Her fingers stopped squashing her bread into a formless wad. Rabbiting. With his hound.
Her excitement nearly brought her to her feet. Only barely she contained herself the little while left until the meal was done. With choked eagerness, she recited the grace with the others, rose with them, and moved quietly away from the table and out of the refectory into the cloister walk. But there, as the nuns separated to their afternoon duties, she swung sharply around and caught Dame Alys before she could disappear back to the kitchen.
With quick signs Frevisse asked her to come along to the slipe, the narrow passage that ran out into the orchard. Short conversations that could not wait for other times or better places were allowed there, and as soon as they were in its shelter Frevisse said, “About Domina Edith’s rabbit pie…”
“I’ve done the crust for it myself and if some fool hasn’t spoiled the meat with too much salt while I’ve been gone…”
Knowing better than to let Dame Alys warm to that theme, Frevisse cut across her. “It was yesterday Father Henry brought you the rabbit?” Dame Alys made a curt, surprised nod. “When yesterday?”
“Just before supper. Came skulking in all guilty, like a schoolboy caught out when he should have been at lessons, and I had to be the one that told him Sister Fiacre was dead. He was so upset he nearly forgot to hand over the rabbit, would have walked right out of the kitchen with it in his fist if I hadn’t snatched it. A holy man, maybe, but a great gawp in the bargain, I’ve often said…”
“You said he goes rabbiting with a hound?”
“A little spotted dog, called a hound only because that’s what it’s most nearly like. He keeps it in the miller’s house in the village, for Domina wouldn’t let him keep so raggedy a creature here-”
“Thank you!” Frevisse said and left Dame Alys standing with mouth open, surprised all over again at her rudeness.
On her way to the new guesthall, she stopped a servant in the yard and asked him to find Father Henry for her. “I need to see him as soon as may be. I’ll be with the crowner awhile, but after that he’ll have to look for me. Tell him I need to see him very soon.”
The man nodded and ran off, and she went on. It might have been better to wait until she had actually talked with Father Henry, but she wanted to know how far Montfort had gone in questioning Joliffe, and learn, if she could, what he had found out that she had been unable to.
He was in his chamber, the new guesthall’s best room, standing close to the fire and looking pleased with himself. His clerk sat at a table across the room, hunched over a parchment he was reading instead of scribbling on.
Montfort glanced toward her and almost smiled. “I told you I’d solve this, and promptly.”
“Has someone confessed, then? The player?”
“Ha! Not him. Not that it matters. Just one or two more people I want to talk to and all will be done and I can return to Lord Lovel’s.”
“Who is it you need to speak with?”
“Not you, Dame. Though you might see to stirring up your servants. I’ve been kept waiting.”
“Is it one of our servants you want to see?”
“Hardly. It’s that fellow from the village. The one who quarreled with the dead boy.”
“Gilbey Dunn?”
“Yes, that’s the villein. They’re telling me no one can find him. They say he’s not been seen since yesterday and that’s nonsense. He’s a villein, not some noble gone to his other manor halfway across the country.”
Frevisse felt a stir of hope. Gilbey Dunn had taken himself off somewhere and no one knew where?
Montfort, backing a little nearer to the fire, said, “There’s some who would have me believe he’s the guilty one, that he ran off to escape justice. But I’ve got my murderer safe in hand, and all I need to do is settle matters about this Gilbey person, so I can leave. Lord Lovel expects me for Twelfth Night.”
Frevisse made impressed sounds at this second dropping of the Lovel name, and asked as if in total ignorance, “Which one of them have you in hand?”
“The fair-haired player. Joliffe, he’s called. He had reasons against both the dead man and your nun and was seen both places, village and church, near when the killings happened.”
As if truly seeking clarification, and not in argument, Frevisse said, “But I was told he was with a woman in the village at the time Sym was murdered. Tibby, her name is.”
Montfort waved dismissively. “Ah, yes, Tibby. She’d lie in God’s face for the sake of the player’s pretty face, I’ve no doubt, so her word is no use at all.”
Frevisse wanted information and forebore to argue with him, asking instead, “He was seen going into the church? By whom?”
“The dead boy’s mother. That stringy bit of a woman-” Montfort waved his hand vaguely, unable to remember her name. “So scared of talking to me, I thought she’d puddle in front of my eyes, but she spoke her piece. Came, in fact, of her own will to tell me. That was enough to settle it.”
“I heard him say he wasn’t in the priory the afternoon Sister Fiacre died,” Frevisse dared to point out.
“He’s said the same to me, but he’s a liar, all players are. That’s their trade. He was seen going toward the church, and probably hid in there, waiting his chance. When he saw her there alone, he took it.”
“Why?”
“For vengeance on her brother!” Master Montfort let his impatience show.
“And his reason for following Sym home and killing him?”
“They’d been in a fight, and by all accounts Sym was a bad-tempered brute. The player was afraid Sym would come after him later, bringing half the village louts with him. Look what happened, in fact-they did come seeking him. They knew him for what he was. The matter is clear and simple. They’re a debased lot, these lordless player folk, worse than the worst of the villeins. Facts are facts and I think we’ve found our murderer.”
“So except that you’re missing Gilbey Dunn, the matter is settled?”
Montfort frowned. “Except that,” he agreed shortly. He glared at her, suddenly suspicious. “Did you have some purpose in coming here to see me, Dame?”
“To ask if everything is satisfactory to your comfort here”-which was true, it was one of her tasks as hosteler-“and to ask if it would be possible for Joliffe to perform this evening with his company. They’re to do a play in the old guesthall.”
“A play? Here?” Montfort was surprised.
“We do our poor best to honor the season,” murmured Frevisse, surprised by his interest.
“Well, I never expected such a thing in a place such as this!” Montfort’s enthusiasm lightened his face. He rubbed his hands with satisfaction. “A play, you say? Which one?”
“I don’t know its name, but it’s about the Magi, the Three Kings.”
“And, of course, you need three men for that. Well, there’s guards enough, I suppose. We could bar the gates to the courtyard, he could be escorted there, and then all the ways out guarded. It should be possible.” His expression sank back to its usual displeasure. “Let’s hope these players are better than they look to be. I know a good play when I see one.”
Frevisse was nonplussed at this unexpected aspect of the crowner. Before she could collect her thoughts for a reply, a modest tapping came at the door.
“Yes?” Montfort barked. Father Henry came in.
Before he completed his bow to Master Montfort, she was standing in front of him. “Where have you been? I’ve needed to see you!”
Her suddenness took both the priest and Montfort unprepared. Father Henry looked uncertainly toward Montfort, whose face was reddening, but Frevisse pressed on before he could interrupt, “Were you out rabbiting yesterday? After you’d been to the village, did you go out rabbiting?”
Father Henry flushed his hearty pink of embarrassment and fumbled, “Yes. A little while. I wasn’t gone long.”