For the Love of Old Bones - and other stories (Templar Series)

by Jecks, Michael

  I need hardly say that I was not used to frequenting such low, mean dwellings, and would have protested at the thought of going inside, but with Sir Baldwin’s servant standing behind me, I felt I had little choice. The man was oddly threatening. With a sense of chagrin, I followed Sir Baldwin.

  Inside there was already quite a collection of rough, brutish men sitting on benches and supping their first whet of the day. All stared as I stood there, my eyes becoming accustomed to the dim light, which wasn’t easy. The room had a small fire, but this early the air was still so chill that the smoke hung heavily above the hearth, and there was only one window in the opposite wall to permit a tiny shaft of sunlight. I heard a soft scrape of metal, as of a knife easing in its scabbard, but before I could move my hand to my own dagger’s hilt, Sir Baldwin’s servant moved past me, his own blade spinning in the air. He caught it and held it by the tip, ready to throw. When I glanced at his face there was an utter deadness to his eyes. They were as cold and unfeeling as a lizard’s. A snake’s. The room was quiet for an instant, and then the men at their tables began to murmur quietly to each other, studiously ignoring we three strangers.

  Sir Baldwin appeared entirely oblivious to the brief tension. He was leaning at the doorway in the farther wall, talking to a tall, grave and lugubrious man.

  ‘Sir Eustace, this is John, who owns this establishment.’

  The innkeeper barely acknowledged me, beyond a short nod. His attention was fixed on the knight with, or so I felt, a degree of nervousness as well as respect. ‘She did come in here, sir, yes, quite early in the evening. A right pretty little wench she was, too, not much older than my own. Came here asking for a room. Said she’d already been to the inn, but that they charged too much. I said to her, “This is no place for a gentlewoman,” but she insisted. Had tears in her eyes, she did. Almost thought she’d go down on her knees to me. Said she couldn’t afford another place to stay, and begged me to let her have a room.’

  ‘You’ll pardon my agreeing that your house is hardly the sort I would expect a girl to beg to stay in,’ Baldwin noted.

  The dour face cracked a grin. ‘Sir, it’s not the sort of place I’d expect a girl to look into, let alone walk in!’

  ‘How can you be sure she was a gentlewoman and not merely some hussy?’ I asked, and I must admit that I scoffed. His conviction about her status was ludicrous. As far as he knew, she might have been a whore touting for trade in a new tavern.

  He kept his eyes on Sir Baldwin as though I hadn’t even spoken, the bastard. ‘Her dress was worn and showed some hard use, but I think the dirt was recent. It was good cloth, and her face and hands were clean. Dust from the road had marked her apron and wimple, but her figure was good and full, not skinny from poor food, and her voice was confident enough. Yes, I’m sure she was well-born. As for her being a slut, well . . . I saw the way she walked in here, like it took all her remaining courage just to enter. She daren’t even shoot the merest look at the men in here, for fear of bursting into tears, just strode up to me and kept her eyes on me, the poor thing. There was nothing brazen about it.’

  ‘Did she wear a purse?’

  ‘No, not that I saw, Sir Baldwin. That was why she came here, I think, because she had no money on her to take a room in a better house. I took pity on her and said she could use one, and a meal, for the sake of St Boniface.’

  ‘Did she take a room?’

  ‘Yes. The small one behind the hall. It’s near my own chamber, and I thought I could protect her if anyone got amorous overnight. But she left before anything happened.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Just as night fell. Before the church bell for the last service.’

  Sir Baldwin nodded and thanked him, then stood abruptly and walked out. I found him with his hands hooked in his belt, leaning against a hitching post and glowering at the view.

  ‘I know how you feel, Sir Baldwin. It’s awful if she truly was a respectable woman, having to beg for a room in a place like this.’

  ‘Hmm?’ He gazed at me for a moment as if he didn’t recognise me at all. Then a slow smile began to spread over his features. ‘Oh, I see. No, I was just thinking that she must have come from that direction, from the east; if Ralph was right and she came past him, she must have been coming from that way.’

