Sir John bent over Lord Gilbert’s shoulder, listened intently as Lord Gilbert spoke softly to him behind an upraised hand, then hurried out of the hall. A few minutes later, as Walter was enclosing Agnes in a ring of quivering blades, I saw valets in Lord Gilbert’s colors of blue and black positioned at the exits of the great hall. My plot was begun. If it concluded well, I should receive much honor. If not…well, I tried to dismiss that thought.
When Agnes began her display of acrobatics, tumbling, and contortion, I saw Sir John return and again speak briefly to Lord Gilbert. Lord Gilbert then leaned to his wife and spoke briefly to her. His words brought a shocked expression to Lady Petronilla’s face, which abruptly faded to surprise and then puzzlement. Onlookers, and I was desirous that there should be some who would take their eyes from Agnes for a moment, would think she had been given a startling revelation. She had.
Agnes received her usual ovation when she finished her exhibition. Lord Gilbert then stood, as all in the hall expected him to do. But what came next they did not expect.
There was no pleasure in Lord Gilbert’s face. Rather, his brows were wrinkled in a scowl. Those in the hall who had been conversing with their neighbors and preparing to rise from their bench were suddenly silent. Lord Gilbert gazed with thin lips and lowered brows across his guests, then spoke.
“Sir John,” he began, “has returned from an errand I assigned him. He reports that he found the Lady Petronilla’s chamber door ajar. This should not be. I will have everyone remain in the hall ’til it be known if some thief has plundered her possessions.”
Audible gasps went round the hall, and hands were raised to lips. Then, as the occupants of the hall digested his words, they began to peer from the corners of their eyes at one another, wondering who might be a thief.
Lord Gilbert turned and spoke to his wife. “You must inspect your chamber and see if aught be missing. Sir John…I will have you and Master Hugh accompany her and her ladies.”
Something was missing, I knew, for I had it hidden under my cloak as Lord Gilbert spoke. Lady Petronilla’s casket, a gold and red enameled wood and metal box, in which Lord Gilbert’s lady kept her jewels, would not be found. Sir John had seized it from Lady Petronilla’s chamber and slipped it to me while all eyes in the hall followed Agnes.
Lady Petronilla and her two maids followed Sir John past the guard and out the door. I followed the others. The casket was large, but my cloak was voluminous and I was able to keep the box concealed. That corner of the hall was dark, as was my cloak, which also served to conceal the lump under my arm.
Lady Petronilla led the way to her chamber in the northwest tower. I allowed myself to fall farther to the rear of the hurrying party. At the door to the tower I turned away. The castle yard was unoccupied, as I knew it must be. It was possible a stable boy might see me if he looked up from his work, but by the time he told any of what he had seen my mission would have failed or succeeded of its own merit.
I ran through the mud of the yard, past the marshalsea, to the jugglers’ tent. I drew the flap aside, found a pile of bedclothes, and hurriedly concealed the casket between them. Then I was off again at a run across the yard, into the tower. I heard Lady Petronilla’s shrieks before I entered her chamber. She had discovered her casket missing.
We hurried to take this melancholy news to Lord Gilbert, for whom, of course, it would not be news at all. Lady Petronilla was disconsolate, and I was, for a moment, uncertain I was doing the proper thing. The end does not always justify the means, but occasionally it does.
Lord Gilbert banged the table with his cup and demanded silence in the hall, then announced the reason for his wife’s grief. Another cycle of gasps and guarded looks filled the hall.
“Sir John,” he concluded, “see that no one leaves this place ’til I return. Master Hugh,” he turned to me, “come with me. We will find whosoever has done this thing.”
Lord Gilbert motioned to four grooms who stood against the inner wall and they took place in line behind us as we left the hall.
“Where is it?” Lord Gilbert whispered when we were in the inner yard.
“Peace, m’lord. The search must not end too soon. Set your men to search the east range hall first. Instruct them to overturn the possessions of the poor — but only a little. Enough to make our hunt seemly without troubling those who have enough trouble already.”
Lord Gilbert so ordered, and we stood together in the entry as the searchers overturned the hall. Half an hour later they had done. There was, of course, no casket.
“Where now, m’lord?” a groom asked. Lord Gilbert cocked his head and peered at me, but I looked away, as if examining the carpenters’ art in the trusses of the hammer-beam roof.
“Uh…the marshalsea next. Find rods to poke through the straw.”
The grooms darted off to the other side of the castle and Lord Gilbert and I followed in their wake. “Is it there?” he whispered.
“No…but next have the acrobats’ tents searched.”
The sun was low over the bare west woods when the grooms finished their work in the marshalsea. Lord Gilbert set them off to the tents and but three or four minutes later a cry of success rose from the jugglers’ tent. I was relieved. I had in the preceding hour suffered visions of some other felon discovering the casket and making off with it.
We approached the tent and peered through the flap. A groom held the casket aloft, bedclothes strewn about at his feet.
“You found it there?” Lord Gilbert asked, pointing to the disarray.
“Aye, m’lord. The very place, under that lot, hidden-like, it was.”
“What say you, Master Hugh?” Lord Gilbert turned to me.
“Send two…no, three men to bring Hamo Tanner here.”
“It might take three to compel him,” Lord Gilbert smiled, “should he wish not to come.”
The wrestler came readily enough, his face marked with a combination of anger, fear, and curiosity. A groom pulled back the tent flap, and bade him enter. The light was failing, but there was yet enough to see the casket at our feet.
“We have found that which was stolen,” Lord Gilbert thundered. I have said before, thundering was a thing Lord Gilbert did well. Hamo blanched and started as if a groom had struck him from behind with a timber. “Is this how your company repays my favor?”
“N…n…no, m’lord…not me…my tent is next…”
“Then whose is this?”
“The jugglers, m’lord. Roger and John and Robert.”
“And whose place is that…whose bedclothes be those?” He pointed sternly at the place where the casket lay.
“Roger’s, m’lord, I think.”
Lord Gilbert turned to the grooms. “Take this man back to the hall. Bring Roger the juggler.”
When Hamo and the grooms were out of earshot Lord Gilbert turned to me. “What now, Master Hugh? I am in the dark. What say we to this juggler?”
“I will question him. You stand by and fix him with an angry eye. Follow my lead when you see my way.”
The juggler appeared a few minutes later, quivering so I thought his legs might fail. A groom walked on either arm, ready to steady him should he totter, and another walked behind, should he turn to run. This I thought unlikely as he seemed barely able to place one foot before the other. What I was about to do troubled me some, and has since, for although I did not lie to the juggler, I certainly intended him to believe a thing which was not true.
“You are called Roger?” Lord Gilbert asked the fellow, quietly this time, but with undisguised wrath lurking in his voice. He folded his arms across his chest and scowled so that his brows nearly met above his nose.
“Aye, m’lord,” Roger quivered. He looked at the casket. “I did not do this.”