Her Bell? No, Magdalene thought, he was not, and would not be, her Bell, even though William seemed to have gotten over the resentment he had first shown. Fond as she was of William, it was as great a pleasure to see him go as to see him come. She resolved anew not to allow any man ever to think of her as his, waving to William as he set off and then closing the gate behind him.
It would be to her benefit as well as William’s if Winchester’s relationship with his brother improved, but she was not sure having Stephen hand the bull to him would work. Magdalene suspected a better feeling between the brothers was not really William’s prime purpose. He liked Winchester well enough, but he wished to please Stephen, and it might please Stephen just as well to use the bull to demonstrate his power to Winchester as to be reconciled to him.
She reentered the house, shook her head when Dulcie asked if she wished to finish her ale, and the maid continued clearing the table. Her women were gone. Vaguely, she heard sounds through the open doors to the corridor and knew they were cleaning their rooms. Automatically, she walked to the hearth, sat down on her stool, and picked up her embroidery.
One by one, the other women joined Magdalene. Letice and Ella also took up their embroidery and after some desultory talk about the clients, Sabina struck the first notes of a lively and rather bawdy tune about a soldier. Magdalene looked up and smiled. William’s visit had done them all good. This was the first time since Wednesday night that no one made a reference to the murder.
Listening to the song, Magdalene laughed aloud. With his rough good humor and his rough-and-ready ways, the hero was a bit like William; his inventiveness reminded her of William. She shook off her concern about political problems. They did not really matter to her. Her protectors might suffer small setbacks that displeased them, but both the bishop and William of Ypres were too important and too powerful to have more than their pride hurt by Waleran de Meulan.
The morning was quiet, except for a minor and very delightful flurry caused by Magdalene’s finding a heavy purse on her pillow when she finally went to make her bed—an extra token of William’s affection (or satisfaction with her response to him). The day proceeded pleasantly; dinner was uninterrupted and the right clients arrived at the right time. Three more men were crossed off the list of possible suspects when that set of clients left.
Two more arrived without overlapping or colliding with each other, and Buchuinte, the third, came at his regular time. He was still saddened by Baldassare’s death—he told them he had arranged the burial for Tuesday—but he was not so sad as to give up his appointment with Ella. An easy day.
Magdalene had settled to her embroidery again after hearing Ella’s squeal of pleasure, cut off by the closing of her door. She was enjoying her solitude and looking forward to the completion of a complex pattern and the delivery of a piece already ordered, when the bell at the gate rang. She gave a quick thought to the men being entertained behind closed doors. Sabina’s second client, an elderly widower whose children were established in their own homes and was more lonely than lustful, was staying the night, but Ella’s and Letice’s guests would be gone in time for this new man to be accommodated.
Sighing, Magdalene fixed her needle into her work and rose to answer. She would have preferred not to need to entertain anyone until one of the women was free, and William’s extra purse would have made it possible to indulge herself, but she had left the bell cord out. That was an invitation that could not be withdrawn without offense. She would let this man in, she told herself, and then pull in the bell cord. Fixing a pleasant smile on her face, Magdalene started toward the gate, only to stop dead a few steps along the path.
The man had let himself in, which always annoyed her, but the face she saw rendered her too speechless to protest.
“Delighted to see me, are you?” Richard de Beaumeis said, grinning broadly. “How did you like the client I sent you?” And when Magdalene still just stared at him, gaping, he laughed and went on. “Baldassare did mention my name, did he not? I told him he should.” He laughed again. “I would wager he was surprised at what he found here. I would have loved to be invisible and have seen his face.”
“I thought you were in Canterbury,” Magdalene got out, still too stunned to say anything sensible.
Beaumeis certainly sounded as if he thought Baldassare was alive. Could he have struck with the knife and then run away without realizing he might have killed the man? There was a kind of self-satisfied spitefulness under his final words that simply did not fit with having already taken the ultimate revenge.
“Canterbury?” Beaumeis repeated. “I brought the archbishop’s news on Friday. The cannons celebrated fittingly on Saturday, and I returned to my duty in St. Paul’s…. Why should I remain in Canterbury? It is a nothing place after London and Rome.”