Michael, JECKS - The Tournament of Blood

Simon hissed, ‘Shut your face, you poxed son of a whore and an idiot! She’s my daughter! If I see you sniffing about her, I’ll cut off your balls and feed them to the pigs. Understand?’

William put a hand on his friend’s arm. He was reluctant to back down before any man, even an enraged Bailiff like this one. ‘Your language is intemperate.’

‘ My language, you puppy?’ Simon roared. ‘Your words would offend a Breton pirate! You’re no knight, and I can well understand why. A whippersnapper like you doesn’t deserve preferment. A Bristol shit-collector’d be more courteous!’

‘You are intentionally insulting me, Bailiff. I won’t stand for it.’

‘You think you can demean a lady and still win your spurs? I’ll show you different, you ignorant–’

‘Bailiff! I’m glad to have found you,’ came a smooth voice.

Simon turned to find himself gazing at the King Herald. ‘And you have met the son of Sir John Crukerne, I see. How fortunate. I’m sure you’d both like to continue your… conversation … but I think Lord Hugh would be perturbed if his Bailiff and one of his most valued squires, a young man who could have anticipated a reward for years of honourable and loyal service to one of Lord Hugh’s knights, should become fractious.’

‘I’ll not apologise to a… ’

‘Neither will I, Bailiff,’ William said hurriedly. ‘But neither will I brawl vulgarly in the field like a common man – a man who is not of the knightly class. Come, Nick.’

‘Leave my daughter alone. If I find you’ve been trailing around after her, I’ll–’

‘Bailiff,’ William said, eyeing him gravely, ‘if I wish to see your daughter, I shall. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’

‘Leave him, Bailiff,’ the King Herald advised. ‘His father’s powerful enough to harm even you. I wouldn’t want our lord to be shamed because of a silly quarrel.’

‘He’s not my lord,’ Simon muttered as he shrugged his arm away, but he was relieved that the Herald had been there. He had been close to drawing his knife, and he was sure that it would have been a mistake. There was no point orphaning Edith to protect her honour.

‘Thank you,’ he added ungraciously.

William gave a faint grin and was about to walk away when a thought struck Simon. ‘Wait one moment, Squire. Where were you after dark last night?’

‘Me? I left the hall quite late and joined my friends here at a tavern. Why?’

‘Which of your friends here will confirm on oath that you were with them?’ Simon asked curtly.

‘Any of them will, but why?’

‘How well did you know Wymond Carpenter?’

‘That shite? Well enough to avoid him.’

‘What was wrong with him?’

‘What is this?’

Simon smiled. ‘Answer the question and I’ll tell you.’

‘You enjoy your mystery, do you, Bailiff? Very well. The trouble with Wymond is that his work was poor. Piss-poor. In Exeter he caused the deaths of many when the stand he had built collapsed.’

‘I believe you owed money to Benajmin Dudenay?’

‘What if I did?’ The youth was startled at the change of subject.

‘For what?’

‘I am a warrior ,’ William said with withering contempt. ‘I had to join our King’s host at Boroughbridge and I needed new mail. I borrowed money from Benjamin to buy it.’

‘How much?’

‘I don’t keep track of such things. Now, if that is all, I have other… ’

‘Were you in Exeter to attend the court this year?’

William glanced at the King Herald and made a show of shrugging. ‘I was there with many other honourable men.’

‘Such as your father.’

‘Yes. What is all this about?’

Simon studied the lad pensively without answering. He had no reason to suspect that William could have had a motive to kill Wymond, other than his instinctive dislike for a boy who had leched after his daughter, and he was fair enough to know that his feelings had nothing to do with justice, only with a father’s righteous anger.

‘Come, Bailiff, explain yourself.’

‘Because Dudenay was killed in Exeter and Wymond was murdered last night.’

‘It looks as if I cannot be suspected, then, doesn’t it?’ William said lightly.

‘Did you see anyone else about last night after dark?’ Simon asked.

‘There was that old cripple, Sir Richard,’ William said with the brutal callousness of the young and healthy. ‘And some new fellow – Sir Edmund, I think his name is. He was walking about the place with his squire.’

Simon watched him arrogantly swagger off to rejoin his friends at a wine-seller’s bench.

‘What now, Bailiff? A brawl with a pot boy? Or a wench in a tavern?’ Mark Tyler asked sarcastically. ‘Christ! The way you question people, anyone would think you were determined to take on the Coroner’s job for him. Have you a genuine suspect? Or are you insulting people for personal enjoyment?’

Simon wasn’t in the mood for his hectoring. ‘Have you ever used the merchant and usurer Benjamin Dudenay?’

The herald’s face suddenly went still. ‘I have heard of him.’

Simon had seen his expression change. ‘Did you owe him money?’

‘A little, perhaps.’

‘Enough to want to kill him?’

‘The only man who seems to have the temper to kill is yourself,’ Tyler said neatly, recovering himself. ‘Two fights in as many days, Bailiff. Scarcely the sort of record Lord Hugh would expect, is it?’

Baldwin carried the hammer with him as he investigated the area, but there seemed nothing more to be found and soon he set off back towards the castle, swinging the murder weapon with a speculative air. It was heavy – weighed at least four pounds. Enough to crush a skull.

When he came to the gap in the hedge, he tried to guess the direction that the killer would have taken to get back to the jousting field. There was no sign of dragging grass, so he assumed that the body had been carried down towards the river.

He was beginning to feel a reluctant admiration for the murderer: a man who could persuade Wymond to walk all the way up here to look at a tree for timber, perhaps proposing a share in the profit; a man who could strike down even so ferocious a foe as Wymond, and drag or carry him back to his own bed and brazenly tuck him in. That spoke of someone with courage, mental resources and physical strength. Wymond was not tall, but he was solid.

Why put him back in his bed? Most people would surely have left the corpse up in the woods to be eaten by wild animals, concealing the evidence. Baldwin was convinced that the deed was done so as to leave a message. But was it for Hal – or someone else? And if so, who?

Baldwin set to wondering how the murderer had returned to the camp. He might have turned right, following the line of the old hedge. Working on this conviction that no sensible man would walk in the open carrying a dead body, Baldwin strolled near the trees, his eyes fixed upon the ground. It took little time to find tracks: boots sunk deep into the ground.

He walked faster now. The trail took him down to the ford where he himself had earlier crossed the river, and he nodded to himself with satisfaction. His guesswork had proved to be accurate.

But now he was unsure what to do. He still carried the hammer, and that would have to be given to the Coroner when he arrived; he could pass it to Simon for safekeeping in the meantime. Baldwin felt a pang at his belly and realised it was time he ate. He walked thoughtfully to the stalls and drank a pint of watered wine. At another stall he bought a pie and munched on it, sitting on a bench with a fresh pint of wine before him while he contemplated the people passing, wondering whether one of them was the killer. It was an unsettling thought.