Simon gave a distracted ‘tut’ when he was told that there were two boys outside to see him. He was about to snap at the obsequious old farmer that he had better things to do than act as nursemaid to a pair of children, when Baldwin put his hand on the bailiff’s arm. Something in the farmer’s anxious features made him think that this was important.
‘Hugh, go with this man and take the lads into the buttery. No doubt Wat is there. Leave them in his tender care, and we’ll see them later, once we’ve heard what the priest has to say for himself.’
Hugh finished his pot of wine and slouched through the door. It was only a short time later that Edgar returned, the sorry-looking priest behind him.
‘Sir Baldwin? I understand you wish to see me.’
‘Not I alone, I am afraid, Brother Stephen,’ he said quietly.
Anney leaped to her feet. ‘Sodomite! Murderer! I accuse you—’
‘Anney, if you can’t hold your tongue, you’ll have to leave the hall!’ Simon felt his anger rising. ‘Let me remind you that this man is a priest, and that this is not a court. Even if it were, only an ecclesiastical one could charge Stephen. You have no right to pursue him, and I have no power to convict him.’
Stephen listened with every sign of bewilderment. On entering he had walked straight to a chair, and now stood in front of it, his face registering astonishment. He stared, first at Anney, then at Simon and Baldwin. ‘I don’t understand, Bailiff – what is this? I thought there was a need for my help, but you say I have been accused of something?’
‘Of the murder of your charge – of Herbert of Throwleigh,’ Baldwin intoned solemnly.
Stephen dropped heavily into his chair. ‘Is . . . is this a joke? I can’t believe anyone would accuse me of something so heinous as murder.’
Baldwin was studying him closely. The sudden collapse looked very contrived, and the man’s expression did not carry the same conviction as Anney’s.
He shot her a look. She was glaring furiously at the priest, her look as venomous as a viper’s bite. The knight did not understand why she should loathe the man so much, but then reflected that for her, the only person in her life who amounted to anything was her son, and if Stephen had often beaten him, and that unfairly, she might well harbour a grudge. Then again, if she seriously believed that he was a perverted man, who might prey on children to satisfy his sexual proclivity, would it be any surprise that she would wish to see him ruined, destroyed as utterly as she thought he had destroyed young Herbert?
Simon was speaking again.
‘We have heard quite a lot about the day that Herbert died, Stephen. Witnesses state that you were seen up near the stream. Many saw you there, and several saw you attacking Anney’s boy, and Anney herself says she saw you chasing after Herbert and trying to thrash him. She says you murdered Herbert – did you?’
Stephen sat up on his seat. As the bailiff had said, he was safe here. There was no court which had jurisdiction over him other than a correctly constituted church one. Stephen glanced at Anney and allowed a little of his contempt to show. ‘No, of course not. The woman’s deranged.’
‘Me! I’ll—’
She would have rushed at him, had not Edgar stepped forward and blocked her path. The priest shook his head sadly.
‘Bailiff, this woman has been deluded for many months now – in fact, I believe she has been thus ever since her first boy died. He drowned in the old well in the yard, you know. What with that and the discovery that her husband was no more than a lascivious fellow who would swear marriage vows to any woman whose bed he wanted to invade . . . well, you will comprehend why this poor woman has a fixation about all men, not just me.’
‘That’s a lie!’
‘All I can say is, I didn’t kill my young master Herbert – why on earth should I? And as for the other, er, wild allegations . . . well, I am prepared to forgive them. She clearly doesn’t realise what she is saying.’
All this was said so coolly that Simon almost thanked him. But then he recalled the other evidence. ‘So you say you didn’t see him up there?’
Before the priest could respond, Baldwin rested his elbow on his knee, cupping his chin in the palm of his hand and gazing at the cleric with a distracted air. ‘Stephen, we have heard that you grabbed this woman’s son, Alan. Why was that?’
‘Why?’ Too late, Stephen realised that he should have instantly denied seeing Alan. He shrugged. ‘He was up there spying on me. I get bored with the boys constantly following me everywhere. It becomes thoroughly tedious after a while, and when I found him doing it again, I sought to convince him that continuing to do so would only result in pain for him.’
‘So you caught him and beat him?’
‘I tried to, yes. But the boy twisted away, and escaped.’
‘And you chased after him?’
Stephen assented.
‘What did you do then, Brother Stephen?’
‘I . . . I went to the stream to sit and contemplate. I like it up there, it’s peaceful and pleasant.’
