Sir Geoffrey was halfway through some anecdote about a trick that both boys had played on some long-forgotten priest when there were more voices outside. Edwin’s mother went out once more and returned with Robert, Martin and Simon. Edwin realised that people were coming to the cottage to pay their last respects to a dying man, and that the end was very near. He looked towards the bed and was heartened to see that his father actually looked better than he had done for some time. He was still emaciated and weak, propped up from his lying position by some pillows, but there seemed somehow to be more colour in his cheeks, and his voice was stronger. Edwin knew and accepted now that there was no hope of a recovery – his father would never leave the bed alive again – but it was good to see a reminder of the man he once was. Surely this was due to the presence of his lifelong friend, who had cheered him with words and with feelings left unspoken.
Robert came to sit next to Edwin, and gripped his shoulder wordlessly. Edwin looked at him, and wondered if some of the feelings which he’d experienced about friendship would transfer themselves to Robert as well.
Martin and Simon stepped forward to the bed, Simon murmuring quietly that he could only stay for a moment as he was needed by the earl. He was wide-eyed and pale-faced in the presence of impending death, but father had a smile for him and a cheerful word. He put his hand on the boy’s head and offered him a blessing, after which Simon moved back awestruck – for everyone knew that a blessing from a man so near to God was a powerful thing – to make way for his elder. Father and Martin exchanged a few quiet words, and once more Edwin was struck by just how much his father was respected. The conversation ended with a brief handshake, and Martin shepherded Simon back out of the cottage. He himself returned and stood in silence in the corner.
Father, looking more alert than he had done for many weeks, swept his gaze around at his remaining audience, and spoke.
‘Now, enough of this maudlin talk. There is still a task to be done, and I would not die before it is accomplished.’
They all looked at him, surprised at the vigour in his voice. Edwin, with his newfound respect for the brevity of the time left to his father, started to say that he need not worry himself about such things, but was cut short by parental authority as his father bade him hold his tongue and obey. Edwin stopped mid-word.
He waited for his father to continue, but realised that he was looking at Martin, who had given an almighty start at the sound of his last words, and was now standing as if he was itching to say something. Father nodded to him.
‘That’s it!’ burst Martin, excitedly. That’s what was different about the body. Oh, I knew there was something!’
Edwin and Robert looked at him in surprise, as did the two older men.
Martin looked at them, stuttering in his excitement. ‘The … the … the tongue! When we picked the body up from the top of the keep, the tongue was sticking right out.’ He turned to Robert. ‘Surely you remember?’
Robert nodded. ‘Of course. It was horrible.’
Martin continued, still unusually animated. ‘But when I was with Edwin later on, and we looked at it, the tongue was back in the mouth. That’s why I said it looked different, only I couldn’t remember why. And nobody else would have noticed, for nobody else saw the body both before and after we’d taken it to the chapel. Robert helped me down with it and then left, and Edwin didn’t see it until much later on. In the meantime somebody must have come and interfered with it.’ He looked around, bright-eyed at the astonished faces in the room, but then calmed down and assumed a puzzled expression. ‘But why on earth would anyone want to do that? It makes no sense!’
But it obviously did make sense to Sir Geoffrey and to father, who both appeared enlightened. Sir Geoffrey spoke.
‘Martin, you’re young, and thank the Lord you have not yet seen many men hanged. When a man dies by having a rope or cord put around his neck, the pressure of it forces his tongue out of his mouth, where it remains. It’s a sure sign that a man has died by hanging.’
Edwin had listened to all this in growing astonishment, but he was still confused. Robert voiced the question which was also in Edwin’s mind. ‘But how can the earl have been hanged? There is nowhere up there to do that, and we found no noose, no rope.’
Sir Geoffrey spoke again. ‘I haven’t finished yet, boy. It’s a sure sign of being hanged, but it happens whenever a man is killed with a rope around his neck. Did you say that your dead man had a thin wound to his neck? Not much blood? Why then, he was garrotted, strangled with something fine.’
There was a moment of silence while they all took this in, then the knight continued, berating himself for his own stupidity and thumping his palm. ‘Oh, why didn’t I look at the body myself? As soon as I was told that the man had had his throat cut, there seemed no point – many men die in such a way. I would have been able to put you on the right scent much sooner. Edwin, I’m sorry.’
Edwin’s surprise at the discovery was such that he had none to spare at the thought of a knight apologising to him. This was – well, really. All that time he’d spent looking for a knife and the man had been strangled! He himself had looked at the body, why hadn’t he noticed? The answer to that was obvious, of course – mercifully, he didn’t have much experience of looking at men who had been murdered or executed, so he wouldn’t know the difference anyway.
He jumped up. ‘I must go and look at him again, before he’s sealed into his coffin.’
Martin had also moved forward, and he put his hands out to stop Edwin. ‘No – I’ll do it. I can easily run down there and look. What you need to do is sit and think, and you’re much better at that than me.’ There was no self-consciousness in his voice, only simple acknowledgement. Edwin wanted to say something, wanted to disagree, but he was given no chance as Martin bade everyone a hasty farewell and left at a run. Edwin sat down again, heavily.
