Free Chains of Folly by Roberta Gellis Page A

Bell nodded agreement and Diot remarked that it looked much as it did when she had shared it with Nelda.
    “She had a small strongbox, which she hid in a different place every day or two,” Diot said. “It never had much in it. The most it held was five pence, but she never seemed to be short of money. I always thought she brought her money to a goldsmith to hold for her.”
    Bell grunted and began to examine the walls, but they were all solid. Diot pulled away the front board of what looked like a box bed—only it was not—built out from one wall. There was nothing in the space exposed. They went back to searching, and Magdalene eventually found the strong box at the back of the small hearth behind a false wall of thin bricks. It was locked, but Bell’s file and Diot’s skill soon had it open.
    Hardly worth the effort, Diot thought. It held only two pence and two farthings…and then she swallowed bitter laughter. Now two pence and two farthings were nothing to her, but before she came to the Old Priory Guesthouse, she would have killed for it. Two pence and two farthings would have saved her—she swallowed sickly at the memory of the things she had been forced to do.
    Nelda’s strong box told them nothing about why she was killed, why she was carrying a letter to Winchester from Robert of Gloucester. They continued to search carefully, upending the stools and the small table, and the bench near the wall opposite the bed, testing for hollow legs, stripping the blanket from the thin pallet that served as a mattress and examining it very carefully for hidden parchment or the shape of coins or jewelry. They found nothing, not a slip of parchment and certainly no indication that Nelda could read or write.
    Then they moved into the bedchamber. This bed, which seemed to be fixed to the wall, took longer to examine. It had several pillows and the mattress was thicker, stuffed with wool and horsehair. The examination, however, produced nothing except a few six-legged pests. Again the walls kept no secrets, nor did the chest that held Nelda’s clothing.
    While Bell pried at the base of the chest to see if it had a false bottom, Magdalene sat down on the stool near the empty brazier and stared around.
    “Finished?” Bell asked, adding, “There’s nothing hidden in the chest.”
    “No, we can’t be finished,” Magdalene replied absently, her eyes roaming restlessly around the room. “It has to be somewhere and more likely in here than in the other chamber.”
    “What has to be somewhere?” Diot asked.
    “Nelda’s real cache. That strong box was to convince a thief that he had found her treasure and could stop looking. But the rooms are too good, the clothing too good. I think it likely that she was a thief too, and needed someplace safe for her takings. She must have money somewhere.”
    “A goldsmith, as Diot suggested?” Bell said.
    “No. Diot thinks of goldsmiths, I think of goldsmiths, you think of goldsmiths, but Nelda would not put her money in a goldsmith’s care. She would not trust anyone with her life savings, with what was all she had to keep her in her later years. She would think he would steal from her and what recourse would she have—a whore’s word against that of a rich and honored goldsmith.”
    “It isn’t in the walls,” Bell said.
    “Or in the bed,” Diot added.
    “In the bed, no. But it must be near the bed. She would want it close, where if there was fire or some other disaster in the night she could get it quickly.”
    “The bed is fastened to the walls,” Bell remarked dryly.
    “No, no it isn’t. Not the way you think,” Diot said, voice high with excitement. “Once I was in here talking to her…she had just got out of bed and I leaned against the footboard, and it moved. The whole bed moved. She was dressing. She didn’t notice—or maybe she did and that was why she got rid of me. It…it must slide forward…”
    But pulling and pushing had no effect, until Magdalene