Jen pulled away. ‘Don’t do that, my lover. If you kill him, they will find you. He’s a well-known citizen. They would have to seek you out.’
‘I must,’ he stated flatly. ‘Hamond was my man.’
‘There must be another way. Please, there must be.’
He kissed her gently, and she rolled over to lie on her back. They made love quietly, but with a restrained desperation, as if both knew it could be their last night together.
It was dark when Karvinel returned home. He opened the door and tiptoed inside, hoping not to wake his wife. A jug lay on the table in the hall and he poured himself a large cup of wine, standing before the fire, drinking sullenly.
Soon he could start making small payments and investments, he decided. It should be safe enough by then. People would hardly be likely to connect a few small payments to the robbery. Of course he’d have to be careful about the Cathedral. Perhaps he should offer them money for the rebuilding. He would certainly have enough cash when his investments came in.
All that money. He brooded as he sipped, thinking of the two heavy purses he had concealed: one his own, the second belonging to the Cathedral. He had hidden them carefully before pulling at his cloak and tearing at his shirt. Drawing his dagger, he had scratched himself on the chin, the neck and the forearm. Then he had thrown away his knife and walked to the city.
It was a sheer fluke that he had seen the man at the Nobles Inn. Hamond was known about the city. He had a reputation – was the perfect scapegoat. Hurrying to the Cathedral, Karvinel had sought out his clerk and told him his story. He had been robbed on his way back. All his money, and the Cathedral’s, had been taken from him, but who would believe him? And now one of his attackers was sitting, bold as brass, drinking in an alehouse.
Peter had been appalled. He had sat white-lipped while Karvinel spilled out his story, and agreed immediately, bless him, that he should support Karvinel’s version of events.
With a clerk to back him up, Nick was safe. He went to the Constable and told him about his robbery, and in a short space Hamond was arrested. Cocky at first, he hadn’t believed that he would be kept long. He claimed he had been nowhere near the place where the robbery was said to have happened.
But others disbelieved him, especially when a farmer came forward to say that he had seen Hamond in the company of the well-known rogue Sir Thomas. That sealed Hamond’s fate. The jury was satisfied that he deserved his end. He was hanged on the twenty-second; one day after Ralph’s death.
Karvinel met Peter later that same day, the day the executioner made Hamond dance his death jig. Peter stood underneath the swaying body, gazing up at the dark, blood-engorged face. Peter said that Hamond almost seemed to be watching him accusingly. He had said it with a nervous chuckle, like a man who was too worldly-wise to believe in such nonsense, while Nick Karvinel knew he was scared that the outlaw’s ghost might come for revenge. It was partly to soothe him that Karvinel took him to the tavern. Later that afternoon, in the tavern, Karvinel had told him.
He didn’t know what had made him admit it. Perhaps he had an urge to share his guilt; or maybe it was the desire to cap another man’s story. Because it was there that Peter had told him about seeing Vincent’s cart outside Ralph’s house, someone filling it with leather. Shortly afterwards Karvinel agreed that sometimes people would act out of character, and had sworn Peter to the secrecy of the confessional before telling him the truth about Hamond’s innocence.
Peter had stared at him disbelievingly, in a state of shock. At first he had stammered questions loudly, while Karvinel tried to ‘shush’ him, to no avail. And then Peter had gone quiet, gazing into his own personal hell, shuddering with abhorrence when Karvinel accidentally touched his arm.
Karvinel had quickly reminded Peter that he had told him under the protection of the confessional, but Peter had curled his lip and withdrawn, not even offering Karvinel a ‘Godspeed’.
It was strange how clerical types would behave. Look at Peter that night. Petulant, sulking, turning his back ostentatiously…
That fellow Hamond was a thoroughly bad sort – everyone knew that. But perhaps Peter was angry that Karvinel had stolen money from the Cathedral. That would explain a lot. In Peter’s memory, Karvinel would repay the lot. It was the least he could do. At least he hadn’t robbed Ralph as well.
Yes, he would soon be able to afford to repay the Cathedral once a few of his investments came in, he thought, and then he could patch up his problems with Juliana. He wondered where his wife could have got to. The place was silent. She must have gone to her bed, bored with waiting for him to return. He went over to the backyard’s door and pissed out. Then he locked up and was about to make his way to the solar when he saw it.
There was a man’s cloak on the chest in the screens passage. At first he thought it was his own, but he didn’t recognise it; he’d never wear something so shabby and faded.
A horrible thought began to form in his mind. He hated to think that his bitch of a wife could have betrayed him, but her contempt for him over the last few weeks had been visible to all. He grimaced, his expression one of rage and fear; rage at his wife’s treachery, that she should dare to behave so, and fear that he might lose her and become the subject of every wit in the city.
He raised the jug but it was empty; he set his jaw and went to the door. No sound. He had intended going up to their room silently so as not to waken her, but now he took his shoes off and went up with particular caution, hoping to catch his wife’s lover in his own bed. When he saw her lying there, still fully clothed, and alone, there was a feeling of relief that she was not still entertaining a man, but he was still annoyed with her. He opened his mouth to rail at her, but then a sharp rumbling in his belly made him close his mouth and belch.
A cramp, he thought, nothing more, but there was a presentiment of something evil. He was aware of a coldness, a thickness in the air, and sweat broke out freezing upon his forehead. He was still a moment, confused and forgetting his wife as the pain began, but then he doubled up as the sword-thrust of agony lanced through his gut.
Mouth wide, but unable even to scream, the pain was so intense, he gasped for help from his wife.
But her corpse could do nothing.
Simon awoke with a dull pain at the back of his head. He snapped his eyes shut again at speed and waited for the strong wave of nausea to subside.
This was the trouble with cheaper taverns, he thought queasily. Cheap taverns sold cheap ales and wines. Although both last night had tasted fine, clearly there had been a problem with one or the other of them. Perhaps it was the third jug of wine he had shared with the grizzle-haired host when most of the other folk had left. That must have been the one – the others were fine. And the ale had tasted all right beforehand, as had the cider: a good, strong, tasty brew. In fact Simon realised he could taste it still even now, and the potent flavour was unpleasantly present on the tip of his tongue.
He sat up, puffing and blowing as he tried to settle his gut.
‘So you’re awake, Bailiff?’
‘Ha! I always wake at the same time, Baldwin,’ he croaked. ‘It takes more than a few drinks to make me oversleep.’
‘Really? Well, if you can sleep through your snoring, I suppose you can wake refreshed whenever you want,’ Baldwin observed caustically.
‘Was I snoring?’
‘Like a hog. You were so loud that Jeanne couldn’t sleep either, but I expect she will tell you all about her sleepless night shortly.’
Simon scratched at his head, one eye shut against the confusing split vision. ‘Could I tempt you to a walk before she wakes? I am sure she would appreciate the peace.’