Mazeline stepped from the doorway as Agnes turned away from him. Her head drooped as she made her way to the corridor that gave out to the door.
She was destroyed, Mazeline thought. Utterly destroyed. Where Mazeline had seen her life gradually eroded by her husband as he had whittled away at her self-assurance, this woman had seen her hopes and dreams destroyed in one fell swoop. He had taken her for a ‘diversion’ as she had said, and in return given nothing.
Mazeline’s destruction had been less sudden, more progressive over the years, but it was as inevitable as Agnes’s. She was to be ruined just as completely. As Agnes shuffled past her, Mazeline found herself studying this woman, once so attractive, who was now no more than a ravaged crust, like a discarded snail shell when the thrush has plucked all the meat from it.
She had never stopped to think before, but it was just how she must look. When she had married, she was pretty enough, perhaps no beauty, but still attractive enough to take the fancy of a man in the street. Yet now, as she turned her head and caught sight of herself in a mirror, all she could see was a woman old before her time. Her eyes were red, one still bruised, while her brow still had the line of scabbed blood where his goblet had struck her. If she was not so completely destroyed as Agnes at that moment, it was only because her slide into despair had been more gradual, with more halts on the way when he persuaded her that the punishment was due to her own failings, and that he really still loved her and wanted her to improve so that he need not chastise her any longer.
For the first time, she realized now that his words were lies. He loved her as much as he loved Agnes. They were not women, they were simply things, possessions he had acquired through his life, toyed with, and now tossed aside like trash. While he had a use for them, he would keep them, but now he was done with Agnes.
Which left Mazeline with what, exactly? she wondered. Agnes had gone, and Mazeline remained standing at the side of the doorway, silently surveying her husband.
‘What is it now, wench? You’re looking at me like a trapped rabbit. Ach, what the hell! Get me ale. From a good barrel this time!’
She walked out and fetched a jug, filling it from the barrel, but all the time her mind was fixed on the sight of that poor woman in her hall. Then, beginning with one sharp, painful sob that took her completely by surprise, she began to weep.
Baldwin and Simon stood in the street outside Carfoix and looked up at the fading light. The sun had already sunk behind the far hills, and the twilight was giving way to the night. Baldwin could see stars like diamonds lying in a sheet of black velvet.
‘Shall we find the Coroner and go to this man Jordan?’ Simon asked. ‘Where does Sir Peregrine live, do you know?’
‘He has a house in Correstrete, the same as Jordan. Let’s go and see whether he’s at home. If he is, we can walk round to le Bolle’s house with him.’
Simon agreed and soon they were outside the Coroner’s house.
It was a new building, with clean, square lines. They entered to find themselves in a broad hall with a fire smoking fitfully in a fireplace at the wall on their right. There was a newfangled chimney over it, and Simon was intrigued to see how the smoke would disappear up the flue, occasionally billowing back into the room.
Sir Peregrine saw the direction of his gaze as yet another blue-grey blanket roiled into the hall. ‘I know. I bought the house before I realized it had a chimney. If I’d known, I’d have been keener to pay less. I’ve never known one work properly. Give me an old-fashioned fire in the middle of the floor any time. You know where you are with them.’
Baldwin walked to the fire and stood with his back to it. ‘We think that we are coming closer to solving all these matters,’ he said, and explained what they had learned from Gervase and Peter de la Fosse, then what they had been told by Reginald.
‘You think that this Reginald is in league with Jordan le Bolle, then?’ Sir Peregrine asked. He took his seat on a bench. Drinks had been ordered from his bottler already, but the man appeared to have the speed of a hobbled donkey. Still, Sir Peregrine tried to concentrate on Sir Baldwin’s words. The man was a very good investigator, as he had told Juliana.
The mention of her name in the confines of his mind was enough to make him lose the train of thought. She was so lovely, so sweet and kind. The way that she had taken her daughter and cuddled her after that poisonous maid her sister had sulkily stormed from the room, that was the action of a truly loving mother. A lovely sight. And such a contrast with her older sister.
At first he could think of no topics which they could discuss, but then, slowly, they had begun to speak. He had chosen to tell her of the investigation first, their lack of success in finding Estmund, his hopes that he might soon learn where the man was, if he hadn’t fled the city with his guilt so obvious. Then he told her a little about the death of the pander Mick.
She had apparently wanted to hear nothing of death, though. Perhaps it was because the children were there, or maybe because the death of her man in this very house was still too close. It made him wonder whether the two children would be sleeping in her bedroom tonight, and the thought quickly led to another. The idea of her undressing for bed was painfully erotic, and he had to force his mind away from the delightful scene … There was one thing of which he was absolutely convinced: he would not shame this woman by attempting to persuade her into his bed. She was so wonderful, so sweet and kind and lovely, that he could no more think of propositioning her than flying. She was so far above him in every way.
And then, haltingly, she had started to talk. Almost as though he wasn’t in the room, she spoke of her marriage, how her man had won her when many others competed for her affection, how she had reciprocated his interest and finally accepted his offer. They had lived through the misery of the famine, and even when men like Estmund were burying their dead, she and Daniel had prospered. Their wealth had grown as the wills had proliferated, and at the end of that dreadful time they had been moderately well-off, although more recently they had been less fortunate.
She told him of Daniel’s fixed hatred for felons who preyed on the weak and foolish, crimes which were so repellent to him that he sought to destroy those who had committed them, and how he had gradually become morose and uncommunicative. ‘It felt as if I’d lost him. Another man had taken his place.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘It didn’t happen in a flash, and we didn’t lose our love for each other,’ she said. ‘That is the truth, Coroner. I still loved him, you know, and that never changed. It was just that he became so obsessed with these crimes.’
‘Which crimes?’ Sir Peregrine asked, noting the line of her throat as she kissed Cecily.
‘Those caused by a man’s venality or greed. He hated them most of all. When a weaker man was injured by a stronger. That was why he …’
Sir Peregrine scarcely noticed the break in her speech.
‘Henry Adyn was badly hurt by Daniel. I know he hated my husband for that terrible wound, but Daniel thought he was in danger, you see. That was why he bought the cart and a pony for Henry, so that he’d have a means of supporting himself.’
‘He did? That was good of him.’
‘He was a kind man,’ she agreed. Cecily was on her lap, and Juliana put her arms about her shoulders. ‘He had made his mistakes. He knew everyone could.’
‘We all make errors; sometimes they have unexpected consequences,’ he agreed. Then, ‘Is it possible that there is any offence he was investigating that could point to his murderer?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If he was looking into any specific crime, where the man concerned could have taken fright at learning that Daniel was investigating him?’