It was father who spoke, his voice decisive.
‘I believe that this is what we know already.’ The others listened in growing amazement as he gave a succinct and summary account of all that he knew, which matched Edwin’s thoughts exactly. No wonder he’d been such a good bailiff – he had the gift of hearing everything once and understanding the important issues immediately.
Once he’d got over his shock at the strength which his old friend still exhibited, Sir Geoffrey filled in the details of the encounter with Walter, including his own bafflement at being unable to tell whether the man was telling the truth or not. He turned to father for his view, but Edwin felt that he had to interrupt. He held up his hand and the other stopped.
He spoke slowly, feeling his way through the labyrinth in his mind. ‘I don’t think he can have had time to go up to the top of the keep and then down again. If he’d sent Lady Isabelle out of the chapel, he would have needed some time to get up to the roof, kill the earl and then come back down. Peter said that he’d seen them all, but that they’d come out one after the other. He didn’t mention that Walter had been much later than the others, and he had no reason to lie.’ He described his interview with the boy earlier that day, and wondered again where he might have got to.
Father took all this in and spoke again.
‘I agree with Edwin – Peter had no reason to lie, and if he is telling the truth then the man would not have had time to murder his brother. There is also the fact that he appeared to you to be in much distress – when a man is in extremis he normally resorts to telling the truth simply because it is easier, and he does not have the courage to lie. There is always the chance that he is just a very fine dissembler, but from what I have heard I do not think that is the case. So, we have ruled out one of the main suspects. Now, what is the best way forward from here? You have only a short time, Edwin, and although you have others to help you –’ he looked around at the others, ‘including you, my old friend, and you, the friend of my son – it is your task, Edwin, to find the culprit. What are your thoughts?’
Edwin did not know if he had any o
pinions at all, so confused was his mind and so impressed was he with his father, but he tried to gather his wits. Eventually, one thought struck him above all others.
‘Every time I have spoken to anyone about the dead earl, they’ve told me that he was an evil man and that he did many foul deeds, but nobody has actually said what any of these deeds were. I’m more convinced than ever that the key to this mystery lies in the past, not in the present. He came here but a few days ago – nobody knew him, or at least nobody knew him well, and it’s very difficult to think that he might have offended someone so badly in such a short space of time that they would want to kill him. No,’ he said, realising that he was speaking his thoughts exactly as they fell out of his head, but also that they were starting to make some kind of sense, ‘the answer lies somewhere in the past. Somewhere at some time he did somebody a great wrong, and someone has decided to avenge it.’
Everyone was looking at him. He dropped his head. ‘Well, that’s what I think, anyway,’ he mumbled.
‘You mistake us, Edwin.’ It was Sir Geoffrey who spoke. ‘We are looking at you in pride, for you’ve hit upon something which nobody else has considered. I’ve been trying to think of anyone he might have offended since he’s been here, but this seems implausible. Your theory about the past fits much better. You’re right – he did commit some foul deeds, and I at least know some of them. And so does your father, for I told him of them long ago.’ He looked at father, who indicated that he should continue.
Sir Geoffrey cleared his throat. ‘The worst, the very worst of these deeds, happened fifteen years ago in France. It was when we were on campaign with the old earl, during the war which decided the succession.’
He looked around at the bemused faces of the young men, and realised he would have to start from the beginning. He sighed.
‘Pay attention, boys – I don’t want to say all this twice.’
Automatically they both straightened.
‘When King Richard died – may God rest his soul – there were two claimants to the throne. The king had no children, but he had one surviving brother, John, and one nephew, who was the son of their dead brother Geoffrey. If the law of succession were to be interpreted strictly, it would have been this nephew, Arthur, the Duke of Brittany, who inherited the throne, as his father had been John’s elder. However, he was only a boy of twelve who had never even visited England, so it would have been risky to put him on the throne. John and his supporters were in a much better position to seize power, and they invoked the old custom that the younger son of a king was nearer to the throne than a grandson whose father had never ruled. So John became king. However, Arthur decided to make a bid for the throne, or at least the barons who were supporting him did. Why did they do it? It’s possible that they truly thought that Arthur might make a better king than his uncle, for John was unpopular even then. But it’s more likely that they simply saw an opportunity to cause trouble and to profit by it. And so the realm endured civil war.’
He stopped to draw breath before continuing.
‘Most of the fighting took place over in France, in the Angevin domains. The war went on for three years, three disastrous years during which time many good men were killed. During that time Arthur grew from a small boy to a slightly older and more effective one, and there was some talk that his cause might succeed. However, he was captured at the siege of Mirebeau. John had him taken to his stronghold of Falaise; after that he was moved to Rouen, and nobody ever saw him again.’
Edwin had never thought to hear of so many evil deeds in just a few short days, but he was already becoming accustomed to it. ‘Murdered?’
Sir Geoffrey nodded grimly. ‘Aye. The rumours that floated around said that the boy had been blinded, then stabbed and his body thrown in the river. And one of the men at Rouen was Ralph de Courteville, then just a relatively minor lord. But shortly after Arthur’s disappearance, de Courteville was named earl, and nobody knew why, other than that he had performed some “great service” for the king.’
