? I picked up a bit of broken branch the size of a finger and tossed it into the stream. Would I discover Sir Henry’s murderer before it drifted past the Tower? I would not do so gazing into the brook. Pleasant things are oft unprofitable. Were it otherwise, all men would be prosperous.
For all his great strength Edmund must have feeble nostrils. The power of his odor is as great as his arms. The man does strenuous and filthy work, ’tis true, but seems not to mind the accumulation of grime and sweat which he seldom scours away.
So I was prepared for the fragrance of Edmund’s forge when I entered the place; a mixture of coal smoke, hot iron, and unwashed humanity. Edmund looked up from his anvil as my shadow darkened his open door, saw who it was who entered, then returned to hammering at a slab of red-hot iron. I waited while the work cooled. Then the smith placed it back amongst the coals and turned to his bellows.
“Have you ever made such a tool as this?” I said, holding the slender, pointed rod before him and trying to breathe through my mouth. I wondered if the smith’s stench would linger upon me so that Kate would demand I disrobe in the toft and bathe before entering Galen House.
Edmund squinted at the awl and mistook it for a nail. “Aye… make nails all the time. You never see one before?” he added sarcastically.
“’Tis no nail. Here, look closely. What is its use, you think?”
“Ah, a bodkin. Made one for Bogo Tailor. That was long ago, him bein’ dead nearly five years.”
“Of what use was it to the tailor?”
“Poked holes in leather an’ canvas an’ stuff as was too tough for ’is needle to pierce.”
“Could this be the bodkin you made?”
Edmund snorted. “’Ow could I know that? They’re all alike… an’ it’s been years past.”
“You’ve not been asked to make anything similar since?”
“Nay,” he said, and turned back to his bellows.
I had not entered Edmund’s forge expecting to learn much, so was not disappointed. I left the forge and walked up Church View Street to Galen House, where I also expected to learn little. This assumption, however, proved wrong.
Kate was preparing our supper, Bessie at the hem of her cotehardie, when I opened our door. Kate was bent over the hearth, frying a dish of hanoney upon scattered coals. I had neglected my postponed dinner in a desire to be at the trail of a felon, and my stomach took the moment to remind me of its empty state.
“What news?” she said as she stood from her cramped labor.
“I have found a murder weapon, I think, and perhaps a bit of cloth used to wipe away Sir Henry’s blood when the man was slain.”
I drew the items from my pouch and held them forth. Kate shrank from the objects as from an adder.
“That bodkin was plunged into Sir Henry’s ear?” she asked.
“So I believe. I found it hidden, driven into the base of a lampstand, in the chamber where two of Sir Henry’s squires lodge.”
“One of them has slain his lord, then?”
“So Sir Roger believes.”
“You do not?”
“’Tis all too neat and simple. The sheriff found a scrap of parchment upon the floor of his chamber this morn. Someone slid it under his door in the night. It told him to seek for what he hoped to find in the squires’ chamber.”
“And that is the bloody cloth?” Kate asked, curling her lip in distaste.
“Aye. A scrap of linen, of the finer sort. Perhaps torn from a gentleman’s kirtle.”
Kate’s curiosity overcame her distaste and she reached for the fabric. She took it daintily, seeking to avoid the dark stained portions, and examined it closely.
“Here is no kirtle,” she said.
“What, then?”
“Men!” she smiled. “Fancy yourself a sleuth, but do not know the difference between undergarments and a table cloth.”
“Table cloth? That?”
“Aye, or napery or perhaps a portpain.”
“Why do you say so?”
“Look there,” she said, and pointed to the edge of the cloth. “I think no kirtle would be hemmed so, and the weave is twill. Who would have a kirtle woven so?”
One hem looks much like another to me, but Kate is experienced with needle and thread.
“If I seek the pantler tomorrow and ask him to search the pantry, you believe he will find one of Lord Gilbert’s napkins missing a fragment of this size?”
“Aye. And look, it has been cut neatly, with a sharp blade, not ripped or torn.”
“Hmm, ’tis so.”
This bit of linen fabric was not employed by chance, then, but sliced from some larger cloth with a purpose in mind. So it seemed to me.