Usually the servants would eat with their lord and his household in the hall, but tonight, with so many guests visiting the place, men-at-arms and others had to eat in parallel, taking their own food where they may. Toker had avoided the service held over a small portable altar set up in the small hall near the gatehouse, preferring to sit in the open air with an ale rather than indoors while some fool of a chaplain preached about St Giles’s saintliness.
Compared with many, Sir Peregrine was as sober as normal, but Toker was sure he had drunk plenty of wine from the way he walked so precisely and cautiously. Lord Hugh was just behind him, belching happily while he gripped his belt with both hands as if fearing that its weight might lead it to fall to the ground. As he went to the gatehouse he giggled in that high tone of his as he recalled the jokes told at his table, his wife still exclaiming at the feats performed by jugglers and acrobats.
Sir Peregrine gave Toker a good night, but as Sir Baldwin and his lady passed Sir Peregrine, Toker heard his voice change. ‘Damn you, Sir Baldwin,’ he hissed. ‘If only someone would rid me of you, my Lord would be safer.’
Toker smiled to himself. ‘Always a pleasure to oblige you, Master,’ he muttered under his breath.
Returning to her room after the feast, Matilda sniffled as she drank another pot of wine. Andrew had gone to his own room again, leaving her to cope with her desolation alone. He rarely came to her bed now.
It was chilly tonight, or was it her? It was hard to tell nowadays what she felt about anything. Since her girl had died.
In a way she was relieved that he didn’t want to be with her. It would have been too much to bear if he had demonstrated more affection when he had banished Joan to the servants’ hall. His decision to leave his wife alone had given Matilda a sense of unity with her daughter, although it was tempered by her guilt. Andrew’s rejection of Joan had made Matilda feel as if she had betrayed her daughter, her last remaining tie with her first husband, Paul.
Pulling off her clothes, she let them fall to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed.
She drew away from memories of Paul like a child regretfully pulling away from a plate of sweetmeats; she would have liked to wallow in vivid recollections of him. Her time with him had been so good, so full of pleasure and fulfilment, that to recall those years to mind was almost to commit mental treachery against Andrew. And if she were capable of committing treason in her head, where would she stop?
No, she would put all thoughts of her first husband from her. She had a duty, one which she had sworn to, towards Andrew. And Duty and Honour were important concepts to her. They had to be.
Nicholas had been a Templar at the small Preceptory in South Witham when Matilda married Paul, a local knight. Her marriage had been a delight to her, fulfilling and pleasurable. And then one morning her brother appeared, shocked and horror-struck, and blurted that his Order, the greatest, most devoted army in Christendom, had been disbanded. Templars who refused to surrender were declared outlaw and excommunicate. Paul had preferred to trust to his own King’s judgement rather than listen to the French King’s accusations. He took Nicholas in, protected, fed and clothed him.
They would all be there still, and Joan would be alive, if the second disaster hadn’t struck shortly afterwards. One day while out hunting, Paul had been thrown from his horse, and although Matilda had been worried about his head, in which there was a gash from striking a rock, a small scratch on his arm went septic. Two days later, he died.
His lord was apologetic, but with the political situation he couldn’t afford to leave a feeble widow and her daughter in the manor, and neither was he prepared to trust an excommunicate Templar: he needed another knight. He evicted Matilda, giving her a small purse of gold in memory of her husband’s service, but nothing more. She had often thought that if Joan had been a boy-child, he would have let her remain.
Nicholas had taken over; she was his responsibility. Luckily he had saved money while he was a Templar. He took her purse, not trusting a woman with money, and the three of them made the journey to the south. At first Nicholas had intended going to Bordeaux to see what opportunities existed in the English King’s lands, but when they arrived in Oxford, a wrong turning took them to the west, and Nicholas decided to see what the farthest-flung parts of the realm were like. Thus they ended up in Exeter.
