Free Chains of Folly by Roberta Gellis

told everything they knew, would have come later, not necessarily from Paul’s Wharf, and killed him.”
    Magdalene raised her brows. “They told everything…but not who sent them?”
    “We had some bad luck there. I assure you that every man I questioned would have been only too glad to tell me. But the leader of the group, who had likely made the bargain, was killed.” Bell finished the ale in his cup and slammed it down on the table. “It seems that I killed him myself.”
    “You couldn’t have known,” Diot said, patting his shoulder and refilling the cup with ale.
    For a moment Bell was very still, then he said, “No. I couldn’t have known.” He sighed. “But I learned the men were not from Southwark, which is why they knew no holes here for hiding. They were from east of London. Two saw their leader with a very big man, well wrapped in a cloak. One saw him twice, once about a week ago and again yesterday morning.”
    Magdalene’s brow furrowed and she bit her lip. “To give orders for the attack?” She shrugged. “I don’t suppose the bishop’s plan for dining with the archbishop was a secret.” But before Bell could reply, she said, “I cannot see how these things can be connected.”
    “What things?” Bell mumbled around another mouthful of bread and cheese.
    “Leaving Nelda’s body in the bishop’s bedchamber and setting a troop to capture him. It seems to me that although both were intended to damage Winchester, they are the product of entirely different ways of thinking.”
    “Hmmm. I had not connected them at all.” Bell broke off a small piece of bread and chewed it slowly. “But they are both attempts on Winchester and likely both because of this convocation he has called. Still you are right. They…ah… feel different.”
    “But Nelda is dead,” Diot said sadly.
    “Yes, so perhaps the two attacks are not so different after all.” Magdalene looked around the table. “If you are finished, perhaps we had better go and see whether we can discover anything from where and how Nelda lived.”
    * * * *
    Both Bell and Magdalene were slightly surprised when they realized how close Nelda’s rooms were to the Old Priory Guesthouse. However, neither was particularly surprised when the hard-faced woman guarding the heaps of ragged remnants of garments that were piled outside of the old clothes shop turned her back on them. They were too well-dressed to try to steal her wares and it was to her advantage not to know anything about what went on above her shop.
    The flight of stairs was sound enough. Bell paused to examine the stair treads carefully. A few had broken off, leaving sharp edges. Bell thought it likely that falling down the stairs had bruised Nelda’s back. The older bruises—he squinted in thought as he climbed the rest of the stairs—one broad one on her upper arm where whoever had beaten her held her tight and the others on her face and upper body were not directly connected with her death.
    He found Diot and Magdalene searching through their pockets, and both turned to him as he came onto the landing.
    “The door is locked,” Magdalene said. “Do you have a piece of wire in your purse or a long, thin nail?”
    He did not have a nail, but he did have a very thin file that he used for removing and smoothing nicks in his sword. Wordlessly, he proffered the file to Magdalene, who just handed it to Diot. Bell sighed as she bent and probed into the lock with the file. He was not really surprised that Diot could pick a lock, and had a quick caustic thought about whether she had learned the skill to open the chastity belt her husband had no doubt tried to make her wear.
    “Crude thing,” Diot muttered after a few moments, then turned the handle and opened the door.
    They all paused just inside and looked around. “Whatever happened didn’t happen in here,” Magdalene said.
    The chamber was not disordered and yet not neat enough to have been rearranged to hide disorder.