The Tolls of Death: (Knights Templar 17) (26 page)

The owl remained there watching impassively. It was only when he heard a strange rumbling noise that seemed to transmit itself through the ground and up through the trunk of the tree, that he stirred himself and peered about him. Then, a few moments later, he saw a small mouse pushing its nose through the stems of grass at the edge of the meadow.

He glided down once more on assassin’s wings; as efficient a killer as any human.

It was late when Richer got back to the castle. Thankfully the door was open still, even though it was long after dark, but here in the wilds, the gate was often left ajar. Inside his hutch-like shed, the gatekeeper slumbered, snoring and whistling, and Richer tiptoed past, rather than waken him.

‘You have been gone a long while,’ Warin said as he entered the hall.

‘I have been sick. A severe headache …’

‘It’s curious,’ the squire said. He was sitting at a table, and now he leaned forward, elbows on the table-top, staring at Richer unblinking. ‘I have known you many years, and in all that time, you’ve never had such bad headaches – but today you refused to join me because of one, and you say you’ve suffered a worse one since.’

It was true. The headaches had been at their worst when his family had all died, but had reduced in severity over time. ‘I don’t understand it either,’ Richer shrugged. ‘They haven’t been so bad in years. Today I could hardly see for flashing lights and poor vision.’

‘Very peculiar.’ Warin stared at him with a strange look in his eye. ‘So long as you’re sure there’s nothing else the matter?’

‘What else could be wrong?’

‘Perhaps you’re upset over this dead widow? Or could it be something else?’

‘You mean the King’s murder?’

Warin’s eyes hardened. ‘Not so damned loud, fool!’ he hissed. ‘Do you want the whole castle to hear you?’

Richer shook his head, eyes shut. ‘I can’t think straight while my head’s like this. All I meant was, while the King was planning to murder the Lord Marcher.’

‘He intends to execute a traitor, that is all,’ Warin said flatly. ‘Mortimer raised his flag against the King’s friends and officers. That makes him traitor.’

Richer nodded. It was too late and he was too tired to argue. The flickering candles in the hall were making his head start to feel odd again, and he had no desire to be caught here with a fresh migraine. ‘Did you learn all you sought?’

‘The priest agreed to my proposal, yes. And he’ll keep his mouth shut. There were some interesting snippets about the people in this vill though – especially Father Adam.’

‘What sort?’ Richer asked.

‘The man is a sodomite,’ Warin smiled. ‘So he’s another one we can count upon!’

Simon and Baldwin were woken the next morning by the sudden eruption of noise as the little fortress’s servants began to rouse themselves.

It was something that Simon reckoned he could never get used to, this infernal din heralding each new day. To Baldwin it was as natural as breathing, and he lived with the row perfectly happily, but Simon groaned as the men entered the room, chatting loudly about their plans for the day, issuing orders as they went about which horse was to be taken for exercise first, whether the bitch was going to pup today or hold back for another, whether the falcon with the lame wing would recover, and then the more crucial decisions, such as should the red calf or the black one with the lighter flank be pole-axed today. All the Bailiff wanted was to pull his cloak back over his head and return to the arms of Morpheus. (Simon had no idea who the man was, but he’d heard Baldwin mention him before now, and he liked the sound of the phrase.)

When at last he sat up and pulled on his clothes, the hall was already almost filled. At a nearby wall, Baldwin sat slouched, his face dark as he stared into the distance. Gervase was sitting at a bench on the dais, dealing with the hundred and one little decisions which, as steward here, he must make each day, and not far from him, forlorn and chewing a fingernail, was Jules. His disconsolate clerk peering at his master with a look of impatience on his face.

Simon ran a hand through his tousled hair and felt a slight tension in his left shoulder. It was always the way when he slept
on a bench. The damn things were too hard, but he supposed in a little place like this, he was lucky to have been given a bench to himself. All too often even a notable guest might be forced to sleep on the floor in a castle this size. It was good that the lord and his wife at least had their own chamber separate from the men here in their hall. Most modern castles were built this way, as Simon knew, because with so many hired men-at-arms, it was safer for the lord and his lady to be segregated in case of treachery. Things were no longer, as Baldwin was so fond of saying, as they used to be, when each warrior gave his oath to support and protect his lord for as long as either lived. There was no need for payment in those days – the man served his lord and in return he received food, shelter and clothing. Nowadays, the bastards always wanted money.

