Rest Not in Peace by Mel Starr Page B

fragment in my pouch while Sir Roger lifted the chests from the floor aside the table and inspected them. He then turned the table over, to see if any slim instrument of death was hidden underneath. None was.
    This was a chamber fit for squires, not knights. Aside from the beds and table there was no other furniture in the room. I went to the hearth again and felt the crevices between stones inside the opening, seeking some tiny crack where a thin iron probe might be concealed. I found nothing but soot.
    Only one other object remained in the chamber. A lampstand stood at the foot of one of the beds, where a cresset rested to light the chamber at night. Where upon a lampstand could a man hide a bodkin or an awl? Thethought seemed absurd, but having no better thought, I moved the cresset to the table and upended the stand.
    The shaft of the lampstand had been turned, and where the turner had fastened the work to his lathe there was a small hole. I know little of joinery, but enough to know that this cavity was to be expected. I gave it little attention, so nearly missed the stub of dark iron which had been driven into the lampstand through its base.
    Sir Roger saw me studying the upturned stand and spoke. “What have you there?”
    “A bit of iron rod where none should be,” I said, and held the stand out for his inspection. The sheriff scowled down at the visible end of the iron shaft, then tried to pluck it out. He had no success. Some man had driven this slender bit of metal deep into the lampstand.
    “The marshalsea will have pliers,” I said. “Let’s go there and see if we can draw this bit of iron from the stand. Perhaps if we can see all of it we will know better its use and how it came to be here.”
    “Lead on,” Sir Roger said, and grasping the lampstand he followed me from the chamber.
    We found Ranulf the farrier beginning his afternoon work, rested from his dinner. I showed him the lampstand and asked if he had a tool which could draw the thin iron rod from the spindle. He nodded, went to his bench, and produced an implement used for wrenching nails from horses’ hooves.
    So little of the iron pin extended from the base of the lampstand that Ranulf found it difficult to find purchase on the metal with his tool. The pliers slipped their grip several times before the farrier managed, with forearms bulging and knuckles white, to loosen and then extract the object.
    Ranulf lifted the thin rod before Sir Roger and me, and I reached out and took it from his tool.
    “What was that there for, d’you suppose?” Ranulf said. “Lampstand didn’t need no bracin’.”
    The bodkin or awl or whatever it once was had been filed to a needle-point. No wooden sphere covered the blunt end, but somewhere in the castle or nearby I was sure such a ball might be hid or discarded. There was no need for so sharp a point on a rod unless it was made to plunge through some other thing, and a larger surface against a man’s hand than just the blunt end of the rod would be needed for that work.
    “Speak to no man,” I said to the farrier, “of what has been found here.”
    “Aye… What is it, an’ why was it there?”
    “Don’t know of a certainty. But when we learn of it we will tell you. Until then, keep silence.”
    The farrier tugged a forelock when Sir Roger and I turned to go, me with the iron pin in my hand and Sir Roger with the lampstand. The bodkin was a bit longer than my longest finger. This was likely long enough to penetrate a man’s brain if thrust through his ear. Was this the thing we were to seek, which the crudely written message had advised us of? This seemed likely.
    Dinner was finished when we entered the hall. Grooms and valets had already completed their meals and departed, and Lord Gilbert and Lady Petronilla were standing at their places at the high table. Lord Gilbert saw us enter the hall, saw the lampstand in Sir Roger’s hand, and raised an eyebrow. The bodkin in my hand was too small to