The Tolls of Death: (Knights Templar 17) (44 page)

Clouds raced by, although there appeared little wind in the bailey itself. Baldwin stared up at them, catching glimpses of stars every now and again, and wondering what to make of all the hints he had heard.

‘You all right, Baldwin?’

‘Simon! I thought you were asleep. There seemed little point in waking you.’

The Bailiff sniffed. ‘So you could speak to Warin alone, you mean?’

‘You saw us?’ Baldwin grinned.

‘I woke when he came back just now. So what’s it all about? Why did he want to talk to you?’

Baldwin sighed and gazed up at the stars. ‘I don’t know whether to believe him or not. He’s thrown us a dainty tidbit: Nicholas. Gervase is a womaniser and untrustworthy, as we know, but Warin alleges …’ Baldwin hesitated. He disliked slandering a woman, but if she had taken part in an adulterous liaison, she had only herself to blame. ‘He said Lady Anne bears not Nicholas’s son, but Gervase’s.’

Simon stared. ‘Well, swyve me with a blunt bargepole! Are you sure? I mean, do you believe him?’

‘He may be right. He’s an astute fellow.’

Simon considered. ‘It’s not unknown, is it? I can think of a few widows who’ve gone for their steward as soon as the old man pops his clogs.’

‘No, it is not unknown,’ Baldwin said. ‘But usually the woman has the decency to wait until her husband has died.’

‘Is it so rare?’

The soft voice sounded almost sad, and as Simon turned to greet Lady Anne, any embarrassment he might feel at being discovered discussing her adultery was wiped away by his fascination with her.

Although Simon preferred his wife, Meg, to any woman he had ever met – and if were to state his preferences, he would choose a blue-eyed blonde like her – this Anne, with her blue-black hair, oval face and slanting green eyes, was a sorely beautiful temptress.

Drifting nearer on feet which were still light, for all that her belly was enormous and her back bent to balance her, she said quietly, ‘Yes, I heard you both.’

‘Did Squire Warin send you to me?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Yes. He said you’d want to speak to me, and I agreed. If not, he said he’d tell Nicholas to command me to come here.’

‘Better now than at the inquest,’ Baldwin said harshly.

‘If I tell you all I can, would you swear to save me such a public humiliation?’ she asked shyly.

‘My lady, I would save you any embarrassment I can,’ Baldwin said, but his tone was brittle, and he continued, ‘but I cannot do so if there is any risk to an innocent, no matter how lowly. If by withholding anything tomorrow, I put the wrong man’s neck in the noose, I shall speak.’

She paled as he spoke, and her hand went to her breast, then down to her belly. ‘I suppose that is reasonable. But there is nothing I know which could put a man’s life at risk. I can’t believe that.’

‘Tell us all you know, and we can judge it for you.’

She led them to a small stone seat near the gate, from where they could see the entire bailey. Sitting, she surveyed the whole of the area as though distrusting the very ground to hear her words.

‘It is difficult to speak of this,’ she said, putting her face in her hands. When she took them away, there were streaks down both cheeks. It made Simon feel guilty, but he knew that a small detail from one life could sometimes explain the most confusing murders.

‘I was born near Fowey. During the famine I was orphaned, and must find a new home. My father died in Exeter, I believe, on his way to the Scottish wars. I was forced into a common house – a brothel. I remained there some weeks, but food was scarce, and so were customers, so I was told to go. I resolved to see my father’s grave.

‘On the way, I met with a group of travellers, one of whom was a friar, who tried to rape me. It was only the arrival of another man which saved me, and when we came here, I realised I was secure at last when I saw that I had won the heart of my husband.

‘Nicholas is a good, kind man. I love him. He saved me from the rapist, he gave me his name, his honour, and he treated me like a lady. He thought me beautiful.’

She looked up then and met Baldwin’s stern face unflinchingly. Simon immediately felt a tingle run up his spine. This was the practised acting of a woman who knew that her looks could win over any man. She was not to be believed, he thought, but surely Baldwin would be moved by her beauty. Baldwin was always easily swayed by a dark-haired woman.

