‘I am, Master Bret. You have my thanks.’
‘There is more news that you should hear.’
Gervase told him about the evidence which Ralph extracted from Warin the Forester and how Grimketel's crucial testimony against the blacksmith had been false. Thorkell was fascinated, taking particular pleasure from the news that Adam Reynard had been unmasked as a man who incited others to poach deer on his behalf. At a stroke, one of his rivals in the property dispute had been removed.
‘When the lord Henry learns of this,’ he said, ‘Adam Reynard will be lucky to hold on to his life, let alone his land. These are glad tidings. But how did Boio manage to get as far as Coventry without being seen? Can you tell me that?’
‘No, my lord,’ said Gervase discreetly, careful to make no mention of Asmoth. ‘The fact is that he is at the abbey and, I hope, quite safe for the moment. What concerns me is his future.’
‘But he will surely be exonerated?’
‘Will he?’
‘You have this forester's word. Grimketel gave false evidence. Boio is innocent of this murder. The real killer must be caught and brought to judgement. Martin's death must be answered.’
‘That may not be enough to assuage the lord Henry's fury. Boio escaped from his castle and outwitted all his pursuers. That still rankles. Even if no murder charge can be proved against the blacksmith and even if the real killer is caught, the lord Henry may well want to wreak his revenge in some way.’
‘That is true,’ said Thorkell.
‘It is another reason why we came to you, my lord,’ said Gervase. ‘To crave a boon on Boio's behalf. He needs your help.’
‘Tell me what I must do,’ volunteered the other.
‘Ride to the abbey. Your presence may deter the lord Henry from any precipitate action. You might even be admitted to speak with Boio himself. That would bring him immense comfort.’
‘To me as well. I'll do it.’
‘There is a larger favour to ask, my lord.’
‘Well?’
‘We must prepare for contingencies.’
‘I am used to doing that,’ said Thorkell with a wistful smile. ‘That is why I still have my home and my estates.’ He turned to Golde. ‘Your father was not so fortunate. He was stripped of his land.’
‘We survived,’ she said quietly.
‘But not in the way you deserved, my lady. I had the sense to come to composition with the Normans.’
‘I have done that myself now. I have married one of them.’
‘Your husband is a fortunate man. And a courageous one if he is ready to brave the lord Henry's rage in order to help Boio. But,’ he said, turning back to Gervase, ‘what is this larger favour you ask?’
‘It is just a vague notion at this point.’
‘Go on.’
‘Whatever happens,’ said Gervase, ‘it may not be wise for Boio to remain in Warwickshire. He must get away from here and start a new life somewhere else. A blacksmith's skills are always in demand.’
‘Say no more,’ interrupted Thorkell. ‘I anticipate you. My answer is that I do have friends in distant counties who would give Boio a welcome if he bore a letter from me. And I would willingly write it.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
‘But how would we get Boio away?’
‘Golde's husband has promised to look into that.’
‘Then this is what I will do,’ said Thorkell. ‘Write a letter then ride to Coventry to ensure that the lord Henry does not violate the rules of sanctuary. A spare horse will travel with us. If it is necessary to smuggle Boio away, horse and letter may guarantee him a future life.’
‘He could ask no more from you, my lord.’
‘Nor I from you, Master Bret. You have been a true friend.’
‘There is one last thing I must tell you in the name of friendship.’
‘What is it?’
‘Brace yourself,’ said Gervase, ‘for it may come as an unpleasant shock. Thanks to Golde, we have learned enough about your reeve to make certain deductions.’
‘Deductions?’
‘I fear Martin Reynard was betraying you.’
‘Never! He was diligent in my service.’
‘But even more diligent in the pay of the lord Henry.’
‘Martin was thrown out of the castle in disgrace.’
