Leper's Return

by Michael Jecks

  Baldwin made a leisurely breakfast, gratefully accepting a pot of watered wine instead of his ale. As he chewed, his mind was fixed on the body left in the hall of the retired goldsmith, and his ruminations made him glower in concentration. When Wat entered to stack logs by the fire, he noticed the knight’s expression, and dropped his load in fear. Under Edgar’s stern gaze, he quickly caught up the errant logs, which were rolling over the floor toward his master’s feet, and stowed them near the hearth before hurriedly making his way from the room, thankful that his clumsiness had not earned him the whipping he expected.

  Edgar turned to his master as the door slammed. “I think he’ll be more careful about the fire next time, sir.”

  Baldwin chuckled, but soon his face took on a faraway look again. He must return to Crediton and continue with his investigation into the killing of Godfrey—Godfrey of London. Baldwin mused over the name. “What sort of a man was he, I wonder?”

  “Sir?”

  “This quiet goldsmith. What sort of a man was he? Who would have known him best, do you think?”

  Edgar scratched his nose thoughtfully. “I know little about him. He wasn’t a very sociable man, from what I’ve heard.”

  “It might be worth asking at the inn whether anyone knew him,” Baldwin said slyly.

  Edgar ignored his look. “Perhaps. I could see what I can find out, if you want.”

  “Very well! When one has a spy ready placed, it’s wasteful not to make use of him—or her!”

  “Quite, master,” Edgar said coldly.

  “But we need to ask what these others saw as well,” Baldwin added, his light-heartedness falling away as he considered the problems ahead. “We have to see this neighbor and his guard, and the dead man’s daughter.”

  “And the Irishman.”

  “Yes,” Baldwin agreed. “And John.”

  Yet he found it hard to believe that the tranter could have anything to do with it.

  They took the ride into Crediton at an easy pace, for there was plenty of ice lying on the flat stretches of road, and where there wasn’t, the packed soil of the tracks spelled out another danger: it was all too easy for a horse to slip on a frost-hardened rut and sprain a fetlock; if cantering, a horse could break a leg. Baldwin had no desire to see his rounsey destroyed, so they rode along gently.

  He went straight on past the goldsmith’s hall, past the little group of excitedly chattering townspeople, and in at the gate of Matthew Coffyn.

  The house was set back a few tens of yards from the road, and Baldwin could study it as he approached. It was a new place, one of the most recent in the village, and unlike most of its neighbors, was built of local red stone. That itself boasted of money. The main hall was a broad gray mass facing him, like the long stroke in a capital “T.” At the right end was the barred top of the “T,” which consisted of storerooms with the solar above. Smoke from over the thatched roof showed the kitchen lay behind.

  He and his servant dismounted at the door. Their appearance had been noticed by a burly man who stood at the threshold. He bellowed over his shoulder, and soon a young groom came running, taking their mounts from them and leading them away to be watered.

  Baldwin gave a short grunt of disgust. In his youth, men took on their positions with dedication. The old way was for a man to give himself unreservedly to his lord for life, in exchange for which he would receive clothing, equipment, food and lodging, each depending upon his status. As his lord’s power waxed or waned, so would his own prospects. The modern vogue for men to sell themselves purely for money made them no better than bankers or lawyers. A man like that was undertaking only a cynical financial transaction with no concept of true duty. He would transfer his allegiance on the promise of more cash.

  “Sir?” the man said questioningly.

  He put Baldwin in mind of a wandering mercenary. It wasn’t the clothing. He was clad like any town-dweller, in simple ochre tunic and linen shirt. There was not even a sword about him, only a long-bladed knife dangling at his hip. He had alert, cheerful eyes, and his mouth seemed on the verge of smiling. His posture was relaxed, his thumbs comfortably stuck in his belt, eyeing the knight with a look of respect—but only that respect due to an equal.