Simon’s mouth tasted foul. Last night, Jules and he had discovered a joint attraction for the red wine Gervase had stored in the buttery. It was flavoursome – powerful and sweet – and although Baldwin had retired to his sleep before long, Simon and Jules had remained in the corner, talking. Now his mouth tasted like the inside of a chicken house. He needed water to sluice it clean. A little meat to chew on would help – as would a pot of cider.

Outside he ducked his head under the water in the trough and came back up blowing and shaking his head like a dog.
God’s heart
, but that was cold! Still, at least the wash was refreshing, and he took off his shirt and used it to dry the worst of the dampness. Returning to the room, he saw that Jules was talking to Gervase now, Baldwin listening intently.

‘What is it, Baldwin?’ he asked heartily. His belly rumbled and he thought of breakfast again.

‘There is a possibility that the inquests will be swiftly completed,’ Baldwin said quietly.

Simon stared at him. ‘How so? If there was murder, we’ll have to find out who could have killed her.’

‘The good Coroner has many other calls upon his time,’ Baldwin said sarcastically. ‘He feels this affair is not important enough to hold his interest. He wishes to be away.’

‘The ignorant puppy!’

‘No, sir.’

Looking to his side, Simon saw that the Coroner’s clerk had joined them.

Roger continued, ‘I fear it’s more difficult. This morning we have had a message from the Sheriff. A prisoner of the King’s has escaped from his prison and we’re commanded to raise the Hue and Cry and catch him alive or dead.’

‘Who is this terror?’ Simon asked with a frown. For a man to escape the King was unknown. Surely the fellow would be recaught soon, but the fact that he had caused messengers to be sent all the way here spoke of the man’s dangerous reputation.

‘Lord Mortimer of Wigmore. He has escaped from the Tower of London, apparently.’

‘My Heavens!’ Baldwin breathed. ‘No one escapes from the Tower.’

‘Not for ever, no,’ the clerk nodded.

Simon shot a look at Baldwin, and he saw his friend’s head shake. They could not discuss the matter in front of a stranger. It was one thing to enquire about the circumstances, but any speculation would have to wait until they were out of earshot of this clerk. Since they had returned from their pilgrimage, it had become plain to both that it was all too easy for a man to be heard by a fellow talking insolently about the King or his friends, or speaking in support of a man whom the King now considered his enemy. A man who wished to keep his head would refrain from commenting in public.

‘So will you be leaving shortly, Roger?’ Baldwin asked.

The clerk pulled a moue and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It seems madness to me, because there is clearly much to investigate here,
but whether it was a murder or a suicide, the most important thing is to keep the records. Once we have the story written down, and the value of the fines, we can move on to the next matter. The child’s death was sad, of course,’ he said, his face growing still more cadaverous, ‘but at least that will be straightforward. The pig will be
deodand
, for it caused his death.’

‘Accidents will happen,’ Simon said heavily. ‘It’s better than some: last time I was involved with a pig causing death, the damned thing had entered a house in Exeter and eaten a baby before the mother’s eyes.’

Baldwin said offhandedly, ‘It is a great shame, but as you say, if your master cannot find the murderer, I suppose the record is all that matters.’

‘That is not what I said,’ Roger began, but then he peered at Baldwin with a sharp eye. ‘Hmm. You’re a sly one, I see. Perhaps a little further enquiring wouldn’t go amiss.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Simon began, but both ignored him.

Baldwin said, ‘So Mortimer is free. That will be a sore irritation to the King.’

‘I should think so. He was a doughty warrior in the King’s service – before he turned traitor, of course,’ Roger said.

‘So your master will be needed immediately at Bodmin, just in case Mortimer has come all this way?’