It was good fortune that led to Nicholas meeting a merchant who needed a little money, or so Nicholas always said. The merchant had been glad of the purse of gold, agreed to Nicholas’s terms, and swiftly the purse had doubled in value. Then Nicholas began dealing with a ship-owner and helped fill the ships with wine, until within a few years he had a share in a ship of his own.
A frequent visitor to their house in those days was Andrew Carter. Then he had been lean and hungry-looking, still waiting for the opportunity that would make him wealthy, but before long Matilda realised that Andrew was observing her with an eye of admiration, not one of mere courtesy to a partner’s sister.
She had not at first thought much of him, but gradually his generous compliments, his overblown admiration and fervent statements of desire had persuaded her that life with a husband could be preferable to life without. Or was it that Nicholas had seemed so keen to see her handfast? Maybe that was it, she thought; maybe there had never been love on her side, but she wanted to obey and please her brother, just as before she would have done anything to satisfy her Paul.
Not that there was much possibility of satisfying her husband now. He never came to her. Hadn’t for months. He was like Nicholas; he’d looked on Matilda as an asset to be traded. Nicholas had wanted to be free of Matilda and Joan, and Andrew had wanted to be tied to the successful trader. The marriage fulfilled both their dreams. There was no reason to expect any other feelings than duty in a marriage after all.
It hadn’t mattered until Joan died, of course.
She felt the tears begin again and blinked them away. Waves of remorse washed over her. For years she had left Joan in the servants’ hall at her husband’s behest, only rarely seeing her own daughter, and when she did it was always with Andrew in the room at the same time. She had been no kind of mother. No mother at all.
Riven by sobs, she turned and threw herself down on the soft mattress and hid her face in the counterpane as the keen poignancy of her sadness caught her up once again.
Chapter Twenty-One
While Matilda wept for the daughter she had now lost for ever, a fire burned brightly in a small cottage four miles away.
Harlewin smiled at the naked treasure before him. He had ridden here as quickly as he could in order to sample the delights of Cecily’s body, and seeing her here was enough to justify his urgency.
‘It was a work of brilliance to say that a man had fallen in a well,’ he laughed as he picked her up and carried her to the bed.
She twined her hair around a finger. ‘It seemed the best means of rescuing you from the interminable feasting. Was John there?’
‘Yes, and he looked daggers at my back when I left,’ Harlewin said and dropped her onto the bed.
She squealed with delight. ‘The fool! So long as he never knows for sure that we’ve met.’
Harlewin let his sword belt fall to the ground, his fingers pulling at the laced neck of his shirt. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right? I hate the thought of him taking a switch to your arse or belting you.’
‘Oh, you really would mind that, wouldn’t you?’ she said, reaching up and touching his face with her soft fingers.
‘Course I would,’ he returned gruffly, untying his hose from his tunic and letting them drop beside his shirt. ‘If he hurt you, I ’d challenge him.’
‘To a duel?’
‘Of course.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘I must confess to a certain surprise that you don’t seem to be scared he might find out about you.’
‘That’s easily answered.’ Her face lost a little of its gaiety and in its place she wore a colder,
more calculating expression. He had never seen such a look on her face before and it made him pause a moment. ‘I am scared that he could find out. That is why I am very, very careful. He isn’t that bright, and provided I carry on being careful I should be safe enough.’
‘You’d have thought the dumb bugger would have got the message, wouldn’t you, eh?’ Harlewin said. He tugged his tunic over his head and threw it to the ground.
‘Not really, no. I can be devious when I want,’ Cecily said, pulling a long tress of her black hair to her mouth and sweeping it in teasing flicks over her lips and chin while she watched him. ‘I usually make sure he’s busy before I come out.’
‘What about tonight? He’ll be back after the feast and wonder where you’ve got to – especially since he knows I left the place early,’ he said, kicking away the last of his clothes and climbing into the bed beside her.
‘You have your alibi arranged?’
‘Yes. The fool wouldn’t dare cross me,’ he said, and nuzzled at her breast.
