B0078XH7HQ EBOK (18 page)

‘Master Warin, may I remind you that in my father’s absence I am acting as bailiff, and that the earl himself has given me the task of finding the killer. So you
will
stay here and answer my questions.’

The tone of his own voice surprised him, and he’d clearly taken the porter aback as well, for Warin stopped, speechless. A useful lesson in authority, then: borrowed authority at the moment, to be sure, but a firm hand and steady voice would work wonders. He felt as though the day had been worth something at last. Now, what was he going to say? He needed to sound calm and in control. Speak steadily, he thought to himself.

‘Now, master porter, you weren’t listening to me. I didn’t ask you if there had been any visitors, I asked if anyone had entered the gate.’

The tone had worked quite well, but perhaps the wording had been wrong. The man was looking at him as though he was either mad or stupid. The porter sighed dramatically and spoke with heavy sarcasm. ‘And as I have already told you,
Master
bailiff, nobody entered.’

Edwin felt let down. All this for nothing, then. He was about to turn away when Warin added an afterthought.

‘Oh, well, nobody apart from the priest, that is.’

Finally! A piece of information! Simon was gazing in admiration at him following his masterly display, which was quite the most pleasant happening of the day so far. So much so that he never even noticed when he confidently issued a command to a member of the nobility, instructing Simon quite naturally to run to the church and find Father Ignatius. The boy scampered happily away, and Edwin turned back towards the keep.

At the head of the stairs, he hesitated. His feelings of self-assurance had sustained him all the way into the keep, where he had entered without any feelings of uneasiness. But now he was about to go back into the chapel to inspect the body once more, and some of his awkwardness came upon him again. It was only a body. He’d seen the dead before. There was nothing to be afraid of. But his stomach was still quivering after his recent experience in the stable, and he had to force himself to step into the room.

He was immediately taken aback to see a figure kneeling beside the body. The man turned as Edwin entered, and he found himself looking into the pale features of Sir Roger. The knight wore his customary serene countenance, but there was something else there, some degree of hardness, some steel behind the eyes. Edwin found himself staring.

Sir Roger, surprised, recovered himself first. ‘Edwin. What brings you up here?’

Edwin stammered, words suddenly falling over themselves as he sought to explain the task the earl had laid upon him. Facing down the porter was one thing, but this was a knight. Luckily, Sir Roger seemed understanding.

‘A formidable task, even for one experienced in these matters.’ He gave Edwin a shrewd look. ‘And yet, you have the look of a man who will succeed.’

Edwin said nothing, but felt his heart swell.

Sir Roger continued, his calm face breaking into a half smile. ‘Well, I suppose you’ll want to know why I’m here?’

Edwin tried not to fall over his words again, and failed.

‘Don’t be anxious. In such a situation, all must be questioned, no matter how innocent they seem. Remember that.’

Edwin finally managed to speak. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. I was here praying for the dead man’s soul.’ The smile vanished and the look of determination returned. ‘He was an evil-doer, a sinner who is surely burning in hellfire, but every Christian’ – he spoke the word as though it were fouled by the dead man’s presence – ‘deserves some measure of God’s mercy at the last.’

The pronouncement had the ring of the last judgement about it, but before Edwin could ask Sir Roger what he meant by his statement, the knight had left the room.

He turned to the body, hesitating with his hand over it for a moment before respectfully removing the covering. It was stiff and cold, and he had some trouble as he tried gently to manipulate the limbs to see if they held any answers. There were none: the body bore no mark except the one on the neck, and Edwin bent over to have a closer look. He was in exactly the same position as he had been that morning when he had been so violently interrupted when another step sounded behind him. He flinched automatically, remembering the pain as his hair had been all but torn out, but it was only Martin, who entered and crouched down next to him, joining in the inspection.

Edwin tried to sound confident. ‘It must have been this wound which killed him.’ He looked at it again – a slim, neat cut which extended around the front of the neck from ear to ear, but which was deepest at the front. Surely it was too neat to have been the work of a sword or dagger?

