Bone of Contention Read Online Free Page A

to die because the stone walls retained a chill.
    She was by now accustomed to the surprise that showed on the face of the servant who had admitted her. The bishop of Winchester, abstemious in his habits, received few women, and Magdalene told the servant quickly that she had come to leave a message to be sent on to Winchester. He waved her toward the back of the room, where a partition provided a private area for the bishop to talk business. In front of the partition was a handsome table. Magdalene approached the priest, who sat on a stool behind it.
    He looked more shocked than the servant, but said, “The bishop is not here, mistress.”
    “I know,” Magdalene said. “I am one of the bishop of Winchester’s tenants. Sir Bellamy of Itchen collects the rent…”
    Behind her veil she smiled bitterly as the young priest stiffened and moved back on his stool. Sir Bellamy was one of the bishop’s knights, a strong secular arm to enforce the will of the prelate when Churchly admonition failed. He was no simple bailiff and collected rents only where there might be danger, which was nearly always from the whorehouses owned by the Church. The young priest, Phillipe something-or-other, had realized she was a whoremistress and recoiled.
    “I must leave Southwark,” Magdalene continued, “and I wish to inform Sir Bellamy that there will be no one who can pay the rent for several weeks. I will, of course, pay the full sum as soon as I return. I have been a tenant of the Old Priory Guesthouse for over five years and have never been late or short with my rent.”
    While she was speaking she had thrust her hand through the slit in her skirt and pulled her pocket through it. As she opened it to extract the letter, she noticed that the rigidity of the priest’s body relaxed somewhat when she named the Old Priory Guesthouse, and she wondered whether Bell had spoken of her or whether young Father Phillipe remembered the involvement of her women in solving the murder of the papal messenger back in April.
    “If you will be kind enough to send this letter on to Sir Bellamy in Winchester, I think he will be willing to let my account ride for the time of my absence and not frighten my women with demands for money they do not have.”
    “But Sir Bellamy is here,” Father Phillipe said, sounding surprised. “He is in the bishop’s chamber.”
    “Ah,” Magdalene said, her face expressionless despite her shock. So Bell was in Southwark, and he hadn’t let her know. “Then I can give him my letter myself.”
    “Wait!” Father Phillipe exclaimed as she started to turn. “You cannot go into the bishop’s chamber.”
    “Of course not,” Magdalene agreed. “I was only putting my pocket back under my skirt. Shall I wait here, or will you tell Sir Bellamy to come to the Old Priory Guesthouse?”
    Despite the pain she felt over Bell’s abandonment, she had to make a conscious effort to keep from smiling at the agony of indecision in the young priest’s face. He could not decide whether it was worse to have her standing by his desk, contaminating the atmosphere with her sinfulness, or to send Bell to the den of iniquity that was a whorehouse.
    “Wait there,” Father Phillipe said, “I will tell him you are here and he can decide whether he wishes to speak to you or…not.”
    He rose from behind the table and went through the door in the partition into the bishop’s chamber. Magdalene blinked once or twice to clear a slight mist from her eyes. There had not been the smallest sign that Bell was tiring of her the last time they were together. In fact, it had been a Sunday, and they had had such a lively night they had both slept late. And then he had lingered so long over breaking his fast and laughing with and teasing her women, that he had told her he would have to ride far into the night to arrive in Winchester at the time he had promised the bishop he would be there.
    Could he have been set upon by outlaws? Could he have had