There was no guilt in Jen. Not now. Not ever. She was only fighting as any woman must to protect her love and her lover. Alice was nothing. A mere encumbrance to him. Jen was his real soulmate. She would have him, too. And when Sarra saw how happy they both were together, she would understand.
But there was this odd feeling in her. It was like a panic, as though she was anxious or something. But that was daft. She was not worried about anything. Except escaping from these people. It was maddening that she must run from them as though she was some common felon, when all she was doing was trying to protect herself. That was it. She was protecting herself. Didn’t any woman have the right to defend her man against other whores who might seek to take him away? Yes. And she would, too.
The alleyway ended in the second street, and she had the presence of mind to thrust the knife into her bodice. Looking down as she started up towards Carfoix, she saw the redness on her hand and for a second her eyes opened with horror. She thought, she really did, that she had cut herself – and then she almost laughed aloud at the silliness of it. Of course, it was only the scratch she had given Sarra. She’d have to apologise for that later, but Sarra would understand. She was a kind girl, Sarra. It would be nothing once she saw how happy Matthew was with his Jen.
She hid her hand in a fold of her dress and ducked her head a little as she made her way on, pushing through the crowds like any other native of the city. Yet there was a constant irritant. Behind her she would keep hearing the blowing of horns and the shouts of the men in the hue and cry. Once she risked a quick glance over her shoulder, and saw a man glowering ferociously at all the people in the street. He almost caught her eye, but she turned away and continued, her head lower still on her shoulders.
Near the crossroads in the middle of the city, she heard more calls and shouts. At first she thought it was merely the hawkers up there, but then she understood that someone had already made his way to the place, and there were three or four men standing and peering at the approaching women with intent, serious expressions. She could not stop; she could not continue, and returning was impossible. That man with the brutal glower might do her harm. For a moment she actually considered taking him into her confidence and telling him that it was all right, the sheriff had sanctioned her actions – but then she shook her head. She hadn’t been able to tell him yet what she was trying to do to help him, hadn’t told him that she was going to remove his wife so that they could be together for ever.
There was a stall to her side. It was a butcher’s from the shambles opposite, and she acted almost without conscious thought. A foot lashed out and the trestle holding up the table on which the wares were displayed collapsed. Amid the shrieks of rage from within the shop, Jen hurried along the street to the opposite corner and darted over the main intersection, thence up and along the High Street.
She had only the one thought: she must reach her lover before anyone else could get to him and lie about what had happened.
The man was inconsolable, and it was some while before Simon and Baldwin could persuade him to stand, leave the body on the floor, and go with them up the stairs.
People outside had heard the unearthly shriek and wailing of despair as Robinet caught sight of his old companion, and they stood blocking the way as the men left the undercroft. It took some curses and the threat of Baldwin’s sword before they were given a free passage. In preference to the street, Baldwin crossed the way, grabbed Langatre’s arm and hissed urgently, ‘Up to your rooms now, and bring the sheriff’s wife with you. Don’t argue, just do it!’
In a short while they were inside the room and Langatre was fussing about heating water over his brazier for some concoction for the lady, while Baldwin secretly wished he had a good quarter-pint of burned wine instead. In his experience that colourless distillation was a supreme cure for almost all ills and panics.
‘This maid, my lady,’ he ventured at last, when Lady Alice was seated more or less comfortably on a chair, ‘is she a local girl from the city?’
‘No … I think she came from north of here … Thorverton, perhaps, or Silverton. I had no reason to question her on it. Master Langatre – could you permit me a little of your wine?’ With her hand she pointed to a small dresser. Langatre nodded and opened a curtain. Behind it was a quartet of pewter goblets and a jug. He poured a measure and passed it to her.
‘Of course not.’ Baldwin smiled reassuringly, thinking that he knew the names of all his serfs, their parents and their offspring, let alone which homestead they had sprung from. ‘Has she shown such violence before?’
‘Never. I would not have allowed her into my house if she had.’
‘You have no children, though. That at least is a mercy.’
‘A mercy?’ Lady Alice snapped.
‘I meant only that she could not have harmed a child, since there were none there,’ Baldwin said, but now he eyed her more closely. A woman with no children would often be sharp on the subject, as he knew only too well. His own wife had been accused of barrenness by her first husband, and he had made her life miserable, refusing to accept any blame for her inability to conceive. Although he had reasons to dislike the sheriff and mistrust him, Baldwin was a rational and fair man. The fellow was no bully to his own wife, he felt sure. No, any pressure this woman felt was more than likely self-inflicted.
And yet … many a man had unknowingly put his wife under strain. Women could attach significance to the least matter, and then live in despair while refusing to explain what it was that made them upset.
‘My lady, what was it that made you consult this magician?’
‘I? What makes you …’
‘It is clear that you know each other, and you are familiar with his room here. You even knew where he might keep a jug of wine, lady. I am sure that your reason for coming to such a place as this is honourable, and I suspect it must be a natural woman’s concern. Am I right?’
