Martin reckoned that dinner must be over in the great hall. There had been quiet for some while, but now there was noise and bustle, albeit muffled by the walls which surrounded him. He wished there was a window in the chamber so he could at least see outside to look at what was going on. But the grey expanse of stone to one side of him was the curtain wall of the inner ward, and no builder in charge of his wits would do something as foolish as putting a hole in it. Besides, it would only look out over the moat, which was stinking even more than usual in this weather. The other side of the room was made of wood and faced inwards, but there was still no way he could look out – the door was at the other end. It led to a covered but open passageway which ran around between the chambers and the courtyard, so that some light, air and sound leaked into the room, but that was about it. He didn’t think he’d ever in his life spent so long without going outdoors, and the lack both of air and of ability to stretch his limbs was pressing on him, suffocating him. He was going to have to get out of here.
He managed to heave himself up into a sitting position. He pulled the blanket away from his legs – he hadn’t really needed it in this heat, but he was only wearing a shirt and braies and it wouldn’t be right if Joanna were to come in. He looked down at his legs. The fronts of them weren’t too bad, but as he shifted himself and squinted behind him, he could just about see that the backs of his thighs were almost black. He guessed that his back would probably not look much better, either, judging by the stiffness in it. It felt as though someone had put a plank down the back of his shirt and then tied him to it. But he just had to get out of here. He manoeuvred himself so that his legs were over the side of the narrow bed, and slowly, carefully, he lowered his bare feet to the floor.
Someone came through the open door, and he nearly overbalanced as he started and clutched at the blanket, but it was just Adam, carrying a platter of food. He looked surprised – probably at seeing me the right way up, thought Martin – and shoved the platter on to the low stool before coming over to stand before him.
‘Are you supposed to be getting up?’ He sounded a bit harried.
Martin grunted. ‘I don’t care whether I’m supposed to or not – I can’t stay in this bed a moment longer. Help me up.’
He held out one of his hands for Adam to pull on, and used the other to push himself off the bed. A moment’s dizziness hit him as he stood upright, and he felt a strange draining sensation in his legs. He leaned on Adam’s shoulder for balance until the room stopped moving.
‘Good. Now, stay by me while I try walking.’
Movement was fairly difficult, but it wasn’t as impossible as it had seemed yesterday. As he hobbled slowly back and forth, his legs began to feel like part of him again; and his appetite was returning. He tried to pick the food up off the stool but he couldn’t bend at all and had to grab at Adam to stop himself falling over like a small child.
He stood up again, carefully. ‘I tell you what – you pass me the food, and I’ll stand and eat it while you get my clothes and tell me what’s going on.’
Adam nodded and handed him the meal. ‘I’m sorry it’s not on a proper trencher – I thought that would go soggy and fall apart while I was on my way here so I just put it in a dish.’
Martin didn’t really care, though it was odd to be eating out of a serving platter. He wolfed down the beef and what tasted like some duck as Adam found his hose, tunic, belt and boots and put them on the bed, talking all the while. He was just running his finger round the edge of the dish in order to lick the last dregs of the sauce when he caught the last thing Adam had said.
‘Missing?’
Adam nodded. ‘Yes, he’s been gone since this morning when we all had a ride in the woods after the hanging. Lady Ela is shouting at everyone, Sir Geoffrey thinks he’s done it on purpose, and our lord is furious.’
Well, that sealed it then. He couldn’t leave Adam on his own if the lord earl was going to lose his temper. He squeezed the boy’s shoulder. ‘Come on – help me get dressed and I’ll come back out with you.’
He was rewarded by a very relieved smile. Adam had to crouch to help him put his feet into each hose and then roll them up far enough so that Martin could reach to grab the lace at the top and tie it on to the drawstring at the waist of his braies. The tunic wasn’t too bad as he could get it over his head without having to move too much, but he gave up when it came to the boots – too small, as his boots always seemed to be – and let Adam deal with them. He was good at it; all that practice serving the earl and his previous master, no doubt. Finally Martin buckled his belt, and, feeling like a man again instead of an invalid, he walked stiffly towards the door, glad to leave the sickbed behind.
