Michael JECKS - The Abbot's Gibbet

Their predicament was largely due to the matchmaking zeal of Margaret and the Abbot. Their attempts at subtlety were a farce, Jeanne thought without rancor. They were trying, no doubt to help their friends find happiness, though how curious it was that they should think they knew the key to other people’s contentment.

As if by agreement, both chose not to speak to the other. It was not a conscious decision on either side, more a reaction to the air of anticipation in which they were watched.

Margaret noticed the apparent coldness between the two. During the course of the meal she had seen that Baldwin and his elegant neighbor spoke little if at all, and she felt a growing frustration that her hopes might be thwarted, for she was keen to see him marry someone who could provide him with company and children, and this was the first woman in whom he had displayed any interest. That they should suddenly have developed a frostiness was worrying. She cast a quick look at her husband to see whether he had also noticed, but he was talking to Antonio. She heard the Venetian say:

“You mean to say that the dead man was not the stranger, as everyone thought?”

“No, sir. The man who was killed was a local farmer by the name of Roger Torre. He was in the tavern as well that night.”

“But I thought… I assumed he must have been identified. How could you have been so mistaken?”

“Yes, why could you not tell at once?” Pietro frowned. “Did no one bother to view the body?”

“Of course,” Simon explained patiently. “But the killer had cut off the corpse’s head and hidden it. It’s hard to recognize a body when there is no face.”

Pietro and Antonio exchanged a baffled look. It was the father who stammered, “His head? Why… I mean, why should a man do that to his victim, bailiff?”

Jeanne pursed her lips in distaste. “It seems a particularly cruel thing to do to a victim: take the life and then desecrate the corpse.”

“That’s what worried us as well. It makes no sense.” Simon broke off a piece of his bread and chewed it meditatively. “We have arrested the man in whose yard the head was buried.”

Baldwin was glad that Simon carefully avoided suggesting he thought Elias was the murderer. Enough people would be bound to assume his guilt without their help. He waved a hand, vaguely encompassing the borough outside the Abbey. “There is no need to worry all the traders. I daresay it was a dispute of some sort which quickly led to blows, and for some reason the killer decided to take the head.”

“A curious trophy,” Antonio mused.

“I expect you saw the dead man yourself, sir,” Simon continued, thinking of Elias’ words. “He was in the tavern at the same time as you.”

Antonio shrugged. “The tavern? Which tavern?”

“The one on the way to the fair. You were there, weren’t you? Torre was the man you barged into as you left,” Baldwin said, and was surprised when the old Venetian stared at him with suspicion.

“Do you suggest that I was involved in this dreadful act, Sir Baldwin?”

The Abbot interrupted soothingly. “The knight suggested nothing, Antonio. He was merely commenting that you might yourself have seen the man.”

“Has the man confessed yet?”

“No,” said Baldwin, returning to his food. Looking up, he noticed a strange expression on the Abbot’s face as he watched Antonio: suspicion mixed with a certain hardness. As Champeaux caught his eye, his face relaxed once more into genial hospitality. “More wine, Sir Baldwin?”

“Thank you.” Baldwin waved the bottler on to Jeanne, whose goblet was almost empty. He was intrigued by the look on the Abbot’s face. It evidently betrayed some inner concern, but what that concern could be, he had no idea. Then he recalled that Roger Torre had made allegations against the Abbot just before he died. It was hardly conceivable that Robert Champeaux himself could have been involved in the murder, but he could have come to hear about it – there was always the confessional. That made him think of the monk. Baldwin found himself surreptitiously watching Champeaux and the novice Peter.

Antonio was eager for any information about the murder, but that was no surprise. In Baldwin’s experience any murder attracted great public interest, and when it was as bizarre as this, with a decapitated corpse and a head found hidden in a vegetable garden, any man would be keen to know all the details. When he glanced over at Jeanne, however, he saw that the talk was offending her.

She sat stiffly as the discussion ranged over the mystery, rarely looking his way. It made Baldwin a little sad. He had thought she was interested in him when they had first met, but now she concentrated on her food and rarely even glanced in his direction. The knight saw her eyes flit quickly toward Margaret, and then he understood. He had been aware for over a year of the solicitous marriage planning on his behalf which the bailiff’s wife had undertaken. It was as plain as a battle-axe in a church that she had decided the knight had found his mate; intuitively, he guessed that for her part, Jeanne de Liddinstone was fearful of being paired again so soon after losing her husband.

But she was very attractive, the ideal vision of a knightly lady. And the way her nose wrinkled when she laughed, the coy manner she had of peeping at someone from the corner of her eye, her intenseness when she listened, head set to one side as if he was the only person in the room, all made her desirable. That she was young and healthy merely added to her allure.

Looking up, she saw his expression, and he was about to glance away, embarrassed to be discovered studying her, when she smiled, and suddenly he did not mind Margaret preening herself at the other side of the table.

He was startled from his thoughts by the Abbot leaning toward him. “Sir Baldwin, would you like to arrange to come hunting with me?”

“Yes, indeed – but do you not have other duties with the fair? It would be kind of you, but surely you have enough to do without seeing to the comfort of a wandering guest?”

Champeaux shrugged. “My life is one of constant toil with God’s work: Opus Dei. Yet if tomorrow I have to celebrate our founding saint, I can take time the day after to relax. There’s little enough for me to do, in any case. The fair runs itself, with the port-reeve taking most of the burden, so all I am expected to do is wait here in case I’m needed, and usually on the third day of the fair I’m not. It’s too quiet. Will you join me?”

“I would be delighted, Abbot.”

“Then that’s settled.”

The meal ended soon afterward. Compline was not for another hour, but the Abbot had many duties to attend to. As his guests prepared to leave, Baldwin found himself alone with Jeanne. Simon and Margaret pointedly waited at the door, looking at him.

He could not simply walk away as if she did not exist. “My lady, I… er…”

Once he began, he had no idea how to continue. Aware of the interested expression on Edgar’s face, he found himself coloring, and felt a rush of irritation. He was a knight trained in warfare. All over the known world he had travelled without fear, purely because of his prowess with lance and sword; yet now he was flustered, embarrassed and nervous simply because of a woman. It was insufferable.

But of all the knightly skills, the one he needed most now was the one in which he had never been instructed. Squires were taught courtly manners and how to behave with women, but he had learned his knightly skills as a warrior monk. There had been no place for the soft art of courtship when he had taken his vows.

Jeanne saw his pain. “Sir Baldwin?”

“Lady, I wanted to… er…” He wanted to apologize if she had felt pressured, to make her know that he held her in high regard. Yet to say so would imply that she had felt such pressure, and what if she had not? Suddenly he was hemmed in with doubts. “Lady, I…” Then inspiration struck. “Would you like to walk for a little? The evening is clear and warm, and I would be honored to accompany you, if you wouldn’t feel my company to be boring.”