She shot an accusing look at Langatre, as though she expected him to confess to betrayal, and then eyed Baldwin more haughtily. ‘What of it? I admit nothing, but yes, I know this man and his rooms.’
‘I ask again: why? You have to understand that at the moment there is a murderer, a most ruthless murderer, loose in the city. He has killed a king’s messenger, the man who lies in the undercroft below, and possibly another, not to mention striking down this magician’s servant and trying to kill the magician himself. His throat still bears the mark.’
She could not help but look up at that. Langatre’s throat was visible above his tunic as she glanced at him, and she could see the mark about his neck, a dark bruising that encircled it like a necklace. Except here there were bruises at the front too, where his fingers had scrabbled for purchase on the cord. She met his look and let her eyes slide away. ‘I know nothing of this.’
‘Really? The man who was living downstairs was a magician too, by repute. Did you know that? He left the tools and trinkets of his trade, which makes me wonder what he was doing down there.’
‘I know nothing of this.’
‘One thing was not found. Did you know who the first victim was in this miserable little charade? A mere carver of bones and antlers.’
‘I know nothing of him,’ she exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Sir knight, I do not understand what you are trying to suggest! But I am a woman, and if you have an accusation to make, you should speak to my husband, and not badger me without his being here to defend me. This is unseemly.’
‘No. Dead bodies are unseemly,’ Baldwin said heavily. ‘The murder of innocents is unseemly. Questioning a woman who may be able to help resolve some of these issues is not unseemly. It is sensible.’
‘Except I know nothing about any of this. I have enough other affairs to concern me, Keeper.’
‘Did your husband know you were consulting this fellow?’
Her face told him all he needed to know. This, then, was another complication, Baldwin told himself.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Palace Gate
It had taken him some effort, keeping up with the old bastard, but Rob was nothing if not persistent. A lad growing in a town like Dartmouth could be rewarded for being persistent. Standing out of reach of a sailor and watching a ship could show a lad when to slip up to the dock and casually slide a hand into a bale of goods to retrieve some little item of value. Yes. A lad with determination and grit could get far.
Today it had brought him right back to the bishop’s palace, though. No further. He’d seen Simon and Baldwin walking away with Robinet, but he reckoned his place was still following Busse. Simon had promised him a penny a day for performing that duty, and that was worth a bit, that was. With any luck, he’d soon get a whole shilling if Busse kept on wandering about, because Rob was competent at merrills and other games of skill or chance. There were few lads of his age who were more capable of palming a die when necessary.
There was no telling what the monk was doing in the bishop’s palace. It was plain enough even to Rob that the man had received a severe shock when he hurried from the house where the body was discovered in the undercroft. Anyone would have thought he had never seen a dead man before, the way he darted up the stairs after finding him with that man Langatre, and then stood about like a whore in a church, gaping with a daft expression on his face as men eyed him up and wondered whether he was mad or murderer.
Rob didn’t much care which he was. So far as he was concerned, the man was a source of money, and that was all. He hadn’t got to know him on the way here, other than to be insulted by his reference to the ‘boy’, and that had not endeared him to Rob in any way.
There was a noise from a little shed near the gate to the bishop’s palace, and when Rob went and peered inside, he saw a group of lads, all a little older than him, standing about an upturned barrel, playing some game or other. It made him grit his teeth. He had two pennies already saved in his purse, and with them he felt sure he could fleece these fools and make his fortune.
He turned and stared back at the palace, chewing at his lip. If he was any judge of a man, that monk was staying put in a nice, safe, comfy palace with no risk of sudden death. He wouldn’t want to run out into the streets again, not alone, not for a long time.
It decided him. He fitted an amiable, slightly foolish smile to his face and leaned round the doorway. Using his broadest coastal dialect, he said, ‘I’m new here, only up for a couple of days – are you playing a game of some sort? It looks like fun …’
Exeter Castle
Sir Matthew left the hall in a foul mood, and bellowed at his grooms to prepare his rounsey. He would ease his soul with a sharp gallop down the road towards Bishop’s Clyst, then on the road out towards Powderham and back. There was little enough business to keep him in the city today, and he could do with the break. Sweet Mother of Christ, he deserved a little time away after the affair of the mad woman this morning. He could still feel the hairs stand up on the back of his neck at the thought of her staring eyes. Jesu, but that had been terrifying. Better to stand in the way of a host of chivalry than remain in the same room as a woman like her.
When his horse was brought, he took it without comment, mounted, and rode away slowly. The bridge over the first defence, the gap in the ramp before the gate, was falling into disrepair. He would have to have the under-sheriff look at it and have the thing replaced.
It was the same with all the basic fabric of the castle. Only a few of the buildings actually had roofs. Most had lost them over the years, and no one had bothered to replace them. In the same way, the towers were all so dilapidated that they were gradually collapsing. There was nothing to be done with a place like this.
