But what future was there, really? Malkin wasn’t going to fool herself. She could perhaps survive for a little while, but without a husband she was merely fodder for the appetite of strong men. If any of them wanted her, they could force her to accept their advances, once a decent period of mourning had passed.
To be fair, the idea was not repellent, if the man concerned had some money. The main thought uppermost in her mind was that she needed security for herself and her child. Ailward’s child. And there lay the problem, of course. How many men would be prepared to take on a woman who already had a babe of her own? There were few enough who’d be happy to take on the upkeep of another man’s boy.
She had loved him so much, her Ailward. Since his death, she felt as though a part of her had withered. A soft, kind, happy piece of her soul had been cut from her, and it left a hole. It was impossible to keep her mind on one thought, impossible to plan or look to the future.
Ailward had been so close, so he had said, to making their fortune. He wasn’t above making a little money on the side, of course. He had a lot to live up to, with his father and grandsire both being such honourable men, and if he was ever going to work his way up to renew the fortunes of the family he would have to fight every step of the way. From a knight’s son to penury was a sharp fall, and he had felt the humiliation deeply. Her Ailward had been devoted to making the family wealthy again.
She had no idea how he had intended to do that. If she was honest with herself, she didn’t want to know. He had sometimes a sort of focus, a concentration, that excluded her, and on occasion she had felt that he wouldn’t be entirely averse to gaining money by means that weren’t completely legal. ‘Sometimes,’ he’d said, not long before his death, ‘a man has to prove his brutality in order to be a good, loving father to his family.’
He had worn such a serious expression, and his words were uttered so firmly, that she had felt quite anxious at the time, but then she had lightened the atmosphere, laughing at him, throwing a soft cushion at him and making him apologise for being too solemn and stern-looking, and he had chuckled. Now she recalled his expression, she realised his gaiety had been just a little bit forced, as though he had wanted to explain something to her, something awful, and her change of mood had prevented him from telling her.
She packed up a basket of food, shaking her head at the memory. It was all too painful still. Especially that dreadful day when the men had arrived here to tell her that her man was dead. Murdered. And now there was the appalling sense that he was going to go unavenged. Nobody cared enough about him to bother to find his murderer.
Pagan stood at the door, and seeing her carrying the basket outside he pulled the door wide, not looking at her as he waited for her to leave. For her part, she had no wish to meet his eyes. She left the house and walked along the lane, pulling her cloak tight about her against the dreadful cold. The sight of Pagan only seemed to increase the chill of the air.
He had been different since her husband’s death. She felt that he had been more attentive than before, and in the midst of her greatest despair, while she bemoaned her loss and Isabel tried to conceal her growing contempt for such a display, it was Pagan who seemed to appreciate and understand her grief.
If she were a man, she would be out there finding out who had done it. Pagan should be doing the same. The man who had killed Ailward was still there, in the vill somewhere. Perhaps he was even in the homestead here. Or was it Sir Geoffrey, as she feared? The steward could have desired to remove the man he had ousted. Ailward was a potent threat while he lived.
But Pagan should be able to do something. He was a strong enough fellow. Yet just now, when the man should have been helping all the more, Isabel had turfed him unceremoniously from the house. Perhaps that was so that he could speak to the neighbours and learn what had really happened — but Pagan, although a good steward and servant, was not the sort of man to inspire confidences from the other men of the vill. They had learned to respect him, some, perhaps, to fear him over the years. But few would want to socialise with him, and fewer still would accuse other men of murdering his mistress’s son.
She continued down the track until she reached the side lane that led to the chapel. Here, she pushed the gate wide and crossed the cemetery, reaching out to open the door. To her surprise it was barred. She knocked and called out for Isaac, then Humphrey, but there was no reply, and eventually, shrugging, she set the basket down, and set off to make her way homewards.
Inside the chapel, Humphrey sat with his head in his hands, trying to shut out the noise of Malkin’s knocking. Then, with a gradual clearing of his brow, he realised what he must do.
With a new purpose, he stood and lifted Isaac’s corpse from the chair. If it had been discovered here before all this other trouble, Humphrey would have been fine, but what with Ailward dead and the family up at Iddesleigh being killed, and now Lady Lucy too, there were too many bodies. One more would be suspicious, and it was always easy for people to look on a foreigner as the most likely suspect. He had seen that before, when he’d run away.
The convent had been a good place to live, but not once old Peter grew interested in him. Before that he had been able to live and study happily enough … but afterwards there was no peace.
It came to the crunch when Peter was serving food one day. It sounded pathetic now, but at the time … Peter would insist on serving the younger men under his care, and Humphrey was one of them. Every meal, without fail, Humphrey saw all the others getting more food than he did, and the anger boiled up and up until his rage knew no bounds. And then one day they were in the garden and Peter snidely commented about Humphrey’s ability to kill off any plant worth growing, and Humphrey couldn’t help himself. He was holding a heavy shovel, and as Peter turned away, he … he just slashed with it. There was a strange, crisp, wet sound, and Peter crumpled into a heap. His left arm windmilled once, and then his left leg began to kick and thrash, but only for a few moments, and then he was still.
He could see the body even now. The man with a slice through his skull as though Humphrey had swung an axe at him, and an obscene flap of flesh and bone, the blood shining bright and viscous to mark the injury.
There was no doubt that he would be held responsible as soon as the tragedy was discovered. It was his fault. He was a murderer, in God’s name! The truth was so appalling, he stood there a while simply staring at the body, unable to appreciate the depth of his crime. And then he had allowed the spade to drop from his fingers and slowly turned as though in a trance to head to the main gate. He walked through it and just kept on walking. He had walked ever since, until he reached this little rural backwater.
And now, with this second body, he must move on again. There was no time to waste, either. At least this time he would have belongings to take with him. Few enough, but there were a few. He must pack.
Chapter Eighteen
Jankin had just finished serving the small party when a sudden burst of noise announced some more customers, led by the sturdy figure of David atte Moor.
As a landlord, Jankin knew that he must try always to be friendly and accommodating. He had lived in the area all his life, and by and large there were very few men with whom he couldn’t get on, but there were some … and David was one of them.
His voice was pitched always to irritate Jankin’s ear: it was a kind of braying noise, which always made Jankin think of donkeys. Which was why one nickname for David was ‘David the Donkey’. Then again, on most evenings, when David had drunk his first ale, he would get maudlin drunk, and woe betide any man who was within earshot then, because they would invariably receive a full and detailed summary of his life so far, how unfair it was that his father died when he did, leaving David with such terrible death fines to pay that he almost lost all his farm as a result, that he suffered more than anyone during the famine, and that women never understood him (whereas Jankin knew damned well that they understood him only too well). It was this ability to talk a man to near-suicide that had led to Jankin’s other name for him, which was ‘Deadly Dave’. Few names he had invented over the years had seemed quite so suitable as that one, somehow.