Michael JECKS - The Merchant’s Partner

In a small village like Wefford, this was news of the first order. Unused to the excitements normal in more populous or busier places, where the number of travellers passing through led to their own difficulties, Wefford had experienced its first taste of real crime in decades, and found that it had a sour flavour.

But where there were problems, there were also compensations, and this affair was no different. After all, nobody would miss old Agatha too much. She had scared too many people after the rumours put about by that old hag Oatway. Her death had caused more interest than anything she had done while living.

When the curtain opened to show a slightly nervous, scowling and dark-haired man, she looked up with interest. The face was familiar, but she could not remember where she had seen him. Thin featured, with weather-beaten skin and thick dark hair that straggled at the sides. Appearing shy, he hung back at the screens as if nervous of crossing the floor. Not tall, he looked quite thickset, but quick and lithe, a bit like her husband’s horse. Where had she seen him before? Surely he had been on a horse? It was then that she recognised him – it was the bailiffs servant… What was his name? The one who had waited outside with the horses when the knight and bailiff arrived to ask her about the day that Agatha died.

Shifting quickly on her bench, she smiled at him, and saw a minimal relaxing of his glower. Patting the bench seat beside her, she beckoned to him, then waved at the innkeeper.

“What would you like to drink?” she asked innocently, and he asked for a strong ale, sitting ungraciously beside her.

“Aren’t you the man that came to see me with Sir Baldwin Furnshill and the bailiff the other day?” she said when his beer had arrived and he had taken a deep draught.

He nodded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and now his face had lost some of its black dejection. The flavour of the beer restored some, if not all, of his equanimity.

Hugh was annoyed. So far today he had been told to help two serving women (either old enough to be his mother) with moving barrels in the buttery, then Margaret had asked him to help an hostler in the stables area, and finally, he had been instructed by a haughty man-servant that Hugh had been assigned to him to help with the mews, the sheds behind the stables where the falcons were left to mew, or moult.

When he had gone to Margaret to demand some sympathy, she had been short with him. Of course he understood that she was upset at the continuing absence of her husband, but that was no reason to take things out on him. On seeing him, she had made it very clear that he was expected to help wherever he was needed while they stayed under Baldwin’s roof, and that meant doing whatever the servants felt was useful. After being peremptorily ordered to go out and help with the mews, he had obeyed, but had then made sure that he could not be seen afterwards, and had quickly saddled his horse to come into the village for an evening of peace before he could be asked to do anything else.

Now, as he sat and glared moodily at his pot, he was struck with a sense of the unfairness of it all. After all, he was the servant of a bailiff. He should not have to mess about helping hostlers – the knight should have enough men to look after his horses and those of his guests!

Looking at him, Jennie could see that he was feeling gloomy, and quickly ordered him another pot of ale. After all, if the bailiffs man knew nothing, especially when he had been living with the knight, the Keeper of the King’s Peace, then no one could know anything.

“I hear they’re bringing back young Greencliff,“ she said tentatively, as if musing. ”Shame that. He’s such a nice lad, too.“

“Yes. They should be back later, or first thing tomorrow.”

“Your master? He’s with them?”

“He’s leading them,” said Hugh tetchily, then resumed his gloomy stare at his pot. “They all seem to think Greencliff must be dead, though. He was out in all that snow, so it’s unlikely he’ll survive.”

“Oh.” She was quiet for a minute, then said, “What about her”? That French wife of Trevellyn?“

Hugh stared at her uncomprehendingly, wondering what she was talking about. “Eh? What, the widow? What about her?”

“Didn’t you know? She was having an affair with Greencliff. That’s why he was with her horse when she went to see the witch. He was helping his lover, looking after the horse of the woman he was having an affair with. I think she killed old Agatha while he held her horse!”

When the little group rode into town the following morning, Simon was pleased to see Baldwin, Edgar and Hugh standing outside the inn opposite the gaol. Saying, “You see to him, Tanner,” he dismounted and led his horse to the group of men standing on the patch of brushed earth, which showed red where the snow had been swept away.

“So, Bailiff. You were successful,” the knight said smiling, nodding towards the man being led into the little gaol, then, with surprise, he said, “John! I thought you left for Gascony days ago.”

He was about to question them about the hunt and where they had met, when he noticed the pinched look on Simon’s face and called out for the innkeeper. Soon, mulled wine was brought, the steam rising steadily from the liquid, and the smell from the sweetened mixture with its strong spices made the bailiffs mouth water. Taking a mug gratefully, he cupped it in his hands and blew on the surface to cool it a little, then took a sip of the scalding drink as the Bourc accepted another pot from the innkeeper.

“And, surprisingly enough, he’s alive, too!” Simon said, voicing the knight’s thoughts as he stared after the figures entering the gaol. “Yes, and it feels like I nearly died of the cold myself on the way.”

Mark Rush soon joined them, and they walked indoors out of the cold.

After his initial pleasure at seeing the men returning, Simon saw that Baldwin had sunk into a pensive reverie. The Keeper of the Peace was wondering whether he would shortly see the boy, his villein, hanged in the market square for the murders. It was surely not pleasant, Simon thought, to have to see the last remaining member of an old family on the estate coming to this kind of ignominious end. Far better that the boy had died on the moors or in the woods. To an extent, perhaps, it would have been better for all concerned if Greencliff had put up a defence and had died with an arrow in his head. At least that way there would have been an end to the matter. Now there would have to be a trial, with the lad perhaps attempting to defend himself – though how he could try to was beyond Simon’s imagination. The evidence all pointed to him.

As the knight called for more drinks, an eyebrow delicately rising at the speed with which the men finished off their first pots, Simon leaned forward on his elbows and jerked his head towards the Gascon. “Your friend knows a little more about the day Trevellyn died, and the day Agatha Kyteler was killed.”

“Really?” said Baldwin, glancing across the Bourc, who looked up inquiringly. “John? Simon says you can help us with the death of your old nurse and the merchant. Is that right?”

Before the Gascon could answer, Simon fixed him with a gleaming eye. “Be very careful how you respond, John. Your father’s friend thought you might be the killer.“

The Bourc stared at him, then at the sheepish knight. “You thought I did it?”

Shifting uneasily, Baldwin grimaced, “It did seem odd that you were with the old woman when…”

Laughing, Simon enjoyed the sight of his friend’s embarrassment. “Don’t worry, Baldwin. Anyway, he has an alibi, even if we didn’t already have Greencliff. Rush saw the Bourc on the road at dusk that day, far south of Wefford.”