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Adirton was apparently too taken aback for protest or denial, but she had said it less in hope of anything from him – or even from Anneys Barnsley, probably still too drug-addled to understand – as for the listening men who would be the witnesses at Adirton’s trial, and seemingly still to only Anneys Barnsley, she said strongly, “He did it so he could marry you and have all – both his holding and yours.”
    “And Kelmstowe’s,” Master Naylor said.
    “And Kelmstowe’s,” Frevisse agreed. 
    Adirton had recovered enough to exclaim, “This is fool’s talk!  You’re making something out of a mad woman’s maunderings.”  He gave a jerk of his head at Anneys Barnsley, quietly continuing her weeping with a hand now over her eyes, her mind drifted away from them again, all Frevisse’s words lost to her.  Adirton made to leave.  Frevisse held up a hand to tell the men to let him go, but when he was from the room, sent them after him with another gesture.  She followed, passing wide-eyed Sister Elianor, who had been hovering as close to outside the door as she could be, able to see and hear though there had been no room for her in the small chamber. 
    Adirton, walking quickly, was headed for the outer door.  “No,” Frevisse said after him.  “We are not done with you here.”
    Adirton spun around, threat in the tension of his body.  He was instantly flanked by Simon Perryn and the other man, with Master Naylor and his son ready behind them.  Adirton assessed his chances and stood still, his glare fierce on Frevisse.  It seemed he was no fool – that he already understood who was his worst foe here.  Coming near, to confront him to his face, she said, “We have from Anneys Barnsley that you worked on her fear that Tom Kelmstowe might harm her husband.  That you persuaded her to accuse him of trying to rape her.  That you led her to think he would run away and her husband would be safe.”
    “She’s addled with whatever you’ve given to shut her up.  There’s no one going to believe what she said in there.”  Looking back and forth between the men flanking him, he demanded of them, “You could see she’s not in her right wits.  You’re not set to believe any of that, are you, eh?”
    “Oh, aye,” Simon Perryn said quietly.  “I think we are.  And whatever else Domina Frevisse will say, too.” 
    The other man nodded agreement.  Adirton curled his lip with disgust at both of them.  Frevisse went on, “That Kelmstowe went missing made it easy to believe you were right about him.  Except he tells an altogether different story of why he disappeared.  You’ve heard it?” she asked the two village men.  They nodded that they had.  She went on, “It’s an odd story, because how likely was it for someone to pay drovers to carry him off for a jest?  But neither did it make sense that he’d take all that trouble to run away to London – and it does seem he was truly there – only to turn around and come back again.  No more sense than it made to anybody that he would attack Anneys Barnsley anddesert his mother and sister.  So everything about his story made no sense.
    “But what if we think someone did indeed pay the drovers to carry him off, to make it seem he’d run off so he’d lose his holding, again at the hands of the reeve Henry Barnsley?  That Kelmstowe’s holding then went to Barnsley made it all the better, but what the man who paid the drovers was after at the first was simply to set up Kelmstowe as someone who would readily be blamed for Barnsley’s murder when it came.  That’s why he needed Kelmstowe not merely gone but to come back, too, as he assuredly would because of his mother and sister.  Then it was a matter of waiting and hoping things would time out rightly and, for him, they did.  Kelmstowe came back, and after he did, I’ll warrant a great deal there have been constant little threads of talk about how angry he must still be at Barnsley,