“What more proof is needed than the harm he has already done?” Guiscard asked bitterly. “That ungrateful little cur conspired with Lord Winchester’s enemies to keep him from being archbishop. Who can say Beaumeis would not kill to prevent the bishop from receiving an even greater honor?”
Magdalene was surprised by Guiscard’s sincere anger and regret over the loss of the archbishopric and the possibility that Beaumeis had taken the papal bull. She had not thought Guiscard so attached to his master.
“Unless you wish this to come to empty counteraccusations,” she pointed out, “there must be real proof. Beaumeis claims he was on the road to Canterbury on Wednesday night. If he can bring witnesses, would not that make the bishop look a fool or worse?”
Guiscard stared at her, rage and disappointment mingling in his expression. “It is not possible! He must have lied!” he exclaimed.
“Perhaps he did, but if so, witnesses must be found to say he was still in Southwark, or he must be brought to confess his crime. It is not enough to say he is guilty. That is why I came to tell Sir Bellamy that Beaumeis had been at my house, that he was sore overset by the news of Messer Baldassare’s death, and that if he were straitly questioned soon, he might speak more truth than he intended. Will you not pass that message to Sir Bellamy as soon as possible?”
The secretary’s expression grew eager and hopeful as she spoke, and he even unbent so far as to nod agreement. Plainly, he was looking forward to offering up Beaumeis to the bishop as the man who killed Baldassare.
“And where is Sir Bellamy to seek for Beaumeis, since you say he is no longer in your house?”
“He might still be at the church of St. Mary Overy. He kept saying he could not believe that Messer Baldassare was dead and rushed off to see the body when I told him it was laid out in the chapel of St. Mary Overy church. If he is gone from there, I do not know, unless…of course, someone at St. Paul’s will have the directions of their deacons, but I am not sure Sir Bellamy knows Beaumeis is tied to St. Paul’s. You will tell him that, too, will you not?”
“Yes, I will tell Sir Bellamy and the bishop. You may be sure I will,” Guiscard said.
Magdalene left the bishop’s house better satisfied than she expected to be after she heard the servant say that Bell was out. Ordinarily she did not trust Guiscard de Tournai. When she had been in the process of restoring the Old Priory Guesthouse and had needed Winchester’s approval for changes she wished to make, messages she had sent by Guiscard to the bishop had never reached him, or had been long delayed.
This time she believed what she wanted fit so well with what Guiscard thought was his own advantage that she was sure her message would be transmitted—and as soon as possible. Of course it might be garbled into something she had never said, but since Bell would surely come to find out what she had learned from Beaumeis, she could untangle any knots Guiscard had tied in the truth.
She took the long way home, knowing it would be impossible for a woman to enter the priory without identifying herself. She would not be welcome, and even if the porter admitted her, she could not get home through the back gate, which was supposed to be locked. Not that she minded the walk; she needed the exercise. She had hardly been out of the house except for her visit to the bishop since Baldassare’s death. Well, she had all but finished her embroidery commission. Perhaps tomorrow she would take it to the mercer in the East Chepe.
Having arrived at the Old Guesthouse and closed the gate behind her, Magdalene looked at the bell cord, thought of the purse William had left, and smiled. She was just about to turn her back and leave the cord inside when she remembered the message she had left for Bell. She glanced at the sun and decided she could not leave the cord inside. There was time enough for Bell to come.
He did not come, however, neither that afternoon nor even after the evening meal, by which time Magdalene was sure he would have returned to the bishop’s house. She was furious, one moment calling herself a fool for having trusted Guiscard to do anything right, and the next, calling herself a worse fool for believing Bell would respond when she—a known whore—asked him to come. She was even more ashamed and enraged because she had waited long after dark, after Ella and Letice had gone to bed…and he had not come.
Chapter Fourteen
25 April 1139
East Chepe, London;
Later, Old Priory Guesthouse