A Play of Piety (28 page)

With cold satisfaction, Sister Margaret said, “The little we still have should be kept for those who deserve ease from their pain. Let Mistress Thorncoffyn endure her pains with her wits about her. It will give her chance to contemplate her sins.”

That was the harshest thing Joliffe had heard any of the sisters ever say, but no one rebuked her. Instead, Sister Petronilla said, a mocking edge to her usually kindly voice, “Sins? She’s only ever sinned
against
. The difference is that this time she truly was. Of course that came as no surprise to her. She was already declaring she was poisoned before even anyone knew she was. She was raving at Geoffrey last night that he had to find who had tried it this time.”

“This time?” Joliffe echoed. “There’ve been other times?”

“Every time her inward parts are out of sorts, she declares it’s because someone is trying to kill her,” Sister Margaret said with the weariness of someone who had heard it too many times. “At her worst, she’s even accused Geoffrey. She likes the thought she’s so much someone that someone else would take the trouble to kill her.”

“Who
doesn’t
she accuse?” Joliffe put in. “That will be who’s guilty.”

As he had meant it to, that sent a ripple of laughter among the sisters, but not from Sister Letice, who said with quiet worry, “The trouble is that this time she was truly poisoned.”

A little silence fell until Sister Ursula said slowly, “Nor does Master Osburne seem to think Master Aylton’s death was as simple as we thought it was. Not to judge by the questions he’s asked us.”

“What manner of questions?” Joliffe asked.

The women looked among themselves before Sister Ursula answered, “He seems to want us to say Master Aylton did eat something here and did not pour the bedtime drink away but drank it.”

“He seemed almost to want us to be lying,” said Sister Petronilla. “Why would he want us to be lying?”

Joliffe could have answered that, knowing what he did, but he did not and was forestalled from asking any more questions of his own by Rose saying, “Joliffe, I think dinner’s bowls are still unwashed in the scullery. We’re going to need them shortly.”

He had had a vague hope that someone had seen to them as breakfast’s had been, but since not, he gave a smile and nod and went. The bowls were indeed unwashed and needed hard scrubbing, but as he set to them, he did not altogether regret a chance alone to think.

The answer to Sister Petronilla’s question was that if Master Osburne could satisfy himself that the bread found in Aylton’s belly had been eaten here, then his death at the stream stood a good chance of being ruled a plain mischance and the matter closed. Almost as good would be learning Aylton had indeed downed the evening drink instead of pouring it out, because that might give sufficient reason for his collapse at the stream, making it no more than an accident. Unfortunately, that simple end to the matter was blocked by the sisters insisting Aylton had
not
had the drink.

Or Sister Petronilla insisted.

Joliffe was unable to stop that treacherous thought or the one that followed it. She and Daveth had seen to the bed-pots this morning. It was only on her word they thought Aylton had poured out the drink.

Joliffe shook his head at himself. What reason was there to doubt her word? None. Come to it, what reason would she have to lie about it anyway? However—whyever—Aylton had died, she had had no part in it. If it had been a matter of harm coming to either of the boys, Joliffe could see her doing almost anything to protect them, but no matter how afraid Daveth might have been of Aylton, the man had been about to be hauled away from here forever.

Well then, if not for herself, would she lie for someone else? For another of the sisters maybe? But which of them had any more reason than she did to bother with having Aylton dead? They did not even have reason to particularly care if he escaped. Besides, whether Aylton drank the sleeping draught or not, the bread in his belly still needed explanation. The bread more than anything was holding Master Osburne to his questions, because unless someone here could be found to have given it to him, that bread meant Aylton had been somewhere else and come back here and been going away again, to drown the direction he did in the stream.

Joliffe could still not make
that
make sense. But if he did not accept that had been the way of it, it meant someone here was lying. It meant that someone here had fed Aylton and let him leave and now was not admitting to it. Or—someone had fed him, given him a sleeping draught, and taken him out of the hospital to his drowning.

Never mind the
why
of someone doing that. Who
could
have done it? It was one thing to ask who could have given him bread, and something more to ask who could have given him bread
and
drowned him.

