The Murderer's Tale (25 page)

“As things stand now, no.” Frevisse hated to admit that but saw no way around it. After leaving Dame Claire she had paced the garden until her anger had quieted and then set about finding out what else she could in the while before Lady Lovell was free to listen to her. What little she had found out had not been much use.

The question of Petir had been easily taken care of. His fellows in the stable had readily told her that his evening had been spent dicing with them first in the great hall and then in the stables. They had laughed over it because for once he had won more than he lost and had made them go on playing later than they should have. When they had settled to sleep in the loft, Petir had gone to his usual far corner, with no way to the ladder for him except by stepping over four other men and, no, he had never gone out until they all did in the morning because one of them was an especially light sleeper and would have known if he had.

They had been curious at her questions but free enough in their answers that she did not doubt them. Whatever Petir truly felt about Martyn, even if he had lied about not being particularly angry at him, he had had no chance to kill him last night.

She had also tried to learn what was generally thought of Martyn, but there was disappointingly little talk to be had about him and none of it to the bad, either from such servants as she asked or from Master Holt, who had said, “He was one of the most straightforward men I’ve ever known, honest, competent. He could have done well for himself almost anywhere and had less burden to bear than he did with Master Knyvet, but that was where his loyalty first was and there he kept it, come what may. What will come now, with him gone and Master Giles likely given charge of everything… Well, he’ll find a steward to his liking but not a better one.”

He had not said more and Frevisse had not pressed him.

Now she had given it all to Lady Lovell, and Lady Lovell was gazing past her with anger-darkened eyes toward the house, the way Giles had gone a while ago, saying musingly, more to herself than Frevisse, “I’ve never much cared for Master Giles.”

“But you married Edeyn to him,” Frevisse said before she could stop herself, only barely managing to keep accusation out of her voice.

Lady Lovell looked mildly surprised but not offended. “It was a good marriage for her, with her dowry none so large nor his property either but him to have all the Knyvet inheritance someday. I’ve gathered that they’ve done reasonably well together. She’s seemed happy the few times I’ve seen her.”

And she had seemed happy when Frevisse first encountered her on the road three days ago; but, seen from now, so much of that happiness had been centered around Lionel and Martyn and their shared laughter. How much of that happiness was left, and how would it fare with only her husband for a source?

Frevisse caught herself on that thought. It was unnecessarily unkind, come out of her own dislike of the man. Dame Claire was maybe right: maybe she did let her likes and dislikes too much influence her reactions to people. But in Giles’ case…

She stopped the thought because it was only the beginning of another justification of her dislike of him. Instead she said, “By your leave, my lady, if you need me for nothing more, I think I should find Dame Claire for our evening prayers now.”

Lady Lovell nodded her agreement. “But if you think of anything more or learn anything else, come talk with me again.”

Frevisse left her with thanks but little hope. There were simply no more questions she could think to ask of anyone, and all the questions she had asked so far had found her no one else to suspect besides Giles, and against Giles she had nearly nothing except—when all was said and done and fairly faced—her dislike of him that maybe brought her to make more of things than she should.

The manor house rose ahead of her at its most beautiful, she thought, with its stone a rich cream-gold in the late afternoon light. Like the garden well kept and carefully enclosed, it was meant to be a place for living securely, well, and in as much peace as life allowed. But how well, how safely, how much at peace could that life be if rot and danger were not an outward threat but inside of it and growing? There had been murder here, and she was afraid, very afraid, that there was something worse than murder, because the murder was only the final outcome of something deeply wrong. There was a wrongness in Giles, a corruption that would taint everything around him. What if she never proved Martyn’s murder against him? Aside from what it meant to Lionel, what would come of Giles left free? Because if Giles could kill as she thought he had killed Martyn—in cold calculation to ruin Lionel—then what other things would he go on to do?

She passed from the sunlight into the shadowed passage to the great hall. Giles’ face in the garden while he sat listening to the old knight had been simply a face, polite, a little vacant as the knight had gone on with a story Frevisse doubted Giles wanted to hear, but there had been nothing particular about him, nothing to single him out as anyone apart in mind or manners from anyone around him. But no matter what she could prove or not prove to anyone else, no matter what he
seemed,
Frevisse was certain he was as much a venomed thing as any adder found under any flower in any garden there might be.

