Agnes fled, and Hamo turned to me apologetically. “She’s a good lass, an’ does her work well, but dim, she is.”
“Dim?” I questioned.
“Not right in t’head, you know.”
“Ah…I understand.”
“Fancies odd things. Pretends herself a fine lady, she does.”
“She has imagination?”
“That’s it, sir…the very word. Imagines all sorts of strange things what never was nor never will be. A fine lady, indeed,” he scoffed.
“Aye,” I agreed. “Her words did drift to strange and unusual events. I see your point.”
“Good day, Master Hugh. I must see to my band. We need to make ready for Lord Gilbert.”
I bid Hamo Tanner good day, and retired to my chamber, where I reflected on the morning’s conversations. There were yet gaps in my knowledge, but those were smaller than before. It is the trivial particulars of comprehension, however, which are most difficult to grasp. The general understanding of a riddle comes more easily. Those petty particulars create the details of an image which is otherwise but shadow.
Chapter 16
While I pondered these things the horn sounded for dinner. I hurried to take my place beside Sir John, and while washing and drying my hands managed to steal a glimpse of Lady Joan. A servant also attended that end of the high table with ewer and towel. As she rinsed and dried her hands Lady Joan looked up and caught me observing her. It was that sixth sense again, I suppose, which gives a woman the wit to catch a man so. She smiled, but immediately turned back to Sir Charles and smiled at him as well.
The meal this day was nearly as elaborate as the Christmas feast, but served in three courses, and missing the great roasted boar of the previous day.
This day minstrels played upon tambour and lutes and sang between removes. When the third remove was cleared and the musicians were again at their work, I saw the juggler to whom I had spoken that morning rise from his place at the far end of the hall and leave the room. Perhaps he required a visit to the garderobe before his performance. Whatever the cause, his departure lent credence to the plot I had already formed, and to work his absence into the scheme would require little modification. I left my place and spoke softly in Lord Gilbert’s ear. Music covered our conversation. Lord Gilbert at first questioned the plan, but eventually accepted the idea and agreed to fulfill his part.
Hamo Tanner and his troupe rose from their places at the far end of the hall when the musicians were done. The juggler had by this time returned to his place, and so joined his cohorts to begin the performance. He was near the age, I think, when visits to the garderobe become frequent. While all eyes in the hall were on the jugglers, I leaned over to whisper to Sir John. Lord Gilbert, I told him, wished to speak to him this moment on a serious matter.
Sir John bent over Lord Gilbert’s shoulder, listened intently as Lord Gilbert spoke softly to him behind an upraised hand, then hurried out of the hall. A few minutes later, as Walter was enclosing Agnes in a ring of quivering blades, I saw valets in Lord Gilbert’s colors of blue and black positioned at the exits of the great hall. My plot was begun. If it concluded well, I should receive much honor. If not…well, I tried to dismiss that thought.
When Agnes began her display of acrobatics, tumbling, and contortion, I saw Sir John return and again speak briefly to Lord Gilbert. Lord Gilbert then leaned to his wife and spoke briefly to her. His words brought a shocked expression to Lady Petronilla’s face, which abruptly faded to surprise and then puzzlement. Onlookers, and I was desirous that there should be some who would take their eyes from Agnes for a moment, would think she had been given a startling revelation. She had.
Agnes received her usual ovation when she finished her exhibition. Lord Gilbert then stood, as all in the hall expected him to do. But what came next they did not expect.
There was no pleasure in Lord Gilbert’s face. Rather, his brows were wrinkled in a scowl. Those in the hall who had been conversing with their neighbors and preparing to rise from their bench were suddenly silent. Lord Gilbert gazed with thin lips and lowered brows across his guests, then spoke.
“Sir John,” he began, “has returned from an errand I assigned him. He reports that he found the Lady Petronilla’s chamber door ajar. This should not be. I will have everyone remain in the hall ’til it be known if some thief has plundered her possessions.”
Audible gasps went round the hall, and hands were raised to lips. Then, as the occupants of the hall digested his words, they began to peer from the corners of their eyes at one another, wondering who might be a thief.
Lord Gilbert turned and spoke to his wife. “You must inspect your chamber and see if aught be missing. Sir John…I will have you and Master Hugh accompany her and her ladies.”
Something was missing, I knew, for I had it hidden under my cloak as Lord Gilbert spoke. Lady Petronilla’s casket, a gold and red enameled wood and metal box, in which Lord Gilbert’s lady kept her jewels, would not be found. Sir John had seized it from Lady Petronilla’s chamber and slipped it to me while all eyes in the hall followed Agnes.
Lady Petronilla and her two maids followed Sir John past the guard and out the door. I followed the others. The casket was large, but my cloak was voluminous and I was able to keep the box concealed. That corner of the hall was dark, as was my cloak, which also served to conceal the lump under my arm.
Lady Petronilla led the way to her chamber in the northwest tower. I allowed myself to fall farther to the rear of the hurrying party. At the door to the tower I turned away. The castle yard was unoccupied, as I knew it must be. It was possible a stable boy might see me if he looked up from his work, but by the time he told any of what he had seen my mission would have failed or succeeded of its own merit.
I ran through the mud of the yard, past the marshalsea, to the jugglers’ tent. I drew the flap aside, found a pile of bedclothes, and hurriedly concealed the casket between them. Then I was off again at a run across the yard, into the tower. I heard Lady Petronilla’s shrieks before I entered her chamber. She had discovered her casket missing.
We hurried to take this melancholy news to Lord Gilbert, for whom, of course, it would not be news at all. Lady Petronilla was disconsolate, and I was, for a moment, uncertain I was doing the proper thing. The end does not always justify the means, but occasionally it does.
Lord Gilbert banged the table with his cup and demanded silence in the hall, then announced the reason for his wife’s grief. Another cycle of gasps and guarded looks filled the hall.
“Sir John,” he concluded, “see that no one leaves this place ’til I return. Master Hugh,” he turned to me, “come with me. We will find whosoever has done this thing.”
Lord Gilbert motioned to four grooms who stood against the inner wall and they took place in line behind us as we left the hall.
“Where is it?” Lord Gilbert whispered when we were in the inner yard.
“Peace, m’lord. The search must not end too soon. Set your men to search the east range hall first. Instruct them to overturn the possessions of the poor — but only a little. Enough to make our hunt seemly without troubling those who have enough trouble already.”
Lord Gilbert so ordered, and we stood together in the entry as the searchers overturned the hall. Half an hour later they had done. There was, of course, no casket.
“Where now, m’lord?” a groom asked. Lord Gilbert cocked his head and peered at me, but I looked away, as if examining the carpenters’ art in the trusses of the hammer-beam roof.
“Uh…the marshalsea next. Find rods to poke through the straw.”
The grooms darted off to the other side of the castle and Lord Gilbert and I followed in their wake. “Is it there?” he whispered.
“No…but next have the acrobats’ tents searched.”
The sun was low over the bare west woods when the grooms finished their work in the marshalsea. Lord Gilbert set them off to the tents and but three or four minutes later a cry of success rose from the jugglers’ tent. I was relieved. I had in the preceding hour suffered visions of some other felon discovering the casket and making off