To answer who could have fed him, there was, first and most simply, Sister Margaret, taking her turn to sleep in the pantry last night. She might well have been willing to help Aylton flee Mistress Thorncoffyn’s wrath but now be lying about it, unwilling to take whatever blame might come her way—or the hospital’s—for having unwittingly let him go to his death. That would answer everything. Except that Joliffe could not see her being that much a coward, to keep quiet now when there was so much trouble over Aylton’s death.

As for her giving him a sleeping draught for the sake of afterward drowning him—first, why would she, and secondly, how would she have dragged him to the stream without leaving any sign on him of being dragged, since very surely she could not have lifted or carried his far greater size and weight than her own.

So, no, it still came back to Aylton having gone out through the sacristy, unseen and unheard by anyone. Unless . . .

Unless he had gone up to Master Soule’s chamber, and for some reason Master Soule had both fed him and let him leave. That would at least give reason for the bread in his belly. But why would Aylton think Master Soule, of all people, would help him, especially knowing what after-wrath would come from Mistress Thorncoffyn? And what reason would Master Soule have to—somehow—render Aylton senseless, then haul him down the stairs and around to the stream to drown him? Let alone why Master Soule, who had nothing to do with giving any medicine to anyone, would have something readily to hand to use on Aylton and afterward manage to haul the larger man down his stairs and as far as the stream without leaving at least bruises on him or at least signs he had been dragged, since surely slight-built Master Soule could no more have carried him than Sister Margaret could have.

No, what made the straightest sense was that Aylton had poured out the sleeping draught and left the hospital by way of the sacristy and asking help of no one.

But then why had he circled around and been going through the kitchen garden? Like the bread in his belly, his being in the garden spoiled all the reasonableness there would otherwise be about his death.

But how reasonable was it to suppose that someone had fed him, given him a sleeping draught without Aylton knowing it (supposing Sister Petronilla was not lying about him having poured out the other), then hauled him senseless to the stream and drowned him in hope it would seem an accident happening as he tried to escape?

Then again, how
un
reasonable was it
not
to consider that possibility?

Of course that brought the matter back to who would have done it.

And why.

And where. Because if Aylton had not eaten that barely digested bread here, then he had to have been somewhere else.

To Father Richard maybe, maybe thinking to take sanctuary in the church? But why would Father Richard want him dead? Not to spare the Thorncoffyns trouble, that was sure. Besides, if the priest was inclined to kill anyone, wouldn’t it be Mistress Thorncoffyn, in revenge for the wrong she had forced him to do to his parents? Why do her the favor of killing Aylton? Maybe there was an unknown link between Aylton and the priest that would have given Father Richard reason to kill him, but if so, it would be for Master Osburne to find out, able as he was to ask questions where Joliffe could not.

What of Hewstere? Would Aylton have chanced going to him, maybe in hope of something to control the pain while he made his escape? The physician, at least, would be likely to have had a drug to hand to send Aylton senseless. He also had the size and likely the strength to have carried him to the stream. The gate into the orchard was close enough to his front door to have made very slight his chance of being seen in the black depth of night. And, Joliffe thought triumphantly, they had only Hewstere’s word for it that there were no marks on Aylton’s body other than from Mistress Thorncoffyn’s beating of him.

But all that fell flat, Joliffe realized with a sigh as he started on the last of the bowls, because Hewstere had been with Mistress Thorncoffyn all the night, not at his house to either help or hinder Aylton. And aside from that, there was the same objection as with everyone else: why would he want Aylton dead? Aylton’s secret death would not serve to put him any further into Mistress Thorncoffyn’s graces than he already was. What happened to Aylton had nothing to do with him.

The sacristy bell was ringing for Vespers as Joliffe brought the cleaned bowls back to the kitchen. The women’s hands paused at their tasks, heads turning toward the hall. Rose, seemingly taking up something said while he was not there, said, “Go if you think it good. There’s not much left to do here. Joliffe and I can see to it.”