  But the negligent pose was itself an act. The man was ready to defend the door against anyone who was foolish enough to attempt to force it. Baldwin could see that in his stillness, and more especially in the way that his attention flitted from Baldwin to someone in the street behind the knight, and back again. That was why Baldwin knew he had been a soldier. He had the warrior’s instinct of keeping an eye out for danger.

  “I am here to see Matthew Coffyn.”

  “And your name, sir?”

  “You may tell him that the Keeper of the King’s Peace is here,” Baldwin said easily.

  The guard nodded affably, then glanced behind him. “Go and tell your master, and hurry about it! Please come with me, sir.”

  They followed him along a broad screens passage, and into a wide hall. It was as Baldwin had suspected. Six men, all sitting at tables, were enjoying their first whet of the day, supping ale from large pots and wiping their mouths with the back of their hands, eyeing him suspiciously. For all that it had the charm of a garrison, Baldwin could see that the hall was well-appointed. Above the entrance was a carved minstrel’s gallery, and the dais at the far end was deep enough for twenty to sit at table. In the middle of the floor was the hearth, with a cone of timbers smoldering quietly inside a ring of moorstone blocks. He counted seven good-sized tables, apart from the two large ones on the dais.

  But even with the tapestries, all of which displayed hunting scenes, there was an atmosphere that belied the apparent homeliness of the scene. The men were plainly not the servants of a prosperous man, they were little more than brigands, and the rolled palliasses and packs against the wall were proof enough that the garrison slept and lived here.

  Matthew Coffyn was seated at his table, and Baldwin studied him as he was led to the merchant’s presence.

  Coffyn was a tall man, Baldwin saw, with a paunch and thick neck that were testaments to his wealth—he could afford as much food as he wanted. For all that, he had a miserable appearance, with a pointed, weakly chin and thin lips under a straight, narrow nose. His eyes were dark, and met the knight’s with a curious sadness. Yet there was also a petulance about him, giving the impression of a spoiled child. This was added to by the shock of unkempt, mousy hair, which gave him the look of a youngster, and also by the signs of nervous energy. Although Coffyn was quiet and sat very still in his seat, every now and again his hand would go to his mouth, and he would worry at his nails like a dog seeking to extract the very last vestige of meat from a whitened bone. Baldwin could see thin red marks on two nails where Coffyn had already chewed them to the quick and drawn blood.

  Much of this Baldwin came to notice later, as they spoke. His initial thought was, This man is vain and arrogant. Still, Coffyn rose to his feet as Baldwin came to his table, and welcomed him with every sign of respect, begging him to sit at the merchant’s side, and pressing him to accept wine. Edgar stood behind his master, while Coffyn waved at the men at the table, and gradually, with an ill humor, they filed out.

  “You are here because of the terrible event last night, of course?”

  Baldwin inclined his head in assent. “I understand you were the first to find him?”

  “That’s right. It was a horrible thing to come across. Poor Godfrey! Do you have any idea who could have done it?”

  This last was said with a sudden flash of his eyes, and Baldwin was struck with the conviction that the man already had his own suspect filed and catalogued in his mind—and tried and hanged, too. The knight sighed. People were so often willing to allocate blame and condemn on flimsy evidence. All too often, he knew, it came down to prejudice or pure malice for another. “Not yet, sir.”

  “Fear not, Sir Baldwin. God will show you who was responsible.”

  “I
n the meantime, could you tell me what happened last night?”

  Coffyn motioned to his bottler, and the man refilled their cups. “I was away yesterday; I had to go to Exeter. It was lucky I came back when I did, because I’d been expecting to stay overnight, but my business was swiftly completed, and I managed to return a little after dark. I had only been home a little while when I heard someone shout from Godfrey’s place…”

  “Could you discern what was said?”