‘That was merely a ruse,’ explained Gervase. ‘It convinced you that he was available for hire at a time when your own reeve had died. Did not that seem an odd coincidence? Finding a new man so soon after losing his predecessor? Yes,’ said Gervase, seeing Thorkell's disbelief, ‘I know that you will hate to accept that you were beguiled. But answer me this, my lord. When he worked for you did the reeve ever go back to the castle?’
‘Never! He swore that he loathed the place.’
‘Golde may tell you differently.’
‘I had it from the lips of the lady Adela herself,’ she confirmed. ‘Martin Reynard went back to the castle quite regularly. She saw your reeve with her husband long after he had been dismissed.’
Thorkell was stung by the news. The realisation that he might have been duped made him so angry that he stamped up and down the hall and cursed himself under his breath for his gullibility. He stopped in front of Gervase and spoke with an edge of despair in his voice.
‘Tell me that it is not true!’
‘We see no other explanation.’
‘Martin Reynard! But I trusted the man.’
‘That is why he was placed here,’ argued Gervase, ‘as a spy in your camp. He learned every detail about the administration of your lands and the extent of your wealth. I fear that we both know why the lord Henry was so eager to have such intelligence.’ Thorkell hung his head. ‘Your holdings are secure as long as you live, my lord. But who will inherit them when Thorkell of Warwick passes away?’
Thorkell looked up with gathering fury. His eyes kindled.
‘I wish that I had known Martin Reynard was a traitor,’ he said with bitterness. ‘I would have murdered the fellow myself!’
Still imprisoned in his cell, Huna was reflecting wryly on the vagaries of his occupation when he heard a scraping noise. He thought it might be a mouse in the straw or another rat nosing its way in through the drain hole until a low whistle took his gaze upward. A familiar face was framed in the barred window. Huna got up at once and crossed the cell, wondering how anyone as small as the dwarf could reach such a high window. The explanation soon became clear when his friend started to bob and sway. The bearward was seated on the shoulders of his animal.
Their conversation was conducted in a series of whispers.
‘The guards would not let me in,’ said the dwarf, ‘so we sneaked around the back of the gaol. I have brought you food, Huna.’
‘God bless you!’ said the old man as bread was passed through to him. ‘But what has happened to my donkey?’
‘We have taken good care of him.’
‘Thank you.’
‘He is in the stable where all four of us spent the night.’
‘Fed and watered?’
‘Regularly. He is very happy but he misses his master.’
‘I may soon be let out to join him,’ said Huna hopefully. ‘They tell me that I am to appear before the bishop again but I do not believe he means to prosecute me. The boy whom I cured and his father will have spoken on my behalf. They will have assured him that no sorcery was involved.’
‘It was not. I was there myself.’
‘I think the bishop finds me too big a nuisance to keep here. That is what usually happens when they arrest me. They push me around at first, then send me on my way with dire warnings. But what is all that commotion I heard earlier? Did you have a lively audience?’
‘We did not,’ said the dwarf, ‘but your friend did.’
‘Friend?’
‘The one you told me about. Boio the Blacksmith.’
‘He has been given sanctuary at the abbey.’
‘Somebody wants
him out, Huna. There are armed men all round it. They tell me that some of them had a violent argument with the bishop when he refused to let them in. What on earth did your friend do to stir up such an argument?’
‘He simply protested his innocence.’
‘Why does he need sanctuary if he committed no crime?’
‘Being innocent is a crime in this case,’ said Huna with a wry smile. ‘Boio made important people look like fools. They will not let him get away with that.’
‘What will become of him?’ asked the dwarf.
‘That depends on me.’
‘How can you help him?’
‘I do not know yet but I will devise a way. But what of you?’
‘We came to bid farewell, old man,’ said the other sadly. ‘Ursa and I will quit the town tomorrow.’
‘Where will I find you until then?’
‘In the stable with your donkey.’
‘Good,’ said Huna. ‘If they let me out, I may be able to show you another miracle and teach you the trick of it.’
‘I would love to learn it, Huna. What miracle will you perform?’
‘I will make a man walk through stone walls.’
