‘I? I was at the market, at my stall. I would think that almost everyone in the town could confirm that. Including the Reeve here, because you came to buy some eggs and a lamb with your lady, didn’t you, Robert?’
Peter looked at the Reeve, and there was a glitter in his eyes which reminded John of the times when the old monk had caught one of the novices with his hand in the biscuit jar. ‘Is that so, Reeve?’
Reeve Miria shrugged. ‘Yes. I was there most of the afternoon, apart from a short space when I had to go home.’
‘On business?’ Peter enquired.
‘Yes.’
‘Such as, for example, asking for a loan to be repaid?’
‘A man of business has so many affairs it’s sometimes hard to remember them all,’ Miria said loftily.
‘Perhaps you should try to exercise your mind, then, Reeve,’ Peter said. ‘Could it have been a meeting to talk about calling in a debt, do you think? Perhaps - correct me on this - but could it have been a loan to Ralph, for example?’
John felt his brows leap upwards in surprise as though they were on springs. Turning to face the Reeve, he saw that the man had blenched, and he fiddled with the thong that bound his swordbelt.
‘He come by at one point.’
‘Early in the afternoon, wasn’t it?’
‘I think it might have been.’
‘So you could have had plenty of time to follow him here, strike him down, and return to town to fulfil your duties as Reeve.’
‘To ride all the way here and back? And I didn’t even know he’d be coming up here. How could I?’
‘Maybe he mentioned he was coming here. It was part of his bailiwick, and he was always happy to talk about his work.’
‘I did nothing wrong,’ the Reeve said.
‘Nothing? Even though you wanted to make profit from lending money? You were committing usury, Reeve. That is wrong. Jesus taught that it’s sinful to make money from money. If you have enough, any spare is God’s gift. Using that to make profit is an abuse of his plenty, and that is a most serious crime. You demanded his loan to be returned, even though you knew he couldn’t afford it.’
‘I did what any man of business would have done.’
‘Perhaps in future you’ll consider doing what a man of Christian spirit would do,’ Peter snapped. His bushy eyebrows had dropped and now they all but concealed his eyes. Only an occasional glitter shone from them.
Then he took a deep breath. ‘Look at us all. Here we stand: one man who had a perpetual battle with him because of some rabbits; another who feared that Ralph wanted to steal his wife; the wife who hated him and wanted revenge for not marrying her, but who now was more concerned about her pregnancy than her husband; the Reeve who wanted profit, and damn any man who wouldn’t repay his debts even though the Reeve was not himself in need. This is a sad, terrible matter. I must pray and contemplate. John, come with me.’
He turned abruptly and crossed the clapper bridge, swiftly putting yards between them and the silent and ashamed group. Without turning, he said, ‘Have any of them followed us?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
Peter suddenly grabbed John’s upper arm and stared at him keenly. ‘Boy, whatever you do now, do not lie to me! I wanted all those to be here because I thought one of them had killed Ralph. I drank with him yesterday at an alehouse after he had met the Reeve, and I knew that each of them hated him. He told me so. After I left him, he came straight to the moors to check on his bailiwick. Some of those back there could have come here and killed him, but it’s not likely. However the chance of a lad seeing him, now that is quite possible.’
His eyes were intense chips of diamond. They cut into John as he spoke.
‘Boy, did you meet Ralph yesterday? Don’t lie to me, because if you do, I shall punish you myself, and you’ll regret it if I do. You were up here, weren’t you? Yesterday, like today, you rode up here to exercise the horse, but also to see if you could have some sport. It’s illegal to be up here, we all know that, but if a Forester like Ralph saw you, he’d threaten you with immediate exposure to the Abbot. Is that what happened? And then you hit him?’
John gaped, and such was the strength of his emotion, he felt the tears begin to fall. He couldn’t speak; his tongue was frozen and he was too shocked to deny Peter’s words.
‘I see, boy. Well, no need to say more. I shan’t propose to hold these others any longer. I understand. Come!’
He turned and walked back to the bridge, John following with his mind whirling and eyes streaming.
It was this that prevented him from seeing the disaster. As Peter climbed onto the clapper bridge, John sniffed and rubbed his eyes. Afterwards Peter wondered whether there was a similar command that the Forester had used for his mastiff, a signal that could be used silently at night to show Rumon what he wanted; whatever the reason, Rumon caught sight of John’s arms up at his face and instantly gave a joyful bark. He sprang up and leapt forward as Peter reached the middle of the bridge, and bounded on, over the bridge, and to John.
‘No!’
John heard the cry, but he had no eyes for anyone or anything other than the monster suddenly thundering towards him. He saw huge, pendulous jowls flying in the wind, drool trailing; he saw a slobbering tongue; ripples of sagging flesh moving with each step like waves on the sea; and then the creature was on him, knocking his legs away, and panting happily over him, tongue swabbing his throat and cheeks like pumice.
No one came to help him, and it was some time before he could push, curse and kick the dog from him and stand again. Realising at last that this was no reincarnation of his master, the dog sat again, cowed, and only then could John turn his attention back to the crowd.
He saw Anastasia, he saw the Reeve and Ivo, he saw Eustace, but where he expected to see Peter, there was nothing. Only two legs waving in the air near the bridge.
‘Will one of you moronic, demented, poxed sons of a Carlisle whore come and help me up?’ came Peter’s voice, roaring with an entirely unfeigned fury.
‘So that was that,’ Peter said later as he and John sat at their fire. The rest had departed, all strangely muted after their confessions of the afternoon.
‘Why did you want all those people up here?’ John asked.
‘They could any one of them have killed him. It was possible. Yet I wanted to show each that their motives were not good. Ivo wanted to kill the dog - is that justification for murder? He never tried to get on with Ralph. At least now, I hope, he will consider his behaviour and moderate it in future. Eustace I know has been jealous of his wife for years and it is about time he grew out of it. She is not so faithless as to throw herself at another man; although she could well seek revenge for a slight. And what worse slight could a woman receive than that the man she sought to marry should take her best friend instead?’
‘What of the Reeve?’
Peter chuckled. ‘He’s no murderer! But I detest this modern practice of seeking reward for that which God has granted. I tweaked the tail of his pride. Maybe in future he’ll charge lower interest.’
‘And me?’
Peter smiled grimly, perhaps with a faint indication of remorse. ‘There are times when even the best cleric makes mistakes. I thought that you were up here, and I saw that if you had met the Forester you could have been in great trouble, so it was possible that you could have grabbed a rock and stunned him. If he fell in the water, he would drown, but I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you hadn’t intended to kill him.’
‘Whereas in fact . . .’
‘Whereas in fact it was his faithful dog.’ Peter reached over and rubbed the mastiff’s head. ‘I wondered about that as soon as we arrived here. If a man had knocked Ralph down, I would have expected a dog like this to defend him. At the least I would have expected to find some material from a man’s coat nearby, bitten from him by the brute - but there was nothing! That should have proved it, I suppose, but you never can
be sure, and some of the largest beasts I have seen have also been the most mild.’
‘So how did Ralph die?’
‘You saw what happened to me. Suppose Rumon saw a rabbit when Ralph was halfway over the bridge? He is a clumsy, lumbering monster, so, as he passed over the bridge, he clipped Ralph’s legs just as he did mine, and Ralph toppled headfirst into the stream. He struck his head and was dazed, so when his head went under the water, he couldn’t save himself. That was that.’
‘Dying here all alone.’
‘Aye, with his killer: the only creature in the world who loved him without reservation.’
For the Love of Old Bones - and other stories (Templar Series) Page 10