The leper's return ktm-6

by Michael Jecks

  “Could you discern what was said?”

  “Oh yes, Sir Baldwin. It was Godfrey, and he shouted, ”So you’d defile my daughter too, would you?“ We-that is, my men and I-wouldn’t have worried about that-I mean, you hear people having rows even in the best households, and someone shouting may not signify much, but there was something about the tone that made me suspect something was wrong. Anyway, only a short while later there was a loud scream. God!” He wiped a hand over his brow and took a hasty slurp from his cup. “God, it was awful! Now I know it was his soul passing, but at the time, I swear I thought it was the devil! It was a hideous cry, a bellow of anguish-something I’ll never forget as long as I live.”

  Baldwin gave a sympathetic murmur.

  “After that,” Coffyn resumed, “I got my guard to come with me and we ran round there.”

  “Hold on! Did you go in by the front or the back of Godfrey’s house?”

  “By the front, of course! Would you expect me to clamber over his wall?” Coffyn retorted. “We didn’t wait to hammer on his door, we went straight in.”

  “I see. And what did you find?”

  “Godfrey: dead. His daughter, little Cecily, unconscious nearby. His servant, that miserable old sod with the crab-apple face, out cold near the door. My God, it was terrible!”

  “You saw no one else there in the house?”

  “No.”

  “What about in the street outside when you hurried there?”

  “No, there was no one. I’m quite sure of that.”

  “And you couldn’t hear the sound of someone running away or anything?”

  “No. But we wouldn’t-I mean, we were running so hard…If anyone had been there, we’d hardly have noticed.”

  “That’s fine. Now, what was your impression when you first went into the room? Did you think it was a robbery? Or was it a straightforward attack on the man?”

  Coffyn gave him a long-suffering glance as if he was convinced that Baldwin was feeble-minded. “I told you what I heard. Does it sound as if someone was robbing the place? I think an intruder was trying to rape Cecily, and her father came upon the bastard. You take my word for it-when you speak to Cecily, you’ll find that a man was trying to ravish her.”

  “I suppose it is one possible explanation,” Baldwin agreed.

  “Of course it is. The man tried to have his way with her, but was attacked by her father. He struck Godfrey down, and decided to make good his escape, so he knocked out the girl and made off. But he cannot escape God’s own justice!”

  “What about the servant, Putthe?”

  “He came upon the man, and was knocked down too. The assailant slipped out the back, and I arrived there a few minutes later,” Coffyn said dismissively.

  “No, that’s not right. For one thing, Godfrey must have been knocked down as he entered the room…”

  “Pish! He was heard approaching, so the man hid himself behind the door and clobbered him as he entered.”

  “…and yet if Godfrey ran in and shouted, as you say he did, the rapist must have been in front of him in the room. So how was he struck on the back of the head?”

  “There must have been something to distract him…perhaps he heard Putthe running toward him along the screens, and he turned, and that was when his killer struck.”

  “I don’t think so. If that were the case, I feel sure that Godfrey would have crumpled on the spot, and thus ended up facing the doorway. As it is, he fell the other way, as if he was knocked down a few moments after he came into the room.”

  “Well, that’s for you to sort out. I’ve told you all I can,” Coffyn decided, and made a move as if to get up.

  Baldwin sipped reflectively at his wine. “Tell me: are you aware of any enemies that Godfrey might have had? Would there be anyone who loathed him, who was a thorn in his side, or who felt jealous of him?”

  “Only one, I suppose,” Coffyn said reluctantly. “The Irishman-the two of them never seemed to hit it off. It’s hardly surprising, for who could be a friend of a man who was prepared to defraud the Church of money on the basis of trickery? You remember his supposed blindness? Mind you, I think Godfrey disliked him for more mundane reasons. He wanted to buy the plot that John was living on, and John refused to let him have it.”

  “Why would Godfrey have wanted a run-down little place like that?”

  “Godfrey was a rich man. He had his whims. I think he wanted somewhere else to put his livestock, and he has a growing number of staff-had, I should say. That little yard with the cottage would have been ideal, bordering right on his land.”

  “How does John of Irelaunde strike you? Has he ever shown you aggression?”

  Coffyn’s lip curled into a sneer. “That little sod? He wouldn’t dare! If he had, I would have let my men loose on him, and we’d soon see how disrespectful he would be after that.”

