Masques of Gold (37 page)

Most of the men there knew that Lissa was quite capable of reading and understanding a contract on her own, but most of them also knew she was generous and impulsive. It was thus possible that if Edward seduced her, she would accept an agreement that was less favorable to her than she could obtain. Nor did any of them doubt that William could squeeze the last quarter-farthing out of any contract made on his daughter's behalf—if he wished to. So, although they liked Chigwell and did not like William, the consensus was that Chigwell must make clear that there had been no formal contract or betrothal and that he was withdrawing his son from any informal offer to the lady. As consolation they offered that Edward could explain this to Lissa, and if she desired, the agreement could be renewed.

William protested loudly that this gave Chigwell an unfair advantage, but he was told contemptuously by the master not to be such a greedy cur, that if Edward and Lissa were agreed in love they should have their way. Whereupon William cried that he would not be cheated out of his daughter's service and would see that the marriage contract was very clear on that point. To this, Chigwell responded at the top of his voice that he would not allow his son to form a blood bond with William Bowles if his daughter were the last woman on earth.

Lissa's reaction to Master Chigwell's visit the next day to withdraw his offer was disappointing from William's point of view. She showed no emotion beyond a concern that she should not lose Master Chigwell's goodwill, taking his hand and saying in a tone of regret that she was glad now she had not made a more definite arrangement or her father's behavior would have been ten times worse.

“You are a good girl, Lissa,” Chigwell replied, and added, with a venomous look at William, “Surely the poison in his heart must kill him soon. Then we will see.”

Lissa made no reply to that except a faint negative shake of the head, but she had to lower her eyes to hide the tears in them. She would not need to consider callow, humorless Edward if her father were dead; she would be free to fly to Justin. She had swallowed the pain by the time Chigwell left, however, and her eyes were dry when she turned eagerly to her father.

“I cannot thank you enough for getting me out of the pit I had dug for myself,” she said, smiling brilliantly at William.

Her heart ached a little less when she saw her father's mouth drop open with surprise. His dismay was a little salve for her hurt, perhaps only a pinhead's worth in comparison to the pain he had caused her in separating her from Justin, but it was something.

“I like the old man very well,” she went on before William could speak, “and he made me so good an offer—my own will in what business I did and where I lived and all other things—that I forgot I would have to take Edward with the contract.”

“You cannot fool me,” William said, sneering. “You wanted him. You fought like a cat to have him two years ago.”

“Indeed I did.” Lissa laughed heartily. “That was another reason for my mistake. When Edward came into my mind I remembered him as handsome and kind. I discovered to my sorrow and terror that in two years I had grown into a woman and he was still a boy. So, father, I thank you. I could not imagine how I was going to extricate myself from that agreement, until you appeared. I knew you would do it for me.”

His daughter's obvious good spirits took some of the head off the ale of spoiling the marriage for William, but the ale was still there. Lissa was unmarried and through Chigwell's fury the whole merchant community knew no contract for her marriage was under negotiation. Still, William delayed beginning to seek a gullible buyer for his business. The uncertainties of the political situation on the Continent were causing many pepperers to draw in their horns. Few would be ready to offer him any price, and those few would be harder to deal with than John le Spicer.

Then, during the first week in September, Gamel sailed into port with a cargo that had been dumped in La Rochelle by an Italian captain. The Italian had hoped to sell to merchants dealing with a victorious army and had found no one would buy his goods. The loot from the early victories of King John's army was gone, all hope of a new campaign had died with the defeat of his allies at Bouvines, and the English lords were bitter and destitute. Most of the merchants were equally bitter and destitute. Many had not been paid for earlier purchases and could not have bought even if they wished. None were ready to take on luxury goods. Gamel had gladly taken the cargo off the Italian captain's hands. The lords who had followed John might be temporarily destitute, but the merchants back in England would not be.

