Bernard Knight - Figure of Hate

John thought it time to interrupt this domestic tableau. 'I'm no lord, woman, but an officer of the King determined to see justice done.' He turned to the girl, who looked up at him with suspicious eyes.

'Agnes, if as you claim you have done no evil, you have nothing to fear. I will not allow the new lord of this manor, whoever he might turn out to be, to blame you unjustly. Do you understand?'

She looked at her mother, then back at the coroner and finally nodded.

'Were you in that ox byre last night?'

'Yes, that's where he took me the time before; It's always empty this time of year, the beasts are kept on the waste.'

'When did you go there?'

'I left the wash house after they brought the cloths from the hall. Every night, we have to wash the table linen that they use for supper. Lady Avelina won't eat from bare boards, so they say.'

This was about as accurate an indicator of the time as anyone in a village would be able to offer, with not yet a single clock in the isles of Britain. Dusk and dawn were the only sure markers, unless one stood within sound of the bells of a cathedral or abbey, whose sand glasses and graduated candles indicated the times for the daily services.

'Was it dark, then?'

'Getting dusk, sir. Near enough dark by the time he had finished with me.'

John had no interest in hearing the details. 'Had Sir Hugo been drinking, Agnes?'

She grimaced. 'All men are drunk at night, sir. I could smell wine, not ale, but he could walk well enough — and do me until I ached.'

Her mother tutted under her breath, but John felt that she was not particularly distressed about her daughter's activities.

'Did he take you by force, girl — or did you go willingly?'

Again the plump-faced girl looked covertly at her mother. 'I had little choice, sir. In turn, he has been through most of the girls in the laundry and the kitchen. One who refused got a thrashing from him and was turned out of her job — so her father thrashed her again for being a heavier burden on the family. Sir Hugo always gave us a penny or two afterwards, so we didn't mind all that much.'

She sniffed and wiped her running nose. 'After tournaments was the best. If he won, he was in a right good humour when he came home. He once gave a maid in the kitchen four whole pence on one of those nights!' she said with wistful wonderment.

De Wolfe felt that they were wandering from the point.

'Now, when he had finished with you, what happened? Was he quite well when you left him?'

According to Agnes, after he had had his way with her in the hay, Hugo had produced two pennies from his scrip and told her to go home.

'So you left him in the byre alone?'

'He was still lying in the hay, sir. He sounded sleepy.

I remember he yawned as I took the money. It was almost dark in there, but I could hear him yawn.'

'When you left, did you see anyone about the place?'

'Not a soul. I came straight home, up the road past the manor gate, where there were people talking in the bailey. But it was almost night, so I couldn't see very well.'

'She did come in then, sir,' cut in the mother. 'I was at the gate talking to my neighbour when she came. There was just a streak of light left in the western sky.'

John scratched his bristly face as he considered the sparse information. It had the ring of truth about it and, apart from anything else, he failed to see why Agnes should have murdered someone who occasionally gave her twopence.

'Do you own a knife, girl?' he asked.

She shook her head, almost grinning at the daft question. 'I've got a wooden spoon my father carved for me. I do my eating with that.'

'Broth and pottage is about all we have — there's little need for knives for the kind of food we have,' said the mother bitterly.

De Wolfe was running out of ideas now, but looked at the clothes that Agnes was wearing — a shapeless kirtle of brown wool, darned and ragged at the hem, with a soiled linen apron over the front. Her hair was plaited into a pigtail down her back and she wore no head-rail. The apron appeared free of anything that could be bloodstains.

'Have you changed your clothing since last night? he asked.

The girl gave a hollow laugh. 'Changed! What into, sir? This is all I have — and this was my sister's before she died of the yellow ague.'

As she sat stroking the head of her infant brother, John saw a tear glisten in her eye, but whether it was for her dead sister or her own miserable lot, he could not decide. With some throat-clearing noises to cover his feelings, he prepared to leave, but as he moved towards the door he fumbled in his belt-pouch and produced two pennies.

Giving them to the sad-featured woman, he mumbled at her as he passed.

'She doesn't need to earn this in the same way. Get her something better to wear.'

'Sir Richard has returned to his own manor, Crowner.

We cannot presume too much upon his kindness, he has his own affairs to attend to.'

Something in Odo's voice caused a worm of unease to wriggle in John's mind, though he could not quite say why. He had been brought back to the manor house from Agnes's hovel by the bailiff and was now sitting at a table in the hall. He had a jug of ale and a platter of cold meats, cheese and bread before him. He would have to stay the night, as it was now too late for him get back to Exeter, and in spite of the obvious reluctance the Peverel family showed to his continued presence, the rigid rules of hospitality overrode any overt antagonism, though Ralph's attitude came perilously close. Gwyn and Thomas had been taken off to the kitchens behind the house to be fed, and John had been offered a mattress next to the hearth for the night.

'We regret we have no vacant chamber, Crowner,' continued Odo. 'But the ladies occupy one each upstairs, as I do, being unmarried. Ralph and his family have a separate dwelling at the back of the compound, which Joel also shares.'

John was indifferent to his own comfort, having spent half the nights of his adult life wrapped in his cloak in barns, hedges, forests or deserts across the known world. 'I need to speak to you all before I leave in the morning,' he said. 'May we begin now, and perhaps later you will see if the ladies will be so kind as to present themselves?'

Ralph scowled at him from the other side of the trestle, where the brothers and their steward were lined up. 'And are you intending to question each and every one of the villagers? There are well over a hundred serfs and freemen in Sampford, including the women.'

'They will be assembled at my inquest on Wednesday and can be questioned then,' replied de Wolfe patiently. 'Unless you consider that any particular person has knowledge that I should probe before I leave?'

There was silence at this and no suggestions were offered, so the coroner began questioning each of them in turn. For all the use it turned out to be, he might as well have saved his breath. Odo was courteous enough, but volunteered nothing, answering only direct questions.

'When did I last see Hugo? It was after our supper last night. Unlike many households, we take a substantial meal in the evening, rather than confine our main meal to the middle of the day. Afterwards, we went our various ways, I to my bed quite early. As I went, I saw Hugo leave the hall and that's the last I saw of him — alive.'

'Had he been drinking heavily?'

Odo smiled wryly. 'What is heavily, Crowner? Hugo was fond of ale, cider and wine, as most of us are. But he had no greater capacity than most men. Last night, he took no more, no less than usual.'

John could prise nothing more useful from the eldest brother and turned to Joel, thinking to leave the more recalcitrant Ralph until last. The younger man seemed to treat the serious matter of a murder investigation as a joke and grinned and rolled his eyes as he lolled on his bench while the coroner asked his questions.