Aye, Sir Charles thought to himself, life was good. And there, three miles distant, was another manor ready and waiting to be despoiled. He smiled contentedly.
Combe Street near the alley
Sir Reginald looked petulant when the two knights finally emerged from the alley, Emma thought. For all the sombre mood of the gathering, it was tempting to giggle at his grumpy expression.
‘Undress her,’ he commanded, but there was no movement from the watching crowd. ‘Come! Someone must undress her.’
There was such a tone of hurt in his voice that Emma wanted to pet him. He was little more than a boy in a man’s office. He glanced down at the clerk as if seeking support, but the clerk was writing in his rolls still, and made no effort to assist.
‘Helewisia,’ Emma said, ‘come and help. We can’t leave the poor chit to some carter or tanner. Better that we do it.’
Her neighbour nodded, and without speaking, they both went to the figure and knelt beside it.
Alice had been set down a short way from the alley, and her body was cold and flaccid, which was a relief; the two woman could undress her without too much difficulty. They gently removed her clothes and piled them neatly to one side, and then moved away.
It was sad to see her naked. Emma knew it was essential that the corpse should be exposed to the full view of the Coroner and his jury, but still it seemed as though the girl was being humiliated after death. She crossed herself, and realised a tear was forming in her eye. She wiped it away crossly. Tears should be saved for the funeral itself, not expended here.
‘I find that she has been stabbed twice in the breast,’ the Coroner declared loudly, studying the slim body. ‘Once in each. It’s…’ He broke off and turned away.
‘As if she was being deliberately marked in the breasts,’ Sir Richard finished for him.
Chapter Nine
Alice had always been a pale girl, and naked in death Emma thought she looked like a figure carved from marble.
On her pure flesh the stains of blood about the two elongated diamond-shaped stab wounds stood out clearly, as did the discolouration of dead flesh where her body had lain. About her wounds, the blood had dried black, and flaked off as a powder. But other signs stood out on her body: Emma could see the marks, one on the left side of her throat, another pair on her breasts. Not bites with teeth, but the marks of love. Sucking kisses that had drawn the blood to the surface of her skin like large bruises. Seeing them, Emma knew what the girl had been doing earlier on the day she died, as did all the other adults there.
Baldwin stared thoughtfully at Alice’s body. He looked like a man peering at accounts in a ledger, not at a dead maid.
‘Do you object to my studying her?’ he asked the Coroner. ‘I have been asked specifically by the Precentor of the Cathedral to aid you as I may.’
‘Sir Baldwin? My apologies, please, do take all the time you need. I know of your reputation, sir.’
‘I am grateful,’ Baldwin said as he crouched by the body. ‘The two stab wounds are quite clear,’ he went on. ‘Both were from the same blade. It is a blade some one and one half inches broad, and it is less than eight inches long. The blade appears to have penetrated to its full depth.’
‘How do you know that?’ the Coroner asked. Emma thought he looked baffled.
‘The cross of the guard has slammed into the girl’s flesh here, over the breast, and bruised it. Yet it did not pass through her body to her back, so it cannot be as long as her body is deep. If I insert a finger…’ Baldwin stuck his finger into the wound. ‘Yes, it passes down slightly, but not steeply. So the knife-blade is longer than my finger. It was no eating-knife, but a dagger with two edges. The wounds are clearly diamond-shaped, and they penetrated the tunic which she wore.’
‘I see,’ the Coroner said, and Emma saw that the clerk was scribbling quickly as he tried to note all Sir Baldwin’s comments.
Baldwin considered, wiping his finger on a fold of her skirts. ‘She made love not long before her death. These marks on her body,’ he pointed out the bruises Emma had noticed on the neck and breast, ‘these are not the marks of a rapist.’
Sir Reginald’s clerk was unconvinced. ‘A rapist driven by his lust may have brought her here for himself and made those marks on her body, and afterwards she pulled her clothes on in modesty before he slew her. Men in the heat of their passions can be brutal.’