She giggled and cupped his head to her but after a moment he pulled away and looked up at her.
‘But what will you say tomorrow when he asks you where you have been?’
‘My husband doesn’t trouble me in my bed of a night. I lock my door and my maid will tell him I am asleep if he knocks.’
‘He could knock the door down and see you aren’t there.’
She touched his lip with a finger, smiling. ‘No. He will return home drunk and bang on my door angrily demanding to see me. His rage will make his frustration and impotence all the more painful for him. Rather than cause more of a stir in the household, he will swallow any story. He can’t face confrontations, you see. My maid will tell him I am asleep and he will go to his own chamber and collapse in a furious stupor. Tomorrow I shall be back before he wakes. I’ll leave here before dawn.’
‘So long as you don’t doze off.’
‘Am I likely to get bored?’ she asked innocently.
Baldwin awoke with a head that thumped madly and a belly that rebelled at the very thought of food. His bladder demanded release, but he couldn’t stand. The mere thought was an exquisite torture.
It was not only that he had eaten too much rich food last night, it was the fact that it was so late at night. They had finished their meal long after he would usually have been in bed. Looking back on it, Baldwin was quite certain that the priest would not have had time to retire to bed before going to his church to hold the nightly services. They were supposed to be conducted at the middle of the night, after all, and by the time the meal was done it was close enough to the middle watches.
Perhaps he had drunk a little too much as well, he amended as a dagger of pain stabbed at his temple.
‘How are you?’ Jeanne asked at his side.
He grunted. There was sympathy in her voice, but a certain tartness indicated that where he had passed an uncomfortable night, his movements and snoring had ensured that she suffered a sleepless one.
‘Do you want some wine?’ she asked, motioning to the jug on the chest.
‘Yes. A small pot, with water.’ He felt hot and shivery. The muscles of his hand wanted to clench for some reason and his stomach rumbled and hissed. It was some time before he could rise, not so much because of his head, but more because of his stomach. The thought of breaking his fast made him nauseous. Miraculously the wine helped.
‘You look dreadful,’ Jeanne observed. She had risen from the bed and covered her nakedness with a thin robe, standing near the window.
They were alone now. The other couple using the room must have already risen. He wondered whether they too had slept badly. With him as a neighbour he assumed they had.
‘Thank you, my Lady,’ he said and sipped. The wine slipped down more pleasantly than he would have expected.
Jeanne stood with the sun behind her, filtering through the thin gauzy material of her night-gown and showing her body beneath. Baldwin swallowed, feeling better after the wine. His smile grew broader and he patted the mattress beside him. ‘Lady, there is a comfortable bed here. We didn’t make good use of it last night, but now…’
‘Oh, no, Baldwin. We can’t. The household is up. They’d know.’
‘My wife, that doesn’t concern me,’ he said, stalking after her as she backed away.
‘Baldwin, we have to get dressed!’ she protested, but her voice was quiet and sounded on the brink of a giggle.
‘We shall get dressed,’ he murmured, adding, ‘later.’
‘What if someone should hear us?’
He caught an arm and tugged her towards him. She was trembling with laughter as he wrapped his arms about her, but then she kissed him slowly and he could feel the pace of her breathing alter. He picked her up and took her to the bed, settling her on the mattress before he slowly opened her robe.
‘Hurry, husband,’ she said and held out her arms to him. He went to her and as their lips touched he felt the blood pounding in his head.
It was matched by the pounding on the door. With a muttered curse Baldwin recognised Simon’s voice: ‘Baldwin, are you there? Are you awake?’
Jeanne froze, then was convulsed at the sight of the expressions that flew over her husband’s face: disbelief, shock, anger and finally, despair. ‘I think you should open the door, husband,’ she chuckled and pulled away from his embrace to hide behind a screen.
‘Baldwin? Wake up, man!’
Taking a deep breath, Baldwin went and unlocked the door.