Sir Geoffrey was striding about the inner ward talking to various men as Martin made his way carefully down the stairs at the end of the passageway. The knight turned as one of the men pointed, and greeted Martin.
‘So you’re up and about, eh?’
‘Yes, Sir Geoffrey. Adam told me about Thomas and I’d like to help.’
The knight snorted. ‘You wait until I get my hands on that boy. He’ll remember it until the day he dies. But yes, let’s get him found before the Lady Ela’s screeches raise the roof.’ He looked Martin up and down. ‘Most of us are off into the woods – Adam, go and mount up – but I don’t think much of your chances of staying on a horse.’ Adam scurried off. ‘You’d better take some men and search round the outer ward. There are dozens of places there a boy could be hiding.’
Martin refused to allow himself to look relieved, but he had to admit to himself that he’d been wondering how in the Lord’s name he’d be able to ride. He nodded and started to turn away. Sir Geoffrey looked as though he would move off, too, but he stopped and grasped Martin’s arm. ‘It’s good to see you, lad. You had me worried for a while back in the woods, but you’re a strong boy.’ The old eyes, lined with the years, looked into his own. ‘A strong man, I should say. Welcome back.’
With a final squeeze of his arm, Sir Geoffrey moved away. Martin stood looking after him, pain forgotten, floating in the air.
Hours later the afternoon sun was blazing in the sky. Martin had been through every nook and cranny in the outer ward and there was no sign of Thomas. None of the men there had seen the boy; he’d even stopped the imposing figure of Crispin the smith from his work to ask. Now he stood outside the entrance to the kennels and stretched. He ached all over, but the movement was slowly coming back. He nodded to his men to go and get themselves a drink, and they saluted and moved away while he stood looking around him. Another hot sweaty rider came in through the gate, empty-handed, shaking his head. Where in the Lord’s name was that boy? Martin had started off being angry that Thomas was causing everyone so much trouble, but now he was starting to get worried that something had actually happened to him. What if he were lying injured in the woods somewhere? What if …?
He turned as the sound of multiple horses came from the gate. Sir Geoffrey rode in, followed by another man who was leading a pony on a rein. There was no mistaking the small mount with its distinctive forehead blaze, but the saddle was empty.
Edwin sat in the embrasure up on the curtain wall, trying to think. He had joined in the search of the ward, but when it had proved fruitless he’d decided that he was likely to be more useful thinking while others looked. He had last seen Thomas that morning, after the hang– after the events at the crossroads. To start with Thomas had looked elated and Edwin had been shocked at his callousness. But afterwards, he had looked frightened and sick, as well he might after witnessing the executions. Most of the other children, and indeed some of the adults, had been the same. But wait, Edwin hadn’t looked at him straight afterwards – he’d been too busy keeping his own stomach inside himself. No, he hadn’t looked up until after the earl’s final words. What had he said? Something about punishing the malefactors. Yes, and then, as he had turned away, ‘So perish all who disobey me.’ And it was then that Thomas had turned green.
Dear Lord, was Thomas frightened that he was going to be hanged for something? If so, did he have anything in particular that he was guilty of? He was the earl’s nephew, he wouldn’t be punished for stealing food or any such petty crime, it must have been something more serious … oh my Lord. Could he have had anything to do with Hamo’s death? But surely that wasn’t possible. The two of them had had a few run-ins, but that wasn’t surprising given their respective temperaments, and surely such a small child could not be capable of such evil?
He sat back against the wall. As it happened, that might solve one of his problems, as it pretty much put William Steward in the clear. If there was a less likely scenario than William poisoning Hamo (rather than, say, beating him to death), it was him getting Thomas to poison Hamo for him – William loathed Thomas even more than Hamo did. But that wasn’t exactly proof, and if, when he laid his thoughts before the earl, the earl decided that William had murdered Hamo, then he too would be swinging from a gibbet unless Edwin could prove otherwise.
