The Leper's Return (22 page)

It was half an hour before Stapledon motioned his clerks away and peered at Baldwin. His eyesight had been failing for some years, and he needed to use spectacles now, which gave him something of the appearance of a bemused owl. “You’ve been very patient with us, Sir Baldwin. My apologies for keeping you waiting so long, but it’s so much better to get these things out of the way when one can. My time isn’t my own any more.”

Baldwin dismissed the apology as unnecessary. “My Lord Bishop, we should apologize for turning up unexpectedly.”

“What can I do for you, Sir Baldwin?” Clifford asked.

“Peter, I wanted to ask you about a girl in the town,” he said. “It’s Cecily, the daughter of the dead man. I understand she’s very generous to the poor, including the lepers.”

“Yes, I believe she has assisted with a few good works. Why?”

“Since her father has been killed, we have been trying to find a reason for his murder, but it’s possible it was only a robbery that went wrong. I am fairly certain that a lot of Godfrey’s plate has gone missing. Similarly, I have to wonder about the dead man’s last words.”

“What were they?”

“Apparently, ”So you’d defile my daughter, would you?“”

“What has she to say about this?”

“She says nothing. She is adamant that she was struck down by a man at the window, and knew nothing of her father’s death.”

Stapledon sipped his wine. “And you do not believe her.”

“I wouldn’t say that, my Lord—I simply don’t know. But it does seem odd to me that she should walk into her hall and be instantly attacked. Most thieves would run away on hearing someone approach. And those words—they allow for some intriguing speculation.”

“Obviously he came upon someone trying to rape the poor girl,” said Clifford.

Simon stole a morsel of Baldwin’s meat. “That’s what it sounds like.”

“What do you mean?” asked the Dean.

“If it was a simple attack of that nature, why say ”defile“? If it were a rape, wouldn’t he have said just that? ”So you’d rape my daughter, would you?“ Surely it’s the form of words that would come most easily to a man?”

“I’m not so sure,” said Stapledon. “One hears such stories nowadays: of nuns being raped in their convents, women being taken from their homes, their husbands murdered or tortured to show where their valuables are stored. These villains are bestial. If this poor man came into his hall and found these men had knocked his daughter down, and were trying to rape her, perhaps he used the first words which sprang into his mind. Defile is a very strong word, but when used against some of the footpads I have seen in my own court…”

Baldwin gave a slow nod. He too had seen some of the very dregs of society before him when the court was in session. How, he wondered, would he have reacted to seeing one of them pawing his daughter? If he had a daughter he would adore her, he felt, just as surely as Simon doted on his; and if he ever found a scruffy, degenerate, drawlatch of a man fondling her youthful body while she lay unconscious, punched in the face by her attacker, Baldwin was sure he would use stronger language than “rape.” But then he would probably have used stronger language than “defile” too. In fact, he thought, he probably wouldn’t have used any language at all: he would have grabbed for his sword or a club, and expressed his feelings more forcefully.

“So what do you want from me, Sir Baldwin?” the Dean enquired.

“Anything you can tell me about her, about her father, or anyone else who might have a bearing on this horrible murder.”

“Well…” The Dean gazed into the middle distance thoughtfully. “Her father was quite a strong character, I always thought. He wasn’t very forthcoming, and not particularly popular, but he always struck me as a resolute man.”

“When you say he wasn’t very popular, in what way?”

“Oh, he upset quite a few folk. Used to refuse to give alms to certain people. He was quite cruel toward lepers. Insulted them and once even threw stones at one who stood too close to his gate. But nothing serious, the leper wasn’t hurt. Still, his attitude to those who weren’t as healthy or wealthy as he, was quite off-putting.”

“Did he often lose his temper?”

Clifford glanced at the knight. “He did on occasion, but usually only when it was something that bore on his daughter. I think that was why he was so harsh toward lepers, because he feared that one of them might attack her.”

“Why should he think that?” Simon interrupted.

It was Baldwin who answered. “Because many people think that lepers have an insatiable appetite for sex.”

“Yes,” Clifford nodded. “Some think leprosy is a sexual disease, acquired by those with abnormal lusts, and shows the nature of the soul within. Others think it’s caused by perverted parents, and is actually the proof of some kind of moral deviance. I think Godfrey thought so, and wanted to keep such people from his daughter.”

“And stop them defiling her,” Simon mused.

“It’s possible,” Baldwin agreed. “And what of her, Cecily?”

