Simon waved to the waitress and poured more wine as Parceval’s eyes streamed with tears.
‘God in heaven! How could he do that, eh?’
‘It was your daughter?’ Simon asked in a hushed voice.
Parceval nodded, sniffing. ‘And I killed him. What would you have done? I struck him down like a rabid dog. Like a demon. He was evil, though. He had already given me a mortal blow. And that, my friend,’ he choked, trying to recover himself, ‘was the most powerful man in Ypres at the time, a knight and son of a knight. So don’t tell me that a knight is incapable of rape and murder.’
Munio returned late in the afternoon, and when he saw Simon sitting out in the front of the house, he gave one of his slow smiles.
‘When my wife told me that you were much better, I hardly dared to hope that you would be so greatly recovered,’ he said. ‘Are you sure that you are quite well enough to be up and in the open? Perhaps you should stay indoors, away from dangerous airs?’
‘No, I think that the open air is better for me, thank you,’ Simon said, but his mind was elsewhere, and Munio could see his distraction.
‘My friend, are you still in pain?’ he asked solicitously.
Simon’s brows rose in surprise. ‘Me? No, I’ve a few aches, but nothing more than that. Why do you ask?’
‘You seemed to be thinking of other things, and I wondered …’
‘Ah, no. It was just a conversation I held this afternoon with that strange fellow Parceval the Fleming.’
‘I have heard that he is keeping the Prioress,’ Munio said with a stiff air. ‘She appears to have forgotten her vows. It is strange, is it not? She spent so much time after arriving here trying to conceal her affair, and yet now she is living with that man so openly that even I, the Pesquisidor, have come to hear about it.’
Simon had given the matter of Dona Stefania and Parceval a great deal of thought. Alone in this city, lonely and adrift, he felt he understood the Dona’s feelings perfectly.
‘She arrived here with men, a maid, and money. All is gone. She must feel that her life has been turned upside-down. For a woman like her, what could be more natural than that she should turn to the only friend she has? She probably doesn’t fully realise how obvious her sins have become. Do you think the Bishop has heard of it?’
‘Not necessarily. He doesn’t trouble himself much about the town.’
‘Yet there must be a risk. It seems odd that she should have exposed herself to it. Why not merely go home: her Priory is not far, is it?’
‘No,’ Munio said. ‘But if all her money was stolen when her maid was killed …’
‘That is the other problem I keep returning to,’ Simon said. ‘Where is the money? What has happened to it? If a thief had stolen so much, I should expect to hear about it. Is there no man in the town who has been said to have spread libras around?’
‘There is nobody who has apparently received a marvellous gift, no,’ Munio said.
‘I do not understand it,’ Simon said, his face reverting to his scowl again. ‘Why should someone steal the money only to hide it away? Merely to keep it secret until it can be used and flaunted safely? That time may never come!’
For a moment he felt as though someone with greater intelligence and less confusion was hammering at the back of his mind, but the sensation faded, and he resorted to glaring at the view as though daring it to continue to hide the truth from him.
Baldwin jumped from the boat into the shallow sea with a grunt of relief. He turned to wave his gratitude, picked up his meagre pack, and started off up the loose sandy incline towards the houses.
‘I am beginning to feel that all I have done this year is travel,’ he muttered.
‘This year? Extraordinary. Myself, I feel as though travel is all I have been doing since my lord died.’
‘Aye, and before that,’ Paul added.
Baldwin grinned at Sir Charles. The knight and his man still had their horses. A knight would not allow his horseflesh to be taken until he had lost absolutely everything else bar his sword. The mounts shivered and tossed their heads, glad to be free of the ship and the stinking reek from the hold. Patting Sir Charles’s horse on its neck, Baldwin said, ‘And yet you decided to come back here with me?’
‘It is difficult to deny that your companionship, as an Englishman, would be more attractive to me than …’
‘A stranger from Portugal?’
‘Afonso was no stranger,’ Sir Charles corrected him. ‘In fact, he saved my life once, and I had grown quite fond of him in the last few months. But when all is said and done, he is determined to be a monk and take the three vows. Now, forgive me for being a rather conventional knight, but I never saw the harm in wine, women and song; the three, sadly, are not to my friend Afonso’s taste.’
‘What will you do now?’
Sir Charles’s expression did not seem to change, but a certain grimness came into his eyes. ‘I am an Englishman. I am unhappy away from my own lands. I think it is time that I rediscovered my own country. Perhaps I should return home.’
Paul shot him a look. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Paul, where else can we go? We speak no other language apart from a smattering of French, and wherever we stop we appear to have enemies. At least in England we can comprehend the insults being thrown at us.’
Baldwin had not asked them in whose service they had lived. During the four-day voyage up the coast, he had not felt the need. Their dialect and accents spoke of the North Country, and from the amount of time that they had been travelling, it was clear to him which magnate they must have served.
‘There are some in the West who would be glad of two strong men-at-arms, if you can find no other service to your taste,’ he said.
‘You interest me strangely,’ Sir Charles said, glancing down at his stained and worn tunic ruefully. ‘Any man who can introduce me to a lord who possesses a good tailor would earn my undying friendship. You could name your own price.’
‘I only have one question remaining now,’ Baldwin said. They had reached the grass, and now they climbed the steep pathway up the cliffs, leading their horses. The wind whipped about them and they must grip their hats to stop them from being snatched away in a gust. ‘Who killed that woman, and why?’
‘The maid?’ Sir Charles looked blank.
‘Herself.’
‘An odd death, that. I saw her body in the square when she was brought in and thought to myself, Where is the man who could do that!’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ Baldwin asked, stopping on the path.
‘Just this. If a man had raped her, he’d stab her or throttle her to silence her, but I’ve never seen anyone smash a woman’s face about like that before. If he found her attractive, he’d never wreck her like that, would he? No. I thought at the time — still do — that it was more likely that another woman killed her. Through jealousy, perhaps.’
‘She was raped,’ Baldwin pointed out somewhat caustically.
‘So? Some women have friends and companions who may be tempted,’ Sir Charles said lightly.
Baldwin was about to comment when he stopped. Was it possible that there had been two people involved in Joana’s murder?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Simon had no idea that Baldwin was almost home when he took to his bed that night. He lay back on the mattress, feeling the finer points of straw scratching at his back like tiny needles, and sighed contentedly. There was a pleasing odour of herbs, and the bed was a good quality one, with a rope-slung mattress; he felt enormously comfortable, and his body was soon overtaken by a delicious lassitude. Closing his eyes, he was aware of a wonderful sensation of slipping away, as though he was falling through the bed and down, to be swallowed up by the earth.
No. There was something alarming about that. He opened his eyes again and stared up at the ceiling. It was made of bare poles of saplings, with the thatching looking as though it was haphazardly thrown on top and bound in place. Now, in the darkness, he reckoned it looked like a strange forest, in the same way that the idle mind can see faces in clouds on a summer’s day. Especially after a pint or two of strong cider.