Hugh was at the trough in the courtyard when Simon left the inn, morosely washing a linen shirt. ‘Look at this! Torn, and the blood is all over it. I’ll never get it clean.’
‘Is that yours, Hugh? I didn’t think you were hurt,’ Simon said with some alarm. He had shown his man no sympathy after the fighting. His attention had been concentrated on Baldwin, who was bleeding slowly from a long scratch in his belly.
‘No, it’s not the shirt I was wearing yesterday,’ Hugh said glumly. ‘It’s much better than that, it’s the one the gatekeeper was wearing. He won’t need it again.’
‘No,’ Simon said distastefully. There was an old tradition of taking a dead man’s clothes. It was perfectly in order, but Simon would have hated to feel the shirt of a dead man against his own flesh. ‘Have you seen anyone else yet?’
‘No. Think they’re all still drunk,’ Hugh said censoriously. ‘Not good to drink so much after something like that.’
It was true. The men had all sunk to the ground in exhaustion after the battle. None of Brian’s men were left alive to trouble the area, and the attacking force was utterly spent from danger, from terror and from exertion. It was a long while before Baldwin could command them to begin to haul all the bodies into the yard. One pile was formed of Brian and his men, the other of the men who had helped destroy them, and when all was done, Simon himself had gone to the church next door, and asked the priest to come and attend to the dying as well as the dead. He had been reluctant, apparently convinced that a band of marauding outlaws had descended upon his vill and intended making off with all his silver.
In the end, Simon gave up and sent for Roger Scut. In minutes the rotund figure appeared. He had been locked in the room in the gatehouse, and now he gazed along the length of his nose like a prelate who was trying to elevate his nostrils above the stench of the common folk, but then he saw the dead bodies and crossed himself. He then earned Simon’s undying respect by demanding to know where the wounded were, and before anything else he went to them, attempting, as best he could in his clumsy manner, to ease their pain.
They hadn’t been able to bury anyone. That would be the responsibility of the vill’s folk later, but Baldwin had been very insistent that Coroner Roger’s body should be taken away from the place. It was brought to the inn, and lay in a cool storeroom even now. Baldwin had taken on the role of Coroner, and recorded the details of the action with the help of Roger’s own clerk. There had been much else to clear and mend, and it had taken some time to track down the vill’s peasants and organise them into labour squads, removing the bodies from the yard when Roger Scut told them that they could.
Simon stretched. His left shoulder was painful where someone had clubbed him and his foot was intensely painful where he had strained the tendons, but bearing in mind how close he had come to being stabbed or shot, he felt he had escaped lightly.
‘Hugh…’
‘Sir?’
‘When we get home, remind me to give you five marks.’
‘Five?’ Hugh stared with his face quite blank for a moment. Then he sniffed, glanced up at the sun, and returned to his scrubbing. ‘That’s good. I can buy my wife a shirt.’
More than just a damned shirt, Simon thought. Five marks was probably more money than he had ever before possessed. ‘And Hugh, if you don’t want to come to Dartmouth, I’ll understand. You can stay at Lydford and look after things there.’
‘You mean that?’
‘I wouldn’t have said so otherwise,’ Simon said heavily. It would be a hard parting. Hugh had saved Simon from harm on several occasions, and although he was undoubtedly the surliest bugger of a servant whom Simon had ever met, he was still a companion of many years, and losing him would be a wrench.
He turned on his heel to walk away, but stopped when he heard the quiet reply.
‘Sir? Thank you, sir. My wife, she’ll be pleased.’
Later in the morning, Baldwin made his way back to the castle. From the very beginning he had thought it a tinderbox of petit treason and mutiny, but the knowledge that he had been proved correct gave him no satisfaction.
At the gate, he saw Sampson and Surval. The fool was fearful, gazing about him with wide, scared eyes, but Surval met Baldwin’s eyes with a steady gaze. ‘I heard that the Coroner died yesterday. Is that right?’
‘I am sorry to say that yes, it is.’
‘You sound as though you mean that, Sir Knight.’
‘I do. He was a good man and a good friend.’
‘Rare to hear someone say that about a Coroner.’
‘Roger was a rare man.’
Surval nodded thoughtfully. ‘Sir Baldwin, I have a mind to help you.’
‘That would be kind. How, though?’
‘You were seeking the body of Wylkyn. We can tell you where it is.’
‘That is curious. I found his body out on the moors, lying under a pile of rocks near a lime pit – is that what you were going to tell me?’
‘Yes.’ Surval frowned. ‘You found Wylkyn yourself?’
‘It was not difficult,’ Baldwin said. ‘Especially when I saw that there was a lime pit not far away. I think Esmon killed Wylkyn, and later decided to have the evidence of his murder removed. If it were not for the mutiny here, I should have sent for the body before now.’
‘Why should he do that – hide the body there?’
‘I believe he had convinced himself that he was justified in executing Wylkyn, because the fellow had murdered his own master, Sir Richard Prouse. That sort of killing, to a man like Esmon, would be intolerable. He thought an attack on one knight was the same as an attack on the whole class of knights. So he killed Wylkyn – and left the body where it lay. It was carrion, not to be given the dignity of a burial.’
‘But then he had it moved?’
‘Yes. He must have realised that the discovery of a corpse could be at best an embarrassment to him. So he had a change of mind and arranged to have it destroyed. No doubt he ordered that the body should be taken to the lime pit and disposed of.’
‘You think so?’ The hermit began to look edgy.
‘I do not come to accuse,’ Baldwin told him. ‘The body was carried to the pit, but then it was taken away again, by two men. It was put in a field and covered in stones to protect it from wild animals. And I shall tell you this: the men who took Wylkyn there not only buried him with compassion and generosity, they also sought to protect his soul. They crossed his arms over his breast, then placed a cross on them, and I expect they prayed for him.’
‘How would you reckon all this?’
‘I followed their trail. It was easy to follow them to the pit. Then they picked a resting-place that was not far away. I soon found him.’
‘But the praying?’
‘Someone had been there on the morning I visited. There was the shape of a man lying with his arms outstretched, Surval, in the dampness of the grass. And you pray on your belly like a saint of old.’
‘That is not proof.’
‘Did I say it was?’
‘Perhaps they didn’t believe in Wylkyn’s guilt.’
‘No,’ Baldwin said pensively. ‘Perhaps they didn’t. And then again, there are still the questions about the death of Mary. It was obviously not Mark. Who else could have wanted to kill her?’
Surval looked at him from under beetling brows. He gave a short sigh. ‘I want to help you, Sir Knight. I believe you are a good man, especially after hearing your words about Wylkyn’s body. I was near the road myself that day.’
‘You saw what happened?’ Baldwin said sharply.