Despite what she had thought was her intent to find Dame Claire and go to prayers, she found herself at the foot of the stairs to Lionel’s cell, not the stairs to the chapel. Had anyone been to see him at all this afternoon? Quietly she went up the stairs’ curve, to stop with surprise in sight of the door because the only guard there was Edeyn, standing with her forehead leaned against the frame, a hand pressed flat to the door’s wood, her eyes closed, her lips moving as if she silently prayed.

Because it would be cruel to watch her unaware, Frevisse said, “Edeyn.”

The girl straightened and faced her, startled but too distracted by her feelings to care she had been seen so vulnerable.

“Where’s Deryk?” Frevisse asked. “The guard who was here.”

Or by now Deryk might have been replaced by someone else. It did not matter. Someone was supposed to be here. But Edeyn answered, “He left.”

“He left?” Before Frevisse could demand why, there was a sharp whining and scrabble of claws against the inside of the door, distracting her. “Fidelitas?” she asked and pushed the door open.

“Don’t!” Edeyn cried. “She’ll go—” Fidelitas was a white streak between their skirts, gone down the stairs. Edeyn drew an anguished breath. “Giles will be so angry! She’ll go to Lionel and—”

“To Lionel?” Only the quickest glance was needed to see the room was empty. “Where’s Lionel gone?”

“With Giles—”

“Where?
Why
?” Frevisse interrupted.

“Master Holt gave Giles leave to see to Lionel having a bath and clean clothing. Giles asked him if he could. Giles asked—Giles—asked—” Edeyn broke off, closed her eyes, and thrust her clenched hands against her forehead, crying out in pain, “I’m so afraid!”

Frevisse grasped her wrists and pulled her hands down, demanding, “Where are they?”

“In our chamber!”

“But the servants are still there!”

“No, Giles sent them away. There’s no one there!”

No one there to gainsay Giles if he claimed the madness had come back on Lionel and he had had to kill him to defend himself.

The thought came hot and clear and terrifying. Frevisse saw it mirrored in Edeyn’s face and knew that whatever barriers Edeyn had made to protect herself against knowing what her husband was were broken by her fear for Lionel. “We can’t leave them alone!” she said fiercely. “Edeyn, come!”

Giles watched as Lionel fumblingly managed to undress himself. A servant would have been useful for that, or it would have gone faster if Giles helped him; but there could not be a servant here and Giles was not about to touch that blood-filthied clothing. He rose from the edge of the bed impatiently, wanting to pace, but made himself sit back down again. There was time. He could wait.

Lionel was slowly working what had been his white shirt loose from the blood caking it to his side. He had done everything slowly since Giles had fetched him from his cell, as if his mind were not fully there or fully caring. The only swift movement he had made was when they had come into the room and Edeyn had been there despite that Giles had told her to be gone along with the servants. She had started toward Lionel with a soft cry, but Lionel had turned from her to face the wall and stayed there until she left. Giles had enjoyed that. Let that be her last view of Lionel alive— dirty, unshaven, ashamed, covered in Martyn’s blood. Let her remember him that way, and dead.

Even with her gone, Lionel had only stood there, until Giles had told him to strip. He was taking forever at it. The steam was rising from the filled tub beside him. The water would be tepid by the time he was ready for it. It hardly mattered. Giles had not yet decided exactly when Lionel would die. He had found with Martyn that once it was done, it was done, and the only pleasure left was in remembering. The act itself was so brief, he did not want to waste the pleasure of his anticipation. On the other hand, he could not wait too long; inevitably someone would come to see how they were.

Lionel let the shirt fall and then stood there as if he could not remember he had more to do.

“Your hosen,” Giles said sharply.

Lionel’s hands went vaguely toward untying their points.

Maybe it would be better to kill him now. The rate he was not moving, they’d be here to midnight.

A peremptory rap at the door brought Giles up from the bed edge with a curse. “What is it?” The only answer was another knock, harder. He cursed again. Some fool of a servant who could not follow orders to stay away. He went to jerk open the door. “What—” he began, but Lionel’s cur dodged past him into the room, distracting him. He began a grab for her before he realized it was no servant come with her but that tall nun and, unbelievably, Edeyn. On her at least he could turn his full displeasure.