Gamel's presence alone would have paralyzed William. If Lissa somehow got a hint of his intention to sell, all hell would break loose; if Gamel heard of the matter, William would be beaten to death, since Gamel regarded the house his father had paid for as Lissa's. However, the news Gamel brought was an even greater deterrent to William to losing any rumors of selling his business. Gamel had heard that King Philip had not moved from Paris to attack John and that the pope had sent Robert Cardinal Curzon, an Englishman, to help negotiate a truce. Far more important to William was the news that, all hostilities being at an end, Robert FitzWalter was on his way home.

Gamel sailed at the end of the third week of September, but William went on with his life as if he had never been away from London. As soon as he heard FitzWalter would soon be in England, William had devised a new plan. He knew that without the seal in hand he could never summon up the courage to ask Lord Robert outright for the sum of money he wanted. But a loan—that was different. He could ask for a loan and give the business as a surety. Sitting in his chair in the solar, with Lissa safe in her bedchamber, William began to laugh aloud. What a comedy! A purchaser coming to London who thought he owned Lissa. Lissa who thought she owned the business. And FitzWalter who really owned it all and had the power to take it!

William was very glad he had not, except for his one conversation with John le Spicer, indicated that he intended any change in his way of life. Let FitzWalter believe he would be a pawn easily within his grasp for as long as he wanted. FitzWalter would be less suspicious and more prone to grant William his loan. Accordingly when FitzWalter arrived in London two weeks later, he presented himself and asked for a private audience.

He began with the good news that he had discovered the whereabouts of Flael's sons and then with some anxiety described the frustration of his plans to reach them. He was relieved when FitzWalter nodded acceptance of that quite calmly and asked, seemingly with simply curiosity, how he had traced them. William explained the trail he had followed from the goldsmith in Peterborough to the ship master of Haarlem, carefully naming each man who had helped him in the hope of gaining FitzWalter's favor. After all, William thought, he might someday want another favor from one of those men, and if they profited from their efforts they would be willing to help him again.

“I will see what I can do for them,” FitzWalter said. “But since you used my name in this matter, I hope you gave them a sensible reason for my seeking these young men.”

“Oh yes, my lord,” William replied, and related the tale of the design Flael was supposed to have done. “That was another reason,” he added, “that I gave up trying to reach them. I did not wish to give the impression that the matter was of any great importance.”

“Very wise,” FitzWalter agreed. “As soon as I have word that the truce is signed, I will decide what further I wish to do.”

He raised a hand as if to dismiss William, who said hastily, “My lord, I have a favor to ask.”

“Yes?”

“This affair has been costly to me, in many ways. The dowry I was forced to pay Flael was very large, much larger than I would have had to give another pepperer. Also, I expended my own money in the long chase of Flael's sons, and I was forced to neglect my business for many months. I would not ask you for any gift before the matter is concluded to your satisfaction, of course, but if you could lend me—”

“Costly to you?” FitzWalter interrupted and laughed harshly. “What do you think the king's little war cost me?” He stared at William and then waved him away.

Such a fury gripped William that he nearly screamed aloud. He would not be cheated of his prize! He would not! “You have laid a heavy burden on me, my lord,” he said. “It is not easy to carry in my heart the knowledge of the whereabouts of the fruit of Flael's crime and the cause of his death and such matters. And the money would be only a loan. I will give you a bond on my house and business as surety that I will pay it back.”

There was a brief silence in which William would have turned and run, except that he was too terrified by what he had done to move. FitzWalter had been staring at him with a look of astonishment, but rage did not follow, as William had expected. Lord Robert blinked and then said, quite blandly, “A surety for a loan that will lift the burden from your heart? A bond on the house and business? Well, that is not unreasonable. How much do you want?”

Justin felt as if he had hardly closed his eyes when an insistent pounding on his door and a man's voice, almost as nigh-pitched as a woman's in near hysteria, brought him awake again. He tumbled out of bed, cursing Hervi and swearing for the hundredth time to get rid of the man. He was probably out drinking again, or dead drunk already, and his poor wife too frightened to go to the door.

