“Is his work acceptable?”
“Aye… most times.”
“Why is he not here to aid you in preparing for dinner?”
“Helps Cuthbert, also. Should be here anon.”
Cuthbert is Lord Gilbert’s butler, and no sooner had Humphrey said this than I heard the light footsteps of a youth approach the screens passage from the kitchen. Andrew is a beardless youth of fifteen years or so, orphan since plague returned to strike down his father seven years past.
The youth broke his stride when he saw me at the pantry door with his superior. I did not know much of the lad. I had even forgotten his name until Humphrey reminded me. But Andrew knew me, and when his lord’s bailiff shows interest in a lad’s life and work most youths are convinced no good will come of the matter.
“Andrew, come here, lad,” Humphrey demanded unnecessarily, for it was clear the youth was bound for the pantry. In response to this command Andrew’s countenance went from light to heavy more quickly than I can tell of it.
“Master Hugh seeks a thief, and we must help him find the felon.”
I had told the pantler that the missing portpain must not be named, so interrupted him.
“Have you seen any man loitering about the pantry door before or after dinner, whilst the door was ajar, in the past few days?”
The lad seemed to tremble before my gaze. Why? Did my question or my office frighten him? Or did he quaver for the result of his answer?
“N-n-nay,” he finally blurted.
“Have you seen any man enter the pantry but for Humphrey?”
“N-nay. No man.”
Something in his tone caught my attention. “No man? Who, then? A woman?”
Andrew looked to Humphrey as if seeking guidance, but the pantler returned only a stern frown. The youth finally spoke. “The lady what’s a guest of Lord Gilbert.”
“Which lady… the lass, or Lady Margery?”
“The lass.”
“Why did you not speak of this?” the pantler said through tight lips. Then to me he said, “Why would a knight’s daughter steal a portpain?”
I saw a gleam of understanding flash in his rheumy eyes even as he asked the question. “You think the maid helped slay her father? Cut that bloody piece from what she took?”
“Mayhap.” To the youth I said, “When did you see this?”
“Three, no, f-four days past,” he stammered.
“Did you see her enter the pantry and leave it?”
“Nay. Didn’t see ’er go in… only come out.”
“What did she carry?” the pantler asked.
The page hesitated, considering, I think, whether he would find himself in more trouble by telling the truth or by deception.
“She was puttin’ somethin’ up the sleeve of ’er cotehardie,” he finally said.
Stylish sleeves for a lady’s cotehardie are voluminous, but it seemed to me unlikely that the Lady Anne would try to stuff a portpain into one. “What was it she hid there? Could you see?”
“Had some of m’lord’s silver, spoons an’ knives.”
Gentlemen and ladies who dine at Lord Gilbert’s table bring their own knives and spoons, as is the custom, but I knew that my employer kept a supply of silver utensils in the pantry for occasional use. I have found need of them upon the occasions I dine at the castle, but they are seldom brought forth, as they are rarely needed.
“Where,” I asked the pantler, “is Lord Gilbert’s tableware stored?”
Humphrey nodded toward the pantry door. “In a wooden box.”
“Is the box locked?”
“Nay. Pantry’s locked, so no need for a lock on the box… so I thought.”
“How many knives and silver spoons are kept there? When did you last count them?”
The pantler now seemed as ill at ease as his assistant. “Don’t count ’em regular, like.”
“When did you last do so? How many knives and spoons are stored in the pantry?”
“Twelve of each,” Humphrey said.
“Go count them now.”
The pantler turned and entered his pantry. He disappeared behind the open door with his candle and I heard what I assumed to be the lid of a box fall upon a shelf. It takes little time to count a dozen knives and spoons, even less if some are missing. Humphrey appeared from behind the door, raised his palms, and said, “Eight knives an’ ten spoons. That’s all as is there.”
“And when you last counted all were present?”
“Aye.”
“When was that?”
“Afore Whitsuntide. Just before Rogation Sunday. Lord Gilbert was to have guests at ’is table that day an’ wished to be sure all would have proper knives an’ spoons, as some might not have their own, not bein’ gentlefolk.”
The pantler turned to his youthful assistant and, with as much anger as his aged voice could muster, demanded why he had not been told of the theft when it occurred.
“Who’d ’ave believed me if the lady said otherwise? An’ when she saw that I’d seen what she’d done she gave me such a glare as I knew I’d be in trouble did I accuse her.”
“But the spoons and knives are gone,” the pantler said. “That would be evidence of your truthfulness.”
“She’d ’a said I took ’em… that she saw me in the screens passage with ’em an’ thought I was about me work.”
“The lad speaks true,” I said. “Lord Gilbert is a just man, but he’d sooner believe the daughter of a knight than his page.”
“What you gonna do?” Humphrey asked of me. “You bein’ Lord Gilbert’s bailiff, it’d be your business to see to the return of ’is silver. And the portpain.”
I had wished that knowledge of the missing portpain should remain between the pantler and myself, but now the page also knew of it. I turned to Andrew and faced him with my sternest expression.
“You will not speak of this with any other soul,” I said. “Not the stolen silver nor the missing linen. You understand?”
The youth swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing like one of Kate’s hens pecking at the ground, and nodded understanding.
“You will need to be about preparing for Lord Gilbert’s dinner, so I will leave you to your work. Remember, not a word to any man of what has gone missing.”
The two, aged and young, nodded, silent, evidently in awe of my fearsome visage. Here was much change in my life. Five years past I could not have summoned a scowl which would have frightened a nursling. Now, after serving some years as Lord Gilbert’s bailiff, I was learning the potency of an occasional peevish frown.
I would be untruthful if I wrote that the experience was unpleasant, but I must guard against the subtle but inexorable onset of pride, for holy writ proclaims that the vain must soon fall. There are Oxford scholars I remember from my youth at Baliol College who are overdue for a tumble.
CHAPTER 6
I left the screens passage and sought my employer in the solar. I found him there, with Lady Petronilla, entertaining Lady Margery and Lady Anne. Lord Gilbert was out of his element, for when John Chamberlain announced me at the door to the solar I found the three women plying needle and thread at some embroidery whilst m’lord sat stiffly beside the cold hearth. When I asked if I might speak privily to him he leapt to his feet as if freed from captivity.
He may also have thought that my desire for confidential conversation indicated progress in discovering a murderer. I had to disappoint him. And rather than solving one problem for Lord Gilbert I laid another before him.
“The Lady Anne?” he said in disbelief when I told him of what Andrew the page had seen. “Why would the lass take my silver?”
“You said Sir Henry was destitute. Perhaps Lady Anne was tired of wearing the same worn gowns and desired new.”
“Aye,” Lord Gilbert agreed thoughtfully. “Well, she’ll not have one by way of my silver. You must see that the spoons and knives are returned.”
I had feared he would give the task to me, for ’twas sure to be unpleasant. But that is why gentlemen employ such as me: to do those disagreeable things they would prefer not to do themselves.
“But do not,” he continued, “retrieve them in so impolitic a manner that Lady Margery will be embarrassed.”