Yet it remained as fresh and vivid as ever in the mind.
Even viewed from a distance, it had been horrific.
‘It was hideous!’ recalled Gervase.
‘I still shake at the very thought of it,’ said Golde.
‘Hardly the best welcome for a bishop,’ said Ralph drily.
‘Can my lord Bertrand still be alive?’ she asked.
‘Apparently, my love. The doctor is still with him. I managed to grab a brief word with the sheriff but he would not let me into the room to see the patient.’
‘Would you want to see him in that state?’
‘I’d want to ask him how he came by his injuries.’
‘He seemed to have been beaten close to death,’ said Gervase. ‘Who could hate him enough to do that?’
‘There is one obvious suspect,’ said Ralph.
‘Who is that?’
‘My lord Wymarc.’
‘No,’ said Gervase thoughtfully. ‘I doubt if this is his work. When the fury was really on him, he came after Bertrand Gamberell but not to batter him like that. He would have killed him outright.’
‘Death might have been more merciful, Gervase.’
Golde shuddered. ‘No mercy was shown to him today.’
‘There is another thing,’ said Gervase. ‘If my lord Wymarc had delivered this beating, he would hardly have sent his victim back to the sheriff with his signature all over him. That would render him liable to instant arrest.’
‘True,’ agreed Ralph.
‘When I spoke with him, my lord Wymarc was more preoccupied with grief than with revenge. This deed must be laid at someone else’s door.’
‘It is one step short of murder,’ observed Golde.
‘A dire warning, my love.’
‘Of what?’
‘We shall see. But one crime has been solved.’
‘What is that?’
‘The theft of Hyperion. It is no accident that Bertrand Gamberell came in stark naked on his black stallion. There was a message in that. Whoever assaulted him must also have stolen his horse.’
‘It looks that way,’ said Gervase.
‘What other explanation is there?’
‘I do not know, Ralph, but the timing seems strange. Why steal a man’s horse, keep it hidden for days and only then set upon him? It does not feel right.’
‘Neither does poor Bertrand!’
They were in the apartment shared by Ralph and Golde. In their separate ways, each was disturbed by what they had seen. Golde was horrified, Gervase filled with compassion for the victim and Ralph obsessed with finding out the exact nature of his injuries in the belief that they themselves might be clues which would lead to the assailant. None of them was even thinking about the banquet they were due to attend that evening. Bertrand Gamberell had deprived every guest in the castle of his appetite.
‘We can cross one name off our list,’ said Gervase.
‘Yes,’ consented Ralph. ‘Bertrand is not our man. He is a victim himself. He was always an outsider on the list but had to be considered.
That still leaves us four names to play with, Gervase. Can one of them really be responsible for all the crimes committed here?’
Gervase was pensive. Doubts crowded in upon him.
‘I am not so certain,’ he said at length.
‘Why?’
‘This latest incident breaks the pattern.’
‘What pattern?’
‘All the other events fit together.’
‘This is linked to them somehow.’
‘No, Ralph. I think not.’
‘It must be.’
‘The man who killed Walter Payne was not the one who attacked Bertrand Gamberell. Why murder a knight yet only hand out a beating to his master?’
‘Only!’ exclaimed Golde. ‘Did you see him?’
‘It was a savage assault,’ said Gervase, ‘and that is what makes it so different. The assassin was quick and decisive in his work. That beating took time and deliberation.’
‘Not to mention strength,’ added Ralph. ‘Bertrand is in his prime. It would not have been easy to overpower him.’
‘He may have been taken unawares.’
‘And set upon by more than one assailant.’
‘Please do not go on about it,’ implored Golde. ‘I keep seeing that horse trotting into the castle with a bleeding carcass across its back.
It was horrendous!’
‘We did not mean to distress you, my love,’ said Ralph. ‘Nothing can be done until we hear from Bertrand himself. He will name his attackers.’
Covered by a sheet, Bertrand Gamberell lay on a bed while the doctor bent over him. The patient was still unconscious. His body had been washed clean and the flow of blood stemmed with heavy bandaging but there were limits to the physician’s skill. He could do nothing to hide the revolting ugliness of a face which had been smashed to a pulp. The nose was broken, the eyes blackened, the lips swollen dramatically. The chin was one huge glowing bruise.
Baldwin the Doctor stood back with a sigh of sympathy.
‘That is all I can do for him, my lord sheriff.’
‘Will he survive?’
‘Yes. But only because he is young and strong. Most men would have died from such a beating.’
Robert d’Oilly smouldered. ‘The villain who did this will rot in my dungeon!’ he vowed. ‘I will never forgive him for the way he humiliated me in front of the bishop. Bertrand’s wounds demand a heavy punishment for the rogue but I have my own wounds to salve as well!’
As he washed his hands, Baldwin was tentative.
‘There is one person who must, alas, be suspect here.’
‘I know,’ said the other grimly, ‘and I have already sent men to arrest Wymarc. If this is his work, he will regret it for the rest of his days.’
‘He was deeply upset by his sister’s suicide.’
‘That is no excuse.’
‘It may be part of the explanation, my lord sheriff.’
‘I want no explanations. I seek revenge!’
Robert d’Oilly paced the little chamber like a caged lion. Planned with so much care and arranged with such precision, the lavish welcome for the Bishop of Coutances had been turned into a spectacle of sheer horror, and the sheriff knew that the King would hear of the outrage in due course. It would be one more stain on a shrievalty which had already been blackened enough that week. Reputation was everything to d’Oilly. He was eager to retrieve his lost respect.
When the patient stirred, the sheriff darted across.
‘Bertrand!’ he hissed. ‘Can you hear me, Bertrand?’
‘Do not harass him,’ advised the doctor.
‘I need to speak to him.’
‘He may not recover for hours yet.’
‘Can you not administer something to revive him?’
‘I have given him a healing elixer.’
‘I want him awake now.’ The sheriff took the patient by the shoulder and shook him. ‘Bertrand! Talk to me, man!’
Baldwin protested feebly but his words went unheard. The sheriff could wait no longer. His urgency eventually brought a response.
Gamberell groaned with pain as he was jostled. His lids half opened, his eyes mere slits in dark sockets.
‘Who did this to you, Bertrand?’ asked d’Oilly.
‘Leave him be, my lord sheriff,’ whispered the doctor.
‘Who did this?’
Bertrand Gamberell looked up at the face hovering over him. Searing pain shot through him and he convulsed in agony.
‘Who was it?’ pressed the sheriff.
Gamberell saw the two men with staves in his mistress’s bedchamber. He felt the first vicious blows all over again. He could still hear the woman’s screams and her husband’s loud exhortations.
The ordeal returned.
‘Who was he, Bertrand?’
‘I do not know,’ he said.
Then he lapsed back into unconsciousness.
Ordgar adjusted the brooch on his mantle then reached for his small, pointed cap and pulled it over the silver locks. He was in his finest garb for the banquet at the castle. Bristeva would see her father consorting with the most important men in the county. Proud of her, he wanted his daughter to take an equal pride in him.