“I think we should,” said Sister Ursula. “It’s been a disturbed and disturbing day. Our being there may help to settle the men as well as us.” She added, as she and the other sisters brushed at their aprons and straightened their headkerchiefs, “We just have to be sure we say nothing about the poisoned ginger where the men can hear us. Master Aylton’s death has given them more than enough to talk on. For a wonder, their long ears haven’t picked up the word ‘poison’ in any of this. We should keep it that way if we can.”

The other sisters nodded and murmured agreement with that as they left the kitchen. Joliffe looked to Rose, meaning to ask if he should finish the bread, but she had left off setting out the bowls on the table, ready for filling, was looking at him with worry, and said before he could say anything, “Did I do wrong to tell Sister Ursula you had skill at finding out things? Should I have kept quiet about it?”

“Assuredly no,” Joliffe said hurriedly, to ease her worry. “It only made easier what I—”

He broke off, seeing her worry shift to silent laughter.

“Only made easier what you would do anyway,” she finished for him.

He pulled a mock-shamed face, agreeing with her, and asked, “Shall I finish slicing the bread?”

“I will, if you’ll fetch the milk and pour it in the kettle.”

The men’s supper was always a simpler meal than their dinner, being usually only toasted, buttered bread soaked in warm milk, or sometimes gravy if there had been hearty meat in the mid-day meal, with a cooked or soft fruit when those were to be had, and weak ale—nothing that would sit heavily in stomachs and disturb sleep. Rose and Joliffe, familiar at working together after their years of sharing tasks, easily set to what was left to do, while Master Soule’s voice began in the hall, too faint for the words to matter here but with the soothe of Vespers’ prayers in it, hopefully quieting the troubled day toward its end.

He was still praying when there was nothing left to do toward supper except toast the bread before breaking it into the bowls and, at Vespers’ end, swing the kettle of milk over the fire to warm. Joliffe, setting the gridiron over the coals at the edge of the low-burned fire, said to Rose, “I can do the rest, if you want to leave now. You surely want to see how Piers does.”

“I went at mid-day. He was better enough then to be plaguing Ellis.” She brought the cutting board with its bread and set it on the hearth beside the low stool he would sit on to watch over the toasting. “But, yes, I think I’ll go.”

She did not, though; instead she stood beside him as he settled onto the stool, and as he laid the first slices of bread on the gridiron to toast, said quietly, “Joliffe, I know we aren’t supposed to know much at all about what you did after you left us.”

He kept himself from looking up at her but his voice came out too flat as he answered, “Either not much or not anything at all.”

“Or anything at all,” she accepted. She knelt down beside him, to bring their heads more level. “Nor where you’ve been. But Joliffe—” She laid a hand on his near knee, looking at him while he went on not looking at her. “Is it well with you? Or will it be well, if it isn’t yet?”

He made himself meet her gaze then and said with what he meant to be a reassuring smile, “Don’t I seem well?”

Rose did not return his smile. “No.”

The plainness of her answer stopped him. From the chapel the sound of Master Soule’s voice at Vespers hardly touched the silence between them until Joliffe finally said, “Oh.” And then, looking back to the bread and turning a piece that did not need turning yet, added, “No, it’s not altogether well with me. But it’s better. I’m finding my balance again. When that’s done, I’ll be well enough again.”

Rose went on looking at him. He met her gaze again, openly now because he had told her the truth, not a truth-shaded lie. Or at least truth enough to satisfy her because finally she smiled a slight, accepting smile at him, stood up, patted his shoulder like a comforting friend—or mother—who knows they can’t do more, and left.

She had had to do a great deal of accepting in her life. Joliffe was sorry to bring more need of it on her, but that was past remedy. He could only ask her to endure it now—until he could make it better, he promised himself. And quickly turned the toasting slices of bread just before too late.

Chapter 21

S
upper was done and Joliffe was alone in the scullery, cleaning the bowls yet again, when Sister Margaret came in with the kettle that should be the day’s last dirty pot. As she set it down on the board beside him, Joliffe said, “May I ask you something about your son?”