Edward Marston - The Wildcats of Exeter

‘I suggest that we put the matter aside.’

‘I will not do that,’ yelled the abbot. ‘If I do not have an abject apology from both of you, I will take my complaint to Bishop Osbern.’

Ralph was scornful. ‘Take it to the Archangel Gabriel for all I care!’

‘That is blasphemy!’

‘It is the closest you will get to an apology.’

‘Report this to Osbern, if you wish,’ said Baldwin levelly, ‘but I think you will find him more worldly than you. When murder takes place, I am entitled to take any steps I deem fit even if that means upsetting an abbot. Be grateful that my lord Ralph did not haul you out of bed in the middle of the night to face his interrogation.’

‘That is a monstrous suggestion!’

‘We bid you farewell, Geoffrey.’

‘I’ll not be dismissed before I am ready to go!’

‘Depart now while I still have a hold on my temper,’ cautioned the sheriff, ‘or I will summon my men to assist you out of my castle.’

‘You would lay violent hands upon an abbot!’

Ralph beamed at him. ‘Given the opportunity.’

The prelate rid himself of another torrent of denunciation, then he stalked out of the hall with his arms waving like the sails of a windmill. They could hear his imprecations as he was crossing the courtyard.

Ralph chuckled. ‘The abbot is a more comical jester than Berold.’

‘I would sooner my own fool than that one.’

‘I will happily dispense with both. Berold and I fell out when I learned that he might have saved my wife from being injured in an accident.’

‘How so?’

‘He took her to view the siege tunnel by the East Gate but omitted to warn her about all the strange things which had happened there in the past. He should have kept her away.’

‘I agree. The lady Golde’s injury could have been far worse.’

‘Indeed it could, my lord sheriff. But he is an odd fellow.’

‘Berold?’

‘He seems to flit between misery and elation.’

‘He is a creature of moods.’

‘I caught him in a bad one today,’ recalled Ralph. ‘It was almost as if he would do anything rather than help me. It was perverse.’

‘Yet you did see what you wanted.’

‘Saw and smelled. A vile place.’

‘It is like an open sewer at times.’

‘Yet that is where the lord Hervey was heading. I am certain of it. Walter Baderon admitted that he watched him go, turning out of the North Gate and walking along in the lee of the wall towards the East Gate. He must have been going to inspect that siege tunnel,’ insisted Ralph. ‘He talked of it on our ride to Exeter.’

‘Someone must have intercepted him on the way.’

‘Or when he left the tunnel. If he left, that is.’

‘How did he finish up so far down the river?’ wondered the sheriff. ‘You would have expected him to leave a trail of blood but my men searched every inch of the bank and found none.’

‘Perhaps the body was wrapped in something.’

‘The man who did the wrapping would have been smeared in gore.’

‘He will be when I catch up with him.’

‘Or them,’ said the other. ‘Confederates may be at work here.

On the other hand, maybe the rumours about that siege tunnel are well founded. Maybe it is haunted. Perhaps the lord Hervey was the victim of a Saxon ghost.’

‘This ghost is made of flesh and blood,’ decided Ralph. ‘He does not only lurk around the siege tunnel, remember. He was waiting in that wood to ambush the lord Nicholas. No, he is here somewhere, my lord sheriff. We just have to look a little harder before we find him.’

Asa had never seen the reeve in such a state. There was no sign of his characteristic ease and calmness. Saewin was pale and drawn. When he was shown into her parlour, Asa saw that his hands were trembling. ‘What is wrong?’ she asked with concern.

‘I had to see you at once, Asa.’

‘Why?’

‘To urge you to withdraw your claim.’

‘Withdraw it?’ she echoed.

‘It is no longer valid.’

‘It is as valid as it was when I first advanced it, Saewin. Those holdings are mine. I earned them and I’ll not be cheated out of them. Nothing on earth will persuade me to drop my claim.’

‘You must,’ he pleaded.

‘For what possible reason?’

‘There are several, Asa. To begin with, you have little chance of success. A letter from the lord Nicholas can hardly compete with his last will and testament. You are nowhere mentioned in that.’

‘He promised that I would be.’

‘He promised many things to many women.’

‘No,’ she said, leaping up from her seat. ‘I was the only one, Saewin. I loved him truly. That was why he was so eager to show me the strength of his own love. By bequeathing those holdings to me.’

‘Renounce your claim, Asa!’

‘Never!’

‘You will have compensation,’ he said wildly. ‘I will pay you.’

‘Why should you do that?’

‘Because I am involved here.’

‘How?’

‘If you appear at the shire hall again, I stand to lose my office.’

He gave a hopeless shrug. ‘I was seen, Asa. When I came here last night, I was seen coming and going. Even the light in your bedchamber was noted.’

‘What does that prove?’

‘Enough to see me disgraced.’

‘Deny it,’ she said boldly. ‘Deny that you ever came here and I will swear that you speak the truth. Goda will support our story.’

‘It is too late for that, I fear. The truth is out. I have been given an ultimatum. Persuade you to withdraw or lose my place when this is reported to the commissioners. They are bound to think the worst.’ He ran a worried hand across his throat. ‘Master Bret asked me if I had been to your house and I told him I had not. He will know me as a liar. That in itself will be enough for him to push for my removal.’

Asa paced up and down the parlour as she tried to take in the enormity of what had happened. Still confident that she had a chance of influencing the commissioners to take a favourable view of her claim, she was mortified at the thought that it should now be withdrawn unconditionally. All her hopes would founder.

She turned on Saewin with a savagery that made him back away a few paces. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she demanded.

‘It is not my fault, Asa.’

‘Is this the reward I get for granting you my favours? I endured it in order to get your help yet you now tell me that I must abandon all interest in the dispute. Is this some cruel game, Saewin?’

‘No!’

‘Did you take me in order to cast me contemptuously aside?’

‘You know that is not true!’ he said with quivering sincerity. ‘I have waited so long for you, Asa. I have put up with all your rebuffs and all your excuses. You are the one who played games.

Did you not send Goda to tell me how grateful you were to me?

And what happened when I called here to receive gratitude in person? I was spurned, Asa. I was sent away with my tail between my legs.’

‘I wish I had spurned you again last night.’

‘But you did not and we will both suffer as a result.’

‘Who saw you?’ she asked.

‘It does not matter.’

‘Of course it matters. If someone is trying to rob me of my inheritance, I want to know who they are. Tell me, Saewin! I insist.’

‘I have sworn to keep the name secret.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I cannot say.’

‘Why have they put such fear into you?’

‘Because I am in danger of losing my place and my reputation,’

he said with desperation. ‘You are the only person who can save me, Asa. Do you not see that? I am begging you!’

‘Then you are wasting your breath.’

‘Abandon your claim and I am safe.’