  “You do have several new fellows here,” Baldwin noted dispassionately.

  The merchant shot him a look. “Are you insinuating that one or two of them could have been involved in this?” he demanded hotly, but his temper cooled as quickly as it had erupted. “My apologies, Sir Baldwin. I seem only ever to hear of complaints about my men. No, I know that three were here last night before I returned, and the others were with me on my trip. But when I got back here, I had all of them in my yard helping me unload my cart. And none of them could have gone next door between that time and my hearing the call from Godfrey’s.”

  “I see. Tell me, when you heard the shout, where were you?”

  “When I got home, I had the wagon pull up in the yard, and immediately went inside to seek my wife. She wasn’t in the hall, so I told all the guards there to help unload the goods and went to see her in my solar. I…I had thought I heard someone in my private chambers, so I had a good look around. I even called up the guards to help me. That was when I heard the shout-while I was in my bedchamber.”

  “And you didn’t go straight out when you heard the cry?”

  “Well, no. No, I had the impression that someone was here, you see. It was only when I heard the scream that I realized something was dreadfully wrong at Godfrey’s house, and I ran there with one of my men.”

  “Leaving the other guards…?”

  “I left them looking still.”

  “For whoever might have been in your private rooms.” Baldwin nodded; he need ask no more. The merchant’s face had become flushed, but not with anger, and now he avoided Baldwin’s eye. It was clear enough that Coffyn had expected to find someone there, and that he had been unwilling to give up his search. That was why he had left most of his men there when he eventually decided to find out what was going on next door. He was still hoping that they might catch the man. “Tell me, which guard did you take with you? He might have noticed something you did not.”

  Coffyn shrugged and bellowed, “William! Come here a minute.”

  The guard from the door appeared a few moments later. There was something unsettling about him, something that grated, and the knight tried to isolate what it could be. Generally, the man looked happy and calm, with an easy demeanor, and a relaxed attitude: he still had his thumbs hooked into his belt. His mouth was fixed in a perpetual half-grin, but there was nothing sneering about it, it merely made him look as if he knew that meeting someone new was bound to be interesting and rewarding. His eyes too looked frank and cheerful, with little crow’s feet at the corners, as if he was ready in an instant to burst into laughter. He gave one the feeling that he would be good company over a jug of ale.

  But there was still that hint of readiness about him. Baldwin had lived among soldiers for the greater part of his life, had trained with them, and seen them in action, and this guard had the same aura of danger. His dark eyes were almost bovine, but they were also steady and intelligent; his hands hardly moved from his belt, but that meant they were always close to his dagger’s hilt; he stood easily, his legs a short distance apart, but he was also braced as if prepared to repel an attack at
any moment.

  “I believe you went with your master yesterday to the house next door, and you found Godfrey’s body with him?”

  “That’s right, sir. We went straight in as soon as we heard the scream, and found all three of ”em on the floor.“

  “Your master then sent you to find the constable and raise the Hue?”

  “Yes, sir. He remained to prevent anyone else from breaking in and stealing anything.”

  “Did anyone come in?” Baldwin asked Coffyn.

  “Only the maid. Almost as soon as we got there, she came down. She had been too scared to come down before, but when I called for help, she ran in quickly enough and helped us carry Lady Cecily up to her bedchamber. William and I left the two of them there, and that was when I sent him to fetch the constable. Not long after that, the constable arrived, and he said we could leave.”

  “You saw no one else in the house?” Baldwin asked, turning once more to the soldier.

  “I saw only the three people on the floor and the maid.”

  “And there was no sign of anything being moved or stolen, as far as you saw?”

  “No, sir. But I’d never been in there before, so how could I?”

  “I hope you have some reason for asking all these questions, Sir Baldwin, because I have plenty to be getting on with, and surely you have enough other people to question,” Coffyn interrupted irritably.

  “There are others I need to speak to, yes,” said Baldwin, rising. “I thank you both for your help.”

  “At least you know no one escaped from the front of the house; he must have gone out by the back. And it seems as if he was trying to rape Godfrey’s daughter. That appears plain.”

  “Does it?” Baldwin peered at the merchant. There was an eagerness in his face, an almost greedy look, like a dog which expects its reward after performing its trick. Baldwin felt only revulsion for the man. 7

  “I t is later than I had thought,” Baldwin said once they had retrieved their horses. He climbed the step and mounted, turning the beast toