Michael JECKS - The Merchant’s Partner

“Do you think it was her, then?”

She looked up with a fire of bitterness glinting angrily in her eyes. “Who else? She hated her husband, everyone here knew that. And it’s not surprising either, the way he treated her and his servants. I’m sure she loathed him enough to kill him or to have someone else do it for her. I’m sure it wasn’t Harold.”

“You said,” Baldwin said pensively, “that you saw them at the woods. Did Sarah?”

“Oh yes. She must have done. And she knew what the rumours were about Mrs. Trevellyn and Harold, too. So when we saw her in the trees on the way to the witch’s house, and then him at the roadway, she went quiet. She put the two together. Why else would they be there like that?”

Now it was Simon’s turn to frown. “I don’t understand, do you mean that she was ill and…”

Jennie Miller gave a sudden harsh laugh. “Ill? It’s no illness to be with child, Bailiff!”

He stared at her open-mouthed. “You… You mean the woman was pregnant? That she… She was to have Harold Greencliffs child? They went to the midwife to get her help with the delivery?” he stammered, but it was Baldwin who answered, with a tired kind of sigh to his voice.

“No, Simon, not like that, anyway. I should have realised. It’s obvious, now I think about it. A midwife can be useful to a woman to help in bringing a child into the world, but she can also sometimes be of help in stopping a child, too. That was why there was yew in Kyteler’s cottage. Yew can be used to make a mixture that will make a pregnant woman lose her child. It forces a miscarriage.”

When he looked at Jennie, she nodded. “Yes. I think that’s why Angelina Trevellyn was at the witch’s house: to lose the child she and Harold had produced.”

They were both quiet as they rode away from the mill towards the road, and they had travelled some way before Simon dared to interrupt the knight’s thoughts. When he looked over at Baldwin, he could see that the knight was deeply troubled. The evidence of Jennie Miller had thrown the whole matter into a different light.

“Well, Baldwin?” he asked as they turned into the Cotteys’ lane. “What do you think?”

Looking up, the knight’s face registered a bleak sadness. He felt that the evidence was so overwhelming now that there was certainly good cause to doubt that the boy had confessed honestly. But what teased at his mind was why the boy should have admitted to a crime he had no responsibility for. And whether Angelina Trevellyn could have killed her own husband. It still seemed impossible somehow that such a beautiful woman could be capable of such a deed.

But then his mind went back to the chronicles he had seen and read while he had been in Cyprus and other countries while he was still a member of the Order of the Temple. There were many examples there of women prepared to take up weapons, from women who killed and threatened to take control of lands they wanted, to others who were more subtle and devious in their approach. Alice of Antioch was one, Constance another. Both had tried to take over lands and rule them alone. It was possible that Angelina was struck from the same mould.

“I have no idea, Simon,” he said heavily. “All I know is that it seems that there is some reason to doubt whether the boy Greencliff was truly responsible for the murders. And we need to hear from the lady herself why it was that she went to Agatha Kyteler’s house. I don’t know.”

They had almost arrived at the cottage now, and Simon nodded thoughtfully as they made their way to the door, through the flocks of chickens that scrabbled at the dirt for any food missed by their sisters. Dismounting, he lashed his reins to a tree and banged once more on the front door. This time there was only a short pause before it was opened to show Sarah Cottey, whose eyebrows rose at the sight of her guests.

“Sarah,” Simon said, “we have come to ask you about the day you went to the witch’s house again, and about Harold Greencliff.” To his horror, she immediately burst into tears.

Baldwin was still on his horse, but swung down and walked over to join them with a grimace of sympathy twisting his mouth. Throwing a disdainful sneer at Simon, who stood staring at him with frank amazement at the response to his words, the knight barged past, took the girl by the shoulder and gently led her indoors.

“Come on, Sarah. Don’t worry, we know most of it already.” He helped her to a bench at the table and sat before her, holding her eyes with his, and she began to calm, sniffling. Eventually, rubbing at her nose and drawing in gulps of air, she glanced up at Simon, then began to weep again.

“Come now, child,” Baldwin said. “We must know what really happened. Otherwise, you know what will happen, don’t you? Harold must die. He has admitted both killings. He has confessed to them both. You can’t believe he killed them. Tell us the truth.”

Looking up, she found herself gazing into the knight’s dark eyes. Under that solid stare she found herself relaxing, as if she was becoming entranced by their deep brown depths. “He can’t have meant it. None of it.”

“Meant what, Sarah?” the knight asked softly.

“What he promised me,” she said, her eyes filling again with tears, one huge drop forming in her right eye and slowly descending like a feather dropping in a clear air. “He promised me he would marry me as soon as he could.”

“When did he promise, Sarah?”

“Months ago. He said he loved me, that he wanted to live with me for ever. But he was lying. I heard about him and that French cow, and how they were carrying on…”

“Where did you hear that?”

“At the inn. They were all talking about it up there. But when I asked him about it, he said it was untrue! He said it was all lies, that he’d never seen her, there was nothing in it. He said he still wanted me.”

Baldwin looked at her steadily as the tears fell in a constant drizzle, but he could almost feel her pain and it was only with an effort that he stopped himself from touching her to try to offer some comfort. “What happened to make you doubt him? Why did you think he was untrue to you?”

“Because he was there! He was at the road to that woman’s house. I didn’t realise at the time, I couldn’t really see…”

“Did you see the woman in the trees? Did you see Mrs. Trevellyn?” Baldwin interrupted quickly, and saw with relief that he had brought her back to her story again.

“Her? Oh, yes, I saw her! She was there in the trees, hiding a little back from the lane, dressed so clean and expensive, like a lady, she was. But she was still there for the same reason…” She broke off suddenly, and her eyes glanced away.

“I think we know why she was there, Sarah,” said Baldwin. “You had gone there for the same reason before, hadn’t you?”

Her head came up once more and she looked him full in the face with a kind of pride as she said, “Yes.”

“Why did you think she was there at the time? Is that what you thought immediately, or did you think she was there for some other reason at first?”

“I…” Her eyes lost their focus with the effort of recollection. “I didn’t think anything at the time. I think it was just like seeing anyone. No, it was later, when I came to the lane and saw her horse there that I knew.”

“What do you mean? Why?”

“I never saw Harold, he had dropped back into the trees, but he must have been there holding the horse.”

“Why do you say that? Surely it could have been anyone there holding her horse – she might have brought an hostler to do that. Why do you think it was Harold?”

There was withering scorn in her eyes as she sneered at him. “Why? Because I may not have seen Harry at the time, but when I spoke to Jennie later, she admitted she saw him there, before he ducked back into the trees. He hid when he saw me. I’m not surprised he wanted to stay hidden from me.”