But why might Thomas do such a thing, and who else might be involved? He couldn’t go and tell all this to Sir Geoffrey until he’d straightened it all in his mind. At that moment he looked down and saw the knight clattering through the cobbled area by the gate, with the riderless pony behind him. Edwin felt a jolt. This was serious. Had Thomas, in a panic, run away from the earl’s men after the hangings and then fallen from his horse? He can’t have been attacked by any more outlaws or they would have taken the pony, so it must have been an accident. But what if someone else had assailed him? What if Thomas, rather than being the guilty party, had seen something which incriminated someone else, and that someone had taken steps to ensure he wouldn’t talk? A chill ran through Edwin despite the heat of the day, as he remembered another page, another little boy who now lay silent and still in his grave. He had to stop this evil before anyone else died.
But there was another possibility. What if Thomas were the accomplice of the guilty party, and that man had simply hidden him away safely somewhere? That would make it someone who cared about him, for otherwise the boy might be seen as disposable. Someone who had influence over the boy, who wanted to keep him safe …
It was all going round and round in his mind as he made his way down the steps, so much so that he stumbled as he reached the bottom. His head felt like it was splitting apart again so he stood in the shade for a moment before stepping out into the blinding light of the inner ward. He found Sir Geoffrey in the armoury, being divested of his mail and the gambeson underneath, sopping wet as the soldier dropped it on the floor. He waited until the man had left and Sir Geoffrey had taken a large swig from a wineskin.
The knight nodded to him, still a little breathless. ‘Well?’
‘I think I’ve got an idea.’
The knight wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘Good. Tell me.’
‘Well, I think Thomas has disappeared because he knows something.’
‘You mean someone has done away with him?’
Edwin shook his head. ‘No. I think … what I mean is …’ how could he say this about a member of the earl’s family? ‘I think William Fitzwilliam might have murdered Hamo.’
‘What?’
‘Well, a lot of things seem to point that way – John said he’d seen them meeting each other sometimes; Hamo called out “William” when he died; and he doesn’t seem to be very upset that his son has disappeared. Thomas looked greensick after he heard my lord saying “perish all who disobey me”; I think he was imagining his father, or even himself, swinging from a gibbet. When William realised that Thomas had seen him doing something and might tell our lord, he took him away and hid him somewhere.’
Sir Geoffrey stroked his damp beard. ‘Well, it’s possible. But you will need to have something better than that before we can go to the lord earl with accusations against his goodbrother.’
Edwin nodded. ‘Oh, yes, I don’t want to tell our lord yet. For one thing, I still don’t know why William Fitzwilliam might have wanted to kill Hamo, and until I know that I won’t be satisfied that he actually did it. Something still isn’t right. No, what I’m suggesting is that we watch him carefully to see if he gives himself away at all. Surely if he does know where Thomas is then he will go to him eventually.’
‘All right. We will keep this between ourselves for now, but we will keep him under our watch to see what he does. In the meantime, you see if you can find out more.’
‘Yes, Sir Geoffrey.’
The knight stretched. ‘In the meantime I am going to change my shirt. At my age, if I sit around wet like this, I’ll either get the summer ague or my bones will grow too stiff to move.’ He half smiled. ‘The perils of age, lad.’ As he passed he gripped Edwin’s shoulder briefly. ‘You’ll get there one day, but not for many years, thank the Lord.’
Edwin watched him go, and then went out into the brightness of the ward. He could smell the evening meal being prepared, and sniffed the air.
If anything, it was even hotter in the great hall than it had been the evening before. No fires were lit, of course, but the place was packed with sweaty men sitting shoulder to shoulder, causing a wet fug in the air, and their smell was drowning out the scent of the pottage. Edwin had managed to bag himself a place on a bench which was near the door, so an occasional waft of air came his way, for which he was grateful. He could feel the sweat under his arms, and his shirt and tunic sticking to his back. From his place he had a good view of the door to the service area, and he watched the men scuttling in and out with their heavy loads of dishes, glad at least that he didn’t have to work in the kitchen in this weather.
