Chapter 18 #3
It took her a moment to understand him. “Are you daring to suggest that my father planned his own death?”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Oh no. He had more faith in God than you. He believed he could win.”
“And so he would if not for that sword!”
“Don’t be foolish.”
“Foolish!” Claire realized she’d screamed it at him, and saw some servants turn to stare. She sucked in a breath and said, “My father was a good and righteous man—”
“—who was seriously astray in his vision of right and wrong.”
Claire hadn’t realized that rage could make a person dumb. When she regained her voice, she said, “My father was never astray except when he misjudged a false friend.”
She stalked away but he said, “Don’t you want to find out who killed Ulric?”
She wanted to attack him. Like Thomas, she wanted a weapon and a chance to hurt him. The only weapon she had, however, was the truth about Ulric’s death.
If he’d been telling the truth about recalling pictures, then he might have identified people who had spoken to Ulric. She couldn’t give him the chance to get to them first—to either frighten them into silence, or ensure their silence by yet another murder.
“Right,” she said, whirling back. “Dora will be in the dye house. It’s outside Summerbourne, down near the river.” She headed toward the gates, not looking to see if he followed.
“So,” he asked, close behind her, “what did your father write about me?”
Horror stopped her, turned her to face him. “What kind of monster are you? Do you have a soul at all?”
“All men have a soul. I can ask Nils to read it to me.”
She didn’t want him or his clerk touching that book. She said the thing she hoped would hurt the most. “He liked you.”
“You could take that as paternal guidance.”
“You have the sensitivity of that log you destroyed. He expected to weep over your body!”
“Claire, I did weep over his body.”
And, like a blow, she saw that it was true. Those tired, bloodshot eyes he’d brought to Summerbourne were from weeping over his deed.
“But you still killed him,” she said.
“But I still killed him.”
And there it lay between them like iron, like rock, cold and unbreachable.
“Then may God forgive you, for I cannot.”
They walked in silence down toward the river, side by side, but eternally divided.
The dye house and the tanning sheds were located out here to be close to water, but also because no one wanted the stink too close. As the smell hit, Claire hesitated.
He put a hand on her arm. “Why not let me go in and ask this woman to come out to you?”
She twitched away. “And give you chance to scare her into silence? No, thank you.”
He had to stoop to go through the low door into the pungent rooms full of vats and steam.
Colored cloth and yarn festooned from hooks in rafters and walls.
Huge vats simmered, and colored puddles muddied the earth floor.
Going through the door, Claire wrinkled her nose at the stink of sour urine.
The local men were encouraged to donate to a vat there as often as possible. It was needed in the dyeing process.
She spotted Dora working over a boiling vat, sleeves rolled up, skirt kirtled high as she poked cloth under the seething blue liquid.
“Dora!”
The woman looked up, pushing damp tendrils of brown hair back off a red face stained with blue. “Lady?”
“I need to speak to you. Find someone to take your job and come outside.”
The chief dye woman was coming over anyway, and so Claire left her to manage and drew the young woman outside into the cooler, fresher air.
“Yes, lady?” asked Dora, looking nervously between Claire and de Lisle, though the nervousness could simply be an effect of her protruding pale eyes.
“You’re not in trouble,” Claire assured her. “We’re just trying to find out what Ulric, my father’s man, did on the night he died. We think perhaps he sat with you at the meal.”
“Oh, aye, he did, lady. Though only for a while. He came in late, and then I had to go and lend a hand in the kitchens.”
Claire tried not to show her excitement. It might make the woman more nervous. “Did he speak to you?”
Dora frowned as if this were a difficult question. “He said a greeting as he sat down.”
“Did you know he’d just arrived?”
“I suppose. He carried a staff and pack.”
Claire wanted to shake information out of the woman, but only patience would work. “You know he was my father’s personal servant?’”
“Aye, lady.”
“Weren’t you curious? Because of Lord Clarence’s death.”
The big eyes remained blank. “Nay, lady. I was watching the tumblers. Right clever, they were.”
Claire shared an exasperated look with Renald, then quickly looked back at the servant. He was the enemy.
“So, all the time he was sitting there, he didn’t say anything more?”
Dora idly scratched beneath an ample breast. “He told me to shut up.”
“To shut up?” Claire couldn’t help but look at her husband again, and surprised twitching lips.
A murderer shouldn’t have an infectious smile. He really shouldn’t.
“I was only being friendly, lady. Talking about the tricks. Asking if he’d seen the like. And he told me to shut up.”
“So he wasn’t talking to anyone at all?” Even though she knew Ulric was taciturn, Claire felt that in a properly run universe he would have said a bit more before dying.
As if picking up her thought, Dora offered, “He might have said a bit more to Sigfrith.”
“Sigfrith?”
“He were on his other side.”
Claire paused halfway through incising the name. “Sigfrith from the stables?”
“Aye, lady.
Claire completed the name. “Thank you, Dora. You’d best get back to your work.”
But Renald spoke. “Hold a moment, Dora. Did you notice anyone else speak to Ulric while you sat beside him?”
The woman frowned, which had the alarming impression of pushing her eyes farther out. “I do think some folk paused behind to speak. But they didn’t stop. Why would they with him not wanting to chat?”
“You don’t remember who these people were, or what any of them said?”
“I were watching the entertainers, lord.” She pondered a bit more, and seemed to find scratching helped the process.
“I think I remember someone … Someone said something like, ‘Ulric. I thought you dead.’ Yes. That jogged my memory, like. About who he was. And the lord’s death. It made me sad for a moment …”
“But you have no idea who any of these people were?”
She looked between them, rubbing red and blue hands on gray skirt. “Nay, lord. Lady.”
He nodded and thanked her, then drew Claire away. “Let’s hope this Sigfrith can help us more. I assume he’s the man with grizzled blond hair and a big nose.”
“Yes.”
“You seemed startled by his name.”
He was too perceptive by far, but she wasn’t going to tell him Sigfrith was a relative of sorts. That would only give him more excuse to try to foist his crime on her grandmother.
She was beginning, however, to wonder about that herself. She’d never seen any sign of connection between Lady Agnes and the man, but if her grandmother wanted a hired killer, she might turn to a foster brother.
It must be nonsense.
Gran?
Try as she might, however, Claire could not swear that ordering a murder was entirely beyond Lady Agnes.
She reminded herself fiercely that Renald was the murderer. He had the motive. She simply had to prove it.
“We’d best go to the stables,” she said, setting off toward the gates. “I don’t suppose your pictures show who stopped to speak to Ulric?”
“I have no control over what lingers and what fades.”
“But then, you wouldn’t tell me if you did.”
He stopped her with a hand in her girdle. “Claire, if I killed him, these matters have no importance. If I didn’t, I want you to have the information that will clear me.”
She turned to him. “No importance? I’m not thinking you wielded the blade. I doubt you had time. But you only had to order one of your men to do it. I assume they kill on order as you do. So, what if Sigfrith remembers that one of your men stopped to talk to Ulric?”
“Let’s go and ask him,” he said shortly and led the way at a brisk pace.