“Oh, she’s a treasure. Where her father was hard and unswerving, she seems generous to a fault. She shows every sign of compassion and tolerance. I have tried to broadcast St. Hugh’s opinion: that lepers are here to show us all the way to redemption, demonstrating by their worldly suffering what is to come; they are set before us by God as a reminder, so that we may always tread the right path. That was St. Hugh’s view, and I believe in my heart that it’s the correct one. Mistress Cecily is one of the few people of the town who has taken my words to heart.”

“God be praised,” murmured the Bishop.

“And how does she evince this care for the ill?” Baldwin probed.

“She’s spoken to the master of the lepers about making a small but regular donation to assist the house, and also to offer a chantry.”

Simon stared, his mouth falling open. “She wants to pay for regular mass in the lepers’ chapel?”

“Yes. She won’t stretch to a new altar for them, but she said she will be pleased to give them money annually if they will celebrate a mass in memory of her father, both on his birthday and on the anniversary of his death.”

“That is extremely interesting,” Baldwin noted. The rich often endowed a chantry on their favorite church so that they might be remembered and prayed for while they remained in Purgatory, but the knight had never known it to be paid to a lepers’ place of worship. “Why should she ask for that, I wonder?”

“Because she wanted to save his soul, Sir Baldwin,” Clifford said sharply.

The knight gave him a half-apologetic grin, for the Dean knew that he had little faith in the Church as an institution; after the betrayal of his Order by the Pope, his trust had been shattered. “No, Peter, I think you miss my meaning. It appears highly curious to me that she should endow this little chapel with funds, specifically to pray for her father, when she must have known how he felt about lepers. It is almost a studied insult to do so, surely? Why not give you the money to hold masses in the canonical church here, rather than at the lazar house?”

“Sometimes, Baldwin, you can be too suspicious! I am quite sure she wanted to help the poor victims of St. Lawrence’s, that’s all. And why shouldn’t she? If she is a true believer, she should want to use her money to save as many souls as she can.”

“No doubt you are right, Peter,” Baldwin said soothingly. He had upset the priest, he saw, and spoke more carefully now to mollify him. “Tell me, I have also heard of Edmund Quivil’s woman, young Mary. Is it true that she is working there to help your leper master?”

“Yes, it’s so. She too has a strong conviction and faith. I would be glad if more people in this town demonstrated half the goodness of those two young women.” His face darkened. “And I would be glad if some of those who try to smear the girl could do something useful themselves rather than slandering her.”

Baldwin’s eyebrows rose in his astonishment. “I am sorry, Peter, I didn’t mean—”

“Not you! It’s the others. Some people will go about casting slurs on those who don’t deserve it. Young Mary Cordwainer has been insulted in the street by some who should know better. I even heard this morning that someone has been saying she is only going there for—well, saving Your Lordship’s presence—for the gratification of her passionate desires.”

Baldwin had to cough to stifle his laughter. It was novel to hear Peter Clifford speaking in so refined a manner. Baldwin knew that two weeks ago he had berated a drunken farmer in language the knight had only before heard on a Cinq Ports trader, because the poor fellow had dropped a cask of the priest’s Bordeaux wine. Then a thought struck him. “Who did you hear speaking of this?”

“The smith, Jack, out on the Exeter road. Could you talk to him and get him to stop making such comments?”

“I think so. At the least we should go and see why he passes such gossip on,” said Baldwin.

The smithy was a low, one-story shed at the eastern edge of the town, set some way back from the traffic. It was a convenient site, Baldwin knew. This road was the busiest one west of Exeter, and the smith had the custom not only of all the farmers and peasants in the town, but also all the passing travellers who might need a wheel remade, or a horse shod.

There was a large yard before the smithy, and when Baldwin, Simon and Edgar arrived, the place was alive with the ringing of steel. As was usual, the doors were thrown wide—even in midwinter the smith was often too hot to have them closed—and the three men could see a sweating figure hammering at a bolt of glowing metal. Baldwin strode to the door and entered, the other two behind him. The percussion of the metal being struck with the hammer, the ringing of the anvil, was an awful cacophony. It made Baldwin feel as if his head was being pounded, and he was tempted to cover his ears with his hands.

The smith turned, and beyond a curt nod expressed no surprise that someone had walked in. Shoving the still-glowing metal into a barrel, he scratched at his chest. Steam rose while the water spat and crackled angrily. Wiping an arm over his brow, Jack looked at them enquiringly before drinking from a huge jar of ale.

