A Murdered Peace

Before Kate left for the York Tavern she took Jennet aside. “Any thoughts about where Jon Horner might have spent the night, who he might have been with?”

“Who might be a poisoner?” Jennet shook her head. “What I’ve learned of him so far, he took advantage of folk down on their luck. That sort has many enemies.”

“I would think this would be someone he trusted enough to eat and drink with. How else might he have been poisoned?”

“Someone who sold him a meat pie, or a pint of ale?”

“Anyone in particular?”

“No. None of his victims have been in such trades. I will keep looking.”

With a nod, Kate took the hounds’ leads firmly in hand and headed off to the tavern, her mind busy considering the players in the game so far – Merek, dead; Jon Horner, dead; Lionel, badly injured; Berend, hiding; Margery and Carl – how were they connected to this? She hoped that Bess Merchet would tell her what she knew about Jon Horner and with whom he dined; indeed, Kate would be grateful for anything the old taverner cared to share. And her visit might come to naught, the woman had no cause to trust Kate. In that case, she might at least leave word that she had information for Elric. She wanted to discuss Lionel’s tale with him, Berend’s part in it, and, perhaps most important, that Merek had been killed at the other side of the Shambles from where he had been attacked by Horner.

Bess Merchet stood in the middle of the public room, hands on hips, a challenge in her eyes as she watched Kate settle Lille and Ghent just inside the open door, one on each side. Colin Merchet assured Kate he would keep an eye on them, which made her smile wondering why he thought they might obey him.

“They will keep an eye on themselves, Colin. But thank you.” She hesitated, remembering the poisoned meat. “Fetch me at once if anyone shows more than a passing interest in them.”

He promised to do so.

“You took your time,” Bess said loudly, interrupting them. “Come along.” She gestured for Kate to follow her to her lair between the public room and the kitchen. Pointing to a chair, she ordered Kate to sit. “You look as if you would welcome a sip of brandywine.”

“I would indeed.” Kate perched tentatively on an embroidered cushion. “You are kind to offer.”

“It has nothing to do with kindness.” Kate marveled at the illusion the woman created around her, a large presence, though she was in fact short enough that she stood on a small stool to reach a shelf that would be no stretch for Kate. She brought down a cobalt blue Italian glass bottle, then matching goblets, and lastly a pewter plate with roasted nuts. In steely silence Bess poured a goodly amount in each goblet, setting one in front of Kate, and then took a seat across from her in a high-backed, well-padded chair. Lifting her own goblet, the elderly taverner said, “Let us drink to the health of good friends,” and sipped.

An odd toast. But Kate gladly sipped. A fine brandywine.

Bess nodded, as if the drink signaled the beginning of their meeting. “Why did you wish to see me?”

Taking her cue from the woman’s blunt question, Kate said, “I need your help.” And waited.

Thick white brows drew together over eyes slightly milky with age yet fierce. The taverner’s rosy complexion was surprisingly unlined, and strands of copper hair mixed in with the white escaped her snowy, beribboned cap.

“Regarding?” Her tone sharp, as if warning Kate not to waste her time.

“Jon Horner. I understand he took his meals here. I hoped you might tell me what you know of him. If anyone ever joined him, particularly the spice seller found dead last night.”

Old Bess sniffed and sipped her wine, her eyes still locked on Kate, who was beginning to wonder whether she was wasting precious time.

“Horner.” Another sniff. “I paid him little heed.” With that, Bess sat awhile studying Kate, so long a while that the brandywine, which she sipped, and the homely sounds from the kitchen and the public room, began to lull Kate. She was startled when the elderly woman said, “Horner ate alone most days, though that shifty-eyed spice seller joined him on occasion.” As Kate opened her mouth to ask a question, Bess said, “I do not listen to customers’ conversations unbidden.”

Unbidden. An interesting qualifier.

“Did he dine with anyone else?” Kate asked.

Bess tapped the table with a broad finger, rough from a life of hard work, the joints swollen with age. She appeared to be a woman of rich complexities, powerful in her own right, with an income sufficient to afford her the luxury of brandywine in old age, yet with no apparent desire to take advantage of her grandson’s presence to sit back and take her ease. Kate thought she might like the taverner, given a chance.

“John Paris.” Bess spoke the name as if testing it, and on hearing it, nodded. “He is an occasional customer, so I might not have remembered but that he seemed uneasy when he dined with Horner one day, kept glancing round as if expecting trouble. A man of so little significance in the city, what did he fear? It had me wondering. I did not connect it with Horner at the time, but now …”

Paris’s discomfort while dining with Horner interested Kate. A warehouse he managed for the merchant Thomas Graa stood next to her mother’s Martha House, and Paris himself lived close by. He was also a customer of Kate’s guesthouse, though he had not been there for a while, and she’d had a mind to refuse him in future for she’d had trouble with him the past summer, though related to her mother, not the guesthouse.

“When was this?” Kate asked.

“Perhaps a week past, a little more.” Bess looked at something beyond Kate. A parade of days? “Just about a week ago.”

Kate thanked her. She would pay Paris a visit. “Anyone else?”

“Now and then. No one of note. The sort I would turn away if they were on their own, the ones who never seem to have the coin to pay for what they drink.”

Possibly useful. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Horner? Or Merek?”

Bess shifted slightly in her chair, as if getting comfortable. Had Kate passed some test?

“I know what you are about, Dame Katherine. You seek information that will convince the sheriffs that Berend did not murder Merek. Or Horner. I commend your loyalty. Berend is no murderer. Not now.”

Bess knew that Berend was in the city? Because of Peter Trimlow’s accusation? Or was there more? Kate chose her words with care. “I was not aware that you knew Berend.”

“No?” The hint of a smile. “He lodged here when he first came to York. In the large room, sharing with the others. He was well-liked, trusted. He told me about his childhood in a tavern, and I was about to fire my indifferent cook and hire Berend when he told me he had found employment. With you.”

Berend had never mentioned lodging at the York Tavern. “I did not know.” And it hurt.

“No one is ever entirely forthcoming, are they?” Bess gave her a knowing, but not unfriendly smile. “He is a man who seeks redemption. He’d not risk his soul for such petty criminals.”

“Then I can count on you as an ally?”