The Merchant’s Partner aktm-2

by Michael Jecks

  Shrugging again, Baldwin sat back as she continued. “So, yes I hid, but only so that the village’s gossips would not see me. When they had passed, I went on to the house. I saw the old woman and took the potion, then I left…”

  “My pardon, madam,” said Baldwin. “But were you alone with her the whole time?”

  “Yes.”

  “And no one saw you enter the house?”

  “No,” she said, her brows wrinkled with the effort of recollection. “No, I do not think so, though.”

  “Yes?”

  “I did have a feeling I was being watched – it felt like there was a man in the trees… But I saw no one.”

  “Please continue.”

  “As I say, I took the potion and left. I walked back to the horse and came home.”

  “What time did you arrive home?”

  “What time?” she appeared surprised by the question, “I do not know. After dark. Maybe half an hour after five?“

  “And you were with Agatha Kyteler at about what hour?”

  She shrugged indifferently. “Maybe four o’clock. I do not know.”

  Frowning, Simon asked, “And you only collected the potion? So you could only have been there minutes…?”

  “No,” she said equably, “I was there long enough to take the mixture – you know, to drink it. Then I left.”

  “Was there anyone there when you did leave?” said Baldwin.

  “I…” She hesitated.

  “Yes?”

  “I did not see anything, but I thought someone was there. It was just a feeling, you know? But I did think there was someone there in the trees still. I don’t know why. And Agatha seemed keen to be rid of me.”

  “And that was all?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “And then you went straight back to your horse?”

  She looked at him. “Yes.”

  “And Greencliff was there?”

  “Yes. I had seen him earlier and asked him to mind my mare while I went to see Kyteler.”

  Simon interrupted. “But you said you didn’t want the villagers to know you were there: that was why you hid in the trees on the way to her. Why didn’t you mind him?”

  Looking at him, her mouth opened but no sound came for a moment. Then she turned back to Baldwin as if in silent appeal. “I know the boy. He is gossiped about as much as I am. He agreed to look after my horse. That is all.”

  The knight nodded slowly. It would make sense, he thought. To his mind it was a great deal more likely than a high-born woman such as this having an adulterous affair with a lowly farmer.

  “What about Grisel Oatway?” asked Simon. He felt he had an advantage somehow and he was determined to press it.

  This time she did not even look at him. “I did not see her.” The tone of her voice carried finality.

  Baldwin leaned forward again, and he was about to speak when the door in the screens flew open and a manservant ran in excitedly. “Mistress! Mistress! Come quickly! Oh, please come quickly!”

  They all sprang to their feet and stared at the man as he halted before her, his boots and the bottom of his tunic and hose covered in dripping snow. “What is it?” she demanded, apparently angry at the interruption.

  “Mistress – it’s the master – he’s dead!”

  Simon gaped at him, and when he looked at Baldwin, he could see that the knight was as shocked as he. but then, as the bailiff glanced at the man’s widow, he stopped, his heart clutched in an icy grip. In her eyes there was no sadness. Glittering in the depths of the emerald pools was a cruel, vicious joy.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was not there for long, and it was speedily covered by an expression of, if not grief, at least a degree of respectable regret. “Where?” she asked simply, and the man led them outside, Edgar silently bringing up the rear.

  Walking quickly, the servant kept up a constant stream of apologies and pleas for pardon until she cut him off with a curt gesture, and he fell silent. Out through the door to the stable he took them, across the snow-covered yard, already trampled and flattened into a red-brown shlush, to an open picket gate in the wall that gave on to the pasturage behind. Here they could easily make out footprints, leading straight to the woods. It was a place where he trees looked to Simon as though they were being cleared for a new assart, or perhaps merely to increase the lands available for the hall. Up at the treeline was another servant, moving from one foot to another in obvious agitation and wringing his hands. They made their way to him without a word.