To Simon he looked like any other smith. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he made up for his lack of height by his breadth. His torso was almost as well developed as that of a man-at-arms, and was almost hairless. At either side of the bib of his heavy leather apron there were a number of welts and scars, evidence of mistakes or errors in his trade, and he had lost two fingers of his left hand.

But it was the man’s face that caught the bailiffs attention. He had a low, sloping forehead which made him look as if he was thrusting his head forward aggressively, with heavy brows, a thick nose and small, widely spaced eyes.

All of this the knight took in at a glance, but there was something else that Baldwin noted, and that was that the smith avoided meeting his eye. There were few traits that Baldwin had learned over the years to distrust, but this was one. “Are you Jack?”

“Yes,” he grunted, lowering the drink for a moment, then replacing it. When it was emptied, he set it down near a small barrel and stood with his arms akimbo. “Well? Is it a horse, or a cart or what?”

“It’s to find out why you have been saying villainous things about a girl in the town.”

“What do you mean?”

Baldwin watched him as he took a step closer. The smith’s eyes were focused somewhere around the knight’s left ear. “I hear you have alleged that a girl who spends her time trying to ease the pain of people afflicted with leprosy is herself no more than a harlot.”

“Whoever said that was a liar. Who says it? Eh? Who accuses me?”

This was addressed to Baldwin’s right ear. Apparently emotion caused his attention to wander. The knight moved to meet the man’s eye, but it moved with him, and Baldwin gave up the attempt.

“You were overheard by priests. They have told me what you said. What I would like to know is, what evidence do you have for your allegation?”

“I don’t need any proof.”

“You do, because without it, your comments are vile slanders. And you could be forced into court for that. Do you have any proof?”

The smith’s interest had moved on to the cobbles at his feet. He stood perusing them for several minutes, before giving a short shake of his head.

“What was it you said about her? That she was a wanton?”

“You know so much, why ask me?” His tone was sulky, and now a boot scraped its way over a patch of dust, sweeping it away, then moving it all back again. From his behavior, Baldwin would have assumed him to be a young apprentice, not a smith of some twenty-eight summers.

“Jack, why did you say such things about her?”

“She’s only young. It’s not right for her to be up there, not with that lot.” He spat accurately out through the doors. The forge was cooling without attention, and he cast it a lackluster glance before going to the doors and pulling them to.

“You must say nothing more about them, Jack. If you do, I can have you amerced for slander. You understand me? I can have you fined for telling people villainous things; things which you know are untrue.”

“I don’t know they’re untrue. What if it’s right?”

“If there is any truth in it, you show me the proof, all right? For Christ’s sake, man, think what you are doing!” Baldwin let the sea of his frustration break through the dam of his self-control. “There she is, trying to help mitigate the worst pain those poor devils are suffering, and while she’s there doing God only knows what to help soothe the agony of their disease, here you are inciting people against her! It must stop.”

The smith walked to his barrel and refilled his mug. Adopting an air of unconcern, he met the stare of Baldwin’s right shoulder. “Is that all?”

“No! What were you doing up at Godfrey’s house on the night he was murdered?”

“What? I was only there for a while…”

“When did you get there?”

“I was there late afternoon. There was a mare had lost a shoe, and I had to—”

Simon cut him off. “How long did it take?”

“All I had to do was nail it back on, it was hardly anything…”

“Did you come straight back here?” Baldwin shot.

“No! No, I went into Putthe’s buttery.”

“Why?”

“To take a drink with him. It’s not illegal!”

“How long for?”

“I don’t know. It was after dark, that’s all I—”

“How many ales did you drink?” Baldwin rasped.

“I don’t know—ask Putthe, he can tell you.”

Simon gave Baldwin a scarcely perceptible glance, with a faint shrug.

The knight fixed his eye on the smith again. “So you say you went to the hall in the late afternoon, made a new shoe…”

“No, all I did was refit the old one.”

“So you nailed it back on, went through to the buttery—was it dark by then?”

“Oh, no. It was a good hour before nightfall.”

“And in the buttery you drank quarts of ale with Putthe. Did he leave you alone while he got on with his duties?”

“No, he said there was nothing for him to do.”

“But you didn’t leave until night?”

“That’s right. I can remember it quite clearly: it was so black outside I tripped over a loose cobble in the road, and I thought to myself, If this was daylight, I’d not have missed that.”

“And you left Putthe asleep?” Simon interrupted again. “Did you hear a man shouting? A scream, anything like that?”