Dragging on his bed robe and boots, Justin seized his sword and went down. The figure that burst through the doorway once he had lifted the bar and the latch did so with such impetuosity that he almost spitted himself on Justin's half-raised sword. Justin jerked the weapon back, half turning away to protect the oblivious summoner. The gesture seemed to transmit a message Justin had not intended because the young man seized his arm and cried out.

“Come! You must come! You cannot be such a monster as to refuse her now. He is dead—dead. All blood. So much blood.”

Justin, who had been fully occupied in trying to come completely awake and prevent his visitor from inadvertently killing himself, peered more intently into the face turned up to his.

“Paul?” he gasped. “Paul?”

“Come,” Paul repeated, tugging at Justin's arm. And then, as Justin resisted, “Have you not hurt her enough? Will you refuse to do your duty just to cause her harm?”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Justin shouted, the sense of Paul's first words finally penetrating. Then his breath caught and he dropped his sword and seized Paul in a grip that wrung a cry of pain from him. “Blood? Is Lissa hurt?
Who
is dead?”

He shook Paul as a terrier shakes a rat, almost producing the same broken neck, cast him aside, and took a step toward the street. He was just barely sane enough to stop when Paul croaked, “Master William is dead.”

Justin's life, which had gotten badly cracked in the last few months and felt as if it had flown all to bits when he thought Lissa was dead, reassembled itself. It had not come together right. Here and there it was badly misshapen, but it was a life of a kind and he was too dazed to complain or to wonder what was wrong. He picked up his sword and put out his other hand to help Paul up.

The journeyman ignored the offer and climbed shakily to his feet on his own. “Will you come?” he cried.

“Will you tell me what is wrong?” Justin retorted, the remainder of what Paul had said about his being a monster and “refusing” Lissa having had time to be absorbed and sting him.

“Master William is dead,” Paul repeated, and gulped.

“Thank God I am not called out to every death in this city,” Justin remarked caustically. “If he is not dead by violence—Oh yes, all the blood—”

“All over the shop.” Paul's voice almost failed, and he grasped Justin's arm again. “Come. Please come.”

“He was killed then? By whom?”

“I do not know,” Paul wailed. “I was asleep.”

“You slept through a killing that covered your shop with blood?”

Paul's mouth shook, then firmed. “Mistress Lissa asked me to fetch you. All I know, I have told you. Master William is lying dead in the shop in a pool of blood. If you will not come, will you tell me whom to summon?”

“I will come, of course, but I must dress,” Justin said. “If William Bowles is dead, he will wait for me quite patiently.”

“But the mistress—” Paul called after him.

Ignoring the implied plea for reassurance that he would be quick, Justin walked swiftly up the stairs. He shut the door to the solar with a bang when he reached it, hoping the sound would discourage Paul from following him to urge him to hurry. Justin did not know what his face showed, but he would take no chance, even in the dim light, that anyone would read there the misery he felt. There was rage in him too, but even his anger was not strong enough to lift the dark weight that lay on his soul.

It had been there all the time, Justin realized, as he pulled off his bed robe and reached for shirt and chausses. He pulled on the chausses and wrapped the cross garters around the legs to keep them from twisting. No braies under an arming tunic, and these days Justin did not stir without arms and armor. His thoughts followed their own path as his hands worked, revealing to him that he had lived under that black burden ever since he had tried to force Lissa to marry him at the end of May. He had pretended to himself that he was glad to be free of her, and perhaps there was some relief in having escaped the agony he suffered when they spat cruel words at each other and parted, and came together again. But the dark pall that wrapped him round had turned the whole world black and bitter.

The banked fire did not give much heat and Justin shivered, but not really because of the chill in the room. So William Bowles was dead. Because almost a year ago he had murdered Peter Flael? Had Lissa known that and lied about it? Was that truly why she would not marry him? And if that was true, what would she do now? How would she greet him? What would she say? Justin shivered again. What should he reply to the daughter of a murderer, who had picked him up and cast him down—and other men also—like a cheap toy. The darkness in his soul was split by a red shaft of rage. “Whore,” he muttered.

