Michael Jecks - The Tolls of Death

Ivo shrugged comfortably. They were in Adam’s hall, seated on rugs and skins by the fire, still naked after their pleasing lovemaking, and the youth didn’t much care for the reasons. No wandering spectre of the night was going to spoil his day. ‘I expect someone heard that the priest was stuck in the gaol, and reckoned to steal a little of the church’s silver, that’s all.’

‘But why did he come to my room, then?’ she asked again.

Ivo considered. ‘Probably knew there was a gorgeous wench in here and wanted to have his wicked way with you.’

She thumped him, smiling, and he grabbed her, pulling her up and over him, then clasped her to him, both arms about her torso. She tilted her head back to peer down her nose at him, and then her expression changed. ‘It wasn’t you, was it? You wouldn’t have scared me like that just to climb into my bed?’

‘Sweetheart, no,’ he said, genuinely shocked. ‘I wouldn’t do a thing like that. No. And I think I saw a man at the back of the place when I walked in, though I didn’t reckon anything about it at the time. Wasn’t until I heard you scream and you let me in that I realised there could be something odd going on. No, I didn’t do it, I swear.’

She subsided against him, turning her head and resting her cheek on his chest. ‘I don’t know what he’d have done if he’d got in. I think he was going to kill me.’

Ivo stroked her head happily. He did me a favour, he thought to himself, scaring you into my arms. ‘He’ll be caught by now, anyway.’

There was a moment’s consternation when he wondered whether the man at Julia’s door had actually been Gervase, but then Julia began to distract him, and he gave up all thoughts of the stranger.

Gervase was sprawled spread-eagled, taking in great gulps of air, unsure that he was truly safe at last. ‘My God! Thank you! Oh, thank you!’

‘Don’t be too glad yet,’ Simon said shortly. ‘You’re still deep in the shit.’

Gervase ignored the coldness in his voice, ignored everything but the thrill of being alive. A shiver ran down his body, from the tip of his skull to his feet, a shudder of voluptuous refreshment. God! Alive!

There was the tramp of hooves, and a harness squeaked and jingled. Then he heard the voice of the man who had once been his best friend. ‘Get up, Steward. You have a long, weary walk ahead of you. Best get started.’

Baldwin insisted on allowing the steward to share his mount. The poor fellow was stumbling and falling every few paces. It was plain that his near death had all but emasculated him, and he was as shaky and gangling as a child. With him in this state, they would be fortunate ever to reach Cardinham.

‘I don’t care if he dies here!’ Nicholas rasped when Baldwin raised his concerns.

‘Well, you should. If he dies through your negligence, people will wonder why you didn’t save him. Perhaps because you were the murderer yourself?’

‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake! Why in God’s name should I have killed Serlo or the widow?’

‘Because, Nicholas, if you knew of Gervase’s affair with your wife, might you not seek to punish him by setting him up as a murderer? Might you not kill his own past lovers so as to make them appear like his victims? Athelina, for example: you could have killed her because everyone in the vill knew she kept pestering Gervase about money. And then there was Serlo, killed because of the death of his apprentice, Dan. Everyone guessed Matty had her boy Dan by Gervase. Thus, a man wishing to make Gervase look guilty might kill him too.’

Gervase heard this and looked up. He was slumped on Sir Baldwin’s horse while the knight walked at the rounsey’s side. ‘What do you mean, Matty and her boy?’

‘Your son, Danny.’

Gervase’s mouth dropped. ‘He wasn’t my son!’

Nicolas swung his fist and Gervase almost fell from his horse. ‘Don’t lie to us, man! You killed Serlo because he let your son die,’ Nicholas sneered. ‘The whole vill knew that. It was a miracle you didn’t kill the murderous oaf beforehand. I would have done.’

‘Urgh!’ Gervase wiped his bleeding nose on his sleeve, snorted, then spat out a gobbet of blood. ‘I didn’t kill anyone. I wouldn’t hurt a hair of Athelina’s head, and I certainly didn’t take revenge for Matty’s son’s death. Why should I? Dan wasn’t mine.’

Nicholas slowed his mount, turned a little in his saddle, and swung again. This time Gervase was ready, and rolled out of the way. ‘You can hit me as often as you like,’ he shouted, ‘but I swear on my mother’s grave, he wasn’t my son! Christ’s blood, Matty spread her legs for any man when she’d had a jug of cider. She was the sort of wench for one of the castle’s cooks, not me! I wouldn’t have gone near her unless there was little other choice.’

‘Then whose son was he?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Everyone in the castle swore he was Gervase’s. He’s raised bastards all over the place,’ Nicholas snarled. ‘This was just one more. He seeks to deny paternity because he doesn’t want his revenge to be known.’

Gervase sniffed gingerly. ‘You think so? Then tell me, wise man, why I’d wait so long to enjoy my revenge. Ballocks! I have never killed anyone in my life. The man who says I have is a liar!’

‘Then who did? Who else could have fathered that boy?’ Nicholas demanded.

Baldwin looked up at him, then at Gervase. ‘Either of you, I suppose, but then there are other men in the vill.’

The thought tugged at his mind all the way back to the vill: who else could have fathered the apprentice? Through the last days there had been a momentum which had all but prevented rational consideration of the issues, first because of the rush to find a reason for Athelina’s murder, and then the murder of Serlo himself. His connection to the death of his apprentice was so apparent, the paternity of the child was so plainly crucial to the discovery of the killer, that all else seemed irrelevant. Yet now, Baldwin wondered again whether the thrust of his and Simon’s questionings should have been redirected.

Something Susan at the alehouse had said was lingering in his head. It had felt important at the time, but again, other issues drew his attention away. All she had questioned was the sequence of the deaths of Athelina and her children. There was something in that. Surely, if the two boys had been together, killing them would have been difficult. A man like Gervase appearing might frighten them a little, because the lads knew he was an official at the castle, but that wouldn’t necessarily make them trust him enough to let him get so close he could cut both their throats. Did that mean Athelina arrived after her children, or before? Perhaps she was first to die, and the murderer sprang upon the boys as they arrived? If only he could think straight …

At Warin’s insistence they stopped at a tavern he knew up on the road to Launceston, and there as well as wines and some food, the party were able to hire a horse to speed their return. While they sat and ate, Gervase standing soaked and wretched, staring longingly at the food, for Nicholas refused point blank to allow him to eat, Baldwin glanced up at him with a frown. ‘Gervase, you can see that you are the obvious culprit in the murders. Can you think of anyone else who could have benefited from the deaths of Athelina and Serlo?’

‘Richer, of course,’ Gervase shivered. ‘He would have won the revenge of the years, killing the man who had wiped out his whole family.’

‘There was no one else?’ Simon asked. ‘Surely someone would have benefited from Serlo’s death?’

‘Everyone in the vill gained from his death,’ Gervase scoffed, a little of his past arrogance returning to him.