“No, sir. If I had, I’d have gone back immediately. No, if I’d thought poor Master Godfrey would be dead so soon after I was drinking his health with him and—”

“He was with you in the buttery?” Baldwin asked. “For how long?”

“Not long. He walked in before checking his fencing. Looked surprised to see me there, but he had a drop of ale with me and Putthe before he went out.”

“Did you see anyone else in there? Did Mistress Cecily come in?”

“No, sir. No one ”cepting the master himself.“

“Which way did you come home?”

“Along the main road, through the town, past the church, and down the hill to here.”

“Did you see anyone else on your way?”

“No, sir, it was empty. But it was quite late.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about that night? Anything you feel could help us find the murderer?”

For the first time the smith let his eyes fleetingly meet the knight’s, and Baldwin saw he was debating whether to mention something, seeking reassurance from the Keeper before raising it. “Yes?”

“It’s nothing, I daresay, but as I left the place, I could have sworn I heard voices in the hall itself. A man and a girl.”

“Did she scream, or cry out in some way?”

“You asked me that,” Jack said peevishly. “I told you, no one screamed or anything while I was there, but I was fairly sure I heard these two voices. Just talking low, almost whispering. There was one thing, though: the girl sounded sad, I reckon. Really sad.”

15

R
iding from the little smithy, Baldwin turned to Simon and held out his hands in a gesture of bafflement. “So what do you make of all this? I tell you now, I feel that the more people I speak to, the more confusing it becomes.”

Simon tilted his head on one side. “You know as well as I do that often these crimes are utterly incomprehensible until you have all the facts laid out, and then the whole picture locks together. At least we know the people who were present, which means we can isolate who might have had a motive to crush Godfrey’s skull.”

“I suppose so, but I wish I knew who the two were in Godfrey’s garden.”

“If John was telling the truth and wasn’t simply confused by seeing two bushes in the dark, you mean?” Simon chuckled. “Come on, Baldwin, don’t look so glum! You’re on your way to meet your Lady.”

“Oh, shut up!”

Simon laughed. They made their way into the outer fringe of the town, then on up to the church. Here they were about to turn right to head up to the north, when the bailiff saw Cecily’s maid at her gate. “Baldwin?”

Following his friend’s gaze, the knight gave a low whistle.

At the entrance to Godfrey’s house, hidden from the road by the wall, and only visible from this angle because the gate was ajar, Alison stood laughing and chatting to John of Irelaunde. As Baldwin watched, he saw John tweak a curl from her wimple and chuck her under the chin.

“That bloody Irishman,” Simon grumbled. “Look at him!”

“He certainly appears to take his pleasures where he can,” Baldwin chuckled. “Ah, and who’s this?”

Riding toward them was William. He smiled broadly to them, and jogged off back the way they had come. The knight stared after him. “I wonder where he’s off to?”

Jack wiped his hands on his heavy leather apron, and stood contemplating the view bitterly. The questioning by the Keeper had unsettled him. The smith was a man of few words normally, and now he felt as if he had been forced into giving away too much—something he could regret later. Jack was all too well aware of the risks of telling law officers too much. It often led to a man being arrested and hanged.

There was a scuttling noise near the forge, and he turned to see his cat lying, tail twitching, watching a large rat scrabbling for a crumb. Jack let out a curse, and swung his boot at the cat, who, realizing her master was not of a mind to scratch her ears, flattened them against her skull before pelting off to a dark corner where she judged she should be safe enough.

Jack turned back and supped ale, disconsolately studying the sweep of the river. He was still standing there, his great mug in his fist, when he was hailed.

Entering his yard was a cheerful-looking man on a decent palfrey. “Smith? Can you make me a shoe? My fellow here has cast one.”

Jack looked up into William’s face and grunted.

“I’m very glad to find you here,” said William with feeling, falling from his saddle and strolling to a bench while Jack set to pumping the bellows. The guard held his hands to the fire, a small frown creasing his brow. He had also seen John and the maid in the road, and it had interested him a great deal. He decided he would have to tell his master as soon as he returned to Coffyn’s house. For now, though, he had another task to perform.

He grinned up at the smith. “Smiths always hear all the gossip before anyone else. But I suppose you need a tale in exchange, yes? Have you heard what the lepers are up to?”

Baldwin walked into his hall and threw his gloves onto the table. Margaret was there, sitting at the fire as she unpicked stitches from a tapestry. When Simon walked in, she stood to greet him, and he glanced down at her work.