“Sir Justin—”

Justin jerked and pulled the shirt over his head. Then he walked into the solar and flung the door open. Paul had carried up the night-candle from the ground-floor room to light his way. The light also gave him too good a view of the expression on Justin's face, and he backed up and almost fell down the stairs. Justin caught his arm and steadied him.

“Go down to the back room and kick my servant awake. Tell him to saddle my horse. If Hervi is not there, you will have to saddle Bête Noir yourself. Do you know how?”

“Yes,” Paul breathed, and ran down the stairs much faster than he had come up.

Cursing Hervi again, Justin pulled one tie of his shirtsleeve with his teeth, made an awkward one-handed knot to hold it, then did the other sleeve. He realized he should have kept Paul to help him, but he was glad he had not. He needed more time to grind down his urge to kill anything connected with Lissa. As he struggled into the arming tunic, which was stiff and stinking of sweat, and then wearily pushed his head and shoulders into his hauberk, he recalled that his cousins had barely prevented him from attacking and killing Edward Chigwell without the slightest excuse. They had then forced Justin to leave London. He had spent the harvest season working in the fields on his father's estate and only come back to London when word of the truce reached the mayor, who had summoned him in fear of trouble from the returning men-at-arms.

Since then Justin had been too busy trying to keep the peace with his depleted forces to think of Edward Chigwell, especially since he heard that William Bowles had put an end to any prospect of marriage. Justin paused in the middle of buckling on his sword belt, then finished what he was doing and thrust the sword into its sheath in a hurry. Had Lissa feared he would abandon her as easily as Edward Chigwell had? Could that be why—But wait, Edward had not been involved directly; Justin remembered every word he had heard about that affair. Bowles had made some ugly accusations, and the elder Chigwell had withdrawn his offer. So perhaps Edward had not given Lissa up willingly. As he caught up his shield and walked back through the solar and down the stairs, Justin remembered something else. The old man had said he would never countenance the marriage while Bowles was alive—or something like that. Could it be that Bowles's death had nothing to do with Flael?

Both Paul and Hervi were standing by the horse. Justin snorted irritably and pushed aside the stirrup to check the girth himself. He slammed Noir in the ribs and drew in the girth another inch before the big black could draw in the breath he had expelled.

“I will speak to you when I get back,” he said to Hervi, and then looked at Paul and shook his head; both together could not saddle one horse properly.

He mounted and rode along the Mercery, turning south into Soper Lane. Just past Needler's Lane he was challenged, and he lifted his shield and put his hand on his sword hilt; but the men who came forward with torches were part of the watch, and he hooked the shield back on the saddle. He called his name almost at the same moment as the leader of the group recognized his horse and shield and apologized for the challenge. Justin then paused to ask if the watch had heard any disturbance down Soper Lane. There had been some men abroad earlier, he was told, but they were quiet and sober, had given their names readily, and had been allowed to pass. Did Justin want the names? He gave a negative shake of the head.

Cordwainers was a quiet area, the watchman said, there being little to attract roisterers. But less than an hour past a pair of men going west on Watling Street had hurried on instead of stopping when they were hailed. They had turned north into Soper. The watchman shrugged. He had pursued the pair, but they had disappeared by the time the watch reached the corner. They had not looked for them. Two well-dressed men could have many reasons not to want to give their names to the watch, and they were not likely to be thieves or cause a riot.

Justin agreed and rode down the street. If by any chance Bowles had been one of those men and they had been coming from the east along Watling, they could not have been coming from Chigwell's house, which was farther down Soper in the Vintry. But if the watch—Justin stopped the thought, appalled. The woman had driven him insane. He had been about to think of ways to alter the watch's evidence to involve Edward Chigwell—and for all he knew, William Bowles had never left his bed except to walk down the stairs into his shop and be killed there. And if one wanted Bowles dead, there was another who was even more eager for him to pass from the world—Lissa herself!

