“Who was it, did you recognize him?”
Ruby gave him an odd look. “No, I never saw him before.”
“What did he look like?”
“Didn’t the watch tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“Port-reeve, it was a monk! A damned monk robbed me!”
8
A bbot Champeaux waved the men to seats. Peter nervously hovered at the door, unsure whether to enter the Abbot’s private chamber, and was delighted, though secretly fearful of committing a faux pas in such company, when the Abbot beckoned him in and motioned him to a seat.
Simon walked in after his friend and was surprised to see him halt only a few steps inside. Then he saw why. The Abbot was sitting at his great chair at the head of his table while the servants busied themselves preparing bowls, towels and water for washing. At the Abbot’s side was Simon’s wife, and next to her was another woman.
The bailiff had always thought his wife to be the most lovely woman he had ever seen: Margaret’s body was slender but strong, her face still free of wrinkles and unmarked by the grief that so often made features prematurely haggard, and her thick golden hair gleamed like a flame in the summer sunshine. But the woman next to her was beautiful in another way.
As the Abbot introduced him to the lady, Baldwin stood fixed to the spot. He could see red-gold tresses protruding from her coif, which contrasted with her bright blue eyes. Her face was regular, if a little round; her nose was short and too small; her mouth looked overwide and the top lip was very full, giving her a stubborn appearance; her forehead was broad and high: but the knight considered the sum of her imperfections to be utter perfection.
“Jeanne? Surely that is not a local name?” he asked.
She smiled, and he was secretly delighted to see how her cheeks dimpled. “No, sir. I was named in Bordeaux.”
“Are you staying in the Abbey?”
“The Abbot has given me a guestroom near the court gate. It is where I used to stay with my husband when we came to the fair.”
The Abbot interrupted. “You may know, Sir Baldwin, that as Abbot of Tavistock, I hold a baron’s rank. I have to maintain some knights to supply the host in time of war. Sir Ralph was one of these. It was nothing to arrange for a room to be available for his widow.”
“Widow?”
“Sir Ralph de Liddinstone sadly caught a fever earlier in the summer.”
Fever, Jeanne thought, hardly described the raging agony of his last days. She had never thought that so hardy a man could collapse with such speed. But she was grateful that he had.
Her husband had been a brute. She could admit it now. Ralph at first had met her ideals of a truly courteous knight, being kind and thoughtful, loving and gentle-but that had changed when she had been unable to bear his children. He blamed her for it, as if she was deliberately witholding his heir from him. Each time a friend of his had announced another child, Ralph had looked on her more blackly, until at last he had hit her.
That first time her shock had been so great she hadn’t really felt any pain, but from then on he had taken to drinking ever more heavily, sulking in his hall, and afterward, as if as a diversion from bedding her, he would punch or kick her, once taking a riding crop to her bare back.
No, Jeanne was grateful that God had taken him from her.
Baldwin saw the fleeting sadness in her eyes. “My lady, I apologize if I unthinkingly reminded you of-”
“It is nothing,” she said lightly, giving him a look that made his heart swell. “It is all over. And the Abbot here has been very kind.”
“My dear, I have done nothing. The Abbey has a duty to provide hospitality.”
“Abbot, you have let me stay in my home, you have loaned me your steward to make sure the house is well run during the harvest so we have food for the winter, and you have made me your friend. That is more than nothing.”
Baldwin nodded. Many abbots or priors would want a widow out so that their lands could be more efficiently controlled by a man. It confirmed the impression of kindness and generosity he had earlier formed of the Abbot. “So, er, are you here for the fair?”
“Yes. My husband and I used to come here every year for St. Rumon’s Fair, and the Abbot was good enough to ask me again, even though I am a widow now.”
Margaret saw with near disbelief that her friend Baldwin was more keen and interested in this woman than in all the others she had paraded in front of him over the last years. She gave a tiny sigh of frustration that all her work had been wasted, but then studied Jeanne carefully. Apparently he was attracted to this red-haired woman from Liddinstone: if she could make Baldwin happy, Margaret would do all in her power to make sure he won her.
Seeing Baldwin was awestruck, Margaret turned to her. “Jeanne, I have to make several purchases at the fair, and my husband and Baldwin are poor company, especially when they have the excuse of a murder to investigate. Would you mind joining me in search of cloth and plate?”
Jeanne threw a quick glance at the knight, who stood uncertainly. She could see that he was fumbling for words, and the sight of the knight’s shyness was a balm to her soul after years of being told she was worthless because she was barren. “I would be delighted.”
The Abbot was old now, older than many, but he had not missed the interest in Jeanne’s eyes as she surveyed Baldwin. It would be pleasant indeed, he felt, if St. Rumon’s Fair could unite a couple such as this. He usually ate with his monks in the refectory, and he would often invite visitors to join him there, but it would not be conducive to the monks’ concentration to have women in their midst, and it would be equally unthinkable for the Abbot to leave them in a separate room, so today he had decided to invite his guests to eat with him in his hall. Now he wondered whether this decision could lead to a fortunate outcome.
“So, Sir Baldwin, have you enjoyed any success?”
“Um? Oh, we have found out a little, but what we have uncovered appears only to add to the muddle. We think the murder happened around compline-the man we think was the victim was seen leaving the tavern just after the bell tolled. But we still cannot confirm who the dead man was.”
“At least that diverts attention from us,” the Abbot said, nodding to Jeanne. “We were here with my Venetian guests as the compline bell rang.”
Jeanne asked, “Does no one recognize him?”
“Not with his head gone. He was a merchant as far as anyone knows, and you know the number of merchants who come here for the fair. Until we find his head, it’s hard to prove who he was.”
“Good God! So we may never know who the poor soul was,” sighed the Abbot.
“That is possible. Still, we have made some little progress,” Baldwin said, and told them about their talks with the alewife and cook.
“Does that not give you cause to arrest Elias?” the Abbot asked uncertainly. “If he left the tavern with the man, and the man was not seen alive again, surely that makes it all the more likely that it was him who did the murder.”
“The more I consider it, the more I think Elias is unlikely to be the killer. He can’t be so stupid! If he was to murder, why would he leave the body so close to his shop? If he wanted to hide the body, he would take it inside, surely, and conceal it more effectively. And if he did stab the man and cut off the head, he would have been covered in blood, but he returned to the tavern with no such stains or marks on him. Then again, if he did kill, where could he have hidden the head? The alewife said he returned quickly after leaving.”
“There are some things we could check,” Simon said thoughtfully. “We could search his house. If he had little time to hide the head, surely it would be inside. Perhaps we will find blood or something else incriminating.”