Martin had the same thought. ‘If he’d been involved in a struggle, wouldn’t the wound be … messier?’

‘You’re right. And where is all the blood? It looks completely different from … you know.’ He couldn’t bring himself to say it, didn’t want to remember.

‘Perhaps someone cleaned it up?’ Martin sounded doubtful.

‘Hardly likely – and anyway, there’d be some trace of it somewhere.’ He thought for a moment. ‘He wouldn’t bleed if he was already dead – maybe someone smothered him and then cut his throat afterwards?’

‘Why would anyone want to do that?’

‘No, you’re right. That’s a stupid idea. So how did he die? It must’ve been a really small, sharp knife, not a proper dagger.’ Something else struck him. ‘In fact, surely this was a different weapon altogether from the one which killed –’ The name stuck in his throat but he forced it out ‘– Berold? The wounds are completely different.’

Martin didn’t reply. He was staring at the body, frowning.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m not sure, exactly. I only saw the body for a moment this morning before I had to turn away to retch my guts up. But there’s something … different about it.’ Edwin made as if to reply, but Martin forestalled him, raising his hand. ‘And don’t ask me what it is, because I can’t put my finger on it.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sure it will come back to me later, and as like as not it won’t be anything important.’ He sat back. ‘Now, what have you been doing since this morning? I didn’t see you at dinner. What do we need to do now?’

Edwin started to tell him about the last couple of hours, but remembered that he himself had set Martin a task that morning.

‘Did you find any other way for someone to get into the inner ward?’

‘Not really. There’s one tiny hole in the wall behind the kitchen where the masons have had to remove a stone to put some scaffolding up, but it’s hardly big enough for a rat to get through. Nobody could have entered that way.’

‘Oh. That leaves us back where we started, then.’

‘Well, at least we now know that the killer must have come in through the gate. So tell me what you’ve been doing.’

Edwin continued from where he’d left off, from his conversation with his father up to sending Simon to find the priest. ‘So’, he concluded, ‘I believe that the key to this may rest with him. Let us see what we can discover from the good Father.’

Simon was hungry. As he rushed out of the gate to follow Edwin’s order, he was conscious of an empty feeling in his middle. How long had it been since dinner? Ages, surely. Not that he ever got the chance to fill his belly properly, mind – he was so busy serving that he couldn’t sit down to eat all the courses, he just had to fill a platter with what was left afterwards. No wonder he had to keep visiting the kitchen in between to filch what extras he could. Although he suspected that some of the kitchen workers didn’t mind quite as much as they pretended to, or he’d never get away with quite so many delicacies. But what could he do now? Must he
starve
until the evening meal was prepared? He sighed as he skipped down into the village at the bottom of the hill.

Conisbrough was familiar to him, of course. It was not overly large, but had three main streets arranged around the green, and was important enough to hold a market each month, when farmers and traders from the surrounding countryside would come to sell their wares. There were always delicious pies to be bought, if one had managed to save a few coins. Behind the neat houses on the three main streets were some meaner dwellings, some seemingly no more than piles of brushwood badly stacked together. The ones scattered just outside the main part of the village were the worst: home to the poorest labourers, they were squat, dank hovels whose inhabitants hacked and coughed and died off in droves each winter. He was glad he had no cause to go there.

He admired the church as he drew near to the village, for it was built in stone like the keep of the castle, although it was actually by far the older of the two structures. Edwin’s father, who was the oldest person he knew, had once said that when he was small, he remembered his own grandfather telling him that the church had been of stone even as far as
he
could remember, so that was as far back in the distant reaches of time as anyone was likely to reckon. Although it was so old, it was kept in regular repair by the men in the village, and the new thatch on the roof shone brightly. There would not be many places which could boast such a fine church.

