The room he had here at the Talbot Inn was large for a city inn. He always tried to rent this room when he needs must travel to Exeter, because he had a dislike, based upon too many years of sleeping in dorters with snoring companions, of sharing a room with other travellers. That was one thing that he would never miss about the life of a warrior monk!
Here he had a good-sized bed with a palliasse that was large enough to accommodate five men in a normal inn, but Baldwin had never yet been asked to share it. The master of this house had been a merchant until his profits from his excellent ale-brewing showed him that his talents were being wasted in providing ale only for his own household. He stuck up his bush over the door, and now his ale accounted for half of his business. A wealthy man, he was perfectly happy to accommodate Baldwin’s need for solitude. In return, Baldwin paid rather more than the room would normally be worth.
Today he awoke early, and with a slight headache from a disturbed night’s sleep. He was tempted to roll over and close his eyes again, but instead he lay back and stared at the cracked ceiling, trying to make sense of his feelings for Jeanne. Then, in despair, he pushed her from his mind and considered instead the murder.
This was one of those killings in which it was quite likely that no one would ever be brought to justice. There were cases of that nature — and although Baldwin knew that his own methods of detection were more successful than those of other men, still there were many murderers who committed their crimes and were never caught by him. Some men were too clever, others fiendishly lucky; most murderers were caught because they made mistakes or were too stupid to conceal their crimes. Baldwin had once found a man who denied the murder, but had cleaned his knife of blood by wiping the blade on his own jack. It was still fresh when Baldwin caught him, and although he claimed that he had killed a dog, he could not recall where, nor where he had put the body.
In a matter like this, though, there had to be a motive for Henry Potell’s death. If he could discover that, he would be much further on in the enquiry. It was possible, of course, that the widow would be able to help in this, but all too often Baldwin knew that the wife was the last person to discover certain secrets. He put the sharp mental picture of his own wife to the back of his mind again as Jeanne leaped into the forefront of his thoughts; no, in matters of business many men would not tell their women all that had happened in a day. It was one of those basic differences between men and women: the men would prefer to leave their work and relax; women by contrast sought to discuss every aspect of their day in the minutest detail before they could think of relaxing. Or maybe that was their way of relaxing — Baldwin didn’t know …
He woke to the sound of hammering on his door. Startled from a light doze, he was halfway out of his bed, his hand reaching for his sword when the door slammed wide. He grasped his hilt, swung it free with a flick of his wrist, sending the scabbard flying across the room, and span on his heel to face the doorway.
‘Come on, Keeper, put the bloody thing down. You should be up by now, anyway.’
‘Simon!’ Baldwin gasped with relief and delight.
Then he scowled. ‘Shut that door, Bailiff, before I catch a chill, and what is the meaning of this ridiculous noise? Are you so short of amusements that you must terrify a poor sleeping knight with your infernal row?’
‘Yes, it’s good to see you too,’ Simon grinned.
It had been the right thing to do. Yeah, of course it was. Vincent swung his legs out of his little cot and sat there naked with his legs dangling. It was cold, so he dragged his blanket over his shoulders. He’d done the right thing, sure enough. It was only …
He’d been really horrified to hear his master say all that last afternoon. To learn after all this time that his master had been involved in that murder, to think that he’d been there on the night his old man’s brother had been killed … well, it was really weird.
Rising, he pulled on his shirt and tunic and tied his hosen to the dangling laces. He had a thicker quilted jack which he pulled over the top, and then he tied a short strip of material about his throat. It was perishing cold out there in the yard and the workshop at this time of year, especially first thing, before anyone had time to build up a bit of warmth in their work. He tidied his bedclothes, put his blanket back on top, and patted the side of the cot. It was one of his first jobs when he was taken on as apprentice to Joel. His master had brought him up here and pointed to the small chamber. ‘You could make a bed in there if you wanted. The wood’s all outside.’
The first attempt had been embarrassing. He’d not known how to joint properly, and how to make the ends of the planks square so that they fitted together neatly was beyond him, but gradually as he learned his trade, he saw how to make the cot better. Each time Joel demonstrated a new joint or explained the principles of smoothing and chiselling, or how to square-off ends, Vince saw how to improve his work, until after two years he had a cot that was more prone to holding his weight, rather than falling apart every two months as wooden pegs worked loose.
His first real project, that bed. It was the sort of thing which he could knock up in a few hours now, but he was enormously proud of it. The cot had shown him that he was capable of doing this job, that he was right to be a joiner.
It hadn’t been easy at first. The old man wanted him to follow in his own footsteps and learn the tanning trade, but Vince was determined to escape that trap. The idea of remaining his whole life with that stench was revolting. He’d been there long enough as a boy, before he managed to win the argument and come here instead. It hadn’t been an easy fight, that.
The trouble was, his old man was determined to keep Vince with him so that he could protect him from the dangers of the city. Out on Exe Island, Wymond reckoned they were safe, free of the risks of politics and the disputes between the rich and powerful. The Church had regular fights amongst its different parts, between the Priory and the Cathedral, the friars and the monks. Wymond said it was only a few years before Vince’s birth that the Cathedral had fought a bitter fight against the friars down at the southern wall, because the friars claimed the rights to some dead man or other and the Dean and Chapter stole the corpse to give it the funeral rites in the Cathedral. That was fine, but the man’s estate was due to pay well for the funeral, and when the Cathedral later brought the body to the friars, they refused to accept it. The man lay there outside their gate for ages until the Cathedral shamefacedly sent someone to collect it.
Wymond wasn’t an expert on Church law, but he believed that if a man was dead and his soul was at risk, it was the duty of men from the Church to see to his protection without worrying about how much money they’d receive. The behaviour of those churchmen was enough to convince him that a man was safer outside the city. Country people were more pleasant.
That was what he’d always said, anyway. And there was the other event, the one which had coloured his life so vividly. The result again of Church disputes: the murder of his brother Vincent, after whom Vince himself was named.
Over the years the memory of that dreadful night had faded in the city’s memory. It was forty years ago: Wymond himself was only six-and-forty, but he remembered his brother with a fondness that bordered on adulation. When he was killed, it was like a bolt from heaven. And then the stories started to circulate.
It was just like the rumours which began over other events. If you have enough people together in one place, and you give them the opportunity of gossiping, some will inevitably come up with a theory that sort of fits the facts, without ever worrying about minor details like the truth.