“But you never make mistakes with your needlework!”

“Sometimes even the best seamstress must have a bad day,” she said. “How has yours been?”

Baldwin bellowed for Wat and sank down into his chair. His boots were too tight, and after wearing them all day, his feet felt as if they had swollen so much he would never be able to get them off. “Where is that blasted lad? WAT!”

“Don’t shout at him, Baldwin,” Margaret said urgently. “You’re not the only one to have had a bad day.”

Baldwin and Simon exchanged a glance as the boy came in, snivelling. Immediately behind him was Emma.

To the knight she looked as threatening as a war-horse pawing at the ground, and he flinched as he felt her eyes flit over him, registering his mud-bespattered hose and tunic, the hair lying lankly where he had been wearing his hat, and his booted feet.

“That dog of yours,” she stated firmly, “ought to be killed.”

Emma was disgruntled. This place was so far from anywhere important, she was seriously alarmed her mistress might choose to marry the knight and move here permanently. Here! So far from any decent town or city.

It had been bad enough when she had been told she was to join Jeanne when her charge was wedded the first time, to Ralph of Liddinstone. That was very hard, when she was so fond of the shops of Bordeaux, the little pie shops and sweetmeat stalls where she could purchase whatever she wanted while escorting Jeanne around, but she had accepted that it was necessary for her mistress to be married, and had finally agreed to stay with her.

But for little Jeanne to consider coming to a benighted spot like this was intolerable! The road—hah, it was what passed for a road here, at any rate—was little more than a quagmire. At the moment it was frozen into reddish muddy ruts, each of which threatened to snap the bones of a horse’s leg, but the nearest town was miles away, either northward up to Tiverton, or south to Crediton or Exeter. There was literally nothing in between, just a few hamlets filled with grubby peasants and their ragamuffin brats. How could poor Jeanne consider living in a place like this?

Crediton wasn’t so bad, she’d grudgingly agreed that yesterday when Jeanne had asked. But that was when they had only just entered the town, and soon Emma’s attitude had changed. In its favor, at least Crediton had some cobbles, and there were walkways so that ladies and gentlemen did not have to trail their finery in the filth of the sewer, or in the horse dung that lay all over…or in the feces from dogs and cats, goats and sheep, steers and heifers. In real towns, she had reminded her mistress scathingly, such wastes were found only in the market area where butchers and tanners plied their trade, but Crediton was such a one-road place that the animals got everywhere.

This farm, where the “noble” knight lived, was hardly good reason to want to live here. Emma could only gaze around her with scorn. There were no fine paintings on the walls, no elaborate carvings; it was just somewhere where a wealthy peasant wouldn’t have looked out of place. She glanced around the hall. A large table for Sir Baldwin and his guests lay at the far end, and the rest of the rush-strewn floor held other benches and tables—for the most part trestles that could easily be cleared away. There was no grace or elegance about it whatever.

And then there was the dog.

“Killed?” Baldwin repeated with horror. “But why? Uther’s always so gentle.”

“Gentle? I suppose you think when the monster knocks you flat on your back and stands slavering at your throat, he’s being playful?” Emma’s lip curled into a sneer. Her logic was unanswerable, she knew. She had always had a detestation for dogs of all sorts. Their slavish obedience, their fawning displays of affection and the filth they would eat, made her stomach churn. As if that wasn’t enough, she had a horror of the huge teeth. They looked too much like those of a wolf. “That dog should be killed,” she said again, with emphasis on the last word.

“But my dear woman, I really must say that I think Uther was only—”

“Why you should think my mistress would consider living in a hovel running with flea-bitten, mangy runts like that, I don’t know. As if it wasn’t enough that she should be killed by your hounds while she’s asleep, I expect she’ll scarcely get any rest, what with the fleas and other things. A fine place! The only way to get this household fit for a lady like her is to have the dogs out where they belong, in their kennels.”

With that, having confirmed that Baldwin’s face was as shocked as she had hoped, Emma rotated her massive bulk and steered a course through the door and out.

Baldwin passed a hand weakly over his forehead. “Is it true that she really has gone?” he asked. “I swear, if I’d had a javelin here, I would have hurled it at her, whatever the consequences!”

“Don’t worry, Baldwin,” Margaret said sympathetically. “I’m sure she’s not as bad as all that once you get to know her. Maybe it’s just that she’s some way from home and feels a little uncertain.”