  At first the ground fell away, giving the house a solitary imminence. A small stream lay at the bottom, curling lazily round the house. The snow had not covered this rippling water. It lay with small sheer cliffs at either bank like a miniature gorge, almost, Simon thought to himself, like a tiny replica of Lydford itself.

  The servant took them to a bridge built of sturdy planks, wide enough for a wagon, then they were climbing the bank to the figure waiting at the trees. He was a middle-aged man, with a face flushed from the cold. His square, stolid features showed his terror. It was as if he feared even to talk, his muscles moving as if with the ague, mouth twitching, brows wrinkling, eyelids flickering. He pointed wordlessly, then remembered his place and would have fallen to his knees if the knight had not sharply ordered him to take them to his master. With a hesitant glance at his mistress, and seeing her nod, he turned and stumbled in among the trees. It was not far.

  The assart was a small semicircular clearing, with stumps cut off a few feet above the ground, and Simon realised it was a coppice. The trees were being cut to allow for regrowth. When the new long-stemmed shoots grew, they could be harvested for fencing, staves or just for burning on the fire.

  At the far end, to which the servant now led them, there was a spur cut into the forest like a thin, invasive finger of land thrusting the trees apart. Inside was a recently felled oak, lying on its side waiting to be cut into planks or logs. The man led them up to it, and there, just beside the bough, was a rolled-up form. Baldwin stepped up, a hand held out to stop the others, and then crouched by the figure.

  On hearing a small gasp, Simon said, “Wait here!” to the others, and went forward to join him. “Oh, God!”

  All around he could see the snow was dappled and clotted with frozen black gobbets of blood.

  He stood motionless, his eyes on the ground for fully a minute. Then, though waking, he took a deep breath and let it out in one long jet. Breathing slowly, he peered around the small glade. Baldwin was beside him, his eyes on the figure. Beyond was the thickest concentration of blood, as if it had jetted forward under great pressure, thick gouts lying nearby and thinner droplets farther away.

  Studying it, he could see that it was almost as if the stream had all been impelled in one direction. It had not all sprayed in a circle, but started to his left, in a thinnish drizzle, then fanned round to the great thick line ahead. When he looked down he could see that the body pointed in this direction too.

  Alan Trevellyn lay partially covered with snow. He was down on his knees, his torso and arms outstretched as if praying, his head on the ground between. Only one side of his body was cleared, the other was still as white as the ground. Simon paused and peered down, then crouched, hands on his knees, and stared.

  Standing, he pointed at the agitated servant. “You! Did you find him here?”

  “Yes, sir. I was here to collect wood for the log store when I stumbled on something. I thought it was a log… Or a stump… I had no idea it was the master… When I kicked at it, all the snow fell away, and I saw it was… Was…” He seemed to run out of energy.

  “Did you clear away the snow with your hands?”

  “No, sir. I kicked, and the snow fell away, and…”

  Simon interrupted harshly, “I know all that. Did anyone else come here to see the body after you found it? Did anyone touch the body?“

  “No, sir. I stayed here with the master until you got here just now, sir. I didn’t l
eave, sir.”

  Nodding, the bailiff turned back to the frowning knight.

  “What is it, Simon?”

  “Look!” He pointed. “There’s snow over the body. But the blood’s on top of the snow.”

  “Which doesn’t make much sense,” Baldwin agreed.

  “No. He would hardly bury himself in the snow after dying, would he? No, someone else piled the snow around him after he was dead. And there,” he indicated the rows of lines on top of the mound that covered the dead man’s side, “are the finger-marks to prove it.”

  “Let’s see what actually killed him.”

  Simon grunted assent, and they carefully began to clear away the snow from around the corpse.

  “Do you want one of the men to help you?” asked Mrs. Trevellyn.

  Looking up, Simon glanced at the two men before returning his gaze to her husband. “No,” he said. “I think we can do this. Could you send one to fetch a wagon, though, to bring the body back to the house?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll be inside if you want me.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s too cold for me up here.”