‘You suggest that the rapist stood by as she donned her clothes, and then slew her? The stabs were through the material of her chemise, so she was clad when killed.’
The Coroner was nodding, as though impressed with the logic of Baldwin’s reasoning, but Emma guessed that professional awe was tempered with irritation at being shown up before the jury.
‘Consider this,’ Baldwin said, holding Alice’s head and studying her. ‘I am sure you noticed this, Coroner: her lips are bruised. One may think she was grasped there, to prevent her calling out? But there are no finger-marks at either cheek. If I saw a maid silenced in such a manner, I would expect four bruises on one cheek and jaw, and the thumb-mark correspondingly on the other, but there is no such mark here. Which is peculiar.’
‘What else would bruise her mouth?’ Sir Reginald asked.
‘Her teeth are firmly fixed. It was not a punch,’ Baldwin explained. ‘But now I have seen her body, an explanation is to hand. If she was kissed violently, passionately, that would possibly lead to her mouth being bruised. So this lover was an ardent fellow.’
‘But you don’t think she was raped,’ the clerk said.
‘With a pretty maid like this, I would always look for signs of a rape,’ Baldwin agreed, ‘but she had recently lain with her lover, so how could we tell whether she was raped afterwards?’
He stood, and pulled her arm to roll her gently over onto her stomach. Her back was smooth and unblemished, except for the staining where blood had pooled.
‘There is no evidence of a blow, a slap or punch to her face,’ Baldwin said. He stared down the length of the figure. ‘I should have expected that, if she had tried to fight off an assault. And obviously she was not raped here in the alley.’
‘Why not?’ the Coroner asked.
‘Her back,’ Baldwin said, ‘is not marked. Consider: if she were forced to lie among the stones and filth of the alley, she would have abrasions, and her clothing would be stained from the dirt. There are no such indications, so I doubt that she was raped out here. That does not mean she was not raped somewhere else, perhaps on a comfortable bed, but not here.’
‘I don’t understand – why would someone kill her and dump her body here?’
‘To distract a Coroner, to conceal the killer’s identity, or to avoid paying fines. Wherever a body is found, that community will pay the fines for infringement of the King’s Peace. If it were moved, someone else would have to pay.’
‘Well, since there are none of those signs, perhaps she was not raped, but merely killed there in the alley,’ the Coroner concluded.
‘For what reason?’ Baldwin asked, rifling through the pile of her discarded clothes.
‘Robbery,’ said the clerk.
Baldwin looked at him. ‘This was a maidservant, not a merchant. Would a cut-purse think her likely to wear a gold necklace, or hold a well-filled purse?’
‘What do you think, then?’
Baldwin had picked up her chemise, and was studying it closely.
‘There is no way to tell, as yet. Perhaps we shall learn more when we hear what she was doing on the day she died.’
Rougemont Castle
He had been in a good mood that morning. Sir James de Cockington, the Sheriff of Exeter, had been entertained by a young woman from the local tavern, and her skills and athletic ability had first delighted and then alarmed him. He had woken to a mild headache and that inevitable fuzziness that comes from a lack of sleep, and the wench was gone – without robbing him, he noted.
He made his way down to his hall, and called for food and drink,
considering his future. It was uncertain.
Only a few weeks ago he’d thought he must lose his position here. The new regime would not appreciate his efforts on behalf of Sir Edward of Caernarfon, and he was as aware as any that his post would be a perfect gift to many of those who had spent the years trying to unseat the King. This position of Sheriff of Devon was a ripe plum ready to fall into any hands which had been supportive of the barons opposed to Sir Edward.
But nothing had happened.
Sir James reckoned that at first there had been too much going on around Bristol and Wales, let alone London, for those in charge to worry about him. King Edward III was still not yet fifteen, and the land was controlled by the council of the leading barons of the country. And behind all there stood that wily dog, Sir Roger Mortimer.
