But his sneers were silenced when Hal screamed out in a piercing voice: ‘Help! Help! God help us! Murder!’
Baldwin and Simon were almost at his side when he dropped to his hands and knees and vomited onto the grass.
The carpenter was dead. No one could doubt that as soon as they peered inside Wymond’s tent out near the hill in the tilting field.
It was a small pavilion with two cheap palliasses on the floor at the rear of the tent. All about was mess. Leather gloves and aprons lay where the carpenter had dropped them, while pots and a small barrel leaked wine. The place reeked of it, quite concealing the other odours until Simon drew near the mattress on which Wymond lay.
Wymond lay face uppermost, his body part-wrapped in a dirty blanket. Simon took one look at the filthy red-brown stains on the palliasse and covering and looked away, his belly rebelling.
‘I thought he was asleep. He often overslept if he’d been drinking, and when I woke I could smell all the wine. I just thought I’d leave him to lie in a while. It never occurred to me that he wasn’t all right, not until just now when I came in and shouted at him to get up, pulled the blanket from him… My God, and I slept here all night! I slept beside his corpse!’ Hal broke off and shoved his fist in his mouth. ‘Holy Mother Mary, help me!’
Baldwin pushed Hal out of the way and strode in, crouching at the side of the corpse. Gazing about him, he barked, ‘This is your tent as well, Hal?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hal said. He turned away from the corpse, weeping silently. ‘I slept here last night. My Christ! I was on my palliasse and I thought he was fine. He was fine! God’s bollocks, who could have done this?’
‘Calm down and shut up,’ Simon snapped. ‘How do we know it wasn’t you!’
‘Me?’ Hal sobbed. ‘How could I kill him?’
‘Simon,’ Baldwin called, ‘there is no sign of a weapon, but this man was savagely attacked. His head is broken.’
Simon was silent a moment. ‘His hammer?’
‘Is not here,’ Baldwin said, standing. ‘As far as I can see, there’s no stab wound. He was killed by having his head viciously smashed – but I can’t see clearly in here.’ He pointed to three interested men who were loitering nearby. ‘Bring him out and place him on the grass.’
The men reluctantly approached and dragged the body out on its palliasse.
‘My heavens!’ Mark Tyler declared. ‘The poor devil.’
Baldwin remained inside for some minutes, crouched to study the trampled grass minutely, seeking any clue as to the murderer.
Outside, Simon’s feelings of complacency were gone, replaced by a mixture of anxiety and anger: anxiety because a murder had been committed, and that would be bound to reflect upon him; but he was also angry that someone could murder Wymond when he still had need of the man. God knew the carpenter was a tricky and truculent bastard at the best of times, but that was no excuse for murder.
‘Was it you, Bailiff? Did you kill him?’ Sachevyll demanded, eyes streaming. He was clinging to a guy-rope near the entrance, but now his eyes fixed upon Simon with a dreadful accusation.
Simon felt his jaw sag in disbelief. ‘Good God – why should I have killed him?’
‘You argued with him. You and he just about came to blows, didn’t you?’ Hal sniffled. ‘I know you were cross with him, but he was only tired and irritable. There was no need to murder him.’
‘I didn’t kill him, you moron! The first I knew of his death was when you appeared just now!’ Taking a deep breath, Simon tried to speak calmly, aware that others were eyeing him now but it was not easy. He was embarrassed to be the centre of attention. ‘You said you slept in there with him? Didn’t you notice he was dead?’
‘I couldn’t hurt my Wymond!’
There was a snigger behind him but Simon ignored it. ‘How could someone else have done this, with you asleep a few feet away?’
‘We finished our work as the sun was going down, and went together to buy wine and pies. When we returned I was very tired. We had been slaving hard all day and after a quart of wine, I was nearly passing out, so I went to my bed. Wymond wasn’t ready to sleep; he said he was going to go and take a piss. That’s all I remember – I must have dozed off. When I woke up today before dawn, I thought he was still resting and left him there. That’s all. A little while ago, when I realised that he still wasn’t up, I got riled and came back to give him a piece of my mind.’ The fellow began to weep softly again.
Baldwin had come out and stood with Simon. He glanced at the tent, then back towards the market and castle. Hal and Wymond’s tent was far from the rest of the camp. There was no one else nearby, for the architect and his carpenter had pitched theirs here to protect their work. From here it was possible that a scream or shout could be missed from the camp – if, say, a man was belted over the head. But it was inconceivable that Hal wouldn’t have heard if Wymond had been attacked here, in the tent. ‘I can find no weapon in there,’ he said.
Hal stuttered. ‘What of his hammer?’
Baldwin shook his head. ‘He has no hammer here.’
Hal couldn’t help but glance again at Wymond’s face. It was all but unrecognisable, the jaw broken, one eye-socket smashed and the eye itself red as though it was filled with blood. Simon followed his gaze, winced, and moved away. He could never come to grips with the evidence of brutality to men. Although he had seen enough corpses in his time, and had killed men himself, he felt a familiar writhing in his guts at the sight of this ruined body. He looked away when Baldwin returned to study the corpse again.
Baldwin noticed Simon’s expression and smiled to himself. This squeamishness of Simon’s was one of his more endearing traits. Baldwin knew no such qualms. He had seen so many deaths in his youth during the Siege of Acre that he had little compunction in pulling bodies about.
‘Well?’ Simon demanded.
‘Beaten to death. Maybe with a rock, or a cudgel, but a hammer would have done it as well.’ He was undressing the body as he spoke, and now he gazed at the man’s torso. ‘He died hours ago. His body is cool to the touch. No stab wounds on chest… ’ he lifted the arms ‘… or flanks… ’ he hauled the body over, a workman helping him ‘… nor on the back. Hello – what’s this?’ he declared and pounced.
‘What?’ asked Simon.
‘Bramble thorns in his head here, and also on his shirt,’ Baldwin explained.
‘So what?’ asked Mark Tyler impatiently. ‘There are brambles all over the place.’
Baldwin barely glanced at him. ‘In the tent, for example?’
‘Eh?’
‘This means Wymond was not killed in the tent. Do you think Hal could have carried this fellow?’
‘Him? Look how feeble he is!’
‘Then Hal is presumably innocent.’
In his relief at this conclusion, Hal Sachevyll was noisily sick again, heaving convulsively. For his own part Simon wanted to do the same; his belly rebelled and he could taste the bile at the back of his throat.
Baldwin turned to Hal. ‘And you say you heard nothing?’
‘Of course I didn’t,’ the man said shakily. ‘If I had, I’d have called for help.’ He closed his eyes and wiped his mouth. ‘Oh Christ. Poor Wymond.’
Mark Tyler looked at Baldwin. ‘So where’s the weapon?’
‘Missing,’ Baldwin admitted. ‘But the murderer could have taken it and hurled it into the woods or the river.’ He was gazing at the ground near the tent’s entrance as he spoke, and now he frowned and darted forward. ‘Ha!’