‘What about Petronilla?’ asked Baldwin.
‘She spoke to me for a few minutes before I went to the stream, but please don’t ask me what about – it was a matter of the confessional, you understand.’
Simon nodded. He knew as well as anyone that the secrecy of the confessional could not be breached. ‘And she left you?’
‘Yes.’
‘A little later you were seen chasing after and catching Herbert. Why?’
Stephen’s face hardened. ‘The little devil fired a stone at me. It hurt. I dare to suggest that if someone had done such a thing to you, Bailiff, you too would have tried to punish the perpetrator.’
‘Quite possibly. But I wouldn’t have killed him.’
‘Do you suggest that I did?’
Baldwin spoke softly. ‘Tell us what happened.’
‘He shot me. I got up and couldn’t see anyone, but I heard a rustling and laughter, and chased off towards it. When I got there, Herbert jumped to his feet and ran away. I am fairly fleet of foot, but he was too fast for me.’
‘What then?’
‘Then?’ Stephen blinked, unsure what additional evidence the knight needed. ‘Why, I returned to the stream.’
‘What had you lost there?’
Stephen froze, but then licked his lips and gave a feeble smile. ‘What makes you think I had lost anything?’
‘We saw you searching on the day it rained. You had gone back to seek something, and were looking most assiduously under bushes, so I assume that whatever it was must have been valuable.’
‘No, it was merely a small trifle, nothing much.’
‘You mean to tell me that you went back there a few days later and started fumbling all over the place on your hands and knees trying to find an insignificant trifle? What would you have done for something valuable?’
‘I do not think I need to remain here to be harangued,’ said Stephen with dignity. ‘If that is all, I . . .’
‘It was not that you were searching for a shoe, Brother?’
Stephen paled, and his voice dropped to a hushed whisper. ‘No!’
‘You are lying: you were looking for a shoe. On the day Herbert died you had been struck by a pebble and took off after your attacker, and as you pelted after him, your shoe fell off. You caught the boy, struck him in your rage and fury, and went back to find your shoe without realising how severely you had hit Herbert. Later, when you decided to return home and passed by the same place, you found the boy’s body . . .’
‘No, no, that’s not true,’ Stephen said, shaking his head.
‘. . . and in a panic, not knowing what to do, you hauled his body to the road, waiting until a cart arrived, at which time you thrust the boy down onto the road itself. Then you came back home.’
‘No . . . no,’ Stephen kept repeating, his face full of an astonished horror.
Simon scratched his ear. ‘Tell us the truth, then. You can see how convincing the evidence is – convince us. What is the truth?’
Alan sat idly on a barrel, swinging his legs while he surveyed the room with wistful longing. There was so much food and drink in here; it would take him and his mother all year just to consume the dead game hanging on the walls, let alone drink the barrels of wine. Such wealth, he thought. To own all this would mean never being hungry again. The concept was wonderful – but impossible. He couldn’t conceive of such fortune.
For Jordan it was still more fabulous; he simply gaped all around.
Hugh had stirred the snoring Wat, and the lad had brought Hugh more wine. Wat was older than Alan by some two years, but there was a certain mutual understanding between them: both had been brought up to work on estates, and both found the opulence of their halls more or less intimidating, although Wat was less overawed. Having grown up to run errands and help serve within the hall itself, he was naturally more attuned to the ways of a great manor. It was natural, just as it was natural that he should treat the other boys with a faintly distant politeness, as if to emphasise the slight difference that existed between them.
Once he was happy that the lads would not begin to have a vulgar brawl among the jugs and barrels, Hugh allowed his curiosity to get the better of him and he went through the screens to the hall, sitting on a bench towards the back.
‘What’s happening in there?’ Alan asked once the figure of Authority, as represented by Hugh, had left them to their own devices.
‘They’re trying to sort out who could have killed the young master.’ Wat eyed the jugs jealously. His head was heavy from the previous night and this morning’s drinking, and he was sorely tempted to try some more wine, if only to ease the gentle pounding at his temples.
Jordan was experimentally tracing the inner surface of an earthenware bowl. He had never possessed anything quite like it, and his mother had nothing remotely so fine. It had a wonderful smoothness which he found irresistible, and he couldn’t help but keep testing it with his finger to find a rough section.
He looked up as he heard voices raised, some angrily. ‘Alan, isn’t that your mum?’
It did sound like Anney. Alan dropped from his seat and padded to the door.