The clerk smiled. ‘You are a determined man, Sir Baldwin.’

Simon frowned: he could recall the tale of Lord Mortimer. He was a Marcher Lord from the Welsh borders, installed there thanks to his grandfather’s devotion to the King’s own grandfather, Henry III. It was Mortimer’s grandfather too who had rescued the young Prince Edward, later to be the present King’s father, Edward I, from Simon de Montfort’s men; he later helped the King to win the Battle of Evesham. It was Mortimer who had killed de Montfort’s ally, Hugh Despenser. When his men won through to de Montfort himself, pulling him from his horse and hacking his
head from his body, then draping his testicles over his nose, Prince Edward had ordered that the skull was Mortimer’s property, and the skull remained as a proud memento of the victory at the Castle of Wigmore. Simon wondered what had happened to the testicles.

Thus were the seeds of Mortimer’s destruction sown almost a quarter century before his birth. There was a bitter enmity between the Mortimer family and that of the Despensers.

Roger Mortimer had been a close friend of the Prince who was to become Edward II, and through the early years of Edward’s reign, Mortimer had been his most devoted lieutenant, supporting him even through the years of Gaveston’s ascendancy when others deserted him. When the Bruce sent his brother to Ireland to disrupt the English territories there, it was Mortimer whom the King sent with the host, and when the Scottish invasion force was destroyed, he became the Justiciar in Ireland, ruling in the King’s name. Until three years ago, Mortimer was the King’s most trusted servant.

That changed when the Despensers began to encroach on the Marcher lands. One of the lords most affected was Mortimer, and at last, provoked beyond reason, Mortimer rose up in arms with the other Lords Marcher. They took arms against the Despensers, not the King, and when the King’s standard was raised against them, the Marchers stopped fighting and surrendered. As a result, Roger himself was taken and had mouldered in the Tower for eighteen months, since the momentous events on the Welsh marches.

And now he had escaped: the man most feared and detested by Hugh Despenser. It was no surprise that the King and Despenser wanted his head. If Mortimer escaped permanently, he would prove a powerful enemy.

‘Christ Jesus,’ Simon breathed. ‘I hope there won’t be another civil war.’

The clerk Roger crossed himself. ‘So do we all,’ he intoned.

All could remember the tales told at firesides of those terrible times when Henry III fought de Montfort up and down the kingdom. There was scarcely a family which didn’t lose men in the battles that ranged all over the land from Lewes to Wales only fifty years previously.

Baldwin frowned. ‘He isn’t here, though, is he? And I believe the death of this woman and her children is enough of a concern. A man like Mortimer may be able to unsettle the realm, but revolt starts because of injustice. If we allow injustice here, and don’t seek the murderer, it will be as a pebble at the top of a hill which rolls and starts a landslide. I think Jules would be better served remaining here and learning the truth.’

Roger the clerk gave a half-smile. ‘I shall speak to him.’

‘Do so. And I thank you. Godspeed.’

Baldwin watched the clerk walk slowly towards the men at the table. ‘He is a shrewd one, that fellow.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Simon asked, baffled.

‘I think that he has his post because he is interested in justice. Of the pair, he is the man with the understanding and authority. Jules is a pleasant young fellow, but he is an appointment made by the Sheriff – I expect his father is in the King’s Household. It is Roger who records the crimes and instructs his master in what to ask. I think he could be a most useful ally in our investigations.’

Letitia was walking along the lane from her house towards Serlo’s. She carried a basket containing some bread and an egg, and was readying herself to be pleasant to the man. Apparently he had been at the tavern until some ridiculous hour of the night, and now he would likely be incapable of rising from his bed, like the hog he was. Lazy devil!

Well, she wasn’t going to let him stay there. He had a duty to the memory of his son, and a responsibility to his wife and
remaining son. Letitia wasn’t going to let him lie about indolently and bring any more shame on himself and poor Alex. She’d stop his sulkiness if she could, and if she couldn’t, well, she’d make his life as miserable as only a woman who knew a man’s weaknesses could.