The dwarf grinned in approval then let out a yell of pain as the bear tired of supporting him and turned mutinous, tossing his master uncaringly on to the ground before letting out a penitent whine and somersaulting around him in a vain bid to win back his favour.
It was well into the afternoon when Ralph and his men finally got to Coventry and they headed straight for the abbey. There was no sign of Philippe Trouville but Henry Beaumont was standing outside the gate of the abbey, conferring with the captain of his men-at-arms. Ralph noted that the soldiers were stationed at intervals around the whole building.
‘Call off the siege, my lord,’ he commanded, riding up.
‘Why?’ asked Henry.
‘Because you pursue an innocent man.’
‘Boio is a fugitive from justice.’
‘Not any more. Grimketel's testimony was false. I can prove it.’
‘What witness will you call?’ said Henry cynically. ‘Some doddering old man who had his donkey shoed free?’
‘No, my lord. One of your own men.’
‘Mine?’
‘Warin the Forester.’
Ralph dismounted and told him of his encounter in the forest. Henry would not believe him at first but the detail Ralph was able to give was too convincing and he was forced to accept it.
‘Warin will rot in my dungeon!’ he vowed. ‘With Adam Reynard alongside him. Nobody poaches my deer.’
‘There is a more heinous crime here as well.’
‘Is there?’
‘They were ready to stand back and watch Boio die for a murder that he did not commit. Grimketel was the main offender but these other two are accessories.’ Ralph gestured at the abbey. ‘Now will you call off the hounds and let Boio walk out of there a free man?’
‘No, I will not!’
‘But you must, my lord.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the blacksmith did not kill Martin Reynard.’
‘He escaped from my castle,’ said Henry sourly. ‘That is a crime in itself. And he injured one of my guards in doing so. That adds a charge of assault. Then there is the second death. Boio will stand trial for the murder of Grimketel.’
‘He could not possibly have killed him.’
‘You saw the evidence yourself.’
‘What I saw,’ said Ralph with slow deliberation, ‘was the lord Philippe kneeling over the body and telling me that Boio had just fled.’
‘That is exactly what happened.’
‘Then why could you not find him?’
‘He eluded us.’
‘He was never there, my lord. You must have spoken with the abbot or the bishop by now and, as I see, were given a dusty answer. Did they say what time Boio arrived here yesterday?’
‘Shortly before vespers.’
‘There is your proof,’ insisted Ralph. ‘Even with wings on his heels, Boio could not have run all the way from Grimketel's house to the abbey in so short a time. It was a journey halfway across the county.’
‘He must have had a horse.’
‘The fastest mount would not have got him here in time for the vespers bell. Think hard, my lord. You know when Grimketel's body was discovered because you sent the lord Philippe to his house to warn him.’
‘That is true,’ conceded the other.
‘At that point in time, Boio must already have been well on his way to Coventry. Even you must see that.’
Henry Beaumont tried hard to find a flaw in Ralph's argument but he could not. He was reluctant to surrender the second charge of murder against the blacksmith and he groped around wildly for ways to implicate him somehow. At length he gave in. He saw that Boio could not have killed Grimketel. The face of a new suspect came into his mind.
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Ralph, reading his expression.
‘But why? He had no motive.’
‘Does a man like the lord Philippe need a motive? He is given to violent impulses. The lady Marguerite said as much to both our wives. Have you not noticed the rush of blood which comes to his face?’
Henry thought of the way that Trouville had run down the poacher in the forest and of his desire to raid an abbey in search of their prize. He was also enraged at the thought that they had searched so hard for Grimketel's killer when he was actually alongside them. It threw him into a state of complete ambivalence. He did not know whether to stay at the abbey or go in search of the man. Ralph made the decision for him.
‘Let me go, my lord,’ he offered. ‘Where is he?’
‘I sent him to call on my brother at Brinklow Castle. He has been anxious to make Robert's acquaintance ever since he arrived in the county and I hoped that the ride out there would give the lord Philippe a chance to cool down.’