‘That knight Furnshill and his friend Puttock the bailiff were here looking for you yesterday,’ Andrew said as he broke his bread and dipped a crust into his pottage.
Nicholas had been pouring himself a pot of thin ale, but on hearing his brother-in-law’s words he started and spilt it over the table. ‘Me? Why?’
‘Something to do with the death of another man. Sir Gilbert of Carlisle’s servant: the one who pointed us to where Dyne was in the woods.’
Nicholas set the jug down and shrugged. ‘We’ve told the Coroner all we know.’
‘They were asking about the night before that, too. Wanted to know where you were, what time you’d got in and so on.’
‘Did they say why?’ Nicholas enquired casually.
‘No.’
Their breakfast completed, Andrew said he would be going to the Fair to see how his stalls were doing. Nicholas said he would go along later, but in the meantime, he waited until Andrew had disappeared, then hurried to his roll of clothing in his chest near the hall’s doorway. Searching through it, he pulled out his old sword belt.
The blade was as clean and unmarked as when he had first been given it, almost twenty years ago now, in Lincolnshire, by a grizzled old warrior who had taken it from a Moor outside Acre. Nashki script ran along the fuller, saying, according to the older man, ‘Praise to God’ – although Nicholas had never learned Arabic or the strange letters that flowed over the metal like some kind of liquid fire. Now, as he studied the metalwork, he felt a little of his courage return. Any man who tried to make him out to be a heretic would have to fight him.
Putting the belt about his waist, he was tying the cords when his sister entered.
‘What are you doing with that? Has Andrew told you about Sir Baldwin?
He stood upright once more. With the comforting weight at his side, he felt more like a soldier-monk again, as if the mere carrying of his weapon reminded him of his duty and of honour. ‘I am preparing to meet with Furnshill. He’s learned about me from someone.’
Matilda went to a chair and, fell into it as she stared up at her brother. ‘He knows you were a Templar. He asked me yesterday – before the feast.’
Nicholas gazed at her. He had never confessed to her that he had stolen his money from the Order. She still believed that he had saved money while he was a Templar, as he had told her. Much of his wealth now was based upon the shrewd investment of his money and hers, but it was all founded upon his theft.
‘What will you
do?’ she asked, worried by his anxious but determined mien.
He gave a slow, sad smile. The money he had taken was legally the King’s. If he was discovered, Nicholas knew he would die. ‘I have no idea what I should do, Matilda. No idea at all.’
In the roadway, Felicity saw Andrew and then Nicholas leave the house. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You have to come with me now and tell your story, if you want to hear what really happened to your brother.’
Avicia nodded, but she was still unsure why they had come. ‘I just don’t understand why we’re here. If, like you say, Andrew Carter is not particularly bothered about his daughter’s murder, what good can it do, me saying that Philip was innocent?’
For answer Felicity led the way over the road to Andrew Carter’s door and knocked.
‘But he’s gone! We just saw him,’ Avicia protested, more confused than ever.
As the door opened and Rose peered out, Felicity pushed the door wide. ‘Tell Mistress Matilda that Felicity would like to speak with her.’ She paused, and an unpleasant smile transformed her features. ‘And if she asks who I am, tell her I’m Felicity the Whore and I know who really killed her daughter.’
It was the tapping at the door that woke him from his dreams.
Harlewin was drifting delightfully. With Cecily warm, soft and plump at his side, he saw no need to waken. His eyes opened once, took in the little room, the fire now dead in the hearth, the packed earth floor without even rushes, the chest owned by the miller. The only item of value was this, the miller’s bed, which Harlewin himself had bought for the man and his family. Harlewin wanted a good bed when he came here to sleep with his woman. It was a small price to pay, the fact that the miller and his family slept in it all the time Harlewin wasn’t here. When the Coroner wanted the place, the miller and his brood went and slept in the mill itself.
The Traitor of St Giles aktm-9 Page 22