  Simon nodded, and watched as she began to make her way back to the house, followed by her two servants, who straggled along like confused dogs expecting to be beaten. Turning back, he caught Baldwin’s eye. The knight was watching her too.

  To Simon’s surprise, it did not take them long to clear the snow from Alan Trevellyn’s corpse. After only a short time they had wiped it from his back and sides, and now they had a small moat around him. His stance was clear to see now, with the arms reaching up as if in supplication.

  “More than likely he just fell down like that,” was Baldwin’s own curtly expressed view when the bailiff pointed this out to him. “Come on! Let’s roll him over.”

  Both taking a shoulder, they pulled hard. At first he seemed to have frozen to the earth itself. Simon felt it was as if the ground knew that he would be buried soon and had no wish to give up what it knew to be its own. But then it reluctantly gave up the struggle with a sudden loosening of its grip, and Simon nearly fell back as Trevellyn’s body moved, then toppled over on his side.

  Simon stared at the bulging eyes, the blackened tongue, the black and red mess around the mouth where the blood had spurted and frozen or dried, at the deep wound beneath where the murderer’s knife had sliced through the yellowed cartilage of the windpipe before severing the arteries, and found himself swallowing hard to keep the bitter bile at bay. “Interesting,” said Baldwin, rocking back to squat on his heels after studying the wounds. “Just like Kyteler.”

  The bailiffs voice was thick as he said. “Yes. Just like the witch.”

  The knight took a close look at the face, and Simon could see a series of scrapes where blood had been drawn. It looked as if he had been hit with a heavy weapon of some sort.

  “Mace, or maybe a cudgel,” he heard the knight mutter to himself. Apart from that there was little they could learn from the body.

  It was not long before the men arrived to carry it back to the house, and Simon relinquished it with pleasure. As he watched the men collect it up, rolling it in a blanket and staggering with it to the cart, he stood well back, away from the gaze of those sightless, dead fish-eyes.

  Even last year’s killings had not been quite as bad as this. At least then it had been a series of murders caused by a group of trail bastons, wandering outlaws with no other means to earn a living. Nobody was safe from the increasing prices that made food so expensive, that made lords have to reconsider how many retainers they could afford and threw out those they felt to be a burden. It was not surprising that some resorted to violence to gain what they needed. Especially since now, by law, all men had to own weapons for their defence, and by law must practise using those weapons for the better defence of their communities and themselves. No, it was not surprising that some decided that when their world refused to give them an honest way to earn a living they should resort to violence.

  That was different, an almost comprehensible reason for a life of brigandage. But now? Two deaths like this? These were made more horrible, in some strange way, by the fact that they were unique. Perhaps if there were other bodies they would not seem so shocking. Maybe it was their stark, lonely individuality that made them so hideous.

  As the wagon began the slow progress back, bumping and rattling over the lumpy ground, he paused a moment. It was just the same as the witch, he thought again. And it was only then that he felt the prickle on the back of his head as the hairs began to rise erect, and he felt as if he was suddenly smothered in an ice-cold sweat.

  “What is it, Simon?” he heard his friend ask as he stopped in his tracks.

  “I was just thinking. How was his body? Kneeling, sort of like he was praying – or maybe begging on his knees? Could he have been pleading for his life?”

  When they returned, it was obvious to Angelina Trevellyn that they were deep in thought. They walked in without talking, stepping to a bench and sitting, their servant standing behind them. As soon as they were seated, she clapped her hands, and was pleased to see how quickly the manservant came in to serve them. He gave them mugs and poured mulled wine for them, then left the jug by the fire to warm.

  “Can you tell me how he died?” she asked at last.

  “Madam, he was slashed. His neck.” Baldwin was silent for a moment, peering into his mug, then looked up. “Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

  Looking up, Simon was sure he could see a look quickly veiled – fear? Uncertainty? As soon as it appeared it was gone, and her face seemed to melt into repose as she reflected. “No, I cannot think of anyone who could do such a thing. Alan always had a temper, but to do this someone would have had to have hated him, surely?”