Simon opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Baldwin said, ‘Come, Lady Anne, you do not expect me to respond when you test your skills as a flirt. Tell your story and give us less of this coquetry.’

Her face hardened. ‘Very well. I see that chivalry plays little part in your life, Sir Baldwin. Yet the point remains he thought me beautiful. He wanted me, and he persuaded me to give him my hand and my heart. He hoped that his love for me would produce an heir for him, and so did I. I was grateful to him, because he had saved me from that friar. I was glad to take his hand when he offered it to me, and I am pleased to give him an heir.’

‘Except this heir is a cuckoo,’ Simon said.

‘You could say so.’

‘He knows you carry another man’s child, yet will allow that man to remain here?’ Simon burst out in horror. ‘Sweet Christ, I couldn’t support my wife knowing she carried another man’s bastard or—’

‘This wasn’t meant to happen!’ she protested. ‘I was desperate! Nicholas was away with the King’s host, and I didn’t know whether he was alive or dead. I thought he must be dead, because else why was there no message? I needed comfort!’

Dimly Baldwin comprehended. ‘You thought he had deserted you, or died?’

‘The only other man I have ever loved was my father,’ she said with an air of pride, and then her voice grew cold and harsh. ‘And he died and I never saw him again. I thought the same thing had happened, that I was again alone. I wanted him back, but if he was dead – and I had heard nothing for months, remember – then what was to become of me? This castle wasn’t his, it was Sir Henry’s, so I might lose position, wealth, my home, all in one swoop, if I was widowed. All I did was seek the protection of another man. What else was there for me? The brothel again?’

Simon looked away. It reminded him of his thoughts about Meg, were he to die. His reflections were not pleasant.

‘What did you do last night?’ Baldwin asked after a moment.

The change of topic startled her. ‘Last night? I was here at the castle, of course.’

‘Was your husband with you?’

‘He slept with me.’

‘Before that he was in his hall?’

‘Why, yes. Except he went out for a while on his horse.’

‘Do you know where he went?’

‘He often rides for exercise. What of it?’

‘He could have been in the vill; he could have murdered Serlo,’ Baldwin said. ‘What of Gervase?’

‘I do not know.’

‘And now he is a fugitive.’

‘I know!’ she sobbed suddenly. ‘It’s my fault! He wanted me to go with him, to find a new life – but how could I leave my husband?’

‘You have lost your protection, Lady. If you depended upon Gervase, you erred.’

‘I cannot believe he killed anyone. He’s too gentle.’

‘Athelina was Gervase’s woman. It is possible that Gervase grew convinced that Serlo had murdered her and her sons; that enraged him, and he exacted retribution.’

‘But why should he kill the miller in that terrible way?’

‘Many say Gervase was father to the apprentice Dan who died in the mill at Serlo’s hands. Gervase thought Serlo had killed his son as well as his lover.’

‘No!’

‘So, as I say, I think you should look to finding another protector, Lady Anne. Because there is good reason to doubt that Gervase will have that potential for much longer.’

‘I am lucky that my husband is returned,’ she said with a cool smile. ‘He will protect me.’

‘Even when you give birth to a bastard?’ Baldwin asked, and her face shattered like a window struck by a stone.

Simon was intrigued as they returned to the hall. He said, speaking low so that no one above could hear him, ‘What do we do about this, then, Baldwin? Did Warin give convincing reasons for thinking Nicholas murdered these people?’

‘He said that Nicholas probably guessed that he wasn’t really the father of his wife’s child, and deduced that his own friend Gervase, a known philanderer, had been disloyal. He was hurt and offended, and wanted to destroy Gervase’s happy memories. That was why he killed Athelina, but also why he killed Serlo, producing “evidence” which would appear to show that Gervase killed Serlo in a fury because of the death of his own son.’

Baldwin fell silent, his face creased with concern, and Simon sucked his teeth. ‘You think that makes sense?’