He recalled that on the night he died, Hamo had stood in that very entrance. He had spoken to the serving men as they went back and forth, and then he had stopped and stared at Edwin, his eyes so wide and his face so pale that he might have seen the very devil himself. Edwin shuddered and crossed himself at the thought.
‘Did you want me for something?’
‘What?’ Edwin came back to himself to realise that the man opposite him, a visitor he didn’t recognise, was addressing him. ‘Oh, no, sorry.’
‘Well, stop staring at me like that then.’ The man returned to his meal.
Edwin was about to explain that he hadn’t been staring at the man but rather beyond him, but he swallowed the words before he could say them. Of course! How could he have been so stupid?
He looked around. Yes, there he was. Edwin got up with some difficulty, apologising to the man on his left as he kicked him trying to get his legs back over the bench, hurried round the bottom end of his table and over to the lower end of the other one which ran parallel down the hall. He tapped on a shoulder. ‘Can I talk to you for a few moments? Outside?’
Joanna tried to ignore everything going on around her as she ate her meal. It wasn’t often that she could tell herself she was happy. Not only had she spent some precious moments alone with Martin over the last couple of days, not only had she spoken to him and Edwin about something of wider significance than embroidery, but her future suddenly looked better as well. A few stolen moments were one thing, but her future, at least for the time being, was in serving Isabelle, and upon Isabelle and her whims her happiness naturally depended. And Isabelle had actually noticed that she would like to go and look after Martin, and had actually suggested that she do it. Could this be the same lady she had been serving all these years? The one who generally treated her as a possession, as though she were as unfeeling as a tapestry on the wall, or as useful as a comb to be picked up when she needed and discarded again afterwards? Truly, love could work miracles. She gave a small prayer of thanks as she sipped her wine.
But she couldn’t shut it all out for long. The afternoon had been terrible, with all the nobles – other than Isabelle, who was too overjoyed at Sir Gilbert’s escape and too excited about her wedding drawing ever nearer – arguing and sniping at each other and inevitably taking it out on their squires and companions. The Lady Ela had been hysterical when she’d heard about Thomas’s pony being brought in, and she’d shrieked at her husband and at the lord earl, who at least had the option of saying he had matters to attend to, and leaving the room.
William Fitzwilliam had no such escape route, and he’d had to sit and listen to his wife’s frenzied outbursts, sitting stoically and trying to ignore her. Joanna simply couldn’t read him at all. Was he upset about his son’s disappearance? Was that what he’d been praying about in the chapel? But no, that had been before Thomas had vanished, and before the hangings.
Somebody else was watching William Fitzwilliam closely, she realised: Sir Geoffrey, who was placed next to him at the table. Come to think of it, he’d been – unusually for him – in the great chamber since he returned from his latest search for the boy, and he’d positioned himself near to the earl’s goodbrother then, as well. Joanna looked at the knight with more interest, noting the way he held his eating knife almost like a weapon. He was eating little and drinking less, his grey-bearded face stony as always. He’d been at Conisbrough since long before she arrived and to her was as much a fixture as the keep, but she had never really spoken to him – well, she had no need to, did she, for they lived in different worlds although they shared the same walls – and she admitted to herself that she was just a little bit scared of him.
As she watched, Sir Geoffrey cast a glance behind him. Joanna followed his gaze and noticed the man-at-arms standing in the shadows towards the back of the dais. She didn’t know his name, but she recognised him immediately – the one with the barrel chest and the neck almost thicker than his head, whose favourite trick was to pick up two of his fellows at once, one in each hand. Now that was unusual. Why would he be here while they were eating?
