Winter Heart Page 4

  Frevisse ignored him and went on. “Someone gave him away to Master Barnsley who – as reeve – rightly told you, for you to deal with it. Kelmstowe lost those acres and was fined. After that he was accused of attacking Anneys Barnsley. He denied and still denies that he did, yet soon after the accusation was made, he disappeared. There was no reason to think other than that he had run off because of the accusation, and so, under the law, he was assumed to be guilty as accused and all his property was seized, leaving his mother and sister desperate. Barnsley benefited by receiving Kelmstowe’s own acres, the ones Kelmstowe had rightly held. Then Kelmstowe came back. Since neither of the Barnsleys have since shown any wish to pursue the matter of the attack, and Kelmstowe had already suffered loss of everything he could lose, nothing more has been done about the matter. Kelmstowe has seemed to accept how things are and all was going as well as might be?” She turned that last to a question.

  Master Naylor agreed by a nod of his head.

  “Now Barnsley is dead,” she said. “Those are the things that we know for certain, yes?”

  Master Naylor again nodded his agreement. Dame Claire, who was hearing much of this for the first time, unexpectedly said, “No. We know this Kelmstowe, his mother, and his sister were sick last night. Master Naylor saw the proof of that.”

  “Someone was surely sick. I couldn’t swear to it being all of them,” Master Naylor corrected.

  “But someone was, for a certainty,” Frevisse agreed. “So we should count that in, too, as being true. Now for what we don’t know to be true. Kelmstowe claims he did not run off, that his disappearance was forced. He claims drovers carried him off, that they told him they had been paid to do it, that they then set him free in London and even gave him money to help his return. If all that is true, then someone wanted him gone but also wanted him back. I suppose anyone who knew him could count on him not deserting his mother and sister?”

  “Aye,” Master Naylor agreed. “That was part of why his running off made less sense than it might have. He’s sharp, is Tom Kelmstowe. He’s never been anything but good to them until now, yet had to know they’d be ruined and hard put to fend for themselves with him gone and everything taken.”

  “Which lends credence to his otherwise unlikely tale of being taken away by force.”

  “Hm,” Master Naylor said, sounding as if he might be halfway to agreement but unready yet to commit himself altogether.

  “Next is all the Kelmstowes’ claim that a charitable pot of broth that seems to have had something wrong with it, left for him and his, keeping them all home, unseen of anyone, last night. You know them, Master Naylor. Is this a lie Tom Kelmstowe’s mother and sister would have joined him in?”

  “I doubt his sister could carry off the lie even if she wanted to. She’s a pretty thing, and clever enough, but I’ve never seen anything like guile about her.”

  “There’s been no complaint about her since she’s been working here,” Dame Claire put in.

  “As for his mother,” Master Naylor went on, “she’s never been anything but as honest as a body can be, so far as ever I’ve heard. When it came out in manor court what trick he’d pulled with those acres, I thought she was going to clout him up the back of his head like he was a small boy, she was so angry at him.”

  “Then,” said Frevisse, “since we’re looking at maybe-things as if they are possibly true, if that broth was indeed bad and they were all sick from it, was it only chance that they were given it the same night that Barnsley was killed?”

  “The same night,” Dame Claire put in, catching the trail Frevisse’s thought was on, “that Anneys Barnsley was with her sister at the birthing, so it was certain her husband would be home on his own.”

  “We must ask Margery or someone when the woman’s labor began,” Frevisse said.

  “Late afternoon,” Master Naylor said. Both women looked at him in surprise. “I was in the village,” he explained. “I saw the flurry and flocking of women toward a house and asked what it was about.”

  “So there was time enough for someone to poison some broth and leave it for the Kelmstowes, to have them sick and kept at home on a night Barnsley would almost surely be alone,” said Frevisse slowly. “Which could well be the way of it, if we find that no one else in the village was sick, only the Kelmstowes.” She was silent a moment, staring at the scrubbed stones of the hearth while she followed her own thoughts, before she finally said, even more slowly, “I think there’s good chance someone is missing in all of this.”

