“It’s him,” said Black before stumbling away coughing.
At the sight of the body, Simon could not help wincing in disgust and taking a short step back. Then, as he became aware of Clifford’s muttered prayers, he felt ashamed and peered closer.
The blackened and ruined body was clearly that of a well-proportioned man, broad in the shoulder and fairly tall. His clothes had burned away, or so it seemed, and the body was rigid and fixed, like clay that has been in the furnace. But the bailiff recoiled and he had to turn away at the sight of the face, sucking in deep breaths in an attempt to keep his bile at bay.
Baldwin grinned as he saw Simon spin away. It was natural at the sight of victims of the flames, he knew, but this was not the first time the knight had seen bodies ruined and burned, and he stared down, noting the position of the limbs with an impersonal detachment. But when he studied the face his interest suddenly quickened. Where he would have expected to see agonised pain in the twisted features, there seemed to be none.
Puzzled, he stared at the body for a moment, then looked up towards the house. Then, like a hound on a scent, tense and eager, he strode up to the door, leaving Clifford and Simon gazing after him in their surprise.
Marching quickly, the knight strode through the door and, holding a sleeve to his nose and mouth, moved to the middle of the ruined house, peering through slitted eyes at the beam and the rubble all around. Something was wrong, he felt sure. Other bodies he had seen after a fire had shown signs of the fight for life, of the desperate attempt for survival – Brewer’s did not.
He stood and glowered at the door for the livestock, where the wood, at that end of the building almost untouched by the flames, still showed the scars from the horns and hoofs of the terrified oxen. Then he kicked at the ground a few times and crouched, apparently staring at some of the mess on the floor, before rising and leaving the room once more, coughing.
As the knight left the group, his departure made Simon turn and watch, and this sign that someone else at least was relatively unaffected made him determined to shoulder his responsibility with more dignity than he had so far exhibited. Squaring his shoulders, he forced his eyes down again. To his surprise, now, after the initial shock, he found himself less horrified, and he could look at the body with a degree of equanimity. At least, he felt, the man had no apparent signs of pain. His arms, he could see, were restfully at his side, not clawed to scrabble a way to safety, the legs were straight rather than contorted in an effort to crawl away. It looked as if the man had passed away quietly in his sleep. Simon could sense a sadness, a fleeting empathy for the lonely end of this man, but little more. Then it struck him – why had the man not recognised his danger, awoken and tried to escape? Surely he could not have slept through it? His brow wrinkled at the thought.
The huddled blackened shape seemed to have no fears for Baldwin either. He returned and stood, arms on hips, glaring at the body as if daring it to argue with him. Interested, Black wandered over to the group and glanced at the body, then at the men encircling it. He saw Baldwin catch Simon’s eye.
“Looks very relaxed, doesn’t he,” said the knight. It was not a question, it was a flat, dry statement, requiring no response, and Black saw Simon gazing back and nodding pensively.
Clifford looked from one to the other with a frown of mild impatience. “What do you mean? Of course he was relaxed. He died in his sleep, I suppose. The smoke got to him while he slept.”
Baldwin kept his eyes on him as he said, “Black?”
The hunter grunted. He too was frowning, wondering what the knight was driving at.
“Black,” Baldwin continued, “how many of this man’s oxen died with him?”
“None, sir. All eight got out.”
“So what?” said Clifford, gazing from the knight to the bailiff. “So what if they did? I don’t…”
“What about other animals?”
“No, they all got out.”
“If they got out, they must have been scared by the flames,” said Baldwin deliberately. “You must have heard the noise that scared oxen make. You wouldn’t be able to sleep through it, would you?”
Simon ventured, “Well, maybe he was overcome by the fumes, maybe he-”
“Oh, come now!” the knight’s teeth showed briefly in a white grin. “The beasts would have been terrified from the first sign of flames. They would not have slept until the house was almost consumed, they would have woken as soon as the fire began. If they did, the man would have been woken by them – he was sleeping with them after all.”
The priest, frowning, stood shaking his head. “I still don’t quite…”
“It’s obvious – or it is to me, anyway,” said Baldwin, suddenly serious. “I think he was dead before the fire was started. I think he was killed and the fire started to cover the murder.” Black could see that it was Simon who seemed to take this announcement most calmly. While the others gaped, the bailiff considered, looking up at the knight, peering at the building, then scratching his head and frowning at the ground.
“So what do you suggest we should do then, Sir Baldwin?” asked Clifford, consternation raising the pitch of his voice.
Baldwin shot a glance at Simon. “That’s up to the bailiff, isn’t it?”
“But I don’t see how we can show he was already dead!” said Simon irritably. “Not without someone having seen him when…” His voice trailed off. Could someone have seen something? God! He had only just been given his job-and now this knight already thought he had found a murder! Forcing his thoughts back to the problem in hand, he said musingly, “We don’t even know that he has been murdered. Couldn’t it have been an accident?”
“I don’t think so,” said Baldwin pensively. “As soon as the fire started the oxen would have panicked, I think that is clear. If he had been asleep that noise would have woken him quickly enough, so he would not have been found in his bed. We would have found him near an entrance, or at least on his way to one. I cannot see any reason why he would have gone back to his bed after realising that there was a fire – that, surely, is inconceivable. So he cannot have been woken by his oxen. And if he wasn’t, he must have been dead already. I refuse to believe that any man could be so heavy a sleeper that eight oxen stampeding nearby would not stir him.”
“Even so, sir, we cannot simply assume this. How could we be sure?” said Clifford softly.
“There is one other thing that makes me suspicious,” said the knight. “When you go to your bed, what do you do to the fire?”
Simon shrugged. “Well, bank it up. Make sure there’s enough wood to keep it going quietly over the night.”
“Yes. You put fresh logs on it to keep it going overnight. Brewer’s fire seemed too low. It looked as if it had not been touched since the morning. That seems to show that he had not set it up for the night, but it also means that it would be unlikely that any sparks would have reached the ceiling. The fire was too low. I am certain that he was killed. The question is, who did it?”
They all went to the inn and sat on the benches at the front while they waited for food to arrive. From here they could see in both directions along the road, south and west to the burned-out shell of Brewer’s house, and north and east to Black’s. In front of them the road formed a red and muddy boundary to the small strips of the fields beyond, where the families of the hamlet grew their crops on those days when they had no responsibility to the fields owned by the manor.