He was the real power in the land. That was clear enough to any man with a brain. And Sir James had a particularly astute mind when it came to seeing where was the safest haven in troubled times. He hadn’t got to be a Sheriff without understanding the details of politics.
Hearing that Sir Baldwin was waiting in his antechamber had sent him into a minor paroxysm of panic. Last time he had met Sir Baldwin, he had not enjoyed the experience.
Then a thought took him, and it was a happy thought.
Sir Baldwin, whom he had always considered a grumpy example of a rustic knight, had always appeared to consider himself the equal of Sir James. More, in fact: Sir James felt sure Sir Baldwin looked down upon him. Well, times had changed now, hadn’t they? Sir Baldwin’s influence at court was ended. He had been loyal to the old King, to Sir Edward of Caernarfon. And now that King was gone, and in his place was the council and the new King. Sir Baldwin’s position was built on sand – while Sir James was held in some esteem by the new government, clearly, because he was still in post.
Refreshed with his musings, he took a leisurely time over breaking his fast. It was balm to his soul to know that, as he drank two mazers of watered wine, the older man was outside cooling his heels. There was probably some little favour he wished. A rural knight like him was little better than the peasants who wallowed in the mud. Certainly Sir Baldwin would not fit into the circle of friends that Sir James had assiduously cultivated. He wiped his lips and poured a third mazer before motioning to his steward to remove all the debris.
‘Tell Sir Baldwin I will see him now,’ he said, stifling a belch.
The steward gave him a baffled look. ‘Sir Baldwin?’
‘He is waiting for me in the antechamber.’
‘No, sir, he had to leave. He has been gone since before Nones, sir,’ he said, and gave him Sir Richard’s message.
The steward did not particularly like his master, so it was a cheerful man who left the swearing Sheriff a few moments later. He shut the door behind him and made his way to the buttery, where he had to laugh aloud at the memory of the Sheriff’s amazed expression.
Combe Street
Joan, the young maid at the Paffards’ house, was the first witness, since she had discovered the body. The Coroner stood at the side of his clerk and asked her what had happened on the fateful Saturday evening.
‘I just tripped over her head. I didn’t see her down in the alley. There was no light there. She was just lying there, and I fell over her. I couldn’t help it.’
‘Ah! Did you trip over her face? Perhaps you bruised her lips in the way Sir Baldwin noted?’
‘I don’t know. I just couldn’t see in the dark, else I’d have seen to avoid her.’
‘Yes, quite,’ the Coroner said patronisingly.
‘May I ask a question?’ Baldwin said.
Joan liked the look of this knight. He was neat and precise in his manner, and when he fixed his dark eyes upon her, she felt as though he could see right into her soul. Not in a nasty way, not like Henry Paffard, nor accusingly, but with sympathy, like he understood what she was going through, standing here with all the men staring at her like she was a murderer just because she had found poor Alice.
‘Maid, you worked with Alice. Were you friends?’
‘Yes. It’s hard to live in the same room and not get close.’
‘Was she in love? Girls will talk of their men, I know. Did she confide in you about any man in particular?’
‘No. Not at all,’ Joan said. ‘Alice had never said anything about her lover. There had been no need.’
‘She had no one?’
‘She wouldn’t have betrayed the master,’ Joan said primly, face reddening.
‘That is curious,’ Baldwin said, and she could not help glancing at the master. Henry Paffard was watching her, his face devoid of emotion. She couldn’t tell whether he was pleased or angry.
‘Another question,’ Baldwin said, drawing her attention back to him. ‘Why were you walking along that alley? It is very unpleasant there for a young woman as the light fades. Surely you would have been better served to use the front door?’
‘It’s just a rule of the household that servants will enter the house by the rear door,’ she told him.
‘I see,’ was all Baldwin said, but the look he gave Henry Paffard was as black as thunder.
Edith’s House, St Pancras Lane
Simon had woken to the sound of his grandson bawling his head off, and he rolled over in his bed to listen with a smile on his face.
It was good to wake in a real bed again, and better still to know that he was here with his daughter’s family, safe with people he loved.