“I told you—” he started.

The nun looked past him, and he realized he had momentarily forgotten Lionel. It was uncomfortable, not being sure where Lionel was, and Giles swung half away from her, only to find he had withdrawn to a corner and turned away from them. Before Giles could come back on Edeyn, the nun was past him, into the room, and Edeyn with her, gabbling, “We were going to the chapel. We thought we could—”

He saw the fear in their faces. He was so used to finding out shadings and possibilities of fear on the faces of people that theirs were easy to read, Edeyn most especially, but the nun, too. It was her fault—her with her suspicions—that he had to move faster on the matter of Lionel than he wanted, and now somehow she had infected Edeyn, and sure as misery, they had come to interfere. Who else had the nun persuaded?

The tightening coil of alarm in his chest abruptly loosed, because if the nun had had any real proof against him, there would have been men at the door, not merely whey-faced Edeyn and herself.

But suspicion was enough to make things awkward; and not only could he not afford awkward just now, he assuredly did not want Edeyn’s suspicions plaguing him afterward.

Therefore there had to be no afterward.

They were inside and Lionel safe for now. There had been no time for planning more than that. Edeyn was talking rapidly, trying to make excuse for their coming, but the cold flicker of Giles’ eyes back and forth to their faces warned Frevisse that he understood more by their being here than she had hoped he would.

Ignoring Edeyn, he turned his back on them, shut the door, and stepped aside to push the large wooden chest that sat along the wall scraping across the floor to block the door shut.

Edeyn squeaked to a stop, then asked faintly, “Giles?”

He did not answer except to go past them to the head of the bed and draw a dagger out from under the nearest pillow. With terrible clarity, Frevisse understood how he had probably made a show for the servants of hiding it there before Lionel was brought in, to make it clear he did not mean to make Martyn’s supposed mistake of wearing a weapon around Lionel but establishing that he had it readily to hand. She also understood, even before he had turned around to face them again, exactly what he meant to do with it now. With all three of them dead, he could claim that Lionel had gone into a frenzy, killed Edeyn and her before Giles could stop him, and that Giles had then killed him in defense, rage, and revenge.

“Giles?” Edeyn asked. “What—?”

Frevisse pushed her backward, putting the bath, the only large thing on their side of the room, between them and Giles as he closed on them. There was no hope of the door. Even if they separated and ran, he would have first one of them and then the other before either of them could shove the chest away from the door. “Scream, Edeyn!” she ordered and caught up a towel from the edge of the bath, stretching it between her hands as some sort of shield against the coming dagger thrust. If she could catch the dagger somehow, or tangle Giles’ hand, it would mean a moment more for something else to happen, a moment more for her to think of something besides keeping him away from Edeyn.

She never thought of Lionel. She had glimpsed him withdrawn into a corner when they came in and then there had only been time for Giles.

But Edeyn cried out not for help but, “Lionel!” and he was suddenly there, unarmed and almost naked but come at Giles from the side, catching him unready. With mingled fury and surprise, Giles retreated, slashing to hold him off, trying to put distance enough between them for a thrust, but Lionel gave him no space, caught his wrist with one hand, his throat with the other. Giles, with the strength of absolute fury, twisted his hand against Lionel’s hold, bringing the dagger around to graze across Lionel’s collarbone. Blood welled along the line it made. Edeyn at last began to scream in earnest, but Lionel dragged Giles’ hand away from himself, and Frevisse flung the towel over the dagger, one fold, two, and three, wrapping it, then jerking it down, backward out of Giles’ hand. Giles wrenched out of Lionel’s double hold with a sideways twist to follow the dagger as it fell, shoving Frevisse aside with one hand, going for the dagger with the other; but before his fingers closed on it, Fidelitas was there, sinking teeth into his wrist. His yell and Lionel’s joined as Lionel shoved a foot into his ribs, staggering him back against the bed. Giles thrust off of it and back at Lionel, but Lionel straightened with the dagger in his hand and drove it hilt-deep into Giles’ side.