Nicholas shrugged and gave Baldwin a thin smile. ‘Sir, you of the fighting class can understand this kind of thing more easily than us. We are merely merchants.’
‘True enough,’ Baldwin agreed, but with a puzzled expression. ‘But there are aspects which seem curious. For example, did Dyne still have the knife when you came across him?’
‘He dropped it,’ Andrew said. ‘It was in his hand when I saw him. I knocked it away with my sword.’
‘So you, a merchant, could defend yourself against Dyne when he was armed although an armed knight could not,’ Baldwin noted. ‘Was anyone else about?’
It was William who answered. ‘There was a woman.’
‘Did you recognise her?’
‘No. She was well-dressed,’ William said musingly. He allowed his gaze to drift over the crowd watching. ‘She wore a hooded cloak, green, but her face was covered.’
Standing at the back of the crowd, Cecily felt her husband’s grip on her shoulder. He pulled her roughly around. ‘You don’t have a green cloak.’
‘No, husband. Why?’ she asked and then allowed the acid to enter her tone. ‘Did you think I had killed him? Me? Murder a knight I had never met?’
He stared at her with his brow furrowed like a man who was going mad and could feel his sanity teetering on the brink. ‘You were there with your man.’
‘Husband, how many times do I have to tell you? I don’t have a lover,’ she said with slow, pained deliberation.
He curled his lip in disbelief but could not tell her he knew she was lying. That would mean confessing to following her.
Turning on his heel, he walked from the court.
Chapter Thirteen
Sir Peregrine of Barnstaple walked through the streets of Tiverton plunged deep in thought.
Other men tended to move aside when he approached. He always found his path clear, no matter how crowded the road or alley. It was the natural order exerting itself on his behalf. Sir Peregrine was a lord, one of the Bellatores, the fighting class, and if another man stood in his path or offered an insult, Sir Peregrine was wealthy, powerful and strong enough to force him to regret his rashness.
Sir Peregrine was relatively content with the way things were progressing. He had much to do still to persuade Lord de Courtenay to his own way of thinking, that it would be sensible to set up an alliance with the Marcher Lords, but the matter would be easier to deal with now that the Despensers’ emissary was dead.
It had been alarming to hear that Sir Gilbert had met Lord Hugh. Sir Peregrine had heard by a chance remark from one of his gatehouse men: while Sir Peregrine was out comforting Emily, Sir Gilbert had arrived and asked to see Lord Hugh. Lord Hugh met him in his private solar and they spoke for some little while. Sir Peregrine himself returned before Sir Gilbert had left and instantly set a man to follow him. It was that man who had seen Sir Gilbert’s horse. ‘He’s from the Despensers, Sir Peregrine.’
That was a complication Sir Peregrine wished to do without. He had no desire to see the cautious progression of his own persuasion wrecked by Sir Gilbert. It was crucial that Lord Hugh should join the ranks of the Welsh Marchers. Sir Peregrine himself was an enthusiastic supporter of theirs and had no wish to find himself fighting at the side of Lord de Courtenay against those he thought should be their friends. Better by far that he should persuade Lord de Courtenay to join his natural allies. After all, although the Despensers were exiled, that was no guarantee that they wouldn’t return. King Edward II had recalled Gaveston; he could as easily ask his lover Despenser to return.
Sir Peregrine found his steps slowing as a pensive mood came over him. Surely a messenger would have brought something to prove his master’s integrity: some form of reward for friendship? Sir Gilbert of Carlisle would not have come empty-handed to the castle.
He lost his train of thought as he arrived at Emily’s house. It stank, and the refuse all about made him curl his lip, but he had to know how she was. ‘Emily? Are you there?’ Ducking under the low lintel, he gazed about him with consternation. The hovel had been cleaned and swept, the table moved, the bed tidied.
While he stood there dumbfounded, a woman entered behind him. ‘She’s dead.’
‘Emily?’
‘Childbirth. Baby killed her. They bury her tomorrow.’
Sir Peregrine swallowed but kept his face set. He nodded coldly, pushed past the neighbour and made his way back towards the castle, taking deep breaths as he walked.
Dead! His child gone, taking his woman with it. Sir Peregrine had never married and Emily had been the closest he had ever known to a wife: gentle, kind, grateful for the small presents he had given her.
Sir Peregrine had never been able to win the affection of a courtly lady. There had been one once, a woman in Barnstaple over fifteen years ago, but she was dead now. Emily had attracted him with her ready smile, her soft voice and calmness. It seemed impossible that she had gone for ever. The thought made him stumble, and when he recovered himself, he found his eyes had filled with moisture and he had to blink it away.
He felt as though someone had cut out his heart.
Father Abraham scratched as quickly as his reed allowed, stopping regularly to resharpen the tip, occasionally discarding old ones and picking up fresh, hating the work.
It wasn’t that the task was difficult, but the ability to write was a God-given gift, and as such it deserved the concentration and dedication necessary to produce the most beautiful work possible. This hurried scribbling was an insult to Him; it was no better than a usurer’s records.
Looking up, he saw the knight from Cadbury, Sir Baldwin, stare at the ground for a moment before returning to his questions. He appeared to take the matter seriously, but as far as Abraham was concerned, the whole issue was immaterial. The felon was dead after committing a second horrible murder. He had received his just deserts.
Baldwin looked at Andrew with an air of thoughtful enquiry. ‘How long were you at the tavern?’
‘I don’t know. Not long. We only had a quart of ale each and a pie.’
Father Abraham scribbled and scratched in his shorthand, and tried to control his growing impatience. He had services to conduct. The implication of Sir Baldwin’s questioning was clear enough: he thought the two men had been trying to ambush Dyne. Likely they had, Father Abraham considered, scratching at his bald pate with his reed and incidentally smearing ink over it – but so what?
At the back of his mind was the fear that his own part in that previous evening’s events might become common knowledge. It made him anxious and fretful. If only Father Benedict hadn’t demanded the last rites; Father Abraham wouldn’t have been out on that road so late, so near the woods.
As Baldwin finished his interrogation and returned to Simon’s side, Father Abraham threw Cecily Sherman a scowling glance. She was standing serenely and saw his look, giving him a slight smile that made the priest sneer. And what were you doing there, whore? he thought to himself.
Simon saw that Baldwin was frowning thoughtfully at Aylmer. The dog was sitting tied to a post, head tilted to one side as he observed the deliberations of the jury and Coroner. ‘What is it, Baldwin?’
Baldwin murmured, ‘The dead dog: if a dog launches himself at a man, he aims for the throat or arms, and the only way a man can defend himself is by cutting the animal’s neck or stabbing him in the side of the chest once the jaws have closed on him. Only a brave man or a trained fighter would stand his ground and wait until the dog leaped, holding out his blade to pin the hound in the air. And if it were a long blade, the animal would be held at the full extent of the weapon, unable to reach an arm or leg.’