If he had the money available, he would have razed the place to the ground and replaced it with a good, new, warm castle on the lines of the late king’s castles in Wales. Good, substantial fortresses with firm, grey walls of moorstone rather than this soft sandy stuff. But a place like that would cost far too much. The king would never agree to it, not while the city was so quiescent. In the past, there had been risings here, and men had revolted, but not for many years now. Not since the tallage riots of 1314 had there been any popular gatherings in mutiny – and even that had been in Bristol, not down here in Exeter. At least the Bristolians had the courage of their anger against that tax. Down here the men were more bovine.
He clattered down towards the High Street, glancing about him at the clear space around the castle. On the north and east, the castle was bounded by the city’s own walls, but to the south and west the walls gave onto the city itself. For protection there were no houses allowed nearby, and this clearing meant that any attack would be visible for some distance. Now, though, there were a few apple trees permitted. And city-dwellers were allowed some rights of pasturage on the slopes. There was a flock of sheep there now, grazing quietly on the very last of the year’s grass.
It was a calming sight, a pastoral scene such as he had witnessed for so many years, and a little of the tension he had felt started to leave him. The horse under him was eager, and he was growing keen to get out of the city himself. They would both be better for a good ride.
Already soothed, he was almost smiling by the time he turned east on the High Street and rode up to the East Gate. He acknowledged the porter at the gate, and was about to ride on when he heard the sudden shriek.
He whirled in the saddle and gazed behind him, and saw the woman again. His heart seemed to freeze, and he felt a wave of ice smooth its way over his back as he took in her uplifted arms, her wide eyes and slobbering mouth. He was tempted to ride straight back into her and run her down, or, better, to draw steel and run her through, but even as his hand strayed to his hilt, he was aware of the porter and all the others there in the gateway. No, he couldn’t do that. But he needn’t hang around here like a cretin.
Turning away, he set spurs to his horse’s flanks and felt the power of the beast as he surged forward, under the old gate, and eastward on the old roads.
Exeter City
She stopped, gaping, feeling foolish in amongst so many others who stood and stared at her as though thinking she was mad. Had he not seen her? Perhaps he couldn’t see her in such a group, with all these others about her. Yes. That was probably it. He had surely heard her voice, because he had turned as soon as she called out to him. ‘My sweet!’ she had cried when she saw him, and instantly he had paused and looked for her. She had seen that: he must have been upset to have missed her. That was it. He had looked for her, and when he couldn’t see her he had ridden off in a hurry.
It was tempting to go up to the castle now, to walk straight inside as though she was already married to him, but she knew that she shouldn’t yet. Her ascendancy was not in doubt, but a certain wariness was making itself felt. Perhaps it would be better to wait until Alice was already gone.
She gazed longingly after the man who, she was convinced, loved her more than anything. There was a soft, wistful smile on her face at the thought of him, but then she turned about and began to trudge back towards the city centre. She had nowhere to go just now, and the only thing she could think of doing was making her way to an inn and staying there for a night. In the morning she would be able to seek out the sheriff again and make sure that this time he saw her.
‘Are you feeling a little better now?’ Baldwin asked Robinet.
Newt stood at the side of the room, away from the strange devices and implements lying all about the place. There was an unfamiliar emptiness in his soul as he looked about the room. It made him feel desolate. For some reason it reminded him that he would never see his friend again.
After considering him for a few moments, Baldwin suggested that the sheriff’s wife should be taken home again, and after she had gone with Langatre he stood and contemplated Newt.
‘Your friend was killed for some reason,’ he said. ‘Is there any more you can tell us about him?’
‘What more is there to say? He was remaining outside here to watch for the man
he had heard of who could have been the man who killed James. He sent me to fetch pies for our breakfast, and when I returned he was gone. I thought he must have followed the man. It never occurred to me that he could be … there.’
‘Do you know who the man was whom he sought to find? If you have any information, it would help us.’
‘All I know is, he said that the man was tall and gaunt-looking. I had thought that the man I saw was shorter, but Walter heard different. I suppose I saw someone else.’
‘Or you were right and he was wrong. How did he come by this description?’ Simon asked.
‘Walter was familiar with people I would never have come to know. It was all a part of his work. He knew those who were involved in crimes, whereas I only ever mingled with the people who were important in the city.’
Baldwin studied a long-handled sickle and shook his head distastefully. ‘I dislike men like this Langatre who meddle in things they know little about. Fooling about with conjurations … it is ridiculous. A man should be expert in his own field and leave others to their own. I am competent as an investigator – you were a good messenger, I presume? And Walter, he was an expert in the king’s household. But an expert at what?’
Newt sighed to himself. ‘I have no reason to conceal anything from you. He was a man who would enforce the king’s rule. Sometimes that would mean that he must kill in order to protect the king. He would remove obstacles to the king’s will.’
The Malice of Unnatural Death: Page 31