Edward Marston - The Wildcats of Exeter

‘What do I care about your safety?’

‘You will suffer also,’ he warned. ‘I will be displaced but blame will also attach to you. It will blight what little hope of success you have.’

Asa struck a pose. ‘I will take that chance.’

‘This will ruin me!’

‘You should have thought of that before you came here last night.’

‘I had to see you, Asa. You know that.’

‘Goda will show you out.’

‘Please. Reconsider for a moment. We both stand to lose here.’

‘No, Saewin,’ she said with studied coldness. ‘You are the only person at risk. People know what I am. I do not hide it. Men are seen to visit my house from time to time. There will be neither surprise nor condemnation when the commissioners learn that I entertained someone last night. You are finished, Saewin.

Resign your office and avoid the scandal.’ She gave a laugh of triumph. ‘I do not need you. I will fight this battle on my own and be victorious.’

Gervase Bret returned to the castle and searched for Ralph Delchard. Unable to find him, he went up to the apartment at the top of the keep, but Golde was there alone and had no idea where her husband might be. Gervase was about to leave when she reached out on impulse. ‘Wait a while,’ she said, hand on his wrist. ‘I would value your advice.’

‘On what subject?’

‘Marriage.’

Gervase smiled. ‘You know far more about that than I, Golde.’

‘I know about it from the woman’s point of view, it is true. But I can only guess how a man sees it.’ She indicated the chair. ‘Sit down. I would like to describe a situation to you to see your reaction.’

‘But I am not even married.’

‘You soon will be.’

‘Not if our work here moves at such a lethargic pace.’

‘You will be back in Winchester in time to marry Alys. I am sure of it. Besides, you have been betrothed to her for so long.

What is betrothal but a form of marriage with certain restrictions?’

‘I know all about those restrictions!’ he said, sitting down. ‘I look forward to the day when they can be cast away.’

‘It is at hand, Gervase.’

‘What is this situation you mentioned?’

‘Let us suppose — for the sake of argument — that Alys had another admirer before she had the good fortune to meet you.’

‘She had many admirers.’

‘I am talking about a special person in her life. Someone she loved.’

‘Oh.’

‘Not in the physical sense,’ explained Golde delicately. ‘This would be a man who worshipped her from afar and accepted that she was for ever unattainable.’

‘It would still be a profound betrayal,’ he said seriously. ‘A love that is confined to the heart can still threaten and wound. I know that Alys would never harbour such feelings.’

‘I only ask you to pretend that she might, Gervase.’

‘Very well.’

‘Now,’ she continued, moving to the window. ‘Supposing that you and she then get married in Winchester.’

‘If only we could!’ he sighed.

‘You live happily together without anything to cause the slightest ripple in the pond of domestic life. Until one day. When you become aware of a letter she once wrote to her admirer, couched in the warmest of terms and suggesting a closer relationship than in fact existed. How do you think you would feel?’

‘Shocked and hurt.’

‘Even though that friendship took place long ago?’

‘Even then, Golde. Alys should have told me about it.’

‘She was too shy and fearful to do so.’

‘Then she did not enter honestly into the marriage.’

‘All people have some kind of secret,’ she argued.

‘Not of this order,’ he countered. ‘Marriage vows are the most solemn that we take. They must be honoured. A woman cannot do that properly if she comes to the altar concealing a dubious past.’

‘There is nothing dubious here. She loved the man.’

‘Then she should have confessed it.’

Golde gave an affectionate smile. ‘You expect a perfection that few of us can manage, Gervase. Let us forget Alys, for I see that you take this too personally. Imagine two other people in the situation I have outlined.’

‘Well?’

‘The embarrassing letter comes out of her past, given to her by an anonymous hand. It is clearly a warning that her husband will be told the truth of her former love if she does not pay dearly to keep the intelligence from him.’

‘Is that what has happened?’ said Gervase worriedly. ‘Someone is trying to blackmail you, Golde?’

‘Not me. A friend.’

‘Here in Exeter?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I need to know. This may be important.’

‘It is highly important to the lady in question. I have told her that she must tell her husband the whole truth or she will for ever be at the mercy of the blackmailer.’

‘What was her reply?’

‘That it would be suicidal to confide in her husband. If he learns the truth, she fears, he will fly into a rage.’

‘When was the letter given to her, Golde?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Very much. Was it in the last couple of days?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then she is the second victim.’

‘Second?’

‘Compromising letters of a slightly different kind were handed to me at the shire hall.’

‘By whom?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘What sort of letters were they?’

‘The kind that are extremely damaging to one of the claimants involved in a dispute. That is why they were sent. Though this is not a case of blackmail, I believe that the person who passed on those letters to me was also in possession of the one given to your friend. I would go even further,’ said Gervase, thinking it through. ‘I would hazard a guess where those letters were found.’

‘Where?’

‘In a box stolen from the house of the lord Nicholas.’

Golde started. ‘But how could anyone know they would be there?’

‘They did not. The box was taken because it contained something else. When the thief discovered it also contained those letters, he saw a means to exploit them.’ He looked up at her. ‘Was your friend in any way involved with the lord Nicholas?’

‘I fear that she was.’

‘Then she is the second victim of the thief. There may be more,’

he said with a roll of his eyes. ‘The lord Nicholas seems to have had many such romances and to have kept fond mementoes of his conquests.’

‘So what should my friend do?’ asked Golde. ‘Tell her husband?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Then what?’

‘Hope that I can find the man behind the blackmail before he can do even worse damage. What you have told me has been an immense help,’ he said, getting up and moving to the door. ‘And the truthful answer to your question is this. If someone was trying to blackmail Alys, I would forgive her any past indiscretion in order to free her from his power.’ He opened the door. ‘Tell that to your friend, Golde.’

‘I will,’ she said. ‘Unfortunately, she is not married to a Gervase Bret.’

It was a fruitless search and it took them well into the evening.

Under the supervision of Ralph Delchard and the sheriff, the men spread out in a line and walked slowly from the city to the spot where the body of Hervey de Marigny was found, poking about in the grass and among the bushes for any clue left behind by the killer. There were none. When Baldwin called off the search, he was annoyed and depressed. He and Ralph rode disconsolately back towards the city.

‘You were wrong, Ralph,’ he concluded.

‘I do not think so.’

‘It may well be that the lord Hervey was murdered in the river itself and left at the spot where he died. That would explain why there are no traces of his having been taken to the river from the city.’