They walked around the fireplace in the middle of the floor, dead just now, the ashes all cleared away, and joined the men standing near the chair, a little way behind it. In the cold, their breath formed long streamers, and there was an unwholesome odour of unwashed bodies.
The Bishop turned as Baldwin and Simon approached. ‘My friends, you have some experience of matters such as this. Can you help?’
‘What has happened?’ Baldwin asked. He pushed his way forward, Simon in his wake, until he reached the wall some distance behind the throne.
Bishop Stapledon was distressed. ‘To think that a man could be cut down here, in the King’s chief hall!’
‘Where is the King’s Coroner?’ Baldwin asked, eyeing the corpse.
‘He is not here at present. I think he must be in London.’
Baldwin grunted. He preferred not to take command when it was another man’s responsibility, but if the fellow wasn’t around he supposed he could indulge himself. First he gave himself up to a study of the scene.
The man had been laid on his side like a discarded sack of beans, as shapeless as he was lifeless. He was clothed in dark material, a pair of long brown hosen, a brown tunic and a black hood and gorget. There was no purse about his belt, but he did wear a long knife, and when Baldwin crouched and pulled the blade part way from the scabbard, he saw that it was slick with blood.
Baldwin then turned the man over slightly to look at his face, and almost dropped him. ‘Dear God!’
‘That was why we called for you, Sir Baldwin,’ the Bishop explained faintly. ‘Who could have done such a thing to him?’
‘Does anyone know who he is?’ Baldwin asked. There was no one who would admit to knowing him, so Baldwin let the body slump forward, and then stood considering for a moment or two, his chin cupped in the palm of his hand, his other hand supporting his elbow as he surveyed the fellow. ‘I would ask that all those who have no business here, leave the room. And do not discuss this affair with anyone! Is that clear? Any man who tells about this body may be arrested. My Lord Bishop, could you have all removed from here other than Simon and me, and the first-finder, of course.’
It took some little while to have all the people ushered out. There were not many, but they were reluctant to leave, and Rob was the most vociferous at protesting that his master might need him. Eventually Baldwin gave into him, on the basis that he might indeed have need of a messenger.
When there was relative silence, Baldwin beckoned to the remaining man, a clerk from the Exchequer. ‘You found him?’
‘Yes, sir. I had no idea …’
Baldwin watched him as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He was only young, perhaps in his early twenties, one of those men who would be an asset to a counting-house, but whose pasty complexion and nervous manner spoke of an insecure mind. He had fingernails bitten to the quick, and his eyes were constantly darting hither and thither. ‘Your name?’
‘Ralph le Palmer. I work in the Exche-’
‘Where’s that?’ Rob asked.
Baldwin snapped, ‘Shut up, Rob, or I’ll have you thrown out. Ralph, I can see that you’re one of the clerks. You are sure you do not know this man?’
Baldwin was walking about the corpse as he asked his questions. Ralph tried to follow him with his eyes, but all the while his horrified gaze was drawn back to the body.
‘No, never before, I am-’ He swallowed.
‘Quite so. Kindly tell us what happened.’
‘I had been sent through here to fetch some wine, and I was returning to the Exchequer when I saw that the tapestry there was all lumped, and I wondered what could have happened to it. I thought that the roof might have been leaking, as the material was sodden and misshapen, you see. It has happened before, although the roof is really quite new. All the shingles were replaced only a …’ He caught sight of Baldwin’s face and abandoned any further explanation of the roofing. ‘When I touched the tapestry, I felt this man behind it. I lifted the cloth …’
‘So he was lying behind the drapery?’
‘He could hardly stand, could he?’ Ralph said with an attempt at lightness, but then his eyes returned to the man, and his frivolity melted away. ‘Sorry, Sir Knight. I shrieked, and ran from the room. Others started coming in then, and I vomited. I suppose I have raised the hue and cry?’
Baldwin nodded. If a first-finder didn’t raise the hue and cry by the manner which was accepted in that part of the country, he would be fined. ‘Has anything been taken from him since you first found him?’
‘I don’t think so,’ the fellow said tremulously.
Baldwin attempted a calmer, gentler manner. ‘Was there anything you noticed about him in particular?’
‘What, other than the way his prick had been hacked off and shoved in his mouth, you mean?’ Ralph blurted out, and he had to clap a hand over his own mouth and run from the hall again, almost knocking over Earl Edmund as he entered.
Chapter Fourteen
Earl Edmund of Kent was unused to being thrust from the path of a lowly cleric, and he turned to bawl at the man, but Ralph had already fled.
‘What is the matter with him?’ he demanded. He pushed his way through the crowds, and entered the Great Hall, then stopped dead when he saw the body on the ground. ‘What in God’s name is this?’
‘Who are you?’ Baldwin asked coolly, his eyes on the corpse.
‘I am Edmund, Earl of Kent. Who are you — and what are you doing here?’ To Kent’s surprise, the fellow was kneeling beside the dead man, behind the throne. And when there was no reply from him, Edmund burst out: ‘Will someone tell me what’s happened here?’
That earned him a frosty look from the Bishop. ‘A man, my Lord Earl, has been murdered.’
Baldwin straightened up and turned. ‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill,’ he said. ‘The good Bishop has asked me to exercise my skills to learn what has happened. My Lord, do you know many people about this court?’
‘Quite a few, I suppose. I don’t know the servants.’ He walked up to stare at the body before him. ‘Don’t know him. What is that in … good God!’
‘Yes. He was killed, and then, I think, that was done to him,’ Baldwin said. ‘Too many people have already been in here, not that there would be much to discover here, I dare guess. Steps on stone are difficult to follow. You see this? There is no sign that he has had his hands bound behind him. If I feel his head … no, there is no indication of any swelling there, so I can infer that he was not struck down before this was done to him. What killed him, then?’
His hands were moving over the body as he spoke, and as he ran them over the man’s chest, he drew his mouth down into a moue of surprise. ‘Somehow I anticipated a simple murder from an opponent. Perhaps …’ He turned the man over and felt his back. ‘Ah, here. One … no, two … three deep wounds. One at least must have pierced his heart, and the others would have struck his lungs. From the look of him, I would expect that the one through the heart killed him, though.’
‘Why?’ the Earl asked.
‘If he was drowned in his own blood, I’d expect to see much more of it about his mouth,’ Baldwin answered shortly. He was up from the body already and investigating the area behind the tapestry where the corpse had been secreted. ‘There is some blood here, Simon. Not much, though. The moisture appears to be water,’ he added, smelling the fabric. He frowned, head set on one side. ‘But I can smell wine too.’
The Earl had not noticed the Bailiff and servant, and was startled when he heard Simon respond from behind him.
‘You think he wasn’t killed here, then?’
‘He certainly wasn’t killed right here, no. He died somewhere else and was pulled here. Someone cut off his privy member and shoved it into his mouth, and then rolled him away and out of sight.’
‘Could this man be the assassin who tried to kill the Queen last night?’ the Earl wondered aloud.