  Neither Dame Clare nor Master Naylor was so benighted as to echo, “Missing?” They simply waited.

  Frevisse shifted her stare to her hands clasped together in her lap, seeing them no more than she had the stones of the hearth. Slowly she untwisted her thoughts from one pattern and into another and finally said, “Still looking at it as if Kelmstowe has told the truth about being carried off, then someone paid the drovers to do it. Paid them well, I would suppose. That means someone who’s well off, as well as someone of the village.” She looked at Master Naylor, a slight frown between her eyes. “Does Gilbey Dunn want this marriage between one of his sons and Tom Kelmstowe’s sister?” Gilbey Dunn being the wealthiest man in the village.

  “He does,” Master Naylor said. “If sufficient dowry be given. He thinks Tom Kelmstowe is ‘right comer’.”

  And knowing Gilbey Dunn as she did, Frevisse had to suppose that Kelmstowe’s attempt to wrongly gain his cousin’s acres did not count against him in the least with Gilbey Dunn.

  “Someone else then, but surely of the village,” she said.

  “Maybe Barnsley himself,” Master Naylor offered. “He might have thought that once Kelmstowe was away from the village, he’d not ever return.”

  Frevisse nodded, accepting that possibility. If that was the way of it, they would likely never know the truth, now Barnsley was dead. Still... “Who gained from Kelmstowe disappearing?” she asked.

  “Barnsley gained the most, as it happened,” Master Naylor said. “Getting Kelmstowe’s land as he did. That’s why him being dead looks so bad for Kelmstowe.”

  “Except that Barnsley being dead won’t get Kelmstowe back his land. Kelmstowe knows that, and neither have you seen sign he’s fool enough to be pointlessly vengeful.”

  “None,” Master Naylor confirmed. “He’s no fool at all.”

  Frevisse curbed her urge to stand up and pace. She would not overtake her thoughts by pacing after them. Careful not to lose the thread she was following, she asked, “Who will gain from Barnsley’s death?”

  “His wife,” Master Naylor said promptly.

  Who seemed beyond question not to have killed him.

  “Is she fit to have and hold what her husband did?” Because although custom made it usual for everything to come to the widow, by law what she held from her lord – from the priory, in this case – could be taken away and given to someone else if she were deemed unfit to hold and run it. That was a rare course to take, though, and made for bad feeling and distrust all around unless there was very clear and sound reason for it.

  “Not fit in herself, no,” Master Naylor said, sounding as if he had already considered this side of matters. “But there’ll be men enough willing to marry her. That’s certain. All she need do is choose one sufficient to the work and–” He broke off.

  Frevisse looked up. Her steady gaze met his, and he finished, slow over the words, “–all will be simple.”

  Because there, Frevisse thought, was the someone who had been missing in all of this. She did not yet see clearly how – and assuredly not who – but he was there, that someone, and they must find him out.

  Or else find a way to prove Tom Kelmstowe guilty. Because if none other were, then he must be.

  Frevisse rose to her feet. “I think we must needs talk with Margery. And I would see Anneys Barnsley again.”

  “You won’t need me for that,” Dame Claire said serenely. She moved to take up the tray from the table. “I’
d return to my other work for this while, by your leave.”

  Frevisse had meant to dismiss Sister Elianor in favor of Dame Claire coming to the guesthall then, but looking past the infirmarian at that moment, she saw Sister Elianor beside the door with her hands still correctly folded in front of her and her head still correctly bowed – but not quite so far that she was not watching them all, her eyes darting from one to another with eager interest until she caught Frevisse looking back at her. Immediately she dropped her gaze and bowed her head further.

  “Sister Elianor,” Frevisse said with mock sternness.

  From the depths of guilty humility, Sister Elianor said softly, “Yes, Domina?”

  “I’ll have you come with me to the guesthall since Dame Claire has other matters to attend to.”

  Sister Elianor lifted her head, smiling, remembered herself, disappeared the smile, and bowed her head again to say with due obedience and humility, “Yes, Domina.”

