‘Something is tied around his neck,’ said Geoffrey, turning the dead man’s pecked head in his hands. ‘A piece of twine.’
‘It is tight,’ said Bale, squatting next to him and touching it with his forefinger. He took one of his sharp little knives and cut through it, showing where it had bitten deeply into the skin below. Then he leaned all his weight on Vitalis’s chest. Nothing happened. ‘There,’ he said in satisfaction.
‘There what?’ asked Ulfrith, bemused.
‘He did not drown,’ explained Geoffrey. ‘Or Bale would have been able to squeeze water from his lungs. No, he was strangled with that piece of twine.’
‘Not twine,’ said Bale, handing it to Geoffrey. ‘Ribbon. Fine red ribbon.’
‘I have seen its like before,’ said Ulfrith, staring at it. ‘But I cannot remember where.’
Geoffrey frowned. ‘Paisnel used red ribbon to keep his documents in order.’
The documents that had been in Paisnel’s bag, he thought, but that he himself had seen Juhel inspecting the day after Paisnel’s mysterious disappearance.
‘Then Juhel killed Vitalis!’ exclaimed Ulfrith, wide-eyed. ‘Philippa said he killed Paisnel, so he must have strangled Vitalis, too.’
‘There is no evidence to suggest that,’ said Geoffrey, his thoughts whirling. He had red ribbon of his own in the saddlebag he had saved from Patrick, but his was coarser. He looked at the stuff in Bale’s hand and tried to assess whether it was the same kind that Paisnel had owned. But ribbons were often used by clerks, and it could belong to anyone.
‘It was a long time before Juhel rejoined us yesterday,’ Bale pointed out. ‘He could have been off throttling Vitalis. And Lady Philippa was right to accuse him of dispatching Paisnel, because they were always squabbling. Men get a taste for killing, see, and they cannot help themselves.’
‘Well, this is definitely Juhel’s ribbon,’ declared Ulfrith, as Geoffrey wondered uneasily whether Bale had a taste for killing, too.
‘You seem very sure of that. How?’
Ulfrith shrugged. ‘I saw Paisnel reading documents with important-looking seals one night, and I saw Juhel glancing through similar ones after Paisnel went missing. Red ribbon kept them in a neat bundle. It is obvious what happened: Juhel used Paisnel’s ribbon to strangle Vitalis.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Even if Juhel did take Paisnel’s documents, we do not know if he salvaged them when the ship sank. And you cannot prove this particular piece of ribbon belonged to Juhel. The stuff is not exactly rare — I have some myself.’
‘You did not kill Vitalis, though,’ said Bale loyally.
‘Then who else could it have been?’ asked Ulfrith. ‘The pirates?’
‘Possibly,’ said Geoffrey. ‘But they were not with Vitalis when he died. Nor did they try to bury his corpse.’
‘Philippa and Edith dug the grave,’ said Ulfrith. ‘And they were with him when he died. Philippa told us herself that Vitalis’s last words were that he had spoken the truth when he accused you of. .’ He trailed off when the implications of what he was saying dawned on him.
‘Yes,’ said Geoffrey soberly. ‘It very much looks as though Philippa and Edith are the prime candidates for their husband’s murder.’
‘This is monstrous!’ yelled Ulfrith, tears of rage and distress rolling down his flushed cheeks as he followed Geoffrey and Bale along the beach. ‘You have no right to make such accusations.’
‘I accused no one,’ said Geoffrey calmly. ‘I merely outlined the evidence.’
‘You will see Philippa hanged,’ shouted Ulfrith. ‘How could you? I thought you liked her.’
‘I do like her.’ Geoffrey saw that was the wrong thing to say, because Ulfrith’s eyes narrowed.
‘You intend to hold it over her,’ he said, white-faced. ‘To force her to lie with you.’
If it had not been for the promise Geoffrey had made to his sister, Ulfrith would have been flat on his back with a blade at his throat. Seeing his master’s hand twitch towards his dagger, Bale turned quickly and rested a warning hand on the younger man’s shoulder. Ulfrith shrugged it off.
‘I am going back to her,’ he said. ‘I want to be at her side if she is accused of terrible crimes.’
‘No one will accuse her,’ said Geoffrey, struggling to be patient. ‘The only people who know Vitalis did not drown are us and his killer — who may or may not be Philippa.’
‘Or Edith,’ added Bale helpfully.
‘And we will say nothing, so they have nothing to worry about,’ Geoffrey went on. ‘But you cannot ignore the facts. We all saw Vitalis alive as we abandoned ship, and Bale has just proved he did not drown. Ergo, he was strangled on the shore.’
‘But not by Philippa,’ persisted Ulfrith.
Geoffrey continued with his analysis. ‘Philippa said Vitalis reiterated his accusations about my family before he died. She also said there was water in his lungs and that he gurgled as he spoke. We know that was not true, because we just saw for ourselves that his lungs were dry. She lied.’
‘She was mistaken!’ cried Ulfrith. ‘She must have heard the gurgle of waves in the pebbles and assumed it was her husband.’
That was highly unlikely, even with Philippa’s dim intellect. ‘You explain what happened, then,’ suggested Geoffrey.
‘Juhel was late in joining the rest of us,’ began Bale when Ulfrith could not rise to the challenge. ‘And some of the pirates wandered off to look for their contraband. Any of them could have killed Vitalis.’
‘How?’ demanded Geoffrey. ‘Philippa stated quite clearly that she was with him when he died — which means she was with him when he was strangled. As I imagine she would have noticed someone else choking the life out of him, the only logical explanation is that she and Edith did it.’
‘Perhaps they thought he was dead when they buried him, but someone else came along, dug him up and strangled him later,’ suggested Bale, doing his best for Ulfrith.
Geoffrey shook his head. ‘The truth is that Philippa and Edith either killed him or were complicit in his death. The facts simply do not allow any other conclusion.’
Unwilling to debate the matter further, he turned away and began to walk again. But he had underestimated the intensity of Ulfrith’s feelings, and, with no warning, the squire attacked. Geoffrey had never been assaulted by a servant before and was taken off guard by Ulfrith’s ferocity. Ulfrith was a powerful lad, and the weight of his body knocked Geoffrey from his feet. He began to pummel the knight with his fists, the dog racing around them, barking frantically. The battering did not even stop when Geoffrey pressed his dagger against Ulfrith’s throat: the lad was in such a rage that he was oblivious to everything.
‘No!’ Geoffrey yelled as Bale jumped forward with one of his knives. Bale might be Ulfrith’s friend, but protecting Geoffrey came first.
Bale hesitated, giving Geoffrey just enough time to drop his dagger and scrabble for a rock, which he brought up sharply against the side of Ulfrith’s head. Ulfrith slumped, dazed, and Geoffrey struggled out from underneath him.
‘God’s teeth!’ he muttered, not sure which had unnerved him more: Ulfrith’s blind fury or Bale’s readiness to kill a comrade. He ran his hand over his face and found Ulfrith had scored a scratch on his cheek, which would soon probably be joined by bruises. He grimaced in annoyance, thinking he would hardly be hired by a pilgrim if he looked like a man who brawled. He prodded the squire with the toe of his boot, watching impassively as he regained his senses.
‘Get up,’ he ordered coldly. ‘I did not hit you that hard.’ And certainly not as hard as I wanted to, he added inwardly.
‘Oh, God!’ groaned Ulfrith. He looked up at Geoffrey, his face ashen. ‘Will you tell Sir Roger what I. . He will dismiss me. Or worse.’
‘It is no more than you deserve,’ said Geoffrey, regarding him dispassionately. ‘You should be thankful you did not attack him, or you would be dead now.’