The Bishop’s Tale by Margaret Frazer Page A

religious superior, and there was nothing immoral or illegal about his request. Though St. Frideswide’s Priory was in the bishopric of Lincoln, not his of Winchester, he was still a bishop and moreover a cardinal, and his power and influence stretched where he wanted them to in England. If she failed to obey him, she might suffer for it in some way. But if she tried and honestly failed, she thought he would accept her failure without blame.
     
    But the problem remained of how to attempt what he had asked.
     
    He doubted Sir Clement had been struck down by God. Why? And why did he believe it possible that Sir Philip had murdered him? He wanted to know what had happened because he had plans for Sir Philip and wanted to be sure of him. Sure that he had not committed a murder—or sure that he had? her mind treacherously suggested. She was not sure Bishop Beaufort had made that distinction clear when he asked her to learn the truth.
     
    But at least he had given her the priest’s possible motive. The threat of villeinage was a heavy threat to hold over a man. And yet Sir Philip had been singularly undisturbed by the insults Sir Clement had thrown at him yesterday, as if neither they nor Sir Clement particularly mattered to him.
     
    Or had he been hiding his true reaction with exceptional skill?
     
    And if he or someone else had killed Sir Clement, how had it been done?
     
    Poison was the obvious answer. The doctor would have spoken out about any wound, and there had been the strange struggle to breathe, as if Sir Clement were being throttled by an invisible foe, and the swollen face, the rash, and the red welts.
     
    But how could he have been poisoned? Sir Clement, like everyone else, had shared his food and drink. Lady Anne and Guy had shared his food; she and Sir Clement had shared a goblet; yet only Sir Clement had sickened.
     
    Even if in some way it had been poison, Sir Philip had been well down the table from Sir Clement at the feast. Except that once, when he had come to quiet Sir Clement’s outburst, just before Sir Clement had called down God’s judgment on himself. Had Sir Philip goaded that from him? Perhaps, but as nearly as Frevisse could remember, he had not been close enough to the table to have put poison into any food or drink. But perhaps, if it was poison, it had been given earlier. What else had Sir Clement eaten or drunk? Breakfast, surely. Was there a poison that was so slow to act?
     
    Or perhaps the poison had come later. Sir Clement had been the only one to drink the wine in Sir Philip’s chamber, just at that point where he had appeared to be recovering. What if God’s hand had touched him but not closed on him, only leaving him with warning of his sinful mortality and an opportunity to change? Had Sir Philip—or someone else, Frevisse added conscientiously—taken the chance of what was meant to be God’s warning on Sir Clement to kill him?
     
    The poison had worked swiftly there in Sir Philip’s room, with symptoms seemingly identical to those that had struck Sir Clement in the hall. And since no one could have foreseen God’s action, how would they have had a poison so readily to hand, and one that matched so well?
     
    She would need to talk to the people who might know or have seen more. And ask the doctor his ideas on the nature of Sir Clement’s death. Doctors always had ideas; ever insecure in their inevitably lost battle against mortality, they generated theories as readily as a master smith made weapons.
     
    But whatever she did, whatever she asked, the matter came back to the question of whether Sir Clement had died of God’s holy will or man’s sinful intent.
     
    A darkness came between her and the candles, and she looked up to find Sir Philip an arm’s length away, looking down at her.
     
    She glanced toward the bier and saw the empty place where he had been kneeling. She had been so distracted with her problem when she entered that she had not realized the taller