Wat told him not to stray out to the screens, for Hugh had made him promise to keep the lads inside, and Alan was content to obey. The door to the buttery didn’t open opposite the main door from the hall, so Alan couldn’t see who was talking, but that also meant no one could see that he was eavesdropping. As he listened to Stephen talk, his face fell, and he gazed fearfully towards the yard. Then he heard the cleric’s explanation and the contemptuous way he dealt with Anney, and Alan glowered angrily. His mouth became a thin line.
He was more determined than ever to tell his story.
Simon tried to keep the disbelief from his voice. ‘So what you’re saying is, you were there up on the hill, but although you caught Alan and beat him, he escaped. Shortly afterwards, Petronilla arrived and tried to calm you down, and you went to sit alone by the stream to collect your thoughts, but Herbert hit you with a stone, and because of that you hared off back up the hill to deal with him, but you never—’
‘I never caught him. I tried, but he escaped from me, and I finally came back here.’
Baldwin had closed his eyes while he considered this. ‘Did he make any sound as you tried to get him?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Because several people have said that they heard a boy cry out.’
‘I . . . perhaps it was me they heard, when that damned child hit me.’
Simon could hear Godfrey chuckle at this suggestion, and when he glanced around at the master-of-arms, he saw the weapons expert shaking his head.
Only one person in the room appeared to be happy with the evidence being given, and that was Thomas. He nodded repeatedly as the priest spoke, and now he turned to Baldwin.
‘You see? The boy I chased after couldn’t have been Herbert – that poor child was further up the hill being attacked by Brother Stephen here. I think that is fair proof of my innocence.’
Simon and Baldwin exchanged a glance, and the bailiff spoke after a moment. ‘It is clear that, for the moment, there is not enough evidence against any one person. However, it is also certain that the boy was murdered, so someone has been lying. When we know who, we shall proceed against them. In the meantime, I suppose there is little point in continuing for now.’
There was a moment’s silence, and then people began to filter from the room. Anney collapsed on a seat and burst into tears; the priest looked at her with loathing, which Simon could well understand, after her vehement attack on him. Stephen gave the bailiff a curt nod of his head, and left the room. Shortly afterwards, Godfrey made a remark about seeing how his master was faring, and wandered out to the kitchen.
Thomas stood before Simon and his friend, arms akimbo. ‘Well, Sir Baldwin? Bailiff? Do you have anything to say to me before I demand that you leave my house at once? It’s bad enough that you allow your servants to fight in a vulgar display in my yard, but when you also have the bald nerve to accuse me of murdering my own nephew – in front of witnesses, too! Can you think of any reason why I should not throw you from my household this instant?’
Baldwin looked up at him mildly. ‘Several, actually, yes. First is, we still aren’t sure who did commit this murder, and should you throw us out, we shall naturally have to suspect your motives and wonder again at any involvement you yourself may have had in the killing. Second, you would be intentionally jeopardising our investigation, which my friend the bailiff here might look upon as an illegal act – and since his area is the moor, it would be within his jurisdiction, so he could arrest you. Finally, there is the simple fact that we have accused you of nothing. We helped show that other people were equally capable of committing this act, and by so doing we demonstrated that it was unjust to accuse you. I think you should be offering us your thanks.’
‘Thanks! I would prefer, Sir Baldwin, to see you bound and dragged from this place behind a wild pony!’
Baldwin raised his eyebrow in a mild and amused rebuke, but his equanimity seemed to infuriate Thomas. The man was almost shouting now, he was so angry.
‘To be treated in this way, in my own damned hall, before my own servants and sister-in-law – it is an outrage, and don’t think that I won’t be making a formal complaint, Sir Baldwin. I have heard often enough of the corruption of our King’s officials, but never before have I experienced anything like this. It is a disgrace! To think that you, a Keeper of the King’s Peace, could participate in such a charade! And as for you, Bailiff, I shall be seeing your Warden as soon as possible, and demanding that you be removed from your office. Such a way to carry on!’
‘Have you finished? Only we do have much to do,’ Simon asked neutrally.
‘You think all this is in jest, don’t you? Let me tell you—’
‘Thomas, be still!’ Baldwin said. ‘Your bluster is foolish, and nothing more. As you have so politely noted, you are in the presence of one King’s officer and one Stannary Bailiff. We have every right to remain here as long as we consider fitting in order to investigate this crime, and here we shall remain until our investigation is complete. If you have any difficulties with that, you should contact whoever you think fit. Otherwise be silent! Now, Edgar, what did you do with those boys?’