  “Has he argued with anyone recently?”

  She looked at him with a serious expression. “Sir, if you know anything about my husband, you will know that he was always strong and resolute. He was brave and never feared any man. He never hid his feelings.”

  “Is it true that he nearly beat a servant to death recently?”

  “Oh, I do not know about that. It is true he would beat the men if they were slow or stupid, but so many of them are! You know what servants are like! They are like dogs, and must be trained. He had to beat them to keep them alert. That is not a reason to kill him.”

  “Did he know the witch?” Simon burst out, and she turned her face to him with sudden fear.

  “The… The witch?” she said at last with an attempt at surprise. Under Simon’s gaze, she appeared uncertain. Licking her lips with a nervous gesture, she half-shrugged, then turned once more to Baldwin.

  “The bailiff wondered if there could be something… You see, your husband died from the same kind of wound as Agatha Kyteler.”

  She stared at him, and Simon felt instinctively that this was no play-acting. Her shock had every appearance of honesty. “What do you mean, the same?” she said at last.

  The knight shrugged. “Exactly the same. It was just how she died, with a single cut across the throat.”

  “I… I need to think. Gentlemen, I am sorry, but this is very hard. Would you mind leaving me now? I must… Please go!” There was no refusing that last desperate plea. Leaving their wine, Simon and Baldwin stood, bowed, and walked out.

  They found their horses in the yard and were soon mounted. At the gate, Baldwin turned back to glance at Simon. “Where to now, do you think?”

  “There’s only one thing I want to know right now, and that is, where was Harold Greencliff last night,” said Simon shortly. When he looked up, he thought the knight was still looking back at him, but then he realised his friend was peering over his shoulder. When he glanced round, he saw that Angelina Trevellyn was standing in her doorway, watching them leave. He sighed as he turned forward again and saw Baldwin’s face. It held a small, far-off smile.

  As the light faded, the land was covered in a uniform dull greyness as if
there was no distinction between heaven and earth. The snow took on a sombre shade that seemed reflected by the sky. There was no shadow to help him, and the Bourc tripped and stumbled as he carried on, leading the horses by the reins.

  At least the wind had died now, and the ground glimmered palely under the soft cloak. On all sides were gently undulating hills, and here and there he could see a craggy outcrop of stone at the highest points.

  He dared not ride in case he took his horses on to dangerous ground. Better by far that he should lead them, testing his steps all the way. But soon he must stop, find a place to rest and recover from the toil of the day. Stopping, he wearily drew a hand over his brow and gazed around. His eyes flitted over a number of hillsides before they rested on one.

  It stood a mile away – maybe two – a hill with what looked like a scattering of rocks on the summit, as if a house had been left to collapse there. A tall spike pointed to the sky like the jagged reminder of a corner, while there appeared to be the tumbled remains of other walls, and even the hint of an enclosure.

  Sighing, he let his head drop for a moment, then dragged at the reins in his hand. He must get there before the exhaustion overtook him.

  The snow had not dissipated in the least. As they trotted down the hillside towards the lane, it became clear to Simon that they would have as slow a struggle as they had endured earlier.

  At first it looked like their worst fears were unwarranted. The lane that wound round before the house appeared relatively clear, and even as they rode farther up on to the top of the hill, it was still reasonably easy going. It was only when they began to descend once more that they found that the drifts had accumulated, and all at once they were bogged in snow which at times was over their feet as they sat on their horses. At one point Edgar showed his horsemanship, keeping his seat as his mount reared, whinnying in fear and disgust at the depth of the powder and trying to avoid the deepest drifts, and the servant was forced to tug the reins and pull the head round, to turn away from the obstacle. Standing and gentling the great creature, he glanced over at Baldwin.