  “Oh yes, Sir Baldwin. It was Godfrey, and he shouted, ”So you’d defile my daughter too, would you?“ We—that is, my men and I—wouldn’t have worried about that—I mean, you hear people having rows even in the best households, and someone shouting may not signify much, but there was something about the tone that made me suspect something was wrong. Anyway, only a short while later there was a loud scream. God!” He wiped a hand over his brow and took a hasty slurp from his cup. “God, it was awful! Now I know it was his soul passing, but at the time, I swear I thought it was the devil! It was a hideous cry, a bellow of anguish—something I’ll never forget as long as I live.”

  Baldwin gave a sympathetic murmur.

  “After that,” Coffyn resumed, “I got my guard to come with me and we ran round there.”

  “Hold on! Did you go in by the front or the back of Godfrey’s house?”

  “By the front, of course! Would you expect me to clamber over his wall?” Coffyn retorted. “We didn’t wait to hammer on his door, we went straight in.”

  “I see. And what did you find?”

  “Godfrey: dead. His daughter, little Cecily, unconscious nearby. His servant, that miserable old sod with the crab-apple face, out cold near the door. My God, it was terrible!”

  “You saw no one else there in the house?”

  “No.”

  “What about in the street outside when you hurried there?”

  “No, there was no one. I’m quite sure of that.”

  “And you couldn’t hear the sound of someone running away or anything?”

  “No. But we wouldn’t—I mean, we were running so hard…If anyone had been there, we’d hardly have noticed.”

  “That’s fine. Now, what was your impression when you first went into the room? Did you think it was a robbery? Or was it a straightforward attack on the man?”

  Coffyn gave him a long-suffering glance as if he was convinced that Baldwin was feeble-minded. “I told you what I heard. Does it sound as if someone was robbing the place? I think an intruder was trying to rape Cecily, and her father came upon the bastard. You take my word for it—when you speak to Cecily, you’ll find that a man was trying to ravish her.”

  “I suppose it is one possible explanation,” Baldwin agreed.

  “Of course it is. The man tried to have his way with her, but was attacked by her father. He struck Godfrey down, and decided to make good his escape, so he knocked out the girl and made off. But he cannot escape God’s own justice!”

  “What about the servant, Putthe?”

  “He came upon the man, and was knocked down too. The assailant slipped out the back, and I arrived there a few minutes later,” Coffyn said dismissively.

  “No, that’s not right. For one thing, Godfrey must have been knocked down as he entered the room…”

  “Pish! He was heard approaching, so the man hid himself behind the door and clobbered him as he entered.”

  “…and yet if Godfrey ran in and shouted, as you say he did, the rapist must have been in front of him in the room. So how was he struck on the back of the head?”

  “There must have been something to distract him…perhaps he heard Putthe running toward him along the screens, and he turned, and that was when his killer struck.”

  “I don’t think so. If that were the case, I feel sure that Godfrey would have crumpled on the spot, and thus ended up facing the doorway. As it is, he fell the other way, as if he was knocked down a few moments after he came into the room.”

  “Well, that’s for you to sort out. I’ve told you all I can,” Coffyn decided, and made a move as if to get up.

  Baldwin sipped reflectively at his wine. “Tell me: are you aware of any enemies that Godfrey might have had? Would there be anyone who loathed him, who was a thorn in his side, or who felt jealous of him?”

  “Only one, I suppose,” Coffyn said reluctantly. “The Irishman—the two of them never seemed to hit it off. It’s hardly surprising, for who could be a friend of a man who was prepared to defraud the Church of money on the basis of trickery? You remember his supposed blindness? Mind you, I think Godfrey disliked him for more mundane reasons. He wanted to buy the plot that John was living on, and John refused to let him have it.”

  “Why would Godfrey have wanted a run-down little place like that?”

  “Godfrey was a rich man. He had his whims. I think he wanted somewhere else to put his livestock, and he has a growing number of staff—had, I should say. That little yard with the cottage would have been ideal, bordering right on his land.”

  “How does John of Irelaunde strike you? Has he ever shown you aggression?”

  Coffyn’s lip curled into a sneer. “That little sod? He wouldn’t dare! If he had, I would have let my men loose on him, and we’d soon see how disrespectful he would be after that.”