He rose and dressed, making his way to the hall.
‘Good morning, Father. You slept well.’
‘Yes.’
‘I wasn’t asking! I could hear your snoring through the floor!’
‘I didn’t keep you awake, did I?’ Simon said, crouched beside the cot in which his grandson was lying, his face red as he opened his mouth for another bellow of rage. ‘Your mother is unkind to your old grandpa, isn’t she?’
Edith laughed and offered him some meat and bread to break his fast. Simon knew that she was showing off, but he accepted with alacrity. Soon he was sitting at the table, a pewter plate filled with honeyed larks and slabs of fresh cheese before him, and a goblet of wine at his side.
‘You do yourselves well here,’ he commented, sucking the meat from a lark’s thigh.
‘Peter hopes to be accepted into the Freedom of the City,’ Edith said.
‘I never thought to hear my daughter with such a smug tone!’
‘I’m not smug, Father. Just proud, that’s all.’
‘Aye – proud as a popinjay! I am very happy for you, Edith.’ He was. From here, he could see the tapestries on the walls, the picture at the far end of the chamber. She had a better house than he, by far. His room last night was a separate chamber beneath their solar, and this hall was huge compared to his own, the screens decorated with emblems of the city. Much money had been expended on the place from the days when it was owned by Edith’s father-in-law, Charles, and he and his wife had left it for Edith and Peter when they had their new house built near the Guild Hall. It was only natural that she should be proud of all she had acquired.
‘When do you expect Sir Baldwin to arrive?’ she asked.
‘Hmm? Oh, not late. I daresay he is still having some discussions at the Cathedral,’ Simon said.
The light tone did not reflect his mood. It was still uppermost in his mind that there would be consequences flowing from the escape of Sir Edward of Caernarfon, and that was a source of grave concern to him.
He had no idea how this was going to affect him – and his family.
Chapter Ten
Combe Street
Baldwin glanced at Sir Reginald. He did not wish to take over the inquest, but the Coroner gestured assent, so he continued, looking at Joan. ‘Maid, did you see a man near here that night?’
‘Yes. A priest,’ she said.
‘Where?’ Baldwin asked.
‘Out in the road there,’ she said, and explained how she had hidden, fearful of encounter
ing a man so late.
Baldwin glanced over his shoulder. The Coroner was looking up at the sky, measuring the sun, and Baldwin thanked the girl for her evidence then stepped back to Sir Richard’s side.
‘I find that this maid Alice was killed by a man unknown,’ the Coroner began, and read through the facts of the case. ‘The knife which killed her was a knife worth about one shilling and sixpence. I shall enrol that as deodand. Is there anyone here to present Englishry on this maid? No? Then I will impose the Murdrum fine. You, Joan, must attend the court when this affair is brought before the judges. Your master must pay sureties to my clerk here. Also, the families nearest must also be attached: Roger Avice, Bydaud de Coyntes, Master Philip Marsille, and Henry Paffard. You are all attached to attend the court. Pay your sureties too.’
‘There! That’s all done with,’ Sir Richard said with contentment. ‘We should find a tavern and buy a little wine or ale.’
‘There is one more thing I should like to know, first,’ Baldwin said. He walked over to Paffard’s apprentice, Benjamin, as the jury and witnesses began to disperse. ‘Master, Joan said that after she found the body, you were next into the alley. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, me and our bottler, John. Joan was in a terrible state, screaming and screaming – there was nothing I could do or say that would calm her, but John managed to get her away and into the house.’
‘I see. It was strange that she should be walking about the city so late.’
‘John sent her to buy some bread.’
Baldwin looked at the man he pointed out. John was a little older than Baldwin himself. He was not tall, and stooped, which made him look even shorter. He had thick white hair, but dark brows that looked curiously out of place. He was dressed in a thin woollen tunic of dark brown, with a white chemise beneath. A broad black belt was bound at his waist, a purse, keys and a dagger hanging from it.
‘You sent her?’
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