‘It puzzles me that a man should say he saw you talking to the friar last night when you say you didn’t.’
‘Look — I was upset last night and went straight to my bed.’
‘Why upset?’
‘That’s a matter for me. A woman,’ Thomas said, glancing at the Master Mason in explanation and a search for sympathy.
Robert rolled his eyes. ‘Wine and women will be the end of many a good building. Now, masters both, have you finished interrogating my man here? He has a lot of work to be getting on with.’
The Dean was in his hall alone when the two men went up and knocked upon his door.
‘Ah, Bailiff, Sir Baldwin. Will you — ah — please come in and be seated? I shall ask for some bread and meat for you.’
In fact, when the door opened a short while later, there was more than the sparse repast indicated by his words. Three servants entered with trays held high. There were meats, cheese, wine and a thick, steaming pottage. ‘I — ah — often feel the need for warmer foods at this time of year,’ Dean Alfred explained. ‘So, please, do you have any theories as yet?’
Baldwin spoke, looking to Simon for support as he described their visits to the widow and to Joel. ‘So I think that there is a connection between the present two deaths and the murder of the Chaunter,’ he concluded. ‘Do you remember that night?’
‘The night of Chaunter Walter’s assassination? My heavens — um — no. It was many years before I came here. I only arrived when Bishop Stapledon was installed. Not because I was an especial ally of his, it just happened that way. Hmm. I’ll have to see if there is someone who can help you with that. The Treasurer may have been here then. Someone must have been. Plainly it would have to be an older vicar or canon — a man who was then a — er — novice or chorister. I shall ask for you, Sir Baldwin.’
‘It is certainly interesting that there were these different fellows who were all companions at the time,’ Baldwin said.
‘And a strange coincidence that the man who left was called Thomas,’ Simon added.
‘True, although the man’s comment that he would have to be a merry fool not to have changed his name before returning was compelling enough,’ Baldwin pointed out.
‘Perhaps,’ Simon said. ‘Although …’
‘What?’ asked the Dean.
‘It just occurred to me: if he had worked in other cities as a mason, he might have assumed that coming here, he’d meet men he’d worked with before. Changing his name might have seemed dangerous. Thomas is also, of course, a very common name. The chance of finding someone who recalled and cared about events so many years ago, was a risk worth taking.’
‘A good point. Masons often go from one site to another expecting to meet someone from a past job,’ the Dean commented. ‘I — ah — know this myself. There was a need to find a new mason after poor Saul died recently, and one of the men suggested a fellow with whom he had worked before. Recommendation often works to recruit new men.’
‘How did he die?’ Simon asked. ‘Was it an illness or an accident?’
‘An accident,’ the Dean said. ‘The poor fellow happened to be walking along beneath the scaffolding when a stone fell and crushed him. In actual fact,’ he added pensively, ‘it was Thomas who was responsible for the stone slipping free.’
‘Him again?’ Baldwin said, his interest aroused. ‘I should like to see where this happened.’
‘I shall ask my Clerk of the Works, Matthew, to show you, if you like.’ The Dean tilted his head, looking like a sparrow eyeing a suspect morsel of food. ‘That — ah — doesn’t mean Thomas is guilty, of course. These things do happen.’
‘Yes, they do,’ Simon agreed sharply, but there was a light in Baldwin’s eye which Simon hadn’t seen since he arrived in Exeter.
‘What do you — ah — wish to do next, then?’
‘We should speak to this curious corrodian, William,’ Baldwin declared, sitting back with his mazer of wine resting on the top of his belly. ‘And then perhaps, we should question this foreign gentleman as well — this Udo.’
‘Udo Germeyne?’ the Dean asked.
‘You know of him?’
‘By reputation. There are some who make their money solely by regrating and forestalling — that is, by buying all the stores in the morning and then reselling them later when they have a monopoly, or catching peasants on their way to market and buying in their produce before they reach the city, again in order that they control all prices. It is a violation of the city’s laws, of course, but all the Freemen tend to do it to a greater or lesser extent, so the fines are — um — derisory. They are not enough, in my view, to prevent a man continuing.’
‘So Udo is not a popular man with everybody?’ Baldwin said.
‘I do not think he is particularly unpopular,’ the Dean responded. ‘However, I find such behaviour often indicates the character of the man. If he is prepared to be so mercenary in his business dealings, using money to create more money like a usurer, what else would he not be capable of?’
To Baldwin’s mind, usurers were more evil than those who merely regrated and forestalled in a well-regulated market like Exeter’s. ‘I hope you don’t think him capable of murder just because of his market trading?’
‘Certainly his part in all this seems odd,’ Simon mused. ‘And the speed with which the two women sought to protect him was curious.’
‘Let’s go and speak to him first, then,’ Baldwin said, rising. He drained his cup. ‘Thank you, Dean, for our lunch. We shall see you again as soon as we have something to report. In the meantime — could you arrange for the mason Thomas to be watched? I should not wish him to suddenly disappear.’
‘You think he could be the guilty man?’
Baldwin considered, staring through the Dean’s little window out at the Cathedral Close. ‘I do not know, but the coincidence of his name, the fact that he’s about and Matthew says he reminds him of a man who left here years ago … It is better to keep him by than lose him.’
‘Do you wish Matthew to show you to the place where Saul died now?’
‘It will wait,’ Baldwin said. ‘If you could ask him to show me later, I would be grateful.’
They left the Dean’s room and walked out into the Cathedral’s grounds. Crossing the Close, Simon at first felt how chill it was compared with the warmth of the Dean’s hall, but then there was a rift in the clouds overhead, and suddenly the area was flooded with warmth.
‘It makes the whole city look more pleasant, doesn’t it?’ he commented idly.
Baldwin wasn’t concentrating. ‘Sorry?’
‘I said …’
There was a rattling of hooves on the cobbles, and Simon looked up in time to see a knight wrapped in a thick black woollen cloak over a bright red tunic and green hose ride in through the Fissand Gate. The two stopped and eyed the man as he rode along towards them, and then, just as he was about to trot on past he stopped and threw back his hood. His gleaming bald pate had a fringe of golden curls now faded with the years, which looked like a baby’s fluff on a middle-aged man’s head. His mouth moved into a smile, and as it did so, Simon could almost hear Baldwin’s hackles rise.
‘Sir Baldwin. How pleasant to see you,’ the man exclaimed. ‘And Bailiff Puttock, too. I am delighted to see you both here.’
‘Godspeed,’ Baldwin said, less than entirely heartily. ‘I am glad to see you, too, Sir Peregrine.’
Simon grinned to hear his friend lie. Baldwin had always cordially disliked Sir Peregrine de Barnstaple.
‘I suspect we are here for the same reasons, but I shall have to speak to you later, if you do not mind, Sir Baldwin,’ Sir Peregrine declared. ‘I am weary, yet I still have business to attend to with the Dean and Chapter. Will you excuse me? Where can I contact you?’
When they had told the knight where they were staying, he lifted his eyebrows in apparent surprise, and then smiled sympathetically, as though their inn was far below his own standard before riding off towards the Dean’s stables.