‘Which could be Lady Anne,’ Roger murmured thoughtfully. ‘She could have insisted that he leave any other women.’
‘Which is fine,’ Simon said, ‘but the child said that the castellan was guilty. That makes no sense. If Nicholas heard evil rumours, he might kill the adulterous couple, but why slaughter the mere witnesses?’
‘I only repeat the child’s evidence,’ Jules said haughtily.
‘You seriously tell us that this child, this infant, was a credible witness?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Enough for you to insult a man of Nicholas’s stature? I find that more than a little surprising.’
‘You are attracted to an abstract problem, Sir Baldwin,’ Jules said with some asperity. ‘This, for me, is a prosaic matter. We have bodies: a man and a woman and three children. These are issues of record. I am not interested in justice, my duty is to record the facts so that when the Justices of gaol delivery arrive, they can assess the guilt or innocence of the men put before them by the jury. All the time I am bogged down with this matter, I am missing others. Better by far that I should move on to the next. Especially while a traitor to the King is wandering the countryside.’
‘So you will blacken the good castellan’s name in front of his lord’s peasants so that you can run off and look at other matters?’ Baldwin asked silkily. ‘Not to mention causing untold problems at the castle. What if Nicholas has no idea of the adultery of his wife? What if she is not guilty of adultery and these rumours are nothing more than that?’
‘You say that, when both those who witnessed the steward and the lady rutting in the meadow are now dead? Surely it is this secret which is being concealed at the cost of so much death.’
Baldwin rolled his eyes. ‘God save me from logical Coroners! Good Christ in Heaven, man. Two people saw Lady Anne lying with Gervase; the two people have been murdered — therefore they were killed because Lady Anne lay with Gervase. It is the same as saying this moth has wings; birds have wings therefore this moth is a bird. It is not logical.’
‘You may not think so, but I disagree. I think it makes good sense, so I shall call my inquest now and finish the job.’
Baldwin licked his lips. ‘Please, give me a little more time before you take this action. It is too drastic. I require another day to find the truth.’
‘A whole day? Keeper, it’s impossible.’
Baldwin glanced at Simon. ‘At least talk with me for a little while. We can discuss the actual amount of time we have. Please, let me buy you a cup of wine to talk it through?’
Sir Jules threw a harassed look at Roger, who nodded encouragingly. Then, ‘Oh, very well, Sir Baldwin, but only one drink!’
When Nicholas suddenly strode from the room, Anne could see that something had upset him, and she had an unpleasant suspicion that he had read her look. She rose, sweeping away from Gervase, who had tried to engage her in conversation again, and rushed after her husband.
He had made his way to the solar, and had gone up to their bedchamber. He stood there now, head bowed, staring at their bed.
‘My love?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Was it here, in my own bed?’ he asked in a broken voice, and she felt her heart die and shrivel.
‘My love, I …’
‘Don’t lie to me! I saw your expression in the room down there. I should have guessed before, but you’ve always made yourself appear so loving that no hint of betrayal ever occurred to me. But I should have known. Why should a woman so young, so …’ he choked on the word. ‘So lovely! Why should you look at a grizzled old captain like me? Anne, I know it’s Gervase’s baby, not mine. Just tell me truthfully: did you pollute my bed as well as your body when you whored for him?’
‘I did not.’ She set her features into a steady, calm expression and sat on the edge of their tester bed. ‘I couldn’t. That would have been disloyal.’
‘Disloyal! Madam, how much less loyal could you have managed? By St Peter’s bones, are you mad, or just taunting me? Are you a mere common stale, ready for any tarse in the castle? Have you fucked the guards as well as Gervase? Why stop there? Perhaps you sought the ostlers too — or the scavengers?’
‘Husband, please, listen to me,’ she said with a break in her voice.
She could feel her breast squeezing tighter and tighter as he spoke, spittle flying from his lips, pacing up and down the small chamber. He might harm himself, and it would all be her fault. It was all her fault. ‘Husband, please …’
‘I am no husband to you, woman. You are a whore, and the sooner you leave here, the better.’
‘Please, Nicholas, don’t do this to me,’ she whispered feebly. She felt weak, panicked and full of tension. Her very scalp seemed to tighten.
‘Think what you have done to me! You have betrayed me, betrayed any love we had for each other. Christ Jesus! I should draw steel and end your life now!’
He put his hand to his sword-hilt, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the blow to fall, but then she heard his grunt of contempt. ‘Open your eyes, whore! What do you want of me? More pain? You can wait for that. I shall have my revenge on you and him.’
‘What of my revenge?’ she whispered.
‘Yours?’ he sneered, and then his face hardened like rock. ‘You mean he raped you?’
‘I was betrayed by a man,’ she said. ‘He said he loved me, and then he left me for months, and I had no idea what had become of him. I loved him, but he was gone without a message to tell me he was alive. What was I to do?’
‘Remain chaste and honourable. That was what you were supposed to do,’ he grated.
‘My father left me, Husband. He never came back. And when we heard that he was dead, my mother died too, and I was an orphan. I was thrown from my vill, because there was not enough food to fill even one useless mouth. All I could do was walk, and I was taken in by a man — to live the most demeaning life I could imagine. I swore, when I left that place, that I would rather die than return. And then,’ she stood, walking to him slowly, ‘I found a man who loved me as much as I loved him. I loved, adored, worshipped him, and when I thought he might be dead, it was as though my father had died again, and I was forced to imagine life without him. I began to have dreams of returning to that hell-hole, where any man could buy me. Can you imagine what that made me feel? A whore. Yes, I was a whore. My honour gone, my shame permanent. Do you condemn me for trying to escape that?’
‘You should have waited for news.’
‘There was no news. You sent no message in months!’
‘You should have kept faith, woman! You should have trusted me, trusted our master!’
‘I suppose he would have taken the time to write to a woman who was merely the wife of a captain in his host,’ she said with a sneer in her voice.
‘And then, when I came home, you dragged me to your bed as though to prove your desire for me, when all you intended was to hide the fatherhood of your baby!’
‘No! I swear that’s not true! Husband, please believe me when I say that I love you, and I was so delighted that you returned, I was overwhelmed. I had to take you to my bed immediately.’
‘To the bed where you lay with him.’
‘No. Believe me, I-’
‘I can’t believe you!’ he shouted. ‘All you say is false!’
‘I still love you. Please, for my sake, for our child’s sake …’
‘Damn you, and damn it!’ he blurted, and as she put out a hand to him, he first knocked it aside, and then clenched his fist and swung it at her belly.
‘Masters? I have a message for Father Adam. Do you know where I can find him?’
Simon was squatting and throwing stones at a twig when the fellow arrived.