Free Chains of Folly by Roberta Gellis Page B

got on the bed and kneeling up slid her hand along the headboard. Her fingers caught on a metal bulge—a latch. When that was unhooked, the bed did slide forward, exposing a small ring. Pulled, this drew out a square of plaster on a thin board and behind that was a hollow in the wall in which lay a flat, well-smithed metal box.
    That lock was much harder to open, but patience was eventually rewarded, exposing several pounds worth of silver pennies. Diot watched Magdalene, but the whoremistress was clearly not interested in the coins. She lifted them out, handing them to Bell who stood beside her, until what was hidden beneath the coins was exposed.
    “Ah,” she said with satisfaction, then turned to look at Bell, who had gasped.
    He was staring at the most remarkable item, a large crucifix. Magdalene also stared at it, not ever having seen Christ on the cross depicted in jewelry. Bell put the pennies aside and picked up the crucifix, frowning at it.
    “I cannot imagine how this came here,” he said.
    “You know to whom it belongs?”
    “Yes, but I…I do not believe the man who owned this would violate his vow of chastity with…with…”
    “A whore?” Magdalene asked, smiling bitterly.
    “A whore like that.” Bell’s voice was harsh.
    “Look at this,” Diot interrupted. “Magdalene, did you not say something about Mandeville being involved in the attack on Winchester?” She fished about in the box and came up with an enameled house badge on a ribbon.
    “That is certainly Mandeville’s badge,” Bell said, taking it from her hand and examining it closely. Then he looked around the chamber, grimaced, and added, “But can you see Geoffrey de Mandeville in these rooms?”
    “Not Geoffrey himself,” Magdalene replied, “but one of his captains? Could it be possible that Nelda had an arrangement, as I have with William, that for a set payment each moon he can send his men to my women? And these rooms are none so bad. We are used to the Old Priory Guesthouse, but I had been in business for some time in Oxford before I came to London so I came with money to spend on the Guesthouse. And since I came by a patron’s order, I had help. Does it not seem to you that these rooms are more than what an ordinary whore could afford?”
    “Well, Nelda had a patron…that I know. He was away when I first came to stay with her, and when she bade me go she said it was because her patron was returning to London.”
    “Yes, you said she did not want him to meet you.”
    As Magdalene spoke she had been turning over the trinkets in the box. She had put aside several valuable rings, which may have had lettering or simply a decorative border on them, and now she lifted out a handsome seal and uttered a low whistle.
    “Is this what I think it is, Bell?” she asked, holding out the seal to show the device carved into it.
    He took it and hissed gently between his teeth. “Beaufort…Waleran’s house…marked with a bend sinister. A bastard of the house? One that Waleran’s father old Robert did not want to acknowledge openly but did not want to ignore and abandon? Interesting. I have no idea to whom this belonged and however did he lose so precious a thing? It and a few words would identify him to the Beauforts—”
    “Unless he is already known to them and thus less careful of his trinket. What odds will you wager that if Nelda serviced Mandeville or his men, Waleran would want to know what she could find out? And they are all lodged in those houses around the Tower from time to time. The men would talk to each other. Doubtless Nelda would be mentioned and knowledge of her drift back to the masters.”
    “No odds,” Bell said. He shook his head and handed the seal back to Magdalene. “Pack it all up,” he ordered. “We have been here long enough. I will go back to the Guesthouse with you and take the money to the bishop. He will set his clerks to searching out whether Nelda had heirs. If she did, he will see that the