‘Some of it. I saw Mark argue and then snap. He punched Mary on the shoulder, although not hard enough to hurt her, I’d have thought.’
‘Why didn’t you tell of this before?’ Baldwin asked suspiciously.
‘Many have heard of my offence, Sir Baldwin. Would it be safe for me to expose myself to suspicion by revealing to superstitious villeins that I was there? Once a murderer, always a murderer! No, I thought it better to hold my tongue.’
‘Even though Mark could have been executed?’ Baldwin demanded.
‘He was in no danger of that, Sir Baldwin, was he? He was a cleric – but me? No one believes a hermit is genuine. We are all supposed to be fraudsters, lazy vagabonds who have found an easy station.’
‘There was every danger!’ Baldwin snapped. ‘He was accused of being a false monk!’
‘I didn’t know,’ Surval objected. ‘Not then. If I had, I would have protected him. I would have told all I knew.’
Baldwin doubted that. Surval had not bothered to go to the court held in the castle, when Mark was accused, but then, he would have assumed that even after a murder, Mark would be protected by his cloth. It was logical. And Surval was speaking sense. His own risk was greater than Mark’s.
‘So what did you see?’
‘The whole thing,’ Surval said simply. ‘I saw Mark strike her, but not cruelly, not too hard. It wasn’t like when I hit my woman. That was malicious. My God! I was so evil! How could I have done that to someone I loved?’
‘Mark: he hit her?’
‘Yes. I saw it. The moment he’d done so, he raised his hands to his face in shame. Mary said nothing, just stared at him in shock. He must have felt awful, because he turned away and started weeping silently, and retching as if he was going to be sick, but instead, he simply ran from the place.’
‘And she was all right?’
‘Yes. Perfectly all right. She looked upset, but she wasn’t in pain or anything. A short time later, Sir Ralph appeared. I had been going to her side, but when I heard his horse, I stopped. He and I did not like each other. He spoke to her, and asked her how she fared. She was fine then. He left a little while later. Then I saw her put her hand on her belly, like any young mother, except there was a look of concern on her face. And she had grown pale, a little odd-looking – as if she felt giddy.’
‘What then?’
‘I cleared off. I was not of a mood to stand there watching her. I heard a noise, and when I investigated, I found Sampson. He had seen the argument and left just after Mark himself.’
‘So Sampson could not have killed her? You saw her alive and then saw him leaving the place?’
‘She was alive when Sampson left,’ Surval said with certainty.
‘Did you see anyone else?’
‘No. When I left, I could hear the plough still moving. That was all. I didn’t see anyone else.’
‘Why did you keep this secret until now, then? There is little in this to help us, and little enough to do you harm!’ Baldwin exclaimed. ‘This whole matter is ridiculous! Why does no one try to help find the girl’s killer?’
‘Because it hurts any vill to accept that a man within it could do such a wicked thing.’
There was a curious tone in the hermit’s voice. ‘What do you mean?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Do you have any idea who could have done this?’
‘I know Elias was in the field with Ben. I also know that no one else passed along the lane after Sir Ralph,’ Surval said. ‘Later, I saw Ben running down the roadway to get help. Elias remained.’
‘So?’
‘What if that little slap, the shock of his hand upon her – and, who knows, perhaps the thought that she had lost him? – made poor Mary lose her child? Perhaps she fell to the ground, whimpering and weeping, and Elias found her like that.’
‘What if he did?’
‘A young girl lying on the ground, the soil about her covered in her blood. It would look as though she had been attacked.’
‘Which is surely what Elias thought,’ Baldwin agreed.
‘Elias feels strongly that women should not be molested. He lost his own daughter because she was raped. She died slowly, because she had been kicked in the belly. Wouldn’t he think it kinder to kill her swiftly?’
Baldwin recalled seeing Elias with rabbits, how he stroked them to calm them before speedily breaking their necks. ‘So one could say that Mark did, in fact, kill her. If he hadn’t hit her and made her collapse, she might still be alive.’
‘And this terrible tale might have a different ending.’
‘You do not feel that Wylkyn killed his master?’
‘No. He would never have harmed Sir Richard. His whole endeavour was to help the poor man with his possets and potions.’
‘Then…’
‘I think Mark was keen to assist his father.’
‘Sweet Jesus! You mean this?’
‘I was there in the room. Mark was present for much of the time. Anyone could have gone into Wylkyn’s room to fetch powders or leaves, Mark the same as anyone. He knew his father was Sir Ralph, and he sought to further my brother’s interests. Perhaps he intended to tell Ralph what he had done, and try to claim benefits of some sort. Maybe seek patronage.’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘There is little a man like Mark would not do to improve his prospects, Sir Baldwin. I know that someone like you is immune to the lust of better offices, but for a political monk, what else is there? Especially when he is left in a backwater like this. What is more natural than that he should dream of halls of his own, of power and influence?’
‘So Esmon wrongly assumed that Wylkyn must have murdered Sir Richard, and sought to avenge the crime.’
‘Exactly.’
‘A terrible mess.’
‘Life often is, Sir Baldwin.’
‘True, my friend.’
‘You seem to feel the misery of other people, good sir.’
‘There are times,’ Baldwin said quietly, ‘when I feel that I carry the weight of too many men’s sins and grief on my shoulders.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
He found Simon sitting on a barrel near the mill, disconsolately throwing stones into the mill-leat. ‘Roger was a good man.’
‘Yes,’ Baldwin said. ‘I shall take his body to his widow as soon as I can make arrangements.’
Simon nodded and threw another stone into the river. ‘It seems as though the whole of my life has been turned upside down in the last few months. First my Lord Abbot’s decision that I should move to Dartmouth to live, then the news that my daughter has found herself a lover, and now poor Roger is dead. A friend who died trying to save us.’
‘I know. And the hardest knock is that I doubt whether we would have been in any danger if he and his men had not arrived when they did.’
‘That did surprise me. What made Brian take over the castle just then?’
‘I doubt he would have rebelled if it was not for the show of force at the gate. It made him feel insecure and he chose to protect himself as he knew how – by taking the place. If the rear wall had been secure, he might have held out for weeks.’
‘If he’d not bothered to fight, he’d still be alive now, and so would many others. Coroner Roger would only have arrested Sir Ralph and his son.’
‘Yes. Instead many died. And we still have an investigation to complete.’
‘Wylkyn?’
‘Yes. I know where his body lies.’
‘Under the pile of stones, of course. Then let’s fetch it.’
‘We cannot report it to Roger now. There is no one else here to whom we can give it.’
‘There is another Coroner who lives in Exeter, isn’t there?’
Baldwin sighed. ‘Yes. But think of it in this way, Simon. How much easier would it be, should this body be added to the toll from yesterday? Will it help any man to learn that the vill aided the concealment of a body? Or that an old man and a fool hid Wylkyn on the orders of Esmon of Gidleigh?’