Robert exhaled. ‘You mean – you think that de Courteville murdered the boy himself?’
Sir Geoffrey looked tired. ‘Yes. The supposed method of the killing bore his mark. He always swore that he had some grudge against Arthur, for the boy had been arrogant to him and made him lose face in public at one time. So he built up this slight into a need for revenge. He was always particularly harsh on those he captured – and what man in his right mind would put out a boy’s eyes before killing him? Why do it? There is no reason other than vindictiveness.’ He gave a shudder. ‘Clearly the prince needed to be kept under tight rein, in case his cause surfaced again, but even the strongest-willed among the king’s party were squeamish at the thought of the cold-blooded murder of a boy.’
Edwin could hardly take it in. But even so, his mind was working on his own problem. How could this relate to de Courteville’s murder here in Conisbrough? Surely none of Arthur’s supporters could have borne a grudge for so long? Or was revenge a fire which could be kept alive and stoked during many years?
Sir Geoffrey seemed to see into his mind. ‘I don’t know how much help this is in our present situation, but it shows that de Courteville was responsible for an atrocity, and where there is one, there might be more.’ He was struck by a thought. ‘There were some who said that the deaths of two other knights at around that time might have been connected to de Courteville as well. Recall, Edwin – the arms you were looking at on the roll. Those two men supposedly died in accidents, but de Courteville was in the area, and shortly after their deaths their names were struck from the lists of knights and arms, as though they’d never existed. They must have done something that greatly displeased the king, although I can’t think what it might have been.’
Robert’s mind was evidently working faster than Edwin’s, for he spoke, a little shakily. ‘What if those two men had done something which the king wanted them to, but he’d decided afterwards that he didn’t want anyone to know about it?’
Everybody looked at him.
Edwin had already taken the next logical step and he grasped it first. ‘You mean, maybe they killed the prince, and then the king had them murdered?’
‘Yes. Or perhaps all three of them, de Courteville as well, murdered the boy, and then de Courteville killed the other two to keep them quiet.’ Robert’s eyes grew large. ‘Monstrous!’
Sir Geoffrey spoke slowly. ‘Robert, I think you might have stumbled upon something which has kept the rest of us guessing this past fifteen years.’ He thought carefully. ‘It all seems plausible now that you explain it that way. The times and places are all right.’ He looked thoughtful.
The expression on the knight’s face reminded Edwin of something. ‘That’s strange. Simon looked exactly as you do when I spoke to him about times and places yesterday.’ The others turned to him, so he explained further. ‘Martin and I were talking about the time at which the earl must have been killed – we were working out whether Father Ignatius might have seen someone going up the stairs – and Simon suddenly went very quiet and said he was thinking about something, but it couldn’t be right.’ He stopped.
Robert spoke. ‘So what was it?’
‘What was what?’
‘What was Simon thinking about?’
‘Oh. I don’t know – he wouldn’t say.’
That was probably not much help. The room fell silent.
Edwin had something else on his mind. ‘But I still can’t understand how a man would murder his own nephew, or at least have someone else do it. And if this prince Arthur knew about the danger, why did he continue in his bid for the throne? Surely he was well off as a duke and had no need to be king as well, if it was that dangerous.’
It was father who replied, snorting. ‘In that, my boy, you have revealed your innocence and naivety. Noblemen will always seek power – they are drawn to it irresistibly. Once King Richard died, there were only ever two choices for Arthur – take the throne or die. It was his right,
his duty to fight, for the crown was his through his father. It was not the boy’s fault that his father happened to be John’s elder brother, and not the younger. He had to do it.’
His energy seemed to waver, and after a look at his old friend, Sir Geoffrey continued the theme. ‘For are all our places in the world not governed by our fathers? King, noble, knight, peasant – all have their station due to their fathers, and their fathers’ fathers.’ He reflected. ‘But it was also not his fault that he was only a boy of twelve who had not come to his full strength, and therefore never had a chance. It was not his fault that he died only three years later, alone in some dungeon.’
There was silence for a few moments, before Robert was the first to break it by rising, saying that he must get back to the castle lest the earl miss his presence. He took his leave of Sir Geoffrey and lingered a long moment by father’s bedside.
‘Master Godric, I must bid you farewell. By morning we shall be gone, and I don’t know how long it will be before I return …’
He left the rest unsaid, but father understood. He raised one lined hand and laid it on Robert’s arm, looking into the eyes of the younger man.
‘God be with you always, my boy, for I have watched you grow, and you have ever been the friend of my son. May the Lord bless us both, whether our lives be short or long.’
Robert looked at him quizzically for a moment, then put his strong young hand over the frail old one, oddly gentle, before turning and leaving the room, trying not to let the others see his face. He was already at the door of the cottage when he remembered his manners and stopped to take his leave of Edwin’s mother, leaning on the doorframe as he did so. Then he left the cottage to make his way back up to the castle in the waning sun.
The three men remaining looked at each other.
The Sins of the Father: A Medieval Mystery (A Mediaeval Mystery) Page 22