The atmosphere in there was just awful. Horrid! Smoke-filled from the badly drawing fire, cold from the multiple draughts that sought entry through the shuttered but unglazed windows, loud with the roars of the men-at-arms and their squires as they drank, belched, ate, sang, and quarrelled. One man was stabbed, although his attacker apologised profusely once he had calmed himself. And all this accompanied by the wailing and thumping from the musicians in the little gallery.
Hal swayed gently at the foot of the castle and sniffed back another sob. There was no point in weeping and wailing. Wymond wouldn’t have wanted him to be upset; Wymond was too strong and hearty for that, but Hal was desolate without his friend and lover.
They had met many years ago now, building a tournament together, and they had hit it off immediately. Then they met Benjamin, who was not interested in them in the same way, for which Hal was grateful. He couldn’t fancy the banker. He had always been attracted to very masculine men like Wymond, and Benjamin’s podgy figure was revolting. Not that he’d thought Wymond could possibly want him. No, Wymond was the source of some delightful fantasies, but Hal never thought it could go further – until one night he got the carpenter terribly drunk and the two of them fell together as soon as they returned to their rooms. Rough, coarse, occasionally cruel – all described Wymond; and yet he was also curiously vulnerable. The harshness was a show put on to protect him from hurt.
Hal sighed and closed his eyes, feeling the tears approaching once more as the memories flooded back. The tears weren’t only for Wymond, but for himself. He didn’t know how he could live without his lover.
If he could, he would have admitted his other job, too, but he daren’t. All he could achieve was enemies. Nothing more. Lord Hugh’s men would be furious if they learned that he, Wymond and the banker had spied for Hugh Despenser.
Hal suddenly wondered whether Wymond’s death was the result of his spying.
It was so inexplicable! Hal had gone to bed thinking that his lover would soon follow him. They tended not to share beds while working, because it was too tiring, but both slept in the same room. Hal had thought Wymond was going to return – in fact, he had a feeling he had half woken when Wymond had returned – and now he knew that it was the murderer who had woken him.
And the next morning Hal had let him stay in his bed. How did he not realise that something was wrong? How could he have missed the glaring, terrible fact that his lover was dead? True, they never rose together normally, they didn’t care to be too obvious about their relationship, but Hal, when he woke and hurried from the tent, should have realised that Wymond was dead.
Hal walked the few paces to the bridge over the tiny stream and sat at its edge. Disconsolate, he had no energy. The prospect of all the years to come, long decades alone, seemed intolerable. That was the curse of his kind: no companionship. If another man with the same simple urges was ever found, he was to be held on to with a fierce grip, for it was so hard to seek out another. At least a man who lost his wife could count upon being able to find a new woman; most would have a son or daughter to remind them of the happiness they had once known, but not Hal. His life was ended as effectively as if he had hanged himself. Whoever had killed his lover had destroyed him too.
He closed his eyes and wept silently. The tears had been with him all day, but only now that he was alone could he indulge in his misery. And he would be alone for the rest of his life.
‘Are you all right, master?’
Hal looked up into sympathetic eyes. ‘No. I am devastated,’ he wept.
‘There is a cure for that.’
‘Ale, wine, both give oblivion, but I need a stronger cure for my bereavement.’
‘I was thinking that the best cure is to talk about it, master. Would you like to tell me your troubles?’
‘No. But if you aren’t busy, I will buy you a pot of wine and we can talk and you can take my mind from them.’
‘Very well, sir,’ said Wymond’s killer, and he smiled as he helped Hal to his feet.
Chapter Seventeen
Just as the skies had promised, the morning of the first day of the tournament was clear and fine when Simon walked from the castle towards the tilting ground, resolutely putting all thought of Wymond and Benjamin from his mind.
He was up before dawn and drank his morning whet of a pint of thin ale at the castle’s bar before setting off. As he gathered up watchmen and inspected the field to make sure that all was ready, walking about the ber frois and reassuring himself that everything was prepared, he couldn’t help but be glad that Coroner Roger was responsible for investigating sudden death. Simon had enough to occupy him already.
He checked that Lord Hugh’s seat was safe and hadn’t been stolen (stranger things had happened) before peering beneath the stand and making sure all looked sound. It would be dreadful to have Lord Hugh’s own stand collapse, not that it was only the fear of poor construction that made him nervous. He was concerned. The sight of Wymond’s mutilated body had shocked him and the more he considered it, the more he was sure that a killer who could strike once in so devastating a manner could do so again. That was why Simon had wanted to come and check the area once more. To make sure that there were no more unpleasant surprises lurking for Lord Hugh.
Lord Hugh had listened with frowning disbelief when Simon and Roger spoke to him of Wymond’s death, but his first thoughts were for his tournament.
‘Whoever it was must be mad,’ he concluded after consideration. ‘But you must find him, Coroner, Bailiff. If someone could be a danger to other people here, you must stop him.’
‘Fine,’ Simon muttered to himself. ‘Show me who he is and I’ll catch the bastard!’
With no clear idea who could have killed Wymond or why, Simon found himself scouting about the stands, glancing beneath all those which did not have solid wooden walls, poking in the bushes lining the field with a stick and generally reassuring himself that no one was lying there dead like Wymond the previous day. He had to keep occupied, keep moving – the alternative was to sit and fester, wondering who and why, and whether another attack would take place.
He had completed a half-circuit of the ground, and was standing at the riverside, morosely contemplating his tunic, hose and boots, all of which were sodden and wrinkled with the dew from the long vegetation, when one of the watchmen gave a muttered curse and called to him.
‘What is it?’
‘Some drunk. He’s puked all over himself,’ the watchman called back, kicking at a figure lying supine near the river some yards away.
Simon wrinkled his nose. Even from where he stood he could smell the rancid stench. He ordered another watchman to help and stood back while the drunk was hauled upright and half helped, half dragged away. Simon continued on his rounds reflecting with satisfaction that even drunks hadn’t caused too much trouble with this event. Evicting one snoring reveller who had over-indulged the previous night didn’t compare with other festivities, when men and women could be found drowned in their own vomit, or in a well, or having tripped and fallen into a stream or river.
There were legions of dead associated with events. Sometimes it was children who, having enjoyed ale or wine with their parents, would fall asleep out of doors and freeze to death. Simon had himself, some years before, seen a boy running about a campsite after too much wine, and fall into a fire. Such deaths were natural, if unpleasant.
There was a loud splash. Simon saw that the two watchmen had hurled their burden into the river. One of the watchmen was walking back, chuckling to himself.