Reluctantly, because to mention one of the convent’s problems was somehow to solidify it, Adelia asked, “Is Bertha still in the cowshed?”
“Won’t come out, poor soul. That old Dakers still want to scrag her?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
Feeding Allie, who was making spirited attempts to feed herself, took concentration that allowed no thought for anything else.
When they’d wiped food off her hair as well as off their own, the child was put down to sleep and the two women ate their supper in silence, their feet stretched out to the brazier, passing the ale bottle back and forth between them.
Warm, the pain beginning to lessen, Adelia thought that such security as there was in her world rested at this moment in the gaunt old woman on the stool opposite hers. A day didn’t go by without a reminder of the gratitude she owed to Prior Geoffrey for their introduction, nor a strike of fear that Gyltha might leave her, nor, for that matter, puzzlement at why she stayed.
Adelia said, “Do you mind being here, Gyltha?”
“Ain’t got no choice, girl. We’m snowed up. Been snowing again, if you’d notice. Path down to the river’s gone and blocked itself again.”
“I mean, galloping across country to get here, away from home, murder…everything. You never complain.”
Gyltha picked a strand of mutton from her teeth, considered it, and popped it back into her mouth. “Somewhere to see, I suppose,” she said.
Perhaps that was it. Women generally had to stay where they were put, which in Gyltha’s case had been Cambridgeshire fenland, a place that Adelia found endlessly exotic but that was undoubtedly very flat. Why should not Gyltha’s heart drum to adventure in foreign places like any crusader’s? Or long to see God’s peace retained in her country as much as Rowley did? Or require, despite the risk, to see God’s justice done on those who killed?
Adelia shook her head at her. “What would I do without you?”
Gyltha poured the remnants of the broth from Adelia’s bowl into hers and put it down on the floor for Ward. “For a start, you wouldn’t have no time to find out who done in that poor lad, nor who it was done for Rosamund,” she said.
“Oh,” Adelia said, sighing. “Very well, tell me.”
“Tell ee what?” But Gyltha was smirking a satisfied smirk.
“You know very well. Who’s arrived? Who’s been asking questions about the boy in the icehouse? Somebody wanted him found and, sure as taxes, that somebody is going to question why he hasn’t been. Who is it?”
It was more than one. As if blown ahead of the snow that had now encased them, four people had arrived at Godstow during Adelia’s absence.
“Master and Mistress Bloat of Abingdon, they’re ma and pa to that young Emma as you took to. Come to see her married.”
“What are they like?”
“Big.” Gyltha spread her arms as if to encompass tree trunks. “Big bellies, big words, big voices-he has, anyhow, bellows like a bull as how he ships more wine from foreign parts than anybody else, sells more’n anybody else-for a nicer price than anybody else, I wouldn’t be surprised. Hog on a high horse, he is.”
By which Adelia gathered that Master Bloat reveled in a position he’d not been born to. “And his wife?”
In answer, Gyltha arranged her mouth into a ferocious simper, picked up the ale bottle, and ostentatiously prinked her little finger as she pretended to drink from it. She hadn’t taken to the Bloats.
“Unlikely murderers, though,” Adelia said. “Who else?”
“Their son-in-law-as-will-be.”
Another person with a valid reason for coming to Godstow.
“Aaaah.” So the beautiful, gallant writer of poetry had come to take his bride. How nice for that wild, charming girl, how nice that love would lighten the winter darkness for a while at least. “How did he get here?”
Gyltha shrugged. “Arrived from Oxford afore the blizzard set in, like the others. Seems he’s lord of the manor over the bridge, though he don’t spend much time there. Run-down old ruin, Polly says it is.” Gyltha had made friends in the kitchen. “His pa as took Stephen’s side in the war had a castle further upriver during the war, the which King Henry made un pull it down.”
“Is he as handsome as Emma thinks he is?”
But Adelia saw that here was another that hadn’t been taken to-this time, in depth. “Handsome is as handsome does,” Gyltha said. “Older’n I expected, and a proper lord, too, from his way of ordering people about. Been married before, but her died. The Bloats is lickin’ his boots for the favor of him making their girl a noblewoman.” Gyltha leaned forward slightly. “And him kindly accepting two hundred marks in gold as comes with her for a dowry.”
“Two hundred marks?” An immense sum.
“So Polly says. In gold.” Gyltha nodded. “Ain’t short of a shilling or two, our Master Bloat.”
“He can’t be. Still, if he’s prepared to purchase his daughter’s happiness…” She paused. “Is she happy?”
Gyltha shrugged. “Ain’t seen her. She’s kept to the cloisters. I’da thought she’d come rushing to see this Lord Wolvercote…”
“Wolvercote?”
“That’s his lordship’s name. Suits him, an’ all; he do look proper wolfish.”
“Gyltha…Wolvercote, that’s the man…he’s the one who’s raised an army for the queen. He’s supposed to be at Oxford, waiting for Eleanor to join him.”
“Well, he ain’t, he’s here.”
“Is he now? But…” Adelia was determined to follow the gleam of romance where it led. “He’s not a likely murderer, either. It speaks well for him if he’s prepared to delay a war because he can’t wait to marry young Emma.”
“He’s delayin’ it,” Gyltha pointed out, “for young Emma plus two hundred marks. In gold.” She leaned forward, pointing with her knitting needle. “You know the first thing he do when he got back to the village? Finds a couple of rogues robbin’ his manor and hangs ’em quicker’n buttered lightning.”
“The two on the bridge? I wondered about them.”
“Sister Havis ain’t happy. She made a right to-do about it, according to Polly. See, it’s the abbey’s bridge, and the sisters don’t like it being decorated with corpses. ‘You take ’em down now,’ she told his lordship. But he says as it’s his bridge, so he won’t. And he ain’t.”
“Oh, dear.” So much for romance. “Well, who’s the fourth arrival?”
“Lawyer. Name of Warin. Now he has been asking questions. Very worried about his young cousin, seemingly, as was last seen riding upriver.”
“Warin, Warin. He wrote the letter the boy carried.” It was as if an ice barrier was melting and allowing everything to flood back into her memory. Your affct cousin, Wlm Warin, gentleman-at-law, who hereby sends: two silvr marks as an earnest of your inheritance, the rest to be Claimed when we do meet.
Letters, always letters. A letter in the dead man’s saddlebag. A letter on Rosamund’s table. Did they connect the two murders? Not necessarily. People wrote letters when they could write at all. On the other hand…
“When did Master Warin arrive seeking his cousin?”
“Late last night, afore the blizzard. And he’s a weeper. Crying fit to bust for worry as his cousin might’ve got caught in the snow, or been waylaid for his purse. Wanted to cross the bridge and ask at the village, but the snow started blowing, so he couldn’t.”
Adelia worked it out. “He was quick off the mark to know the boy was missing, then. Talbot of Kidlington-it must be him in the icehouse-was only killed the night before.”
“Is that a clue?” The gleam in Gyltha’s eye was predatory.
“I don’t know. Probably not. Oh, dear God, what now?”
The church bell across the way had begun to toll, shivering the ewer in its bowl, sending vibrations through the bed. Allie’s mouth opened to yell, and Adelia scrambled to get to her and cover her ears. “What is it? What is it?” This was no call to worship.