It was not just an impression of supernatural despair; the building looked depressed with its cloak of scaffolding, the spars and timbers projecting upwards like the exposed ribs of a putrefied corpse. Where there should have been good pasture, now all was trodden mud, and the whole of the precinct was a building site, with rocks strewn liberally about the place, and masons gradually forming sense from chaotic hunks of stone. Working benches, saw-pits, smiths hammering at red-hot iron formed a fiendish din, and Baldwin felt as though he would like to turn around and leave the place.
But he couldn’t. He squared his shoulders and strode to the Dean’s house. Dean Alfred was already waiting for Baldwin at his door, and he welcomed the knight politely, if solemnly, before leading the way to the chapel.
A porter was at the door, and he stood aside on the Dean’s signal.
‘We have to keep it guarded for the Coroner,’ Dean Alfred said, and pulled a heavy key from beneath his robe. He slipped it into the lock and turned it. His eyes lifted to meet Baldwin’s. ‘I wish you luck,’ he said quietly. ‘We must find this murderer, Sir Knight, before he can kill again. Godspeed.’
Baldwin nodded, thrust the door wide and stepped inside.
As Simon reached the hall, he could already hear the scritching of the clerk’s reed as he stood at the door.
It would be so easy not to enter. He could walk back to the house, pack, hire a horse, and simply go home. See his wife and children. My God, but it was tempting. Anything rather than enter this place and spend more time with that moron Andrew. Christ’s Teeth, was there no way out of this miserable existence without upsetting and insulting his master, the Abbot?
Simon felt like a trapped rabbit. He could see safety beyond the circle of destruction that closed in upon him. A rabbit would see the teeth of the hounds approach; Simon could see the years stretching out ahead of him: lonely years of boredom and counting. It was a future to strike horror into his bones, and he felt almost sick at the thought of all that time sitting on his arse, when he could have been out dealing with the stannary’s miners on the moors.
‘Oh God, please save me from this!’ he prayed, and as he finished, he took a deep breath and opened the door.
Andrew looked up from his writing. ‘Godspeed, Bailiff. Um … there is a message for you from the Abbot.’
‘What is it?’ Simon asked as he slumped into his seat and eyed the pile of papers unenthusiastically.
‘You are summoned to Exeter to help the Dean and Chapter,’ Andrew said with a tone of respect. ‘You should ready yourself to leave immediately.’
Simon felt a broad grin spread over his face. ‘You mean it?’ he demanded as he sprang to his feet and crossed the floor. He snatched up the paper and read it with glee.
‘Yes, Bailiff. The letter explains it clearly enough. There has been a murder at the Cathedral and the Dean has asked that you go to help him.’
‘Wonderful!’ Simon enthused, and then wiped the smile from his face as he saw Andrew’s scandalised expression.
‘Yes. Well, the Abbot has sent a note to say that you shall board a ship here and take it to Exeter. It’ll be faster than a horse.’
‘A ship?’ Simon repeated, his face falling. ‘Oh God. Not a ship.’
Joel was pleased with the morning’s business as he showed his last client out before calling a halt for some lunch. He bowed and smiled as Ralph of Malmesbury nodded to him — then walked off without acknowledging the joiner’s outstretched hand.
‘Arrogant prickle!’ Joel muttered, but very quietly. He couldn’t afford to upset customers with purses so well-filled as that physician’s.
As he finished speaking and turned to re-enter his hall, a forearm snaked across his throat and a leg slammed at the back of both knees. Suddenly he was suspended like a hanged man, all his weight held by his neck, and he reached up to claw at the forearm with desperation, trying to speak or cry out.
He was thrust forwards into his hall and a foot kicked the door shut behind them, before he was hurled to the ground.
‘Right, Joel, old friend,’ Will said without a glimmer of amusement in his glittering grey eyes. He wielded his staff and brought it crashing into Joel’s flank before using it to stab two-handedly at the other man’s belly. ‘I want to talk to you about assassins who try to kill poor defenceless old corrodians in the evening. And I hope you have some sensible answers for me, because I’d hate to have to kill you.’
Chapter Eleven
Udo had prepared himself as best he possibly could. He wore his finest linen shirt, with a crimson gipon over the top. This was the best he could find in Exeter, a tight-fitting, rather uncomfortable garment, but padded throughout. Over this he had his best cote-hardie, low-necked, with sleeves that ended at his elbows so that his gipon’s buttons (which extended all the way to his wrists on both arms, a hideously expensive and rather ridiculous fashion, so he felt) were displayed. At his throat and hems all was lined with beautifully soft squirrel fur, which complemented the pale russet colour of the cote-hardie itself. And then he had his new headgear, a blue felt hood with a long liripipe that curled about his head as though there was a snake resting there.
As he gazed at himself doubtfully in his mirror, he was forced to consider how much foolishness a man must endure to prove himself worthy of a young bride. Take this new idea of a hat with a liripipe. What on earth was the point of a length of material bound about the head like a moor’s turban? It served no useful purpose, other than persuading an idiot of a buyer that he should purchase at least double the length of material which was actually required to keep his head warm … and that was the whole point of a hat, wasn’t it? It was something to keep the chill off a man’s forehead and ears, when all was said and done. Perhaps the old King, Edward I, had been right when he had restricted the sort of clothing people could buy. There was little in the way of laws against what a man or woman could wear, but in his day there wasn’t much need. People knew what he liked and what he didn’t. He liked his men to be dressed soberly, with simple haircuts and no beards. Women he liked to see dressed modestly — until he got them into his chamber, no doubt — although Udo had heard that Edward I was not like most Monarchs in that he was devoted to his wife, and after her death he appeared to have little interest in other women.
Perhaps Udo would feel the same about his own dear wife. If he won her, that was.
The note from Julia had arrived the evening before, and he had read it three times before realising that there was a message hidden beneath the bald prose.
On the face of it, the note was a simple request to meet with Udo in order to discuss the sad matter of the saddle. Udo read that with some anger, for it seemed a bold comment after the way that Henry had treated him, with that bitter refusal even to consider the match of Udo with his daughter. It was an insult that the women should now decide to plead for his mercy, when he knew that Julia’s hand was to have been refused him. What did they take him for?
But then he had another thought and read it a fourth time. As he did so, his brow grew furrowed. And then he realised: Henry had died before he could go home and explain his angry words with Udo that afternoon! Suddenly the letter made sense. The women were desperate for a protector, and they now saw Udo as their only hope.
‘She knows of my affection for her,’ he told his reflection once more in the mirror. ‘She holds a regard for me, for otherwise she would not consider speaking to me after the death of her father. Surely his death has had an impact on her — she must possess a deep trust in me to have decided to ask me to attend to her.’