  ‘So what? Does it really matter?’

  ‘Perhaps not, Sir Eustace. But it means that she was walking in the wrong direction for Exeter. If she was some girl who had been running away from home, or, to take your example, if she was a whore looking for a new patch to work, she’d surely have been going the other way. No, she came here for a specific reason.’

  ‘We’re unlikely to discover what it might have been, though.’ To be honest, I was finding his continual inferencing to be more than a little irritating. I was a Coroner, and had better things to do than stand in the street getting hot and dust-blown by passing traffic while my companion guessed at a range of different motives and explanations for how someone he had never known might behave.

  ‘There is one thing that surprises me,’ he muttered, this time peering over his shoulder westwards, towards the inn. ‘Why should she come to town without money? Is it possible she was robbed on her way here? Or did she have some other reason to come here instead of staying in a decent, clean inn?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  ‘Let’s go to the inn and ask Paul.’

  If possible the innkeeper looked even more fretful and anxious than he had the night before. He had few enough customers this early, only a small number of tranters and hawkers and a couple of my own men, but insisted on calling his servants and ordering them about for some time as if demonstrating that he had much to do and couldn’t spare a few minutes in idle chatter. Of course, that is often the way of men who are confronted by their Coroner. Our post is so important that it can cause the foolish to lose their tongues, so I didn’t look upon his behaviour as suspicious. I merely waited, casting an interested eye over the women he had in there.

  One was a real beauty: fair-headed, well-built under her tunic, from the look of her swelling chest, with a bawdy, excitable look in her bright green eyes. I made a mental note to return to see her when this silly affair was over.

  When I cast a sidelong glance at Sir Baldwin, I was surprised to see him lounging and staring up at the ceiling. If I had to guess, I’d say he hadn’t noticed the aproned idiot’s play-acting. Sir Baldwin sat patiently until the innkeeper was ready, and then the stupid serf stood in front of us, asking in his whining, troubled voice whether we wanted a drink.

  By this time I was hungry, and demanded a fresh meat pie. Baldwin seemed astonished by my desire for food, but he shrugged, merely asking for a quart of weak ale. The innkeeper scuttled away happily. It was so like a man of his class to hurry off when given an order by men of a higher standing. They need instruction, folk of his type, or they feel at a loss.

  When he was back, and had hesitantly obeyed Sir Baldwin’s next command and seated himself, the knight began his interrogation.

  ‘The girl in the alley. I understand she was here yesterday afternoon?’

  Paul licked his lips and glanced at both of us before studying his hands, clasped in his lap. ‘Yes, sir, but only for a short time.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She came in late in the afternoon and asked for a room, Sir Baldwin. I saw her myself, and I was sure that she was a real gentlewoman.’

  ‘You were? Yet she came here alone, without a horse or companion. What made you think she was aught but a common vagrant?’

  ‘Oh, she had a real presence about her, Sir Baldwin,’ he said, looking up at last. ‘And her purse was filled with good money. I asked her whether she had coin on her, and she showed me – it was full.’

  ‘When we found her body, there was no purse,’ Baldwin commented.

  The publican glanced at me and nodded. ‘It must have been stolen,’ he said miserably.

  I stirred. ‘All too
often these people will steal after they have killed, you know, Sir Baldwin. You and I don’t suffer from want, but common villeins in a neighbourhood like this would slit the throats of their own mothers to win an extra penny.’

  He ignored me, which I have to say was damned insulting. His attention was fixed on the man before him. ‘She showed you her purse; then what?’

  Paul’s gaze returned to his hands. ‘Sirs, she came in exhausted, demanding a pint of watered wine, pleading a parched throat. I wanted to see her money before I went to fetch it, but when I saw how much she had, I brought her a jug . . .’

  ‘And how did she appear? Happy, sad, anxious . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, tired from her journey, but happy enough, I think. Later she got a bit nervy-looking. It was when Edward the Tranter came over and spoke to her. She got all flushed, like she was worried about something.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Late afternoon, I suppose.’

  ‘Did you overhear what Edward said to her?’

