‘Come on, Dad. Get some food down you.’
‘I’m not hungry. I want more ale.’
‘Forget it, fat man. You’re getting no more ale until you’ve eaten something warm. What in Christ’s name has got into you?’
‘My brother, that’s what.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Vincent said more quietly. He meant it. If he’d realised how badly his father would take the information, he might have kept it all to himself. Ignorance was bliss, after all. ‘I thought you’d be glad to know that Uncle Vince wasn’t dishonourable, that was why I told you about it.’
‘Of course he wasn’t dishonourable! All he wanted to do was protect his master, and they slaughtered him like a dog with rabies!’ Wymond said hoarsely. He felt terrible.
‘It’s too late to do anything about it now,’ the boy said gently. ‘Eat up, Dad and then we’ll have some ale.’
Wymond went outside, rinsed his face with water from his rainwater barrel, and wiped it dry with an old tunic. Feeling slightly better, he walked back inside again and sat at his table.
Looking at him, Vince suddenly felt a rush of affection. He would be lost without his father. Wymond was the solid rock on which his life was based.
‘You never knew your uncle,’ Wymond said sadly, lifting a spoon of the broth to his lips. ‘He was a good man, a friend to any who needed his help, loyal to death. And that’s how he died, of course.’
‘I’d have liked to have met him.’
‘You would have, if that murdering shit Nicholas hadn’t killed him,’ Wymond said. He snorted and shifted in his seat. ‘My Vince should never have been cut down like that. A man who can do that deserves everything he gets …’
It was quite unlike his father, and it made Vin’s blood turn to ice to see such ruthless ferocity on the tanner’s careworn face.
Chapter Nineteen
Simon and Baldwin left William on his bench, and soon they were making their way back along Nicholas’s Street to Fore Street, and then up towards the Cathedral.
‘So you thought the same as me?’ Simon said as they walked, his face wreathed in frowns.
To his secret pleasure, Baldwin’s expression had lost its haunted look. ‘If you mean,’ he demanded acerbically, ‘did I think that much of what that man said was true, then yes, I did.’
‘You know perfectly well that wasn’t what I meant,’ Simon said musingly. ‘I was thinking about the dead friar, Nicholas — the man who struck down poor Vince. If it’s true that someone there was disloyal, it must have been Nicholas — and someone killed him for it.’
‘You think that the whole affair could be due to a man who seeks revenge, all these years later?’ Baldwin queried.
‘It would make sense. The friar had struck down the only man there who was trying to warn the Chaunter. Surely he must have been the traitor.’
‘That would seem true enough,’ Baldwin agreed, ‘but that hardly helps us. The two victims, Henry and Nicholas, seem to have nothing in common other than the fact that they were there in the Close that night. Henry was on the attacking side, and Nicholas on the side of the Chaunter …’
‘Baldwin, you are slow tonight,’ Simon said with a smile. ‘They were on the same side. That’s what I mean. I reckon Friar Nicholas was trying to shut Vincent up before the trap had been sprung; that was why he pulled out his dagger and silenced the poor fellow. And then the others, including Henry, attacked them.’
‘But the friar was nearly killed,’ Baldwin objected. ‘Surely no man would agree to those wounds on his face and body just to add verisimilitude to the story of his loyalty?’
Simon shrugged. ‘It was dark, they were in a mêlée, there was a racket of men shouting, weapons clashing … what else would you expect? Someone accidentally slashed at him, trying to hit someone else, and that was that. End of his good looks. If he was the cause of the Chaunter’s death, he deserved it.’
‘Perhaps so,’ Baldwin agreed. Yet he still wore a puzzled frown. ‘But who, in that case, could have wanted Henry dead?’
‘Could Henry have been the man who planned it?’ Simon wondered. ‘His wife might know. We could return and question her.’
‘I do not think that will be necessary. First let us go and speak to Joel once more. He might become more helpful when he hears that William has already spoken to us,’ Baldwin said.
‘In any case, Henry seems a likely man to have thought through the plan and left the hint that the Bishop was planning on using the Chaunter as a lure to draw the attack’s sting.’
‘Possibly, but it’s more likely to have been a man of action like our friend William.’
‘The man who took his opportunities,’ Simon said drily.
‘I did not warm to him either,’ Baldwin said. ‘My impression was that he was quite an astute fellow — he could be a good tactical commander of men in a battle.’
‘Perhaps, but what was he like when he was a lad? Cunning and quick-witted no doubt, but to invent a ruse like the one used against the Chaunter would have taken more intelligence than he possessed,’ Simon said. ‘You know how people are: some will learn from experience, but others can imagine an outcome and put in place a plan to achieve it.’
‘Why are you so convinced he’s not like that?’ Baldwin asked.
‘Look at him! His sole ambition was to get to be a warrior, working for the King. That doesn’t take brains, does it? No, I’d expect that sort of devious plot to come from the kind of man who’d get to be a master of the Freedom of the city.’
‘Oh! You think it must have been Henry, then? Why not Joel or someone else?’
‘I do not say it wasn’t,’ Simon frowned. ‘But I think the murderer could reckon it was Henry, and might have killed him for that reason.’
‘True enough,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘So who else should we suspect? We know of William and Joel.’
‘And this fellow Thomas,’ Simon pointed out. ‘He would seem a likely candidate — especially as he was guilty enough to leave the city in the first place, and now since his return all those who could have known him have died. First Henry, now Nicholas.’
‘And we have heard that Udo was angry about being refused the right to marry Julia Potell,’ Baldwin recalled. ‘It is possible, I suppose, that the friar was a witness to Henry’s murder by Udo, and then Udo was forced to return to remove him too, although …’
‘Yes, Baldwin?’ Simon asked after a moment or two, but his friend shook his head.
‘Nothing.’ Baldwin could not confess to his strange loathing for the Charnel Chapel. There was something bad about the place, he felt. And surely that had coloured his judgement. ‘I only think that the murder of the Chaunter could have something to do with this. Why else would Henry have been left in the Charnel Chapel, and why should Nicholas have been killed there, his body later moved …’
‘Putting the body near the Cathedral would shove all the blame and suspicion onto Thomas,’ Simon said musingly. ‘It would be a shrewd move to distract us towards him.’
‘Perhaps it would,’ Baldwin said.
‘So we have to consider William, Joel and Thomas because they were all involved in the original attack,’ Simon concluded. ‘And Udo because he had his own motives … Right! What shall we do now, Baldwin? Should we report to the Dean first?’
‘All we have is speculation, so no, let’s go to Joel first.’
‘You don’t want to see Sir Peregrine, do you?’ Simon grinned.
‘He would see me choose between the Lord Hugh de Courtenay and the King,’ Baldwin protested, ‘and I will not. I have enough allegiances already: my family first, my King second.’