‘What, run away?’ she said, her mouth falling open in astonishment. And then, cruelly, she couldn’t help but laugh at him.
‘Do you really think I’d give up my warm home, my tapestries, my tunics — my life — to run away with an impoverished steward? My God, Gervase, you must be mad! I lay with you, and mind you hear me carefully, I lay with you that time because I thought my husband might be dead. I was lonely and desperate, thinking that I might have lost my only protector, and sought another man who could look after me. The only man about here was you; there was no one else. I do not love you, Gervase. I don’t think I could. But if Nicholas was dead, I might have considered you as an alternative. That was all.’
‘Our child, though. He’s proof you love me.’
‘He’s proof that I lay with a man some months ago,’ she said dismissively. ‘If he is born early, I shall call in a midwife who’ll swear on her parents’ graves that the child is before full term and that I and the babe both need careful nursing. Nicholas will never guess. And you won’t tell him anything, Gervase.’ She stood and approached him slowly. ‘Because if you do, Nicholas will destroy you utterly. He’ll cut your ballocks off and stuff them in your mouth. So be very careful you keep your mouth sealed.’
‘I wouldn’t let news of this get out,’ he protested, but he was shivering like a man with the ague.
‘Be sure you don’t,’ she said, and then she faced him with a strange expression in her eyes. ‘Do you mean to say that it was you? Did you murder Athelina and Serlo to keep this all secret?’
He was too appalled to answer. Instead, his heart bleeding with shame, sadness and bitterness at the rejection of his love, he let his head hang, and turned his feet back towards the castle.
Chapter Twenty-Five
While Simon and Baldwin made their way to the alehouse, Sir Jules and Roger had already passed through the vill seeking the Constable at his home.
Letitia answered the door without enthusiasm when she saw who stood outside. ‘Coroner. Godspeed.’
‘Good wife, is your man at home?’
‘No, he’s …’ she glanced up towards the alehouse. ‘He’s gone out.’
‘Perhaps we could wait for him?’
‘He may be gone a long while,’ she said evasively. She had only this moment returned from church, where she had deposited Aumery with his mother. A few prayers with them had initially soothed her, but this fool’s appearance had unsettled her again. Where was her Alex? He wanted to see Richer dead, but please God, don’t let him have had the chance. Please let Richer have escaped back to the castle!
Sir Jules pursed his lips. ‘What would you say, Roger? Where can we seek the man?’
Roger smiled and bobbed his head at the woman, turning to gaze back down the track. ‘Perhaps he has gone to the church to see his sister-in-law?’
Nodding, Sir Jules led the way from the house. ‘We may also ask the woman Muriel whether she can help us.’
‘I am not sure that this would be a propitious time to speak to her.’ Roger was most reluctant to question a woman when she had just lost her husband as well as her son. The thought of interrupting her grief was sorely unpleasant.
‘I hardly like the thought myself,’ Jules said, demonstrating an empathy that surprised Roger. ‘But I’m the King’s man in this part of the county: I have two other corpses I should hold an inquest on, I’ve deaths here in this vill which I haven’t satisfactorily resolved, and there is news of Lord Mortimer’s escape! What must I do to return to Bodmin and normality? Clearly I must solve these cases to the best of my ability, and then take my leave.’
‘We should speak with the Constable first,’ Roger proposed.
‘If he’s at the church, we can do so. If not, the woman Muriel may know something. It is worth asking her. That is all I suggest — that we speak to her.’
‘You could be adding to a mother’s grief.’
‘You are a Coroner’s clerk, man! Aren’t you used to grief?’
Roger studied his master with the attitude of a gardener surveying a colony of slugs in his cabbages. ‘I have served as Coroner’s clerk these last many years, and I have observed all forms of misery, of loss, of injustice, of devastation. I’ve seen more mothers grieving for their children, more widows bemoaning the loss of husbands, more sisters missing their siblings, than you have ridden leagues. Do not think to preach to me my duties, Master Coroner. I know them all too well.’
‘Meaning you think I don’t?’ the Coroner bridled.
‘Meaning I don’t think it is yet right to intrude upon her sorrow.’
‘Well, I do,’ Sir Jules said firmly, and set off towards the church.
‘Like many a bull-headed fool, you have less blood in your heart than does your damned sword,’ the clerk muttered under his breath. ‘God save me from men like you if I should ever need compassion!’
The Coroner strode straight to the door like a man who sought to complete an unpleasant duty with as much speed as possible. Roger uttered a short prayer for Muriel before he entered, crossing his breast in the manner of a priest helping a man at the gallows.
Inside, the church smelled of blood. Although the vill’s women had tried to clean Serlo’s body as best they could, the mess at his skull was foul. Roger could see the little patches of white where flies’ eggs were already laid. Soon those heralds of putrefaction would hatch and begin the process of converting this corpse into dust as God demanded.
He knelt and bowed his head to the altar, crossing himself again, then stood and walked forward to the little group of people at the smaller body.
This, like Serlo’s, was lighted by candles, but the tiny corpse was saved from the ultimate degradation by women who fanned at approaching flies and kept them at bay while Muriel knelt at her boy’s side. Hamelin’s face was undamaged and he simply looked like a babe fast asleep.
Adam was with her, and he had a hand set upon her shoulder in much the way that a brother would. It was good, Roger thought, to see a priest who apparently believed in the vows of chastity. This man did not look the sort who, in other circumstances, might allow his hand to fall and fondle her thigh or buttocks. If anything, there was a hint of distaste in his face — but Muriel was not looking her best. Although she wore a clean dressing about her head, she appeared pale and unkempt. Today of all days she had taken no care with her looks, and no surprise. The poor woman was, as Roger had predicted, all but beside herself with grief.
Seeing Sir Jules, Aumery snivelled and grabbed hold of his mother’s skirts, as though he expected the knight to whip him like a cur from his path. The knight was an intimidating figure, without doubt, and as a lad even Roger would have been alarmed by such a tall, stern-faced man marching up to him. In Aumery’s case, the appearance of dread was increased by his silence. Tears ran down his face from his wide eyes, but he made no noise, as though so much pain had been piled on his shoulders that even death itself held little fear for him.
His mother looked up on feeling her son tug at her skirt, and followed his gaze. She stared at Sir Jules unblinking.
‘Good woman, I have to ask you about your husband. Do you know who killed him?’
Roger flinched at the sound of his voice. Usually Sir Jules was nervous in front of a crowd, but here, in among the women and children, he sounded like the worst chivalric bully. It little mattered that he felt deeply for Muriel, that he hated being here, that he loathed having to intrude on her grief: he felt it was his duty to demand answers, and so he would ask his questions.
‘You come here to hector me?’ Muriel asked hoarsely. ‘Leave me to my poor angel! He can’t be dead! He may wake yet. Look at him — he looks well enough. Perhaps he’s only sleeping.’ There was a panicked tone to her voice, as though she knew already that all hope was vain, but still she refused to admit defeat.