‘Cool down?’
‘He was all for reducing the abbey to ashes.’
Ralph pulled a face. ‘Leave him to me,’ he said.
Robert de Limesey's irritation was rapidly approaching the point of outright frenzy and he did not want to let himself down in front of Brother Reginald. The bishop was making another doomed attempt to interrogate Huna and to break down the old man's resistance until he readily confessed to witchcraft. Instead of that, Huna's mind and tongue seemed to have been sharpened by his time in the gaol, a place from which he brought aromatic memories which assaulted the sensitive nostrils of the bishop so much that he had incense sprinkled in his chamber before the examination began.
‘Why do you lie to us?’ asked the bishop.
‘If you describe a truthful answer as a falsehood then we will get nowhere,’ said Huna. ‘I am what I am, as you well see.’
‘A sorcerer.’
‘Wherein does my sorcery lie, my lord bishop? I cured a sick boy. Doctors are curing their patients every day in this town. Will you arrest them all and burn them at the stake?’
‘They are trained to use proper medicines.’
‘Why, so was I. My mother trained me. Proper medicines, as you call them, are made up of herbal compounds. So are my potions.’
‘You did not cure that boy with a potion.’
‘But I did,’ said Huna. ‘I used the most powerful medicine of all. Belief in God. You have seen as well as anyone what wonders it brings about. The whole of Christendom is a tribute to that belief. That was the only potion I used. A compound of faith and love.’
‘Saints preserve us! Will this fellow never stop?’
‘You charged me yesterday with aspiring to be like Jesus Christ,’ recalled Huna. ‘But I could never aspire to such goodness. Jesus could turn water to wine, walk on water and raise a man from the dead. I can do none of these things. My miracles are of a much lower order but they have a true Christian purpose. The man who came to me had faith, that is why he brought his son to be cured. He had faith in me and faith in God's power to work through me.’
He beamed at them. ‘That is why his son was carried here from his home but was able to walk away, sound in body and mind.’
‘We have examined both father and son.’
‘Do they lay charges against me?’
‘No.’
‘Did they tell you that I used sorcery?’
‘They are too ignorant to know.’
‘Do you think I practise black arts?’
‘What Brother Reginald and I think is that you are either a clever trickster or a cunning sorcerer and we want neither of them in this town.’ Reginald nodded his agreement as his master's vituperation poured out. ‘You are to leave Coventry by dawn tomorrow. If you are ever caught in this town again–or anywhere in my diocese of Lichfield–you will be tried for witchcraft without compunction. Is that clear? We will tie you to a stake and burn the evil out of you with holy flames.’ He rose to his feet and pointed to the door. ‘Now take yourself and your disgusting stink out of the abbey and leave Brother Reginald and me to deal with the much more important matter which occupies us at the moment.’
‘It occupies me as well,’ said Huna happily.
‘You?’
‘May I have permission to bid farewell to Boio?’
A storm was brewing and an already overcast sky began to darken. When Thorkell and his men reached the abbey it took them a moment to pick Henry Beaumont out in the gathering gloom. The newcomers were not given a cordial welcome.
‘Whatever are you doing here?’ demanded Henry.
‘I came to see that Boio's best interests are served.’
‘That can only be at the end of a rope.’
‘But he is no murderer,’ explained Thorkell. ‘Gervase Bret called at my house with valuable new evidence in Boio's defence, garnered from one of your own foresters.’
‘I have heard it,’ said Henry peevishly.
‘Then why do you still stand vigil here, my lord?’
‘Because your blacksmith still has much to answer for.’
‘Such as?’
‘Wait until his trial.’
‘That may be a very long wait if he stays here for the full term of sanctuary,’ said Thorkell. ‘Are you prepared to stand out here in all weathers for the whole duration?’
‘We will drag him out of there soon.’
‘That is why I came, my lord. To safeguard his life.’
The Foxes of Warwick (Domesday Series Book 9) Page 26