It was as well he had swallowed the meat, Magdalene thought, or he would have choked in earnest. “Baldassare de Firenze, a papal messenger, was murdered on the north porch of the church of St. Mary Overy priory on Wednesday night.”
There was a moment of silence. Somer laid down the knife still holding a bite of the pork. “The damned fool,” he said. “Why did he not come—” He cut that remark off and went on hurriedly. “Then the king’s matter has been decided and the messenger killed before the pope’s decision could be announced. So the bishop’s man searched for the pouch and did not find it. Where is it?”
Magdalene shook her head nervously. “I do not know,” she said. “When the messenger came here he was carrying a pouch, but he took it with him when he left. I doubt whether it has been destroyed, however. Sir Bellamy of Itchen, the Bishop of Winchester’s knight, thought Messer Baldassare was not wearing the pouch when he was killed. Baldassare could have hidden it.” Then, as Somer’s mouth hardened, she added, “You had better hear the whole tale from the beginning—as much as I know myself—and let William decide for himself what he wants to do.”
21 April 1139
The Bishop’s House
When Bell left the Old Priory Guesthouse, he was so sick and angry that he was sure he had been trapped, tricked, lied to, and led around by the nose like a newly ringed bull. All that sweetness and light. All that eager cooperation. Now everything the women had said seemed false, and Magdalene’s winning smiles and dulcet tones were the falsest of all.
“Whore,” he muttered to himself, striding along the street, so blind with rage that he did not realize he had passed the priory gate until he walked into the bishop’s house. Then he stood in the midst of the hall, shaking with shame and self-disgust. He was so taken up with jealousy over a common whore that he had forgotten he wanted to speak to the sacristan’s assistant and the infirmarian. About to turn on his heel, he heard Guiscard call his name. He took a deep breath and walked to the end of the room.
“So how did you make out with your whore?” Guiscard asked, smiling knowingly. “You do not have to tell me. You are now sure she is innocent.” He chuckled. “Do not let it trouble you. She can even convince the bishop that the sun is shining when it rains.”
Bell struggled to keep his lips from thinning with fury; he would not give Guiscard the satisfaction of knowing his shaft had struck home. He raised his brows. “You are wrong about the bishop,” he remarked, pleased by the indifference in his voice. “He warned me against Magdalene’s charms.”
Guiscard frowned, his hand stroking the rich, shining velvet of his gown. “But he himself is not invulnerable to them. She diddled him out of nearly half the rent I could have got for the house. And cheated me out of my fee as agent, too.”
“Oh-ho.” Bell grinned, feeling better. What Magdalene told him about renting the house was true. “She told me she rented direct from the bishop, but she did not admit that any agent’s fee was involved. She said you did not offer her a leasehold.”
“Who offers a whore a leasehold—except a man befuddled by her beauty? You let a whore rent from week to week, if she does well, you raise the rent.” Guiscard sniffed. “The bishop is too indulgent toward sin.”
Bell watched the clerk’s hand stroke his velvet gown. There were sins and sins, he thought. “I worry more about guilt than sin,” he said. “And despite her trade, I cannot find any reason to think Magdalene guilty of murder.”
Guiscard sniffed again. “Well, I do not like her, but I agree she would not be likely to murder unless Baldassare was carrying so rich a purse that she could not resist killing him for it, or” —his lips turned down with distaste— “her great patron paid her well to kill.”
“Baldassare—” Bell began, and then the last thing Guiscard said struck him. “You mean William of Ypres? But why under heaven should William of Ypres want the papal messenger killed? And how could he know Baldassare would go to Magdalene’s house?”
“Because he had arranged to meet him there? It is a common place of resort to those who wish to talk to William of Ypres. And murder is the first thing Ypres would think of to make trouble, coarse and brutal as he is.”
“Coarse and brutal I will allow, but not stupid,” Bell said. “William of Ypres does not need more trouble.”
The bishop had commented, however, that Ypres used the Old Priory Guesthouse for purposes other than lechery. Could one of Ypres’s men have met Baldassare there and killed him? For what? The pouch? But if the pouch held a decision in favor of the king and a bull granting legatine power to Winchester, William of Ypres should want it delivered.
Guiscard shrugged. “You were the one who needed reasons. If you were not bedazzled by her, you would know the whore was guilty and not look further.”
It was too common a sentiment for Bell to allow his anger to show. “Unfortunately, until I know who is truly guilty,” he said, “I will not know what happened to Baldassare’s pouch, and the bishop wants that pouch.”