The remnants of her daydreams dissolved, and she lost her appetite. She poked her spoon into the sauce on her trencher as she looked across the table. Matilda was tearful, having been pinched by the Lady Ela for some minor infraction, and nursing the bruises on her arms. Rosamund was quiet, overawed by the currents of ill-feeling around her as she had been all day. Past Sir Geoffrey and William Fitzwilliam sat the Lady Ela herself, her face blotchy as she listened to the minstrel, who had rather unluckily got to a bit of the poem where the great Charlemagne was wailing out his grief for his lost nephew. The earl, in the centre with Isabelle and Sir Gilbert on either side, stared straight ahead of him as he chewed, paying only the barest minimum of courtesy to them. Past him, Henry de Stuteville and the Lady Maud were sober, although she was attempting some little good humour with her son and nephew. And at the far end of the board, Sir Roger and Father Ignatius were debating something in low tones, trying not to cause a disturbance.
Joanna put her spoon down. She was annoyed – either with herself or with others, she didn’t know – that she couldn’t hold on to her happy thoughts. In between the gloomy faces at the table, the menace of the man behind them, the subdued air in the rest of the hall, and the despair in the voice of the minstrel, who for once she wished would shut up, they were outnumbered. She wondered when the meal would ever end.
Brother William looked surprised at Edwin’s summons, but he obligingly wiped his knife and spoon, stowed them away, and rose.
Edwin led him out of the hall and into the ward. Where would they not be overheard? Most men would be in the hall eating, but others would still be about their duties. He settled on his favourite embrasure up on the curtain wall – their voices would float away up in the air, and he’d be able to see anyone approaching along the wall-walk – and led the way up the steps. Although the sun was waning, the stones had stored the heat of the day and were still uncomfortably hot. He asked the rather bemused brother to sit, and then joined him.
‘So, Edwin, why have you dragged me away from my fine meal?’ There was an edge to the voice, and Edwin remembered again the scene he’d witnessed in the woods. Monk he might be, but Brother William was a dangerous man. He began to feel that bringing him on his own to a precarious position high off the ground might not actually have been a very good idea.
‘On the – ’ He stopped and cleared his throat. ‘On the night Hamo died, I saw him in the great hall. He was standing by the service door, and he was staring at me as though he had seen a spirit. All this time I’ve been wondering why he should have looked at me so, but now I’ve realised that it wasn’t me he was looking at – it was you. That was the day you arrived. Did he know you?’
Brother William flexed his arms and Edwin instinctively flinched. But the monk was merely stretching. ‘Ah, it is good to be out of the hall. Fear not, Edwin, for I shan’t harm you. I wasn’t going to say anything: after all, Hamo is dead, God rest his soul, what good would it do? But if it helps you to find out who killed him, then I will tell you our family history.’
Edwin jerked his head up, and the monk nodded.
‘Yes, family, for he was my brother.’ Brother William sighed, and paused to look out over the moat, the outer ward and the golden fields of corn beyond. ‘Settle yourself, for this may take a while.’ He folded his hands inside the sleeves of his habit.
‘I am – or I was – the third of four brothers. Our father was adamant that one of his sons should go into the Church: I think he wanted to atone for something he’d done earlier in his life, and giving the Church one of his children, together with a hefty donation, was his way of doing it. My eldest brother Fulk agreed with him entirely, as well he might, given that it would never be him who had to renounce the world and take up the habit. He swore to uphold my father’s wishes.
‘To start with there was no problem – my second brother Roger was more than happy to take the cowl, and he did so, and rose to be the abbot at Faversham. I was always one for fighting and training, so I became a knight and was part of my brother’s household. Hamo was the youngest and he always knew there’d be nothing for him, so he made a career for himself in another way by serving my lord earl. We were all happy until about five years ago, when my brother Roger died. Fulk received word of it in a letter, and almost immediately he told me I’d have to leave the household and take the cowl, as he’d sworn to our dead father that one of us would always be in the Church, sacrificing his worldly life in order to pray for our father’s sins. As you might imagine, I refused – I was happy being a knight and I was pretty good at it. I didn’t have any lands of my own, but I was a good brother to Fulk and a loyal member of his household.