With his heart a lead weight in his breast, Justin drew his sword and pounded on the door of Lissa's house with the hilt. Instantly her voice came down from the window above. “Justin? Thank God. Come around by the back. The space by the front door is a sea of blood.”

He looked up instinctively, just in time to see the shadow that was her head withdraw, but he did not move. The sound of her voice…he had forgotten her voice. In the bitter days and weeks and months he had remembered much about Lissa, little good, much bad or twisted from what had been a delight to him into badness, but he had forgotten her voice. No, he had not forgotten it. It had been different; it had lost its music after she had cried it hoarse the day Gamel “ordered” her to marry him. After that it had only been a voice, without the lilt that had made it especially Lissa's voice.

Noir shifted uneasily under him. Justin steadied his hand, which had been trembling, and touched the horse with his heel. He closed his eyes as if that could shut out memory as he turned into the back alley. How often had he come this way to the warmth of Lissa's arms? He had to stop and breathe deeply to ease the pain in his chest and throat before he could dismount. As he swung his leg over the saddle, the door opened and a golden path fell across the yard. A small figure ran out along it, stopping a few respectful feet away to quaver in Witta's voice, “I will take your horse, my lord, if he will let me.”

“Yes, he will,” Justin responded. “Just do not shout at him or hurt him.”

Everyone was afraid of Bête Noir because he was not only very large but also all black without a single lighter hair. That made the red of his mouth and flared nostrils, the white that surrounded his eyes when he rolled them, all the more startling. But for a stallion, Noir was very steady and gentle. It would scarcely do, Justin thought as he walked down the golden path to the open door where a slender figure stood waiting for him, for a man who needed to take his destrier into crowds to have the kind of mount that was half mad to begin with and went totally mad at the smell of blood. And then he was looking down into Lissa's face, knowing he was totally mad himself to be thinking about his horse instead of about her and William Bowles and the blood on the shop floor.

She put her free arm, the one that was not holding a candle, up around his neck, pulled his head down, and kissed his lips. Justin, who had let her do it in a kind of horrified daze, jerked away, and Lissa said, “I did not kill him. I did not arrange to have him killed.” She then looked very surprised, her fingers crept up to cover her lips, and through them she added, “Perhaps you will not believe me, but I never thought of hiring a man to kill him. Oh dear, I am afraid if I
had
thought of it—But perhaps I would have been too sensible to place myself in the power of the kind of person who does—”

“Lissa!” Justin bellowed.

His heart was pounding like a hammer wielded by an insane blacksmith in a great hurry. The kiss had nearly made him sick, implying as it did that she was ready to sell her favors for his service in protecting her. But before his anger could do more than drive away the sickness, there she was explaining, as only Lissa could, that she
would
have been guilty if only she had thought of hiring a murderer, unless she had happened to remember that such men could not be dismissed as easily as they were hired.

“But Justin,” she protested, staring wide-eyed into his face, “there is no use not considering such suspicions. Too many people know I hated my father. And some might have thought my bitterness would be increased by his causing Chigwell to withdraw his offer of marriage—”

“And was it not?” Justin asked.

Lissa stared upward, her face as astonished as if he had struck her, and then her eyes filled with tears, which spilled slowly down her cheeks. “How can you ask that?” she whispered. And then she lowered her head and bit her lips. “No, you are quite right. I deserve your scorn. I was so lonely and miserable. I was desperate for you and I could not have you, so I wanted someone, anyone, and Master Chigwell—of whom I am very fond—made me an offer that was most flattering. I was to have either his business or mine, and the other only to be managed by his younger son or another of my choosing, and a dower surety of—” She brushed the tears from her cheeks and looked up at Justin again. “It was greed, pure, simple greed.”