The first man tilted his hat up as he reached them, peering at the peasants intently before turning his attention on Simon and Baldwin.
He was a tall man, his shoulders slightly bowed, and he had a narrow, hawk-like face, with high cheekbones and a thin gash of a mouth. The eyes in his browned face were very dark; there was a ferocity in them that Simon found intimidating. It was perhaps because the man rarely blinked, which gave him a strangely reptilian aura.
This man studied Simon for some moments, then turned and subjected Baldwin to the same slow survey, before snapping out a question. Baldwin knew some Castilian and a little Galician, but he wanted to ensure that there was no room for misunderstanding. He looked at the priest and spoke in Latin. Simon knew that language from his studies, but Baldwin and the priest spoke so swiftly that he found it difficult to keep up. The priest translated to the inquisitor, listened to the reply, and translated that to Baldwin, who responded and pointed to the girl witness who had remained behind with them.
There was much shaking of heads as the inquisitor spoke to her. Soon her companion, the girl who had fetched him, was brought to the front and he questioned the two together, then the peasant men, all of whom now appeared obsequious, a fact which confirmed Simon’s belief that this was the local investigator or judge.
The man nodded at last as if he was content with all he had heard, and crouched at the head of the body. As he did so, a cloud of flies rose from the corpse and he waved them away irritably, pulling out an orange from his scrip and holding it beneath his nose.
Baldwin, Simon saw, was watching him with interest, and even as the man rose to his feet and stood over the body, Baldwin was already staring farther off, in the direction of the water. ‘We should go and look at the trail there,’ he said to Simon. ‘I should like to see whether there are any signs in the mud at the side of the water. Perhaps this woman or her murderer stood or struggled on the bank.’
The investigator gave him a piercing look, as though he had interrupted his thoughts, then spoke to the cleric, who sighed and translated again for Baldwin. Baldwin replied in Latin, and the investigator walked carefully around the body, gazing at the ground nearer the water. At last, after staring concentratedly for some while at something, he looked up and motioned to Baldwin.
Simon walked with his friend and found that the investigator was pointing at a large stone lying near the riverbank. It lay on a piece of mud, looking entirely out of place, as though a man had tossed it towards the water, but missed by some feet. If there were any doubts that this was the murder weapon, the smears of blood all over it dispelled them.
‘The murderer killed her, then chucked the rock back here,’ the Bailiff murmured.
‘I expect he intended to hurl it into the river,’ Baldwin nodded.
The two were so involved in their observations that they had momentarily forgotten the Galicians with them. Now the investigator spoke again.
‘So, Senors, you were right to think of the mud at the water’s edge.’
‘Yes,’ Baldwin said, and there was a faint smile on his face as he turned to the man. ‘I congratulate you on your English.’
‘Scarcely a surprise that I should speak English,’ responded the tall man with a sniff. ‘I studied at Oxford.’
The body was soon loaded on the door and carried to the cart. Then, while the crowd watched, the investigator spoke rapidly to the clerk, who had installed himself at the cart, and who scratched with a reed at scraps of parchment which had been bound together with a thong to make a thick bundle. When he was done, the investigator returned to Baldwin.
‘Senors, I am called Munio. I am one of the six pesquisidores of Compostela. You would call me an “enquirer” in English, I think. I must investigate this death.’ He added with a humourless smile, ‘You agree that she would not have killed herself like this? Please, your names?’
When the two had told him who they were and explained that they were pilgrims, he held out a hand for their letters of testimoniales. Glancing at them, he read for a few moments before passing them back. ‘You are welcome, but I am sorry that your pilgrimage should have ended in so sad a manner. Did you see or hear anything?’
Simon explained how he had been disturbed by the screams of the two girls and that he and Baldwin had rushed here to offer aid.
‘You appear interested in the matter,’ Munio said. ‘It is not often that a man suggests where the pesquisidores should look.’
Simon could see that the man retained some suspicion of them, and he began to simmer with annoyance at this affront, but even as he opened his mouth to complain, Baldwin put a restraining hand on his forearm.
‘Senor, in our own country we are both very experienced in looking into homicides. I am a Keeper of the King’s Peace in Devonshire and often sit as a Justice of Gaol Delivery, while my companion here is a Bailiff of the King’s Stannary in Dartmoor under Abbot Robert of Tavistock. We often work together in order to secure the punishment of murderers.’
‘I see.’ Munio drew in a breath and stared about him. ‘If you can assist me in this matter, I would be glad. These peasants do not recognise her face — I doubt she would recognise herself. But they do not know this dress either. Perhaps she was a pilgrim. Is she known to you?’
Baldwin and Simon exchanged a look. They had not seen this woman before. Both shook their heads slowly, and Munio sighed. ‘As I feared. It is hard to find a killer when the victim is not known. He could be a man desperate for a woman, could be unknown to her. Mere random death.’
Simon had listened, but now he shot a look back at the body and spoke up boldly. ‘I don’t think so. I’ve never seen a body mutilated like that before. It’s as if someone killed her in a frenzy — someone who went berserk. Perhaps a jealous lover, striking her in return for a rejection? Or someone who wanted to conceal her identity?’
Baldwin nodded but he felt there was another possible explanation. ‘In a city like this, where there are so many pilgrims, one might have decided to attack a woman to satisfy his desires. Perhaps it was another pilgrim who travelled here with the victim?’
‘You think to accuse yourselves?’ Munio said with a faint smile. ‘But perhaps you are right. Perhaps one of the many pilgrims here became overwhelmed with the urge to possess a woman, and this is the result.’
‘She rejected his advances,’ Simon pointed out. ‘Those scrapes on her hand — they look like marks made when she tried to defend herself.’
Munio nodded slowly.
‘The peasants saw no one?’ Baldwin enquired.
‘No.’
Baldwin looked at them. When he and Simon had run here, they had passed no one. There had been no peasants, nor any other travellers. ‘We dozed in the sun before we heard the girls’ screams. It is possible that another man or men passed us while we slept.’
‘Si! So the murderer could have returned to the city.’
‘Yes,’ Baldwin said, but his mind was playing through the scene before him. A man had come here, molested the woman and killed her. ‘Perhaps she walked here with the murderer. You should ask at the gates whether the keepers remember a woman dressed like this, and whether she walked alone.’
‘I shall have it done.’
‘And if he killed her here,’ Baldwin said pensively, walking back to the body on the cart, ‘it must have come as a surprise to her, for there is little sign of a struggle.’
‘Only the scrapes on her hand.’
Baldwin nodded vaguely, but he was already exposing the woman’s forearms. ‘And here, on the underside of her forearm,’ he said.
‘Si. What of it?’
Baldwin stared down at the arms. ‘Perhaps nothing, but her assailant may have been unsure — nervous, perhaps — because it means that she was not killed with the first blow, but was able to hold up her hands and defend herself.’