  “You do have several new fellows here,” Baldwin noted dispassionately.

  The merchant shot him a look. “Are you insinuating that one or two of them could have been involved in this?” he demanded hotly, but his temper cooled as quickly as it had erupted. “My apologies, Sir Baldwin. I seem only ever to hear of complaints about my men. No, I know that three were here last night before I returned, and the others were with me on my trip. But when I got back here, I had all of them in my yard helping me unload my cart. And none of them could have gone next door between that time and my hearing the call from Godfrey’s.”

  “I see. Tell me, when you heard the shout, where were you?”

  “When I got home, I had the wagon pull up in the yard, and immediately went inside to seek my wife. She wasn’t in the hall, so I told all the guards there to help unload the goods and went to see her in my solar. I…I had thought I heard someone in my private chambers, so I had a good look around. I even called up the guards to help me. That was when I heard the shout—while I was in my bedchamber.”

  “And you didn’t go straight out when you heard the cry?”

  “Well, no. No, I had the impression that someone was here, you see. It was only when I heard the scream that I realized something was dreadfully wrong at Godfrey’s house, and I ran there with one of my men.”

  “Leaving the other guards…?”

  “I left them looking still.”

  “For whoever might have been in your private rooms.” Baldwin nodded; he need ask no more. The merchant’s face had become flushed, but not with anger, and now he avoided Baldwin’s eye. It was clear enough that Coffyn had expected to find someone there, and that he had been unwilling to give up his search. That was why he had left most of his men there when he eventually decided to find out what was going on next door. He was still hoping that they might catch the man. “Tell me, which guard did you take with you? He might have noticed something you did not.”

  Coffyn shrugged and bellowed, “William! Come here a minute.”

  The guard from the door appeared a few moments later. There was something unsettling about him, something that grated, and the knight tried to isolate what it could be. Generally, the man looked happy and calm, with an easy demeanor, and a relaxed attitude: he still had his thumbs hooked into his belt. His mouth was fixed in a perpetual half-grin, but there was nothing sneering about it, it merely made him look as if he knew that meeting someone new was bound to be interesting and rewarding. His eyes too looked frank and cheerful, with little crow’s feet at the corners, as if he was ready in an instant to burst into laughter. He gave one the feeling that he would be good company over a jug of ale.

  But there was still that h
int of readiness about him. Baldwin had lived among soldiers for the greater part of his life, had trained with them, and seen them in action, and this guard had the same aura of danger. His dark eyes were almost bovine, but they were also steady and intelligent; his hands hardly moved from his belt, but that meant they were always close to his dagger’s hilt; he stood easily, his legs a short distance apart, but he was also braced as if prepared to repel an attack at any moment.

  “I believe you went with your master yesterday to the house next door, and you found Godfrey’s body with him?”

  “That’s right, sir. We went straight in as soon as we heard the scream, and found all three of ‘em on the floor.”

  “Your master then sent you to find the constable and raise the Hue?”

  “Yes, sir. He remained to prevent anyone else from breaking in and stealing anything.”

  “Did anyone come in?” Baldwin asked Coffyn.

  “Only the maid. Almost as soon as we got there, she came down. She had been too scared to come down before, but when I called for help, she ran in quickly enough and helped us carry Lady Cecily up to her bedchamber. William and I left the two of them there, and that was when I sent him to fetch the constable. Not long after that, the constable arrived, and he said we could leave.”

  “You saw no one else in the house?” Baldwin asked, turning once more to the soldier.

  “I saw only the three people on the floor and the maid.”

  “And there was no sign of anything being moved or stolen, as far as you saw?”

  “No, sir. But I’d never been in there before, so how could I?”

  “I hope you have some reason for asking all these questions, Sir Baldwin, because I have plenty to be getting on with, and surely you have enough other people to question,” Coffyn interrupted irritably.

  “There are others I need to speak to, yes,” said Baldwin, rising. “I thank you both for your help.”