‘Not really. If he wanted to avenge his son’s death, Gervase would have done so sooner. The drive for revenge is less after a year. It could only be credible if there were another reason for him to kill.’

‘I suppose a man could allow his desire to avenge his son’s death to lie dormant until a suitable opportunity arose,’ Simon suggested.

‘Hardly likely, but possible,’ Baldwin said grudgingly. ‘Apart from that, the idea was sound. Nicholas kills Athelina and her children, presumably hoping that people will assume Gervase was trying to remove an irritation – this woman who kept demanding money from him. And then he kills Serlo because of the death of his son some months ago.’

‘The alternative is, of course, that Gervase himself
was
guilty,’ Simon said.

‘Yes – which magnifies our existing reservations about Nicholas’s guilt,’ Baldwin grunted tiredly.

‘We mustn’t forget Richer. He believed that Athelina was murdered by Serlo, so it may well be he murdered Serlo in his turn.’

Baldwin nodded unwillingly. ‘Except that Richer would never have had the imagination to thrust Serlo’s head into the machine: that displays more thought than I would expect from a warrior like him. Ach, I don’t know! Let us wait until morning, then pray that we find Gervase and learn a little more from him, because otherwise we’ll end up with that fool of a Coroner coming to his own conclusions, and I doubt that the guilty man would then pay for his crimes!’

In Adam’s house, Julia banked up the priest’s fire, and then stood gazing about her at the room. Poor Adam, being held at the castle – but from what she’d heard, he’d tried to murder a man. It was hard to believe, although Julia knew well enough that any man was capable of violence if he got into his cups. Perhaps he’d been drinking a little too much of his wine in the church. She only hoped that he’d soon be released, because if he wasn’t, her future looked uncertain. Where would she live if she was thrown from this place? It didn’t bear thinking of.

Still, all was quiet for the night, and being a pragmatic woman, she put her fears from her. Taking a foul-smelling tallow candle from its spike in a beam and shielding its flame from the draughts, she walked from the hall into the parlour, and through that out to her little room beyond.

She set the candle on the spike and peered down at her baby. Ned lay quietly, snuffling a little in his sleep, but looked well enough, and she pulled up the old blanket a little, tucking it over
his shoulder, before starting to untie her belt and make ready for bed herself.

It was a cold night, so she took off her overtunic, but left on her shirt and shift. With a shiver, she went to the door and dropped the wooden slat into its two slots, one on the door, one on the wall, which served her as a lock, and then went to her stool and ran her old bone comb through her hair a few times. It snagged and caught on the knots, but she persevered.

She was almost done when she heard something. There was a slight rattle, as though a stone had been kicked against her wall by an incautious foot. It was odd enough for her to pause, head tilted, listening intently, but she heard nothing more, so she shrugged to herself and pulled the comb through her hair again.

There was a stumble. She heard it distinctly, the slip of a leather sole on loose gravel, then a muttered curse. It made her leap up, ready to demand who was wandering about Adam’s yard, but then a little caution came to her. Athelina’s death had affected many in the vill, and suddenly Julia felt a faint expectation of danger. She caught her breath, thinking of Athelina’s children, and threw a nervous look at her own sweet boy, before walking stealthily across the room to her clothes. On her belt there hung a little knife, not much protection, but better than nothing at all.

The door was moving. She could see the timbers shift, could hear the wood scraping on the packed earth of the threshold, the hinges protest. Gripping her knife firmly, she stepped forward, her brow tight with anticipation and fear. ‘Who is that?’

There was no answer, but suddenly the door was struck a huge blow, and the planks rattled, the slat almost jumping out of the sockets. She screamed. Behind her, her baby moved, jerking awake, but she paid no attention. Her whole being was focused on the door, the door which leaped and bounced as blows were rained upon it.

And then, suddenly, there was silence, apart from the noise of her child sobbing with terror, and her breathing, ragged and fast. Her eyes moved about the room, but there was nothing; only the door gave access. That and the roof. Her eyes were drawn upwards, and even as she heard the first sounds of the thatch being attacked, she screamed again, a primeval shriek of a hunted animal.