  ‘No, sir. He spoke too quietly, and just after that she dropped some coin on the table and left with him, leaving her small pack on her stool. Later she came back for it, but by then she had this sort of lost look to her. I felt so sorry for her, I offered her a bed over the stables, but she just shook her head – didn’t say a word, just shook her head, staring at me with her eyes all scared and sad, and her mouth a-quiver, like she was going to burst out in tears.’ The innkeeper shook his own head as if in sympathy, studying the rushes at his feet, then looked up at Sir Baldwin. ‘She saw or heard something that devastated her, sir. She thought her life was ended.’

  His story struck a cold chill in my bowels and I felt the anger colouring my face. ‘Do you think this Edward tried to force himself on her?’ I demanded. ‘If he did, by Christ’s blood, he’ll answer to me!’

  ‘Oh, no, sir. I’m sure he’d not have done that. Edward’s been coming here for donkey’s years.’

  ‘Was he drunk?’ Baldwin asked quietly. I couldn’t help but feel he thought my outburst was excessive, but then I must admit I was finding his coolness annoying.

  The innkeeper gave a faint grin. ‘You know Ed, Sir Baldwin! It’d be a rare day he wasn’t a bit drunk. Still, he wasn’t bitter or angry, just a little, well, thoughtful, I suppose.’

  ‘Did you see where they went?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I thought . . . Well, she was an attractive girl, and I couldn’t help watching her. They went down the street a short way and into the alley near Ralph’s place. The one where she was found last night. They went inside, but then I had to go to serve a customer. A while later she was back, took up her pack and went off. Ed came in a few minutes after her, and he went to his seat at the back. He stayed there for a good bit, before taking a game of dice.’

  ‘Who were the other players?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘The Coroner’s men-at-arms, Sir Baldwin. I’m sure they’ll remember him, he played with them for a long time.’

  ‘When did he leave?’

  ‘Early evening. One of the girls spent her time trying to tempt him, but he told her to piss off, and walked out.’

  ‘So by now he was more bitter? In his cups he became angry?’

  ‘I suppose so, Sir Baldwin. But like I say, he left here long after her.’

  Sir Baldwin led the way to the street. There he paused and motioned to his servant, spoke to him quietly, and sent him off on some errand. Then he and I began to make our way back to the Dean’s house, but to my surprise he turned off and instead headed back towards that damned alley. By now Sir Baldwin’s attitude was making me quite warm. The man was deliberately taking over my inquest, and wouldn’t even explain what he was up to. I tried to control my growing annoyance, but I think a little of my feeling must have come across from the way he stopped and stared at me.

  ‘Is there something the matter, Sir Eustace?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, there is,’ I declared hotly. ‘God’s bones! What in the name of hell are we going down here for?’

  He began to walk again. ‘I have an inclination that we might see something in daylight which we missed before. Clearly the girl had her purse stolen or she mislaid it between leaving the inn and going to the alehouse. I merely wonder whether she might have lost it here.’

  I kicked a pebble from my path, but there was little to say. His decision was logical, and the purse had to be somewhere. Like him, I knew that most thieves would drop a purse once they had emptied it. There was no point keeping hold of something which could prove guilt.

  It was only a short way from the inn, and soon we were in the gloomy corridor. The place where her body had lain was scuffed and muddy from all the feet which had come to see where she had died, and I was confident the knight was wasting his time. I leaned against the wall while he probed and searched. Then he gave a short exclamation, and sprang towards me, snatching something from the ground at my feet.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, and in answer the grinning knight held out a small circle of yellow metal, crusted with mud.

  ‘So the thief dropped her ring as he fled?’ I suggested. His look sent a shiver of expectation trickling down my spine.

  He ignored my words and peered at the wall. It was of cob and had probably been the outer wall of a house, but now it simply enclosed a garden. Baldwin turned and went back to the street, going to the front door and asking the bemused owner if he could go into the garden. As we walked through the house, he gave me a dry little smile. ‘If someone stole her purse, he may well have taken out all the coins and thrown it, empty, over the nearest wall. That would be sensible, wouldn’t it?’

