To his chagrin, he had soon taken a liking to the child. She had a smile that struck at his heart. When she looked at him and gurgled, it made his mood lift. Later, when she was learning to talk, her attempts made him chuckle with delight. Her little mistakes were to him the very essence of joy.
Yet she was also a reminder to him of his callousness towards her mother. If he had not been so harsh on that first night, perhaps his wife would not have insisted on trying to conceive again so soon after Juliet’s birth, and that might have meant that she wouldn’t have…well, there was no point raking over dead soil. She had died in the next childbirth. Her womb wasn’t strong enough so soon after Juliet, the midwife had said, the poisonous old…She’d seemed to have a reproving tone in her voice, as though accusing him. Him! The one man in the world who’d never have hurt his wife intentionally.
But Juliet grew too quickly. He blinked – and she had become a woman. A woman with the desires of all women. And she committed the one crime she could neither help nor regret – any more than he could forgive.
She had fallen in love.
‘Oh, Christ Jesus!’ he blurted, and covered his face with his hands.
Simon had been on many investigations with his friend. The two had proved themselves adept at seeking felons back in their own lands.
Here, though, he felt completely out of his place.
They left the bishop’s hall and made their way along the paths that followed the line of the Fleet River, down to the Thames itself, and there Baldwin gazed up-and down-river before setting two fingers into his mouth and emitting an ear-piercing blast.
‘In God’s name!’ Simon protested, clapping a hand over his ear.
‘Ach, you have to get these men’s attention somehow. Lazy devils, all of them,’ Baldwin muttered almost to himself. But as he spoke he was waving, and soon Simon saw a man in a rowing boat leave a little group of boats a few tens of yards down the river and make his way against the current towards them.
‘Over the river, masters?’
‘We need to get to Bermondsey in Surrey,’ Baldwin stated, grasping the prow.
‘That far? You realize how long it’ll take me to work my way back upstream from there?’
Baldwin gave him a beatific smile. ‘No. Why don’t you tell us as you row?’
The news of Juliet’s death had struck the whole house dumb. Servants went about their business but with a quiet, nervous urgency, scarcely daring to speak to each other, the master’s distress was so evident.
In the main chamber, where her mistress used to sit, her maid Avice sat staring at the needlework Juliet had been working on.
‘Avice? God’s blood, wench, stop that whining.’
She looked up to see Juliet’s brother, Timothy, in the doorway. ‘Master, don’t you know?’
‘That she’s dead? Yes. You expect me to play the hypocrite? No. She was an embarrassment to us all. And a cause of shame. Better that she is dead than carries on to do any more damage to us.’
‘Oh, master! But she was so…’
‘They found her with that man. She betrayed us. Us! Her own flesh and blood. She is better gone. Now, dry your eyes. I won’t have all the maids in the house looking like mourners at a wake. Fetch me wine. I’ll be in the hall.’
Simon hated boats. He always had. The damned rocking motion made his belly rebel at the best of times, whether it was calm or rough sea weather, but at least here the movements were moderately gentle. As though in sympathy, the drizzle had also stopped. In fact, he could almost have described the journey as soothing were it not for the continual swearing of the oarsman, who kept up a running commentary all the way over the river.
He appeared to have it in his mind to explain every little detail of the view to these obvious foreigners.
‘That there, right? That’s St Benet Paul’s wharf. Just here, that’s St Paul’s wharf. Serves the great cathedral there. See the spire? Fuckin’ huge, eh? Then that river there, that’s called the Walbrook Stream, that is. And that there’s the great bridge. Never seen one like it, I dare say. Shit, look at the size of the fucker! Huge, eh? Like a…oh, right, and this here, just beyond that open land. That’s the Tower.’
It was here that his voice grew quieter, as though the mere mention of the name of the Tower was to bring misfortune.
Simon studied it with interest. There was a strong wall about the place, and the White Tower rose within it. ‘It looks impregnable.’
Baldwin nodded. ‘And as a prison, it is hard to equal it.’
