She’d be better than Anastasia de Coyntes. Juliana wouldn’t want anything to do with Emma’s family, not after the way Emma had behaved towards her. Well, Juliana didn’t need her friendship.
With a flare of anger, she kicked the door shut, walked to the table and dumped the loaf down.
Yes, if he could have taken Katherine, they would have been secure for life, but oh no. Instead, he had fixed his eyes upon the Pafford’s maid – that silly little tart Alice. Even though the girl had made it clear that she had no interest in him, he had continued to plague her, until she had been forced to demonstrate, in no uncertain terms that she had no feelings for him.
Which was why Juliana had feared that he could have been responsible for the maid’s death.
It was such a relief to hear that the killer was from the Cathedral, and therefore could not be her son.
Road south of Wellington
Simon looked at Baldwin. They had all dismounted, and the messengers were happy to break their journey and share some crusts of bread with cheese.
‘How did it happen?’ Baldwin asked.
The two messengers exchanged a glance, then one admitted, ‘I don’t know, sir. I wasn’t there. But I was told to ride to Bath to let the Bishop know, and to stop in Taunton and pass it on there, too.’
‘I see.’ It was natural enough that there should be messengers sent hither and thither on the death of a Bishop, but he was surprised that the man did not know how the Bishop had died. What Baldwin did know was that the Bishop would be sorely missed. He had taken on the Bishopric only four months before, a popular choice amongst the Canons of the Cathedral who elected him, and to lose him so soon, only a matter of months since the murder of Bishop Walter II, would be devastating to the Cathedral.
‘What is happening to the good Bishop’s body?’ Sir Richard asked mildly. ‘He’ll be taken back to Exeter, no doubt?’
‘Yes, but the progress will be slow, naturally, out of respect.’
The messengers could add little more. Soon they had remounted and were riding away again.
‘It seems a terrible coincidence for the Bishop to die just when Sir Edward has been released from his brother’s castle,’ Baldwin said as he climbed on to his own horse. ‘Almost as if one was punishment for the other.’
Sir Richard cocked an eye. ‘You believe that sort of twaddle?’
‘What, a divine intervention? No, I think God has more important matters to interest Him,’ Baldwin said lightly.
Simon was frowning. ‘I suppose that those messengers would have had companions leave for Exeter at the same time as them?’
‘Yes, so they ought to arrive in Exeter before long,’ Baldwin said.
‘I was only thinking’, Simon said, ‘that while we have to ride to Exeter and give news of the King’s escape, it would be easy enough to let the Dean know what we’ve heard. We may arrive before the messengers.’
‘Good idea!’ Sir Richard declared, a beatific smile spreading over his features. ‘I would be pleased to test the hospitality of the Cathedral for an evening.’
Baldwin nodded. ‘It would be more to my taste than the castle’s gaol, in any case,’ he muttered. ‘So long as we can return home soon.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sunday after the Feast of the Nativity of St John the Baptist5
Church near Broadclyst
Ulric shivered as he walked into the church, looking about him at the devastation.
The body of the priest who had stood at the door to refuse them entry had been dragged outside now, only a smear of blood showing where he had been cut down. Inside, the simple altar had been sent flying, and the cross and rich hangings from behind had been taken away and packed in a cart, while men ransacked the small chamber beneath the tower.
It was sacrilege, and Ulric was all too keenly aware that he was now a part of this band of desperate felons. He had saved their leader, and was now viewed as Sir Charles’s personal squire. If he could, he would have fled, but to where? He knew he was miles from Exeter, but he had no idea of the land about here. He would be caught before he had ridden a mile.
That was his difficulty. He was no trained outlaw, he was a merchant’s assistant from Exeter. God, the memories he had of Paffard’s house. He ought to be there now, helping measure the white tin and lead, melting them to make the pewter, working it – not here, wallowing in blood.
However, there was a thrill to being one of this band, he couldn’t deny it. Being one of a group for whom the usual rules and laws did not apply was scary but intoxicating too. He had begun to feel as though there was nothing he could not do.
But in here, in this little church, he felt all the old doubts. He did not want to die on a felon’s tree, his body spinning in the wind as the hemp tightened about his throat, and then be sent to hell to suffer torments at the hands of the devil. Surely for aiding those who killed the priest, he would one day pay.
‘Come, Ulric,’ Sir Charles called. He was sitting on a bench near the altar. ‘You see this little church, and you think you have been brought to the brink of ruin, eh?’ he continued when Ulric was standing before him. ‘No, my friend. We are doing God’s work here.’
‘It is not God’s will that we should kill innocent priests and rob their churches!’
‘It is God’s will that His order be renewed. The removal of a King is His responsibility, and His alone.’
‘But to kill a Bishop, and a priest, too.’
‘The Bishop of Exeter was the brother of the man who captured and held the King, brother to the man who told the King he must surrender his throne, against all the laws of man and God. Berkeley must be forced to realise his error in setting his face against God.’
‘You cannot succeed with this,’ Ulric said with miserable certainty. He looked at the altar once more and felt like weeping. ‘God will punish us for this.’
‘Oh?’ Sir Charles said. There was a shout from outside, but neither paid it any heed. ‘Ulric, for once and for all, get it into your head that the men who caused this are the men who took the stern decision to forswear themselves. They were servants to the King, and broke their oaths. There is nothing for them when they die but the pits of hell. We are serving God by our-’
There was a fresh cry from outside the church, and Sir Charles muttered a curse before bellowing, ‘What is it?’
‘Men coming here!’
Sir Charles rolled his eyes. ‘Of course there are,’ he said with a long-suffering sigh. ‘This is their church.’
Exeter Cathedral
Adam Murimuth felt a vague disquiet. It was the expression on the face of Philip Marsille. The poor fellow was plainly upset by the murder, as a man should be – and yet there was something more than sorrow in his expression.
He squirmed as unobtrusively as possible, his legs already aching. For his part, he had spent much time considering whether he should take matters further with Father Laurence. The fact that the vicar had denied absolutely any part in the girl’s murder should have reassured him, but Murimuth felt that there was something shifty at best about his behaviour. Perhaps he himself had not been involved, but had seen someone else in the road who could have been?
From here in the choir, Murimuth faced the altar, looking along the heads of the choristers towards the newly-built eastern half of the Cathedral. It was warm, and there was a fug of humanity that incense could not subdue. Murimuth himself could feel the itching of sweat at his beard and the stubble of his tonsure. It had been some days since his last visit to the barber, and he felt slightly unclean as a result.
Father Laurence himself was always clean and fresh. He belonged to that category of men who were always washing themselves, as though it was some form of ritual in its own right.