“Harold!” she cried, suddenly scared.
“She thought Agatha was a witch, she said. She said the old woman could help her to have a strong baby. I didn’t think she was right, but I wanted her to be happy, so I agreed. I held her horse for her while she went to the witch’s house, and I waited until she came back. But when she was there, she looked sort of smug, and I knew something was wrong!
“Then she told me. She said she’d bought a draught and our baby would die. She’d always promised me we’d live together, that we’d run away to her family in Gascony, where her husband wouldn’t dare to come for us, and when she said she had gone there to drink a mixture that would kill our baby, I was horrified.”
“What did you do, Harold?” asked Simon, angrily cutting off the sudden attempt at interruption by the woman, who now sat with her magnificent eyes wide in her horror as she stared at Greencliff, shaking her head slowly from side to side.
“I tried to talk her out of the idea, tried to tell her we’d be all right, that we could get away and we’d be safe in Gascony, but she just laughed, and that was when she told me she’d already taken the potion. It was too late! She said that I was mad if I thought she was going to leave a wealthy husband to live the life of a pauper in another land. She rode off, and I was sort of struck dumb. Well, I had to do something, so I went to the inn and had a drink. I was mad, furious about the witch taking away my child. She’d killed him, sure as anything, because if she’d not given Angelina the mixture, she could have had our child.”
“Harold!” she murmured softly with a catch in her voice. He ignored her.
“Well, I hadn’t been there for long when a friend arrived, frozen from the weather. He had not expected it to be so cold and had left his surcoat behind. When he saw what sort of a state I was in, he asked what was the matter, and I admitted to him what had happened, and he said that I should see the witch and make sure she kept her silence, otherwise she could make great trouble for me and for Angelina. I still hoped that she might change her mind, you see, and thought that if we could make sure that there was no gossip about us, she might decide to come back to me.
“We left straight away. It didn’t take long to get to the old hag’s place, and when we got there we went in…‘
“Who went in first?” said Simon, frowning intently.
After a moment’s consideration, he said, “Me. I went inside while he saw to his horse, and the… She was on the floor, covered in blood. The dog, this dog, was on the floor by her head, whining. I think he had been hurt too. That was when I realised… Well, I thought…‘
“You thought Mrs. Trevellyn had killed old Kyteler to keep her mouth silenced permanently, didn’t you?” The boy nodded dumbly. “And you immediately thought that she must be suspected as the murderess?”
“Yes, I thought that if the body was found there, there would be bound to be an inquiry, and someone may have seen her going there and then what chance would she have? They would be bound to guess it was her, and I didn’t want that. So I sent my friend away, and took the body to hide it. My friend, he was…‘ His voice trailed off uncertainly.
“You might as well tell us it all. Your friend will not be hurt for trying to protect you,” said Baldwin.
“I think he was sure that I must have killed the old woman. He thought I had done it while he was seeing to the horse. When he came in, he saw the body and stared at me, saying, ”Why, Harold? There was no need to kill her!“ He was very shocked. Anyway, he left me, shocked, and I took her body back to my house. It was too dark to do anything with her that night; the earth was solid, I would never have been able to bury her, so I was going to hide her the next morning. Then I went back to the inn as if nothing had happened. He was in Wefford, and I met him on the way, so we entered together. Next morning, when I was going to hide her somewhere in the woods, old Cottey arrived and found her before I could, and that was when you were called.”
“I see,” said Simon, frowning as he concentrated. “And what of the night when Alan Trevellyn died?”
“I bad been trying to see Angelina ever since the day that old Kyteler had died, but she always refused. Then my friend managed to get a note to her, and he told me we could meet. He came with me through the snow and when we saw her, he left me to speak with her alone. I swear I didn’t see Alan Trevellyn. Or kill him. I spoke with Angelina and tried to persuade her to come away with me, but she laughed at me. She told me she would never leave her husband while he was alive and told me to leave her alone.”
“Then what?”
“I went back home and tried to sleep. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t. I just kept thinking of her and how my life would be. I couldn’t face it. Knowing I would be always seeing her in the village, or out in the fields and the woods, it made me sick to think of it. So I decided I must leave. I decided to go to Gascony without her. At least there I could forget her and start a new life. I packed some things and went. I went… Well, you know the rest.”
Simon was nodding. Certainly it matched the facts that they had so far managed to piece together. Shooting a look at the woman, he said, “Well?”
She started. For the last few minutes she had seemed to lose herself in her thoughts, staring into the fire roaring close by. “Yes? Oh, I suppose it’s true. It is how I remember it. But I didn’t know it at the time. After I had been to see that old hag, when I heard she had been found dead, I was sure that it must have been Harold who killed her. Especially when I heard that she was found in his field. It was obvious. I was scared to see him after that. I thought he might try to kill me. That was why I insisted that he came without a weapon when he came to see me.”
“You insisted he came without a weapon?” Simon said.
Greencliff said, “Yes. She took my dagger and gave it to my friend before we met. She refused to see me alone while I had my dagger with me.”
Simon leaned back in his seat, both hands on the table top, and stared wide-eyed at the youth. For a moment he was silent, but then he spoke with a voice slow and deliberate. “When did you get it back? When did your friend give you your dagger back?”
“My ballock knife? When we left the Trevellyn house, I suppose. Oh, no. No, he must have set it down at my house. That’s right, I found it on the floor in the house when I was packing. He must have put it there for me.”
“Tell me one last thing. This friend, it was Stephen de la Forte, wasn’t it?”
The misery in his eyes was plain to see as the boy answered simply, “Yes.”
After they had checked the story to make sure that they understood it, Baldwin told Tanner to hold both Green-cliff and Mrs. Trevellyn at Furnshill, and then led the way out. Simon and he quickly donned thick jackets and cloaks. The bailiff also grabbed a woollen scarf which he wrapped round his neck before tugging on his gloves. Then he went back to the hall to see his wife before leaving. Having given her a hug, he turned, and caught a glimpse of Baldwin.
He was standing by the doorway, and Mrs. Trevellyn had crossed to his side, as if expecting to receive a similar farewell to that which Simon and his wife had exchanged. It felt as if his heart would stop when Simon saw the knight look at the woman without recognition, only to turn dismissively on his heel and make his way to the front door. Not from sympathy for the woman, but because he could see how much his friend was hurt at the story he had just heard. As if recognising the knight’s despair, the thin figure of the black and brown dog followed at his heels.
Outside, Edgar was already mounted on his horse, and Hugh stood nearby, holding Baldwin’s and Simon’s. They swung up, took their reins, and made their way down the driveway towards the lane. The dog followed behind as, once on the road, they turned their faces to the south and set off to Wefford.