The village also had its fair share of fine houses, for among the single-room dwellings which were home to the labourers and their families there were some which were larger and had separate rooms inside for living and sleeping. One of these belonged to Godric Weaver and his wife Anne, Edwin’s parents, and Simon slowed as he passed it, looking at the garden with its neat rows of vegetables and herbs. Nothing that grew under Edwin’s mother’s jurisdiction would dare grow out of line. He stopped to look over the fence which separated the garden from the enclosure where she kept her livestock, in case there might be a couple of eggs there. Not that he would think of taking them, of course, but if he took them in to her she might reward him with one of her oatcakes. His mouth watered at the thought. However, she’d obviously completed her chores there already: there were no eggs to be seen, but the four hens scratched around contentedly, the two young pigs which would provide next winter’s meat were happily rooting through a trough of swill, and even the cow looked as though she’d already been milked. He sighed, and half thought of entering the cottage anyway; Mistress Anne was always very friendly. But then he remembered that Edwin’s father, the bailiff, was very ill, so he decided better of it and carried on along the street.

As he continued towards the church, he smelled the delicious aroma of new bread and slowed, sniffing the air. The scent was issuing from one of the neat cottages around the green, and as he watched, a shutter opened and the goodwife placed some flat loaves to cool on the sill. As she saw him gaping she smiled and spoke. ‘It’s young master Simon, isn’t it? The earl’s page?’ Simon took a moment to adjust to the English language, and then agreed that he was, and she smiled. ‘I expect you’re hungry?’ He nodded. ‘Ah, I know boys, and boys are always hungry. You have much growing to do, I am sure. Here.’ She took one of the loaves and tore the end from it, handing the warm hunk to him. ‘You take that and be on your way.’ She patted his cheek as he thanked her and turned away. The bread smelled delicious and it made his mouth water as he tore it in half. He would have some now and save the rest for after he found Father Ignatius. He stowed one piece safely in his tunic and crammed the rest into his mouth.

His stomach satisfied for the moment, he remembered his quest. Why was it he was trying to find the priest? Oh yes, Edwin had asked him to do it so they could find out why Father Ignatius had been into the inner ward after dark. There was also another thought which Simon tried to catch, something about people getting in and out of the keep during the night, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Still, Edwin would probably work it out – he was very clever. It was fun working with him for a change, very different from being with Robert and Martin of course, but not in a bad way. But Edwin wouldn’t be going with them on the campaign, so he’d better sort out all his answers before they went – that was what his lord had said.

The thought of going on the campaign and seeing real battles made him so excited that he became hungry again. Perhaps just a little more of that bread? It wouldn’t be greedy if he didn’t eat all of it. He pulled it out from his tunic and tore off another small corner, virtuously putting the rest back. He chewed reflectively as he arrived at the church. As he entered the cool stone interior, he smoothed the crumbs from his tunic and took off his hat, turning it round and round in his hand as he blinked to accustom his eyes to the gloom. The church was empty. Or at least, it was empty of the living.

In the centre of the space a shrouded figure lay on a board. The face was covered, but Simon knew it was the man-at-arms who had died in the stable earlier that day. He took a step forward, but didn’t want to go too close: a sticky pool of blood had oozed out from underneath the body, and flies were buzzing all around it. Simon stood for a moment, wondering what really did happen to you after you died, and how you could go to heaven and live there nicely forever when your body looked like the stinking corpse before him. The man would be buried on the morrow, put in a pit in the ground like many others before him, and spadefuls of earth shovelled over what had once been his living body.

He shivered suddenly and wished to be away from the place, the body, the scent of death. He edged around the church, giving the putrid object in the middle as wide a berth as possible, and made his way to the door to the sacristy before knocking hesitantly. ‘Father?’ He poked his head around the door, but the sacristy, too, was empty. Strange. He went back outside and walked around the churchyard, weaving in and out of the hummocks of grass and the wooden crosses, calling the priest’s name, until he reached the timber-framed cottage behind the church. Here he knocked again, and was pleased when the door opened to reveal Agnes, Father Ignatius’s housekeeper. Before Simon could speak she forestalled him.