“Such a man would make many enemies,” Kate said.
“Aye. But with swordsmen to defend him and a strong house to shelter him, his foes could do little.”
“Until he left his house and traveled to another, and his knights were not close by,” Kate said.
I did not reply to Kate’s remark, but I thought on her words there in the darkening toft. What if some man, wronged in the enforcement of the Statute of Laborers, had accompanied Sir Henry to Bampton Castle, and struck him down here for his unjust governance, where he thought himself safe? Such a man would perforce be a valet or groom or page to Sir Henry. Both his knights and squires benefited in his employ from his sharp practice. Unless the benefit was thought too puny and a knight — it could not be a squire — wished to advance from employee to employer. Might this be why Sir Geoffrey pierced Sir John? Eliminating competition of a different sort? But if some malcontent valet or groom did murder Sir Henry, why then attack Sir John also? Kate’s thought appeared at first to open new paths toward a felon, but soon enough these closed.
Kate rested her head upon my shoulder. Odd how such a simple thing can drive other thoughts from my mind. ’Twas not until later, when I lay abed, moonlight from a waxing gibbous moon illuminating our bed chamber, that my thoughts returned to Sir Henry’s misuse of the Statute of Laborers and the enemies he might have made. ’Twould not take long, I decided, to seek information of Sir Henry’s valets and grooms and pages. He had brought with him to Bampton three of the first, four grooms, and but two pages. I might have guessed the thinness of his purse when first we met from the few retainers who served him on his journey.
CHAPTER 14
A babe serves as well as a rooster to announce the dawn. Bessie did not wail loudly, but she made plain her displeasure at an empty stomach. Kate rose from our bed to deal with the starving infant. On a cold winter morn I might have been content to remain warm under the blanket, but the morning was pleasant and I was determined that this day would see Sir Henry’s murder resolved.
Kate had set a kettle upon the hearth to warm water. I filled a bowl and washed my face and hands. Bessie laughed and clapped to see me splashing about.
Kate set half a maslin loaf and a wedge of goat’s cheese before me. I hurriedly broke my fast, swallowed a cup of ale, which was quickly going stale, kissed Kate, and set off for the castle.
Wilfred tugged a forelock by way of greeting when I passed through the gatehouse but I saw few other folk about. I turned from the hall to the chapel, assuming that Lord Gilbert’s chaplain had not completed morning mass.
Lord Gilbert led folk from the chapel as I approached. I noticed that Lady Petronilla did not accompany him this morn and assumed she was yet unwell.
In the small hours of the morning, awake in my bed and listening to Kate breathe and to the sounds of the night, I had determined that I would seek Lady Margery’s servant Isobel again. The woman no longer seemed to fear me, but was willing to provide answers to my questions even so, apprehension for one’s personal security being perhaps overrated as a tool with which a bailiff may pry truth from an obstinate witness. Nevertheless, ’tis a tool I will not discard.
I waited by the chapel door until she appeared, with other of Lady Margery’s servants, walking behind her mistress. Lady Margery, being past me and in conversation with Sir Geoffrey, did not see me approach Isobel, nor did she hear my words to her, nor did she see Isobel follow me to the hall.
There was no need to seek the privacy of my old bachelor quarters, as the hall was empty at such an hour. I motioned to a bench beside the wall to indicate that Isobel should sit. I joined her upon the other end of the bench, desiring that the young woman think of me as a confidant rather than an inquisitor.
“Sir Henry,” I began, “was not eager to return to Bedford. He was a guest here for nearly a month. You said he was rigorous in collecting fines from those who abused the Statute of Laborers, but he could not do so while here, in Bampton. Why was he not eager to return to his home and resume collecting fines? Did Lady Margery never speak of this?”
“Feared for his life, I think,” Isobel said.
“There was a man Sir Henry had wronged who threatened him?”
“Not one man. Many. Squire William overheard a conversation at an ale house. Men were plotting to do away with Sir Henry for his avarice.”
“Sir Henry thought this threat grave enough that he left his home?”
“Two knights, two squires, and a few valets, grooms, and pages would make a thin defense against an angry mob,” she said.
“There was a plot to attack his house?”
“Aye. William overheard them speak of the day. St Boniface’s Day.”
“How did you learn of this?”
“William told Lady Anne,” Isobel said.
“Ah… the lad hoped to win Sir Henry’s favor.”
“I suppose. Gossip was that Sir Henry was ready to send William from his house.”
“Because he and Lady Anne…”
“Aye.”
“But William accompanied Sir Henry to Bampton.”
“Perhaps he softened toward the squire after William did him good service.”
“Did William really overhear such chatter, I wonder, or did he say so to cause Sir Henry to look upon him more favorably?”
Isobel shrugged. “Who can say? Sir Henry believed the report. He sent to Lord Gilbert next day seeking a visit, and a week later we were upon the road.”
“I learned yesterday that Sir Henry wished all of his household to read and write.”
“Aye.”
“Even the women?”
“Aye. All in his household. Lady Margery thought it foolish, but he would have it no other way. Said ’twas new times we lived in, and all must realize it.”
“So even women and grooms and pages received instruction?”
“All.”
Here was intriguing information. The message Sir Roger found slid under his door had been scrawled in an unskilled hand. Sir Henry demanded that all of his retainers be literate, but perhaps that requirement did not exceed a rudimentary knowledge. In Bedford both Sir Geoffrey and Sir John would have been nearly as despised as Sir Henry for their part in unjustly enforcing a hated law. Was that why Sir John had died, and why evidence pointed to Sir Geoffrey as one who had murdered two? Was I, I wondered, intended to be the dupe of some plotter? Was I to seize Sir Geoffrey and see him hang for murders he did not do? If Sir Geoffrey died upon a scaffold, then Sir Henry and his chief agents would all be dead, two murdered by the other, or so men would believe. But if Sir Geoffrey were not the felon, then he who did the murders would forever be free of suspicion, so long as he took no other life.
But why, then, the note sending me and Sir Roger to the squires’ chamber? Isobel said that the squires did from time to time assist Sir John and Sir Geoffrey in apprehending those who may have sought more for their labor than the law allows. And it was William who learned of the plot against Sir Henry and warned him of the danger. Did the commons about Bedford learn that their plot was discovered, and who it was who had betrayed them? Was I then to be the unwitting tool of those who did murder, thinking if and when I seized William that I had collected a felon? If so, I have been a great disappointment to some man. Or men. They must believe me so dull of wit that I cannot follow a path so clearly set before me. Perhaps they are correct.
’Twas Walter who told me that Sir Geoffrey was outside Sir Henry’s door the night he died. ’Twas Walter who had access to the pouch of crushed lettuce seeds, and who could have increased Sir Henry’s dose. Walter was of the commons. He would not have run afoul of Sir Henry’s enforcement of the Statute of Laborers, but he knew a man who had. His own family had suffered, according to Isobel. Was this reason enough to do murder? Walter’s father had been fined many years in the past. But Walter had said Sir Henry was a good lord.