A Personal Devil (MB 2) by Gellis Roberta

Author:Gellis, Roberta [Gellis, Roberta]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, General, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780312875930
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2002-09-07T07:00:00+00:00

24 MAY

OLD PRIORY GUESTHOUSE

The next morning, Bell arrived in time to share their breakfast. Unfortunately, his men had not laid hands on Borc. Either Borc had not appeared at the cookshop, or Tom had not been able to pick him out from the description Diot had given. On the other hand, the justiciar had been most cooperative. His men had questioned the neighbors on Lime Street, and he had passed the information to Bell.

First, the likelihood that the messenger had killed Bertrild were considerably increased. She had not left the house after she returned to it at about Nones and no one, except the messenger, had gone in—at least at the front door. That left the possibility that someone had sneaked down the alley and come in through the back, but it was not great. The alley behind the house opened into the Chepe. There were stalls on either side, and they were so close together that to pass into the alley took great care not to knock the goods to the ground. Both merchants remembered the servants leaving and returning, but they swore that no one else had passed them all afternoon.

At the front, the messenger had been seen arriving and leaving by a grocer’s wife across from Mainard’s house. She loathed Bertrild, who had quarreled with her and insulted her, and she was hoping that so unusual an event as a mounted visitor could be used to Bertrild’s discredit. She had watched carefully and confirmed the time Jean had set for the messenger’s arrival. He had left perhaps a candlemark later, in a great hurry, heading west. Then she had gone next door to gossip and found her neighbor had also watched, so she had that woman’s witness to what she said.

The information about movement after dark was less certain. Bertrild’s slaves had seen and heard nothing. Their pallets and blankets were spread under the table and wall shelves in the kitchen, and all had been so exhausted by the terrors and excitements of the day, not to mention the long walks to accomplish the errands on which Bertrild had sent them, that they slept like bludgeoned oxen.

There was one report of violation of the curfew, however. A woman who lived in the corner house, which also backed on the alley that exited into the Chepe, had been up nursing a new babe and said she had heard a horse’s hooves passing some time before Matins. She had not got up to look at who it was; she had been tired and, frankly, did not want to know if one of her neighbors had business that took him out in the dead of night.

“I think that, with what you saw in the wheelbarrow and the fresh dung outside Mainard’s back gate, it is reasonably certain that Bertrild was—” Magdalene glanced at Ella and continued cautiously—”ah…moved from the house on Lime Street to the yard of Mainard’s shop.”

“She will not come here, will she?” Ella asked, frowning. “The last time she shrieked so that I was frightened to death.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.