Edward Marston - The Foxes of Warwick

‘You have not failed,’ insisted Adela.

‘Let me hear what she has to say.’

‘Simply this,’ said Marguerite evenly. ‘Drive your husband on to the very limit of his capabilities. Harness his ambitions and, if he has none, supply them. Wealth and position are everything in this world and he will achieve neither if you drag him back. I did not marry Philippe Trouville in order to waste my life in domesticity. He is destined for advancement and I will ensure that he receives it. With me at his back,’ she boasted with a glance at Golde, ‘his rise will be irresistible. It is only a matter of time before I am the wife of the Sheriff of Northamptonshire.

And I promise you that his progress will not end there.’

There was such a glint of naked ambition in her eyes and such a patronising note in her face that Golde could not resist a quiet rejoinder.

‘I see that you married out of infatuation, my lady.’

Marguerite glared poisonously but Adela gave a quiet smile.

The musicians struck up a fresh tune.

Funerals are occasions for honesty. Gervase Bret had attended far too many of them not to realise that. Grief stripped most people of their petty deceptions and revealed their true feelings to the public gaze. When he joined the congregation in the parish church of St Mary that afternoon, Gervase knew that he would find out a great deal about the man who had died and about the family and friends whom he had left behind. There was the vague hope that the funeral might even provide him with clues which might in time help to establish beyond all reasonable doubt the guilt or innocence of the man who was charged with the crime. It still vexed Gervase that he was not allowed to speak with the prisoner and he wondered why Henry Beaumont had reacted so unfavourably to the notion. Did the constable of Warwick Castle have something to hide?

The question posed itself again when the man himself arrived at the church, accompanied by his wife, his steward, the captain of his garrison and other senior members of his household. Martin Reynard had evidently been held in high regard at the castle though Gervase detected no real sorrow in Henry’s demeanour, only the suppressed anger of a man who has had something of importance stolen from him. The lady Adela was a dignified mourner, head bowed and face clouded by sadness. The rest of the castle contingent also seemed to be genuinely distressed at the loss of a former colleague and friend.

Family members had pride of place at the front of the nave. It was not difficult to pick out the grief-stricken widow, her elderly parents and her close relations. There appeared to be no children from the marriage unless they were too young to attend or were being spared the ordeal. Three mourners in particular caught Gervase’s eye. One was Ednoth the Reeve, wearing a dolorous expression and keeping a supportive arm around a sobbing woman whom Gervase took to be his wife. The second was the striking figure of Thorkell of Warwick, instantly recognisable by his Saxon attire and air of authority, and clearly distressed by the loss of his reeve. Four retainers, who had ridden into the town that morning with their master, had stayed to attend the funeral with him.

But the person whom Gervase was able to study most carefully was the short, slight, fair-haired individual in his twenties with a ragged beard through which he kept running nervous fingers.

Like Gervase himself, the man took a seat at the rear of the nave and was more of an observer than a mourner, yet he was patently no stranger because several people gave him a nod of acknowledgement when they first arrived. His mean apparel showed that he held no high station in life and, since the service was conducted in a mixture of Latin and Norman French, Gervase was not sure how much of it the young Saxon actually understood for the solemn words did not still his restless hand nor his darting glances.

Though the parish priest was in attendance, it was the chaplain from the castle who conducted the service, another indication of the respect which Martin Reynard had earned from his former master. During his sermon the chaplain spoke of the deceased as a man whom he had known and admired for some years, and furnished many personal details about him, some of which were so touching that they set the widow and family members off into a flood of tears. Gervase noticed that Ednoth nodded in agreement throughout the sermon, Henry Beaumont sat immobile and Thorkell lowered his head in dejection. The fair-haired young man was uncertain what expression was most appropriate and he tried several before settling for a studied lugubriousness.

The sizeable congregation took time to file out into the churchyard. Gervase was the last to leave and he stood on the periphery of the crowd which ringed the grave. In a high, reedy voice the chaplain recited the burial service and the coffin was lowered into ground so hard that it sorely taxed the muscles of the gravedigger. As the first handful of earth was tossed after Martin Reynard, the mourners tried to remember him for his good qualities and to forget the gruesome way in which he’d been killed. When people slowly began to disperse, Gervase saw the fair-haired young Saxon steal away, only to be intercepted by Thorkell of Warwick, who pointed an accusatory finger at him and said something which provoked a vigorous shaking of the other’s head. When the young man left there was quiet fury mingling with the sadness in Thorkell’s face.

On impulse, Gervase walked across to the old man and introduced himself. Pleasantly surprised to hear a royal commissioner talking in English, Thorkell was nevertheless wary.

‘What are you doing here, Master Bret?’ he asked.

‘Gathering information.’

‘About whom?’

‘Martin Reynard. Judging by the size of the congregation, he was a respected man who was well known in the town.’

‘Funerals are private matters. You had no place here.’

‘I did not come to intrude, my lord.’

‘Only to pry.’

‘Your reeve was to have appeared before us,’ said Gervase. ‘On your behalf. When our predecessors, the first commissioners, visited this town several months ago, they were impressed with the way that Martin Reynard spoke for your cause. You have lost a skilful advocate.’

‘I am all too aware of that.’

‘What interests me is whether his murder was a case of accident or design. The fact that he was killed days before our arrival here may not be entirely a coincidence.’

‘It was not.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Instinct.’

‘Does that instinct tell you who the murderer was, my lord?’

‘No,’ said Thorkell, ‘but it tells me who it was not.’

‘Boio the Blacksmith?’

‘He would never raise a hand against any man.’

‘The lord Henry believes otherwise.’

‘He does not know Boio as I do.’

‘Ednoth spoke of his gentle nature. He said how kind and even-tempered a man your blacksmith is. I have never met the fellow but he does not sound like a murder suspect to me.’

‘Have you voiced that opinion to the lord Henry?’

Gervase nodded. ‘Unfortunately, I did.’

‘Unfortunately?’

‘It brought his anger down upon my head. He upbraided me for poking my nose into the business and told me to let justice take its appointed course.’

‘Justice!’ Thorkell’s tone was rancorous. ‘What does the lord Henry know about justice? He should be out hunting down the real killer, not imprisoning one of my men on false evidence.’

‘But a witness saw Boio in the forest near the murder scene.’

‘Grimketel!’

‘Can his word be trusted?’

‘Not by me. Grimketel is a liar. He even had the gall to attend the funeral today. I spoke to the villain as he was leaving and demanded that he tell the truth. All I got was further lies.’