‘All of that counted for naught, though, against our late father’s wishes, so Fulk threw me out and said he’d have nothing further to do with me. He had some influence with others, and he went about saying that I’d always sworn I’d enter the Church and that I’d reneged on my oath and was no man of honour. So of course I couldn’t find a place in anyone else’s household either. I had no patronage, and the Lord knows you can’t get anywhere in life without that. I thought I’d give it a try, though – if God wanted me to stay out in the world he’d find a way to support me. But He didn’t, and I ended up living almost like a peasant. The only way I could have sunk lower would have been to become some kind of robber knight, using my abilities and my weapons – for I still had those – to steal and survive that way. But I couldn’t in all conscience take to preying upon innocents, so I decided the Lord was telling me to follow my family’s wishes and join a monastery. So I swallowed my pride and went back to Fulk to tell him I’d changed my mind. Once he knew he had his way then all else was forgotten – he came up with a donation which enabled me to take a good place. The only small piece of control I had left was that Fulk wanted me to become a Benedictine, so I defied him and joined the Cistercian order instead. I started at Boxley and then moved to Roche about a year ago.
‘Abbot Reginald, may the Lord bless his soul, could see I was a reluctant brother, so he made excuses for me to be out of the abbey from time to time – I was a useful man for him to have around as a travelling companion when he needed to go anywhere, or if there were tithes or money which needed protecting. I knew that Hamo had joined the service of my lord earl, and knowing he was so close, I had half-formed a plan anyway that I might try to ask him if he might take my place. To be honest I can’t even begin to imagine that he’d say yes, but I was desperate enough to try anything. God knows Fulk wouldn’t be bothered which one of us was a monk as long as someone was. So when Abbot Reginald said that a clerk was needed to join the household, everything seemed to fit together. But of course now it’s too late.’
Edwin stared. ‘But … forgive me, it probably isn’t my place to tell you, but your brother Fulk is dead.’
Brother William sat up straight. ‘Fulk? How do you know?’
‘I heard it from Father Ignatius. Hamo had a letter giving him the news, and he told the good Father.’
He waited to allow Brother William time to receive the news in his heart. The monk crossed himself, closed his eyes and muttered a prayer to himself. When he opened his eyes, Edwin continued. ‘There’s something else – Hamo thought you were dead as well. Apparently Fulk had told him you’d left his service and then been killed in a brawl. No wonder he looked as though he’d seen a spirit that night.’
This time there was silence, silence which stretched out into the sky.
Eventually Brother William spoke. ‘Well, there you are then. No household to go back to. Fulk’s sons will believe I’m dead and gone as well, so no point turning up there asking to be taken back. The eldest boy will no doubt have the same trouble again, for he has several brothers of his own. No …’ he sighed again, ‘a monk’s life for me then. Do you know, I’ve spent so long railing against my habit that I hadn’t noticed at all that I’d got used to it. Well, not the endless services or the lack of worldly goods, but it does seem fine to be a part of something, to have “brothers” who are closer to me than my blood kin. I’ll stay in the order, or at least for now, as long as I can remain in the service of my lord the earl, and we shall see what happens. Maybe a suitable household position will come up with someone. The Lord may well have plans for me yet. But if the time comes when the choice is between leaving the order or cloistering myself in the abbey again, I will take the wide world as it is, and starve in it if I must, rather than going back and suffocating.’
Edwin hesitated to say it, but he felt he had to. ‘There’s one more thing you should know.’
‘What’s that?’
‘There’s no easy way to tell you, but … Hamo was thinking of becoming a monk.’
There was a pause and then Brother William threw back his head and roared with laughter, continuing until he shook and his face ran with tears. ‘Oh, God mocks me and the Lady Fortune spits in my face once more.’ He stopped laughing, suddenly, and drew his sleeve across his eyes. ‘Still, what makes us men is the ability to take what we are dealt and make something of it, I suppose. Now, if you will excuse me, I think I will leave you. I’ve lost my appetite for food, but I believe I need to pray.’
Edwin watched him make his way along the wall-walk and down the steps, looking after him until long after he had disappeared from sight.