Free Roberta Gellis by A Personal Devil Page A

crushed head or a broken neck….”
    “Just a moment,” Magdalene said, coming up on Bell’s other side as the street widened. “In all the excitement about finding Bertrild dead, no one has asked the first question that needed to be asked. What the devil was she doing in Mainard’s yard at God-knows-what time of night?”
    “That is a fine point,” Bell said, all laughter gone from his voice and manner. “Sabina, you said you were at Newelyne’s until dusk and that the Watch will confirm you and Mainard were still abroad when it was full dark. You say also that the house was dark and quiet, the journeyman and apprentices asleep when you came home.”
    “Yes.”
    “If that is true, can either of you believe that Bertrild was dead out in the yard before dark?” Magdalene asked. “Is not a visit to the privy the last thing most people do before going to bed? Could her body have been overlooked?”
    “I do not know,” Sabina said. “I was not taken out.” She smiled a little sheepishly. “To speak the truth, I was never in the yard. But I will swear that Codi and the two boys are not the kind to see a dead body and go quietly to bed and to sleep.”
    Bell chuckled. “I cannot say I am surprised. That takes more sangfroid than most people have.”
    “Yes, yes,” Magdalene said impatiently, “but then what was Bertrild doing prowling about Mainard’s yard when she should have been at home and safely in bed?”
    “Spying?” Sabina asked faintly. “There is a window in my bedchamber in the back, and in this weather I open it. There is a hedge and a fence, an alley and another yard between us and the house behind, so I have never worried about anyone looking in. Could she have been watching for Mainard to pass before the window?”
    Magdalene made a dissatisfied noise. “Yes,” she said. “Unfortunately, Bertrild was just the kind to spy. I had hoped that there was no reason for her to be there and that she might have been killed elsewhere and dumped in the yard. If that were so, it would be nearly impossible for Mainard to have killed her.”
    “Oh, is that possible?” Sabina cried. “I am sure Bertrild did not know the back entrance to the yard. She never lived in the rooms above the shop. She insisted that Mainard buy the Lime Street house before they were married.”
    Magdalene and Bell glanced at each other and grinned. “Enough, love,” Magdalene said. “Please do not tell anyone else. It says a little too muchof how much you care for Mainard and how little you care for the truth and will only cast a bad light on your saying he was with you until dawn.”
    “But he was!” Sabina exclaimed.
    The growing noise ahead of them relieved Magdalene and Bell from needing to comment and indicated that they were coming into the market. Sunday might be quiet in the whorehouse, most men being unwilling to so soon soil the cleansing of attending Mass, but it was a favorite day for buying and selling. Bell dropped back, frowning a little as he thought over what Magdalene had said and what Sabina had said also. He thought their warning to Sabina would keep her from suggesting Bertrild had been killed elsewhere, but that was a definite possibility.
    Why should Bertrild bother to spy on Mainard? Establishing a whore in the rooms above his shop might be grounds for complaint. But seeing him in the woman’s bedchamber would not make anyone more willing to listen to that complaint. There was no law against a man keeping a mistress; such behavior was between him and God, a sin, not a crime.
    That she had been killed elsewhere and put in Mainard’s yard was more likely, actually, than that someone had come out of the house carrying a knife just when she was there and stabbed her—unless she had made a noise and the journeyman had gone out intending to drive off a thief. Or Mainard had heard something through the open bedchamber window and recognized Bertrild? Had his patience broken? Had he rushed out with a