Michael Jecks - Dispensation of Death

‘Lady, I am grateful to you for coming to speak with us,’ the knight said, and for the next few minutes he questioned her about the attack. Her recollection was no different from Cecily’s.

‘And then the man fled?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you have no idea who he was? He was not familiar? Sometimes in a household as vast as this, a man’s gait or his way of holding his head can grow known to you.’

‘I am sure I did not recognise him in any way,’ the lady said with a shake of her head.

‘Are you aware of any who may have wished to harm Mabilla?’

She hesitated — it wasn’t intentional, and it was only a moment, but she saw his face lower towards her like a dog wondering whether his master was sad. There was the same enquiring, considering frown. ‘No. No, of course not,’ she said emphatically.

‘Did the man make any kind of move as though he was considering attacking another person in your group?’

‘Good heaven, no. No, he fled as soon as Mabilla fell.’

Sir Baldwin nodded pensively, and at last his attention was diverted from her. Instead he looked northwards, gazing along the line of buildings. ‘What of others? It was dark there. Could one of the other ladies have had an enemy? Perhaps a lover whose affection had turned sour?’

‘No. The ladies are all entirely honourable and without any form of … of sourness.’

‘Lady, you seem a little tired. Would you care to seat yourself?’

His tone was warm and respectful, but she felt a cold certainty that he was watching her every move. He was a shrewd questioner, the more so because he recognised the little guilty signs. He knew she was lying.

‘Perhaps the murderer was seeking another, and met us by accident?’ she said faintly. ‘No one should have known we would be there at that time of night. It was a whim of the Queen’s.’

‘You would not usually have been there? That is interesting. Where else could the man have been going?’

‘To the chapel itself, I suppose. There is nowhere else he could have gone,’ she said, and after Sir Baldwin and the Bailiff Simon Puttock had bade her farewell, she watched them leave with a sense of huge relief.

At the same time, she felt a sense of loss. If only she could trust these two. She felt she couldn’t trust her own husband just now. Not if he was sending men to kill her maids.

‘I didn’t understand much of what you were saying to the Queen or that lady,’ Simon admitted as they left Eleanor and made their way towards the chapel.

‘I rather assumed you wouldn’t,’ Baldwin said. ‘Did you hear what the Queen said when she saw Walter?’

‘Hm? No. What was that?’

‘It is clear that she detests him,’ Baldwin explained briefly. ‘It will require a little thought, this. For now though, let us go and seek out the body of this girl. I am more than a little surprised by what we’ve just been told.’

‘I was more surprised by the way the Queen flaunted her breasts.’

‘She has an interest in clothing, I suppose.’

‘I had an interest in the descriptions of the assassin’s clothing.’

‘You noticed that too? Cecily’s description agreed with Lady Eleanor’s, but neither tied up with the clothes on the man in the hall, did they? I wonder … they saw a figure and a face in the middle of the night, by candlelight, while the Queen was naturally under a great strain, thinking this must be an assassin aiming his knife at her.’

Simon glanced at him. ‘Baldwin, they’re used to candlelight. Lady Eleanor and Cecily were intelligent enough to be assured about the clothing and describe it in some detail. If I had to trust any evidence in this whole mess, I’d trust them.’

‘And yet Cecily fainted away, and Eleanor was farthest from the man.’

It took them little time to find a servant in the King’s livery who could take them to the body. Mabilla lay in the Queen’s chapel, a pretty little room with a high vaulted ceiling. At the rear was a gallery — presumably, Baldwin thought, for the Queen herself. She would pray up there while her household prayed down here below.

‘Nice,’ Simon commented, looking at the wall paintings. There were scenes from the Gospels on either side, and the great window over the altar was made of panes of coloured glass, lighting the interior with a warm, diffuse light that gleamed on the gold leaf and gilt all about. The space was clear of seats bar one, a small, low chair facing the altar. Before it was a small cushion for her to kneel on in prayer. ‘Rather better decorated than Lydford’s.’

Baldwin smiled, but said nothing. Before the altar a bier had been placed, and upon that was the body of Mabilla.

She had been laid out by the women of the Queen’s household, her wounds cleaned and her clothing changed. Baldwin pulled a face at the sight. ‘We cannot undress her in here to see the wounds, can we?’

‘Most certainly not!’ came an indignant voice.

The voice came from behind them. Baldwin turned to see a young chaplain, eyeing the two of them with black suspicion.

To Baldwin, he looked much like the Celtic men of Cornwall, with his almost coal-black hair and small, brown eyes. There was a hardness about him, a whip-cord strength, for all that he was short and moderately plump. Baldwin nodded to him, and absently took up Mabilla’s right hand, studying it closely with a frown.

‘Put her hand down. Stop pawing at her!’ The Chaplain entered now and passed Baldwin and Simon, looking down at the woman’s body as he did so. ‘Rest in peace, daughter.’

There was a kind of naturalness about him in the face of this death that was oddly endearing to Baldwin. The fellow clearly did not look upon Mabilla as a mere corpse ready to be thrown into the ground; he was treating her as a woman still, a person with feelings and a soul, and doing so naturally, without affectation.

‘Chaplain, I am sorry if it feels as though we are intruding here,’ Sir Baldwin said. ‘It was not our intention to be annoying to you, but we have been commanded to come here by the King himself, to learn what we may about this poor child’s death.’

‘The King himself, hey?’ It was plain that this man was not impressed. ‘Well — what more do you need to know? The poor chit was slaughtered only yards away from my chapel here, and then her killer — God be praised! — was found by another man, who killed him. It is as simple as that. There is little more to be learned.’

‘Could you tell me anything about this lady?’

‘Mabilla? Her surname was Aubyn, but I suppose you know that already. Well, as to other things, she was born and bred in a little manor just outside London, a place called Iseldone, I think.’

‘Her family?’

The priest looked at him with some exasperation. ‘If you need that sort of information, ask Lady Eleanor. Mabilla was one of her ladies.’

‘Aren’t they all?’ Simon murmured. He was standing over Mabilla and peering down at her sadly. She had a pretty enough face and slim body. He could imagine her smiling and laughing, flirting. She had that sort of cheeky look about her.

‘Most, yes. The poor Queen has no rights, it would seem,’ the Chaplain agreed.

‘So all the women are regulated by the Lady Eleanor?’

‘Not all. One or two perhaps may be bolder than others.’

‘In what way?’

‘A household is run almost entirely by men. Yet the Queen has women about her. It is not unnatural for them to form relationships with some of the men about the place.’

‘Are you thinking of any in particular?’

‘Ach! It is not concealed. Lady Alicia, the same who stood between the killer and the Queen, she has an affection for one of the guards.’