  Frevisse and Dame Claire shared a look of shared amusement. Sister Elianor’s faith and eagerness to be a nun could not be faulted, but both women knew that curiosity was not a thing readily overcome. Certainly neither of them had ever rid themselves of it, and their service to God was the better for it; there was no point in thwarting Sister Elianor’s.

  She, Master Naylor, and Sister Elianor were halted on their way across the yard toward the guesthall by Master Richard coming through the gateway from the nunnery’s outer yard. From a boy busy about the nunnery, the village, and countryside, he had grown into a tall, lean match to his father, albeit with a merrier mind than his father had ever had but with his father’s skilled responsibility and deep sense of duty. He had been this while in the village, dealing with the complications that inevitably followed a murder. Given there was no knowing how long it would take for one of the county’s crowners to be found, let alone come, it was good to do as much as possible beforetimes, in readiness.

  As he bowed to Domina Frevisse and his father, Master Naylor asked, “Have you learned anything new?”

  “Things stand as you left them,” Master Richard answered. “I’ve set two men to keep watch on Tom Kelmstowe but left him at his home, as you said to do. A neighbor woman is to take care of Anneys Barnsley’s chickens and the goose until she can for herself. Will Hyde and John Wryght have said they’ll see to the rest, the cow and all. We’ve left Barnsley’s body lie until the stiffness goes out of it. If the crowner hasn’t come by then, well–” He shrugged. Then they would do what needed to be done and pay the fine imposed for moving a murdered body before the king’s officer had seen it where it lay.

  Master Naylor nodded approval of all that, then told him he was to go back to the village and ask about anyone else who had lately been ill, perhaps from food gone bad but otherwise too, for good measure. Master Richard, being young, well-cloaked, warm-booted, and with a horse to his use, gave no sign he minded being kept out and about a while longer, just nodded easy agreement, bowed to Frevisse and his father again, and went back the way he had come.

  The guesthall was peaceful. Anneys Barnsley must still sufficiently sleep, because Margery had left her and come to sit on one of the benches beside the hall’s hearth where a small but pleasant fire was burning cheerily. She stood up and curtsied as Frevisse and Master Naylor joined her. At a wave of Frevisse’s hand, she sat again, and so did Frevisse and Master Naylor, on a bench facing hers, with Sister Elianor standing a few paces behind but near enough to enjoy the fire’s warmth, too, and hear all that was said.

  “She’ll likely be waking soon,” Margery offered without being asked. “How much sense she’ll make, though, is hard to say.” Her tone implied that Anneys Barnsley did not make sense at the best of times.

  “Tell me about her,” Frevisse said.

  “Tell you about her?” Margery echoed, somewhat puzzled.

  “How you see her. Is she a good wife? Liked in the village? Or a gossip and troublemaker? Does she try to take advantage of her husband being reeve? Has she been bothered beyond the ordinary by having no children? There are no children, I take it? Anything about her.”

  “Well,” Margery said. “There’s nothing of the troublemaker about her. She’s good-hearted enough, so far as it goes, which isn’t far, to say the truth. There’s just not that much to her. She’ll not ever surprise anyone with her wit. She enjoys a good gossip when it’s to be had, but there’s no ill-will in her. She’s never disgraced herself at the ale house or tried to take advantage of being the reeve’s wife. She does her work around the croft and does it well, and takes her turn in the fields like everyone else. Came to me a few times early on in her marriage, asking if I could help her get to childbearing, but nothing served and she’s been quiet about that these past few years. Is that the sort of thing you wanted to know?”

  “Yes,” Frevisse said. It gave her view of a simple woman adequate to the life she had and apparently content in it.

  “Before you ask,” Margery went on, “she’s seemed happy enough with Barnsley, and he with her. No trouble there.”

  But somewhere in all of this thing something was awry.

  Take the straightest way, she thought. Go past Kelmstowe and the confusions around him. Go to the one plain, certain thing in this: Barnsley was dead.

  The first question after a murder always seemed to be “Who did it?” With that not immediately answered, she was back at the one she had already asked Master Naylor, the somewhat more subtle, Who gained by Barnsley’s death?

  Not Tom Kelmstowe, unless all he wanted was senseless revenge, and no one seemed to think Tom Kelmstowe was a senseless man.

  Anneys Barnsley had to be suspected, maybe first before anyone else, but she quite obviously had had no chance to do it, unless someone suddenly remembered she had left the birthing for a time, which seemed unlikely by now, after Master Naylor’s questioning and all.

  “Who’ll take his place as reeve?” Frevisse asked of Master Naylor.

  “Simon Perryn says he’ll take it on again for a time. It will probably be Easter court when we settle on someone.”

  “Who was passed over in favor of Barnsley at Michaelmas?”

  “No one. There was no one else being thought on for it. No one else wanted it. Well, Gilbey Dunn, but he’s never going to have it.”

  No, since it had never been a secret that Gilbey Dunn’s first and foremost interest was Gilbey Dunn. Frevisse would have added “his only interest” to that, except against all likelihood he had been a surprisingly devoted husband and father these many years; but no one would ever seriously consider putting the village into his hands by making him reeve.

  “These men who are taking care of the Barnsley croft and stock and all,” she said, “Who are they?”

  “Will Hyde and John Wryght?” Master Naylor asked, seeming surprised by her question.

  More prompt with answer, Margery said, “Will is a widower. On in years. Hale enough to be useful, but worn down enough that he gave all his holding over to his son a few years back. Is settled in comfortably with him and daughter-in-law and grandchildren. John is much about Master Richard’s age and betrothed to Rob Brewster’s daughter. A good lad.”

  “Would either have coin enough to pay drovers to carry Tom Kelmstowe off to London?” Frevisse asked.

  Master Naylor looked startled, catching up to where her thoughts were going, and said, “Neither has that much ready money in hand. That’s certain. Nor why would they want to send Kelmstowe off like that?”

  “Someone did. Who?”

  “Supposing Kelmstowe is telling the truth about it,” Master Naylor said dourly.

  “Supposing that, yes,” Frevisse agreed. “For now let’s suppose he is and see where it takes us. Too many things are askew about what’s happened to and around Tom Kelmstowe these past months. Now we have this murder. First, someone gives him away to the reeve, and he loses his extra land.”

  “His ill-gotten land,” Master Naylor said.

  “Yes, but for now
the point is that he lost it, and the reeve who saw to taking it from him was Barnsley. Then Anneys Barnsley claims Kelmstowe attacked her, tried to rape her – not that he did, only that he tried. He denies it, and it was going to come down to his word against hers, no proof either way, except he suddenly disappeared. It had to be supposed he’d run off, so he’s perforce assumed guilty, and his land and other property are forfeit, impoverishing his mother and sister, despite he’s known to be devoted to them.” She knew she was saying things already said before, but somewhere in them was what she needed to jar loose in her mind, or in Master Naylor’s or Margery’s. “Then he comes back. The Barnsleys show no wish to pursue the charge of attempted rape against him, so it’s let go, and he takes up his much-diminished life in the village, to the relief of his mother and sister and with no trouble from anyone over it. That’s been the way of it, hasn’t it?”

  Both Master Naylor and Margery nodded agreement.

  “Then, last night, he and his mother and sister are given tainted broth, keeping them ill at home, and Barnsley is murdered.”

  “You’ve forgot one thing,” Margery put in. “Anneys Barnsley’s sister starting her birthing yesterday afternoon.”

  Frevisse looked at her, startled and a little discomposed at having left that out.

  Then of a sudden she was seeing in her mind something of the pattern she had been seeking. She had been wondering where the sense in all of this was. Why would someone go to the trouble – and cost – of having Tom Kelmstowe carried away, only to let him return? If someone wanted to be rid of him, why stick at simply killing him, especially if they had not stuck at killing Barnsley? Supposing, of course, that Barnsley’s murder and Kelmstowe’s disappearance had anything at all to do with one another. But they must. And if they did, then rather than a welter of jarring pieces having nothing to do with one another, she could begin to see a fine-woven plan under it all.

  One of the guesthall servants approached at a hesitant sideway shuffle, clearly uncertain if she should interrupt. Margery saved her the trouble by asking, “Is Anneys Barnsley coming round, then?”