Unfortunately they were not alone. Servants bustled about under the stern gaze of Daniel, who studiously ignored Baldwin; Thomas of Exeter stood near the fire, a smirk of contentment on his full features, sipping wine from a cup as he surveyed the room; James van Relenghes sat with his guard at a bench nearby. Then, as if there weren’t already enough people, the priest came in. Baldwin felt exposed and unwelcome, making his request in front of so many, but he knew he must go ahead and do it.
‘My Lady, may I ask for a moment of your time – perhaps in private?’
Lady Katharine wore a thin, gauzy veil over her eyes, and he couldn’t read her expression from her thin, bloodless lips, but he could hear the petulance in her voice. ‘Now, Sir Baldwin? Can’t it wait a day? My son’s dead and I have his funeral to think of. Leave me to my grief for this day at least!’
‘I cannot, Lady,’ Baldwin said quietly and regretfully. ‘I have but one request to make. There are some facts which have come to my notice, and I would like to see your son’s body again – in daylight.’
She seemed to stiffen. Her hand, still gripping a small swatch of cloth, froze into immobility by her face. ‘Why?’ she demanded agitatedly.
‘Lady, I only saw his body in the dark, and now I have heard things which might mean…’
‘You think he was murdered? That it wasn’t an accident?’ she said, her voice rising with an edge of hysteria.
Before Baldwin could answer, James van Relenghes approached, shaking his head sadly. ‘This will not do, Sir Baldwin. It is not fair to discompose the lady on the day she is to bury her only child. There can be no excuse, sir, none. Do you really mean to say you think Herbert was murdered?’
‘I do not know,’ Baldwin said unhappily. As he spoke, the Fleming took Lady Katharine’s hand and patted it comfortingly, as if she needed protection from Baldwin himself. The knight did not like being cast in the role of bully manipulating a poor widow, and he allowed a hint of truculence to seep into his voice. ‘It is regrettable, but we have to make sure, as far as is practicably possible, that it was a mere accident that he died.’
‘I won’t have it!’ Thomas cried suddenly. ‘You are trying to make out that someone here had wanted to kill the boy, and that’s not on. Think what people would say – especially die serfs.’
‘Consider, Master Thomas, what people would say if you refused permission for us to inspect the body in daylight,’ Simon said mildly.
Thomas gaped. ‘What do you mean? Are you threatening me?’
‘No,’ Baldwin said suavely, ‘but the good bailiff is quite right. What would people think if they heard that the man who prevented a proper inspection was the very man who benefited from the death of the heir?’
‘If you put it like that…’ Thomas said, suddenly pale. ‘Maybe it – urn – it would be better to allow you to carry on.’
‘In God’s name! Do as you wish!’ Lady Katharine burst out.
‘My husband is gone, and now so is my beloved son. All your vaunted skills cannot avail me. Do what you think necessary!’ She turned on her heel and stalked off to the other side of the room.
And Baldwin noticed that James van Relenghes went immediately to her side.
Nicholas and two of his men respectfully carried Herbert from the storeroom, using an old door as a stretcher, and set the corpse down on a thick rug laid over the cobbles of the yard. Removing the door, they stood back quietly, waiting for Baldwin to carry out his inspection. The knight spent some minutes gathering together a small jury, and only then did he go to stand by the body.
There were several witnesses: Stephen was there, as was Godfrey – for the first time without his master, Simon noted. Baldwin had called several workers from their duties in the vill or the house to come and observe his inquest, for he was no Coroner, and wanted as many witnesses as possible.
When he was satisfied enough people were present, Baldwin crouched down and hesitantly touched the little figure’s winding-cloth. It covered the boy’s whole body, reaching down to his feet, where it was tied up. ‘Poor fellow,’ he muttered, and took the knife Nicholas held out to him, quickly slicing through the cord and pulling the linen away.
Simon, who knew the fragility of his own stomach, had already withdrawn. From a safe distance, he saw one of the jurymen suddenly whip his hand over his mouth and stumble backwards to vomit at the stable’s wall. Another curled his lip at the smell, but the rest, evidently struck from a similar mould to Baldwin himself, craned their necks with fascination.
The child was flaccid and pale, except for the skin of his back, which had gone an odd, dark colour as if it was badly bruised, but Simon knew from long experience with Baldwin that this was normal, bearing in mind that the lad had been lying face uppermost for so long. Simon wasn’t surprised to see how the boy’s limbs moved so easily; he knew that after a day or more the stiffening of rigor mortis wore off. The sight of the body being rolled over and studied was all too familiar, and yet the fact that it was so small brought a lump to his throat, reminding him of his own beloved Peterkin.
Peterkin had been even younger than Herbert when he died. Simon swallowed, recalling the sense of frantic despair as he watched his only son slipping away so slowly. The boy had been fractious for a few days, but then he caught a fever, and for a day and night he wouldn’t eat or drink, while his bowels ran with diarrhoea. When at last the pitiable squalling became more feeble, and was finally stilled, Simon had almost felt relief to see that his boy’s suffering was over – and yet that brought with it a huge feeling of guilt, as if he knew he was glad to have lost the constant irritation of a crying child.
Standing here now and witnessing another man’s heir being subjected to this intense scrutiny filled Simon with shame, as if he was himself abusing the dead boy by his presence.
But Baldwin knew no such qualms as he touched the boy’s chill flesh. His total concentration was on the body and the wounds; he had no time for sentiment. He removed the small wooden burial cross from the boy’s chest and studied the figure, then began to look over each limb in turn. As his hands probed and prodded he kept up a continual commentary, speaking in a fast, low undertone.
‘Ribs crushed. A long mark passes over them, just as if an iron-shod cartwheel had rolled over him – although spine appears whole. Left leg badly broken…’ He peered closer. ‘Could have been done by a sharp horseshoe. The skin looks as if it has been cut open cleanly. The other leg is whole, although well scratched…’
Daniel murmured, ‘He was playing hide-and-seek up on the moorside with some of the lads from the village. Crawling around up there, the boys always get scratched by furze and brambles.’
‘Thank you, Daniel. The left arm is fine: elbow is grazed, but it has had time to heal and form a scab – I think we can discount this, it is an honourable wound of the type that all boys wear. Right arm also undamaged. Face a little scratched, and left cheek has taken a glancing blow which has partly slashed the skin. At the boy’s back we find…’
Suddenly Baldwin was silent, his hands moving over Herbert’s head, touching the cranium softly, then he bent and stared more closely, pulling apart the scalp like a man searching for lice or fleas. Finally pulling away, the knight wiped his hands on a damp cloth and stood a while staring down at the corpse. Then he looked up with a firm resolution, and raised his hand. The crowd was silent, waiting expectantly.
‘This boy has been run over by a wagon, but he was already dead. He was beaten about the head until there was scarcely a bone unbroken, probably with a lump of stone or a piece of wood. Whoever did this murdered the lad. He was not hit so harshly that the skin was greatly broken, but just enough to shatter the skull. The scratches and marks are there under his hair if you look.’