  I grunted. As far as I was concerned the man was a fool, wasting my time as well as his own. I saw no reason to alter my opinion when we arrived in the yard. Sir Baldwin crouched and scrabbled amongst the weeds near the wall. And then, to my astonishment, he lifted up her purse. I couldn’t mistake it.

  He hefted it in his hand, head on one side as he surveyed me. ‘It’s still full, Coroner,’ he said softly, and there was a chill coldness in his voice and manner which I didn’t like. But I felt it would be better not to take umbrage. Saying no more, he turned away and stalked from the place.

  We had only gone a short way down the street when it happened. I should have expected it, of course, but when the tranter shouted and pointed at me, it was still a shock.

  ‘Murderer! Bigamist!’

  The blood turned to ice in my veins, my bowels felt as though they had turned to water, and I swallowed and retreated before the accusing finger Edward pointed at me. He had been waiting with Sir Baldwin’s sergeant; obviously the knight had sent his man to fetch the tranter so that he could accuse me in this way. In the middle of the street, mark you!

  ‘What do you mean by pointing at me? Do you dare to suggest —’ I blustered, but the man leaned forward and spat at me.

  ‘Look at him, Sir Baldwin, a noble knight he’d have you believe, but he’s a murderer of women! He has his wife at home, but he desired this young girl, so he swore his vows to her and enjoyed her nuptial bed, and then deserted her. And now he’s murdered her to stop her spreading word of his faithlessness and deceit!’

  The Dean was kind. He refused to allow the inquest to continue until I had drunk a full pint of wine, and I gratefully swallowed the jug in two draughts. I hadn’t expected my secret to be so speedily discovered. When I had drunk, the Dean sat on a bench and Sir Baldwin motioned to his servant, who walked from the room - I thought to fetch more wine - before speaking.

  ‘Now, Edward, perhaps you could tell us why you made your accusation?’ Sir Baldwin was seated in the Dean’s own chair across the table from me, the purse and ring before him, and I could almost feel his look, as if his eyes were shooting flames at me.

  ‘I knew the girl. Her name was Emily, daughter of Reginald, a merchant in Tiverton. I used to have dealings with her father, and met her at the inn yesterday afternoon. She was tired, but thrilled to be here in Crediton, and I asked
her if her father was with her. She went quiet at that, and said he wasn’t. I pressed her, but she wouldn’t say much, only soon she admitted she’d married a man by exchanging vows, but her father wanted her to wed someone of his choosing, and she left home rather than tell him what she’d done.’

  The Dean nodded. ‘If the two exchanged vows, the marriage was legal and valid, even if they did not have the banns read or have a priest witness their nuptials.’

  ‘Yes, it was valid, sir, except she confessed that her lover was the Coroner, and this Coroner of ours is married, with a daughter. I realised immediately what had happened. Emily was a beautiful girl, Sir Baldwin. Any man would be proud to possess her, and this one wanted her all the more because she wouldn’t satisfy his lust without a legal marriage. So he swore to her, and took her, and left her. And yesterday I had to tell poor Emily that he was married. She was desolate. Can you imagine it? Her lover had lied; she had lost her maidenhead to a man who could never be hers. For him she had forsaken her father and her family.’

  ‘What do you say to this, Coroner?’ Sir Baldwin demanded.

  ‘It’s rubbish! How can you trust to the word of a man like this? I . . .’

  The blasted tranter cut me short. ‘Sir, another thing is, this Coroner met her while he was in Tiverton performing the inquest on a girl who’d been stabbed in the market.’

  ‘You cannot suggest that I had anything to do with that,’ I cried. ‘Christ’s pain! It was two days after the murder that I arrived in town!’

  ‘You were there all the time,’ he countered, ‘staying with the de Courtenay family at the castle.’

  It was true, and there was no way I could deny it with conviction, but I still appealed to Sir Baldwin. ‘Sir, you must believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with this murder! I couldn’t have killed the poor girl. I loved her!’