Michael JECKS - The Merchant’s Partner

“No, I left in among the trees. Agatha told me that she was often having people go to see her, and I might scare them away! She asked me to stay hidden, and I did as she asked.”

“On your way back from seeing her? Did you see anyone?”

“Ah, yes. Coming back I saw a woman.” He smiled, “It was Mrs. Trevellyn, Agatha told me that! She thought it was quite funny. The woman went to see her often, she said, and she found it amusing. Alan Trevellyn wanted children, but his wife did not.”

Simon heard his friend draw in his breath. “But I thought… Was it Mrs. Trevellyn who sent you the letter saying where Agatha was living?”

“Yes. I suppose she had heard of me from the old lady and thought I could ease her last years.”

“So, you say Agatha wanted you to revenge your mother?” said Baldwin.

“Yes. But I couldn’t. Oh, I had seen the man, and I disliked him, but that’s no reason to kill, and as for my mother… I am a soldier. I have seen what happens when a city is captured, and I have taken part. How can I condemn or kill a man because he took advantage of his position, when I have done so myself? No, I decided that I should leave him.”

“And then you left?”

“Yes. She asked me to go.”

“It’s interesting that the man she wanted you to kill died only days later,” said Baldwin pensively, and the Bourc nodded and shrugged.

“I have nothing to hide. It is more strange than you realise.” He explained about his meeting with Trevellyn at the inn, the ambush, and his subsequent visit to the merchant’s house. “He tried to whip me, and I wasn’t expecting that, but I think he was used to whipping men who would do his bidding: his servants, maybe even sailors. He worked in the east, perhaps he ran a galley for a time… I do not know. Anyway, the blow caught me on my back as I ducked, and that made me very angry.”

His eyes misted as he remembered the lash sweeping back ready for another strike, and as he told them, he saw it all in his mind’s eye: the way that the pain had lanced across his back like a slash from a razor, the way that he had sprung forward before the merchant could attack again. He had not even drawn his sword, the rage and pain were too intense. As the handle of the whip came forward again, the Bourc had swiped a gauntletted fist and caught him on the cheek and temple, felling him like a sapling under the axe.

By the time the merchant came to again, the Bourc had calmed, but Trevellyn did not know that. All he could see was the heavy blade of his sword at his throat. That was when the Gascon told him who he was and saw the terror spring into the small, black eyes.

“He honestly seemed to think I was a ghost,” he said. “He was horrorstruck at seeing me.” He gave a short laugh. “I don’t know what he thought was worse: that I had reappeared from his distant past, or the fact that I had bested his men!”

“Did you do anything else to him?” asked Baldwin.

The Bourc glanced at him and grinned. “What? Cut his throat, you mean? No, my friend, I’m afraid I did not! I left him there when I heard some of his men coming back, then made my way back to Wefford. Next morning I started south. I was happy that Trevellyn would not try anything new.” He went on to describe his journey south and the attacks from the wolfpack.

When he had finished, Simon leaned back in his chair and gazed at his friend. “Well? It fits with what we know, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Baldwin pensively. “And now Greencliff has confessed, that is an end to the affair, isn’t it?”

Once they had passed through from Crediton and were making their way along the winding road north to Tiverton, Simon tried to break the depressed silence. “Did you know he still had the knife with him?”

“Eh?” Baldwin’s face registered bafflement.

“I said: the knife – he still had it with him. It even had the blood on it.”

“Oh, you mean Greencliff. No, I didn’t know that.” he returned to his gloomy perusal of the trees ahead.

“Baldwin?” Simon attempted. “Baldwin?”

“What is it?” the knight turned to him irritably.

“What the hell’s the matter?”

At the exasperation in his voice, the knight smiled apologetically. He looked as though he was about to deny any concern, but then, after a quick glance around, seeing that Edgar and Hugh were some distance behind and that Mark Rush was a little way in front of them, he dropped his voice conspiratorially and leaned over towards the bailiff.

“This is very difficult, old friend. I think I might have… No, that’s not right… I feel that there could be a… Well now, since…” He suddenly broke off, and Simon almost laughed aloud at the sight. Here was a brave and resolute modern knight, completely lost for words. His eyes met Simon’s and the bailiff saw near panic in them.

“And what does she say?”

“I haven’t… How did you know?”

This time Simon did laugh. “Baldwin, did you really think you had kept it secret? God in heaven! The very first time you saw her it was like watching a cock with a hen. It was obvious what you were thinking…”

“Please, Simon, save my blushes,” the knight murmured.

“So you have not yet said anything to her?”

“How can I, after the death of her husband?”

“Baldwin, at the very least you must get to know her better. Otherwise she may not even think of you. If you don’t let her know you are interested, how can she tell you are?”

“You did!”

“That’s different. I know you.”

He digested this in silence for a moment. “But what should I do? I can’t just go to her house and say, ”Hello, Mrs. Trevellyn, would you like to be my wife now your husband’s been murdered?“ can I?”

The bailiff sighed. “Look,” he said, “you need to find ways of getting to know her. Ways to get her alone so that you can both talk. Maybe take her hawking, or just out for rides sometimes.”

“Is that how you won Margaret?” the knight said, his eyes clouded with anxiety and doubt.

“No, I simply asked her father.”

“Well, shouldn’t I…”

“No, Baldwin. I was winning a young girl. You’re trying to get a woman, one who knows her own mind, possesses her own household, has her own land and wealth. You have to win her, not her relatives.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Then why do you look so worried?”

“I’d rather be riding into a battle than trying to take on this role, old friend. That’s why!”

Simon laughed, but then his face grew serious for a moment as he gazed ahead with a pensive expression, chewing his lip. “We’re not far. Come on, we’ll drop in on her now.”

“No, Simon, I think…”

“Come on, Baldwin. To battle!” the bailiff laughed, and to the knight’s abject misery, he turned to the servants and called, “Hugh! Edgar! We’re going to the Trevellyn house first, before going back to Furnshill.”

The bailiff was still grinning as they clattered up the hill to the Trevellyn manor, and his good humour did not fade as he banged on the door with his fist. It was only later, after they had entered, that the doubts began to assail him, but the thought had its inception with the opening of the front door, the rest was merely the gestation period.

When the door swung open, Simon found himself confronted by a pretty maidservant, a slim young woman of maybe twenty, with pert breasts and a cheeky smile. Her face was prettily framed by curling brown hair, and her lips parted in a smile as she saw him. Acknowledging her, Simon led his friend through to the hall, where both waited for the lady of the house to enter. Their servants waited with the horses in the stables, feeding them.