The oarsman hawked long and hard and spat a gobbet of phlegm over the side of the boat. ‘Hard, perhaps. Let’s hope no bastard tries to. Enough poor bastards have died in that fucker.’
‘And one escaped,’ Baldwin commented.
‘Him? Yeah. Must have been lucky,’ the man said with a shifty glower.
‘They say that Mortimer escaped over the water to the far bank?’ Baldwin pressed him.
‘So they say.’
Simon followed Baldwin’s gaze. ‘What is it, Baldwin?’
‘That place – is it a new palace?’
The oarsman threw a cursory look over his shoulder. ‘That? Haven’t you heard? It’s called the Rosary. King himself is having it built. Suppose he wants to wake up and see his pretty Tower each day.’
‘And it may make it harder for a man to escape from the Tower and reach this shore,’ Baldwin commented.
‘Don’t know about that. We’re here.’
Baldwin took a coin from his purse and passed it to the man, then climbed out pensively.
‘What is it?’ Simon asked him as Baldwin stood watching the wherryman laboriously making his way back upstream.
‘Nothing. I was just considering how everyone here must fear that place.’
Lawrence saw them as soon as they began to make their way over the marshes towards the bodies.
‘Who are they?’
‘Christ knows. I don’t,’ Hob muttered.
The first, Lawrence saw, was the younger of the two. He was clad in a green tunic and hard-wearing grey hosen, with a leather jerkin. He had brown hair and was clearly used to the hardships of travel, from his sunburned features and scuffed boots. The other was an altogether older man, with a red tunic that had seen many better days. He had a greying beard and hair, and his eyes appeared particularly penetrating even at this distance. The beard followed the line of his jaw, delineating the strong features, and he had a scar that wandered down one side of his face. Lawrence could see that his eyes were darting hither and thither as they approached. He was no foolish man-at-arms who put all his faith in his weapons; he clearly had a brain.
‘Lordings,’ Hob said.
Lawrence was amused to hear the deferential tone in his voice. There was clearly something in the new man’s appearance that persuaded Hob to be cautious.
‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, and this is my companion, Simon Puttock, bailiff. We have been sent by my Lord Bishop Stapledon to see if we may assist with this dead person.’
‘Which one?’ Hob asked.
It was clear that his question surprised the two men. ‘How many corpses do you have here?’ Simon said.
‘One girl, one man.’
‘The girl is the daughter of a man named Capun?’
‘Yes. Juliet. The lad was a friend of hers. A lad we all knew as Pilgrim.’
‘Why was he called that? He had made a pilgrimage?’
‘He was quite religious,’ Lawrence said earnestly. ‘He once made the journey to Canterbury, and several others to our Lady of—’
‘I apologize, brother, but my time is short. Did you know him quite well?’
Lawrence pursed his lips. It was rare for a man of the cloth to be cut short quite so bluntly. ‘Well enough. I would like to think of myself as a friend of his.’
‘But surely you are a monk. You are enclosed within your walls, are you not? I had thought that the monks of Cluny were dissuaded from conversation. Is it not true tha
t a Cluniac monk should not speak?’
‘It is preferable that we do not. We try to ensure our own passage to heaven by virtue of our prayers, and by our performance of all that is pleasing to God. We know that the perfection of the world demanded that there be peace and silence, so we try to do all we can to keep the world in harmony.’
‘Yet you are here?’ Simon asked.
Lawrence met his gaze with mild reproof. ‘Friend, even a priory has need of men who can discuss the requirements of the brethren. I am the cellarer. If I may not be permitted to walk in the world and purchase all that is needful, our convent and our order must soon collapse!’
‘You knew this “Pilgrim”, then. What was his real name?’ Baldwin asked.
‘His name was William de Monte Acuto, the same as his father. That was why his alias was so commonly used.’
‘How did you know him?’ Simon asked. He was not sure he liked this man. The tone of superiority was common enough among priests and monks, but it still irked him.
‘He and his father used to be wealthy. They were wont to supply us with grain.’
‘How kind,’ Baldwin said drily. ‘Can you tell us where this man William lives?’
‘Naturally,’ Lawrence said, and described the way to the man’s home. It was an easy enough journey: apparently William had a small manor just south of Southwark.
‘You plainly knew him well enough,’ Simon said. ‘Was there anyone who disliked the man enough to kill him?’
Lawrence looked away, and the fingers of his right hand danced over his left sleeve.
Baldwin nodded. ‘There were many?’
‘You understand our language?’
‘Enough of it. So he was a man who could upset many others?’
Lawrence sighed to himself. ‘No, not generally. But his family had a certain enmity with her family, I fear.’
‘Fascinating.’
Hearing a new voice startled Baldwin and Simon, and both spun on their heels to see who had arrived behind them.
With two servants, one holding their horses, stood a knight. He was a full three inches taller than Baldwin, so maybe an inch over six feet. He had shrewd brown eyes that flitted over Baldwin’s frame, noting the scars, the squared shoulders, the over-muscled right arm.
‘Coroner,’ Lawrence said and bent his head respectfully.
Studying him, Baldwin was less than enthusiastic. The coroner was one of those foppish knights who valued fashion more highly than honour. This was one of those modern men who sought position and money rather than accepting a life of service. He was a mercenary.
He wore tight, parti-coloured hosen in red and blue, with a red surcoat trimmed with fur. Fine golden threads were stitched on his breast to create a pattern that glistened in the occasional flares of sunshine. On his head was one of those hats that, to Baldwin’s eye, looked plain ridiculous. It bore a liripipe so long it was wrapped about his head and then dangled behind him. A typical example of a modern warrior, Baldwin thought. More keen on fashions at court than real work.
‘I am Sir Jean de Fouvilles. I am coroner here.’
‘I am glad to meet you,’ Baldwin said untruthfully.
Originally, so he believed, coroners had been installed as a bulwark against the overweening powers of the sheriffs, but more recently the coroners themselves had become symbols of corruption, and Baldwin distrusted them – especially this one. He smelled of courtly intrigue.
‘Where are these bodies, then?’ the coroner demanded.
While Hob marched him away to the first, the cellarer close on their heels, Baldwin and Simon trailed after them.
‘You were not impressed with that monk?’ Simon guessed with a grin.
‘Was it that obvious? Well, I fear not. In my day our order depended on frugal living to keep ourselves in a state of readiness for war. We ate little, drank little and exercised regularly. These Cluniacs eat a great deal.’ He added cynically: ‘That must be why he is always out here dealing with others for more food.’
‘What was that you said about being able to understand his language?’
‘Monks who follow the Cluniac rule are expected to hold their tongues even under great provocation. There was a story I once heard of a monk who watched a felon steal his prior’s horse and would not sound the alarm. So over time they have built up their own language using fingers and signs.’
They had caught up with the other three, and the coroner was peering down at the body with a speculative eye. ‘This is the Capun girl?’
Hob was already at his side. ‘Yes, sir. Juliet Capun.’
‘Really?’ the coroner commented, gazing about him at the view. ‘What was she doing here?’
Simon could see his point. From here, all about them were low, reedy hillocks interspersed with little pools and puddles of brackish water. This land bordered the river, and the marshes all around were proof of the multitude of little streams that passed through this land on the way to the sea.
‘That is the Rosary?’ Simon asked, pointing as he took his bearings.
To the north and west of them stood the new palace that Baldwin and Simon had seen from the river. Massive walls were rising amid a scaffolding of larch boughs lashed together. It made for an apparently disorderly jumble of wood and cordage, although Simon could make out the basic structure. When complete, it would be a manor house, moated and easily defensible, with a short river trip to the safety of the Tower of London. It was easy to see why the king might seek to build on this new location.
‘Aye,’ Hob said. ‘And the master in charge of the works is Master Capun. That is why he was so common over here, and his daughter often came with him.’
‘What of the dead man?’ Baldwin asked.
‘Pilgrim? His father was William de Monte Acuto. He’s a merchant. Rich once – not now.’
‘He lost his treasure? How?’ Baldwin wondered.
‘I don’t know. I’m only a constable.’
The coroner looked at Baldwin for a moment with mammoth disdain, then turned back to the constable. ‘She was stabbed?’
‘There is a blade in her hand,’ Baldwin observed.
‘It was a fierce wound,’ the coroner commented. ‘Very likely a self-murder. So common with young women.’
Baldwin gave him a long, considering look. ‘You think so? Strange that she should still grip the weapon, then. In my experience, suicides usually drop their weapons as they die. The muscles relax…’
‘Yes, I am sure you are an expert in such matters,’ the coroner said patronizingly.
Simon looked away, but not before he had seen how her tunic had been stained with blood. She lay on her back, a shortish woman, pretty enough, with dark hair and a pleasant, oval face. Her left leg was curled back underneath her, as though she had just slipped on to her back. There was but one stab wound, but it had entered under and beside her left breast, almost at her flank. A long dagger would easily puncture lungs and heart if angled correctly. The dagger in her hand was eight inches or more long.
It was an odd weapon for a woman. Everyone would carry a knife of some sort, of course, but most women would use daggers that were considerably shorter. This was more a man’s tool, to Simon’s eye.
The coroner was continuing. ‘So she was guilty of self-murder, or another man was here and kindly left his dagger behind when he fled the scene of his killing. Not very likely.’
Simon saw Baldwin experimentally punching his left torso with a fist, testing the theory of self-murder. Catching sight of Simon’s enquiring look, the knight shrugged and shook his head. ‘Who would commit self-murder with so complicated a blow?’
Hob was apparently keen to take the men over to view the next body. ‘Come this way, towards the river, but beware the pools! They can swallow a man, some of them.’
As the coroner cautiously set off behind Hob, Baldwin slipped down to study the girl’s body. He peered at her face, her clothing, looked carefully at her fingers, and then took the dagger from her
hand. ‘A good blade, this – a little nicked and marked, but good and useful. And it smells,’ he said, his lip curling, ‘as though it’s been used often to gut fish!’
‘Hardly a feminine tool.’
‘No,’ Baldwin agreed. He stood and set his jaw. ‘Come, let us catch up with our little cellarer.’
It took little effort. Lawrence was not a swift walker.
‘How far to this man?’ Baldwin asked Lawrence as the monk made his way cautiously over the soggy ground.
‘He lies only some tens of yards away.’
‘The constable said he was known to this woman?’
‘Yes,’ Lawrence said. He was silent for a moment, wrestling with his conscience, but he held his tongue. Hob was one thing, but the idea that he should vouchsafe information to a strange knight, no matter how apparently honourable, was alien to him.
Baldwin could sense his reticence. ‘Tell me, how long have you been here in the priory?’
‘Many years. I came here as a novice four and twenty years ago,’ Lawrence said, smiling.
‘Much has changed in that time.’
‘And not all for the better,’ he agreed.
‘The priory is itself at least secure.’
‘Mostly…but last year our prior was removed. It was a terrible, shocking incident.’
‘Taken?’
‘Walter de Luiz, one of the kindest, gentlest men on God’s earth, and he was snatched by the king’s men. He languishes there,’ he said, nodding towards the Tower of London over the river.
‘And you have a new master?’ Baldwin was careful not to ask whether he was viewed as a prior.
Lawrence noted and admired the distinction. ‘Yes. John de Cusance. He is more to the king’s liking, it is said. Poor Prior Walter was accused of taking part in the escape of the traitor Mortimer from the Tower, and for that he remains incarcerated.’
‘Politics are a terrible thing,’ Baldwin said with bitterness. In his mind he saw again the pyres on which the Grand Master of his order, along with the Treasurer, were burned to death.
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