‘What is he doing here?’ Simon wondered.
‘Sadly I am sure we shall soon find out,’ said Baldwin. ‘Come, let’s get away from here while we can!’
Thomas was packing his meagre belongings and tools and preparing to escape. He had been very close to being uncovered when the two men had questioned him, and as soon as they left, he went to find the Master Mason, who was frowning at a plan sketched in charcoal on a sheet of vellum.
‘Sir, do you think you could use me on your other sites?’
‘No. If you want work, you can stay here.’
‘But Master, I can’t stay here, not now.’
Robert stopped his fiddling with the sketch and took a deep breath. At last he met Thomas’s eye. ‘If you’ve done something here, lad, that’s your lookout. I tell you this: I didn’t believe a word of your shite about some woman, right? And I didn’t believe your tale of being born someplace else neither. No. You came from here, didn’t you? And I reckon you’re hiding something. No problem with that when you keep your nose out of things, but when it leads to the work being held up, that I do mind. And when men start to die, I mind that too, just in case I get to be the next one. Right? So as far as I’m concerned, you can stay here if you want, Tom, but you aren’t coming with me anywhere else. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.’
As he spoke, Robert’s face was oddly devoid of compassion, as though he was talking to a man who was already condemned.
Perhaps, Thomas thought, he already was.
When he saw the knight approaching, John Coppe didn’t bother to hold out his bowl. Sir Baldwin didn’t ever give him alms. Still, there was a chance that he’d be more lucky with the strange knight’s friend who was Bailiff, so he smiled, ducking his head as Sir Baldwin approached. Then John remembered that some little while ago, Sir Baldwin had been in the city with his woman, and she had been very generous. Perhaps she’d taught her old man something.
‘Sir Knight, spare alms for a poor old sailor? Your wife was generous to me.’
Baldwin stopped and stared at him. ‘Yes, I remember you,’ he said as he fumbled in his purse. ‘I haven’t much …’
‘That’s enough, Sir Baldwin. Every bit is a help to me,’ Coppe said with a lopsided grin. ‘When you have as little as me, anything’s useful.’
‘Are you always here?’ Simon asked.
‘Costs me three shillings a year to take this spot, and I don’t grudge it. I make enough.’
Simon nodded. The places at Tavistock were cheaper, but then the town was smaller and the chances of a beggar making as much money as Coppe could earn in a year were that bit more remote. He dug into his own purse and pulled out the first coin that came to hand, but then he held it up.
Coppe lifted his eyebrows. ‘A penny? What are you after, Master?’
‘Just news. You’ll have heard about the friar killed out there in the Close? They found his body this morning. Did you see anything?’
‘I saw him come into the Close yesterday, aye. It was late afternoon, and I remember because Janekyn was here, and as soon as the friar appeared, Jan slipped off so he didn’t have to talk to the man.’
‘Why was that?’ Simon said.
‘Jan was always a loyal Exeter man,’ Coppe said dismissively, then threw a hasty look over his shoulder in case Janekyn was about. ‘That friar, Nicholas, was guilty, in his mind, because he tried to protect the Chaunter against the men John of Exeter had hired to remove him. Daft, I know, but Jan feels strongly about that kind of thing.’
‘You know him well?’ Simon asked.
‘Yes — and before you ask: he’s no killer! Anyway, he was here when the friar went in and he stayed here. I was with him, so if you want to have him hanged, you’ll have to hang me too. And that wouldn’t be easy, lords, because you’d have to carry me to the rope on account of me not having the legs to walk there!’
Simon chuckled along with him, but didn’t respond when Coppe held out his bowl expectantly. Instead he flicked the coin contemplatively. ‘What about the other man, the dead saddler? Did you see him the day before they found his body?’
‘He was often about here. You know, men like him, they’ll come in here to do a bit of business before Mass, won’t they? Actually, he was here with that man Udo, and they had a real shouting-match in the Close there. The foreigner threatened to kill him, in so many words.’
‘Why was that?’ Baldwin asked sharply. ‘We hadn’t heard this before.’
‘Something to do with the saddler’s daughter. Henry was saying something about the German not being allowed to marry her, I think.’
‘Aha!’ Simon said.
‘What then? Was there a fight?’ Baldwin frowned.
‘No. A vicar ran up and stopped them before they could do that,’ Coppe said regretfully. ‘Could have been fun, otherwise.’
Simon flicked the coin again, and it rattled in his bowl. ‘Keep your eyes open, and let us know if you see anything else.’
‘My pleasure. Sounds to me like easy money,’ Coppe grinned.
Baldwin looked at him, and then turned slowly. From here he could see the lean figure of Sir Peregrine crossing the Close with a vicar and the Annuellar behind him. He glanced at Baldwin without slowing his pace, and then made straight for the Charnel Chapel, disappearing behind the southern wall.
He had the look of a man who was involved in a busy and less than appealing task. Baldwin had not asked who the new Coroner of Exeter might be, and now he wondered with sinking heart whether this knight could be the replacement for the late Sir Roger de Gidleigh.
Glancing down at the beggar, who was happily fiddling with his coin, Baldwin shook his head. ‘Be careful that this isn’t the same as the easy money you were paid as a sailor, Coppe, on that last journey that cost you your livelihood and your leg.’
‘Hardly likely!’
Baldwin nodded, but he found his eyes drawn back once more to that chapel. He felt a sick apprehension, and the worst of it was, he had no idea why.
Chapter Seventeen
William walked about the cloister at St Nicholas’s Priory with his staff always in his hand, peering into the darkest places in the long corridors, while his ears strained for the hiss and clatter of a fine-pointed arrow striking the stones. When you stood in line waiting for the clash of arms, the first you would know would be the noise of the arrows whistling and soughing through the air, but something only a warrior knew was that when the thing was aimed at you, you usually wouldn’t hear it until it hit. He knew that, all right. Jesus! He should do — he’d stood against the sodding things often enough.
It was why he was here, of course, because he’d wrecked his health fighting for the King and the latter was repaying the debt; but now William was prey to some worrying fears. If the King ever came to learn of his dishonest behaviour (even though this had occurred many years ago), that wouldn’t stop Edward from demanding his corrody back, let alone heaping any other insults or curses he could upon William’s head. And the King could heap an awful lot of shit on a man’s head before he removed it.
Perhaps past loyalty would count. At the end of the day, that was all William had. He had done his duty time and time again — in battles from Scotland all the way across Wales and back. He’d been there in the bogs and marshes at Bannockburn to see the King’s first setback, and he’d been a loyal supporter of Edward even after the Lords Marcher had ringed London and forced the King to exile the Despensers. He had been in the King’s service when the latter himself took the offensive and headed northward, crushing the army of his cousin at Boroughbridge. Then there had been the fiasco of Tynemouth when he deserted his wife.
William had lost all faith in the King after that. As he sat in the boat, listening to the racking sobs of the Queen bemoaning her fate, her loveless marriage, and the death of one of her favourite ladies-in-waiting — a second died a little later — William had only one thought: this was the closest he had ever come to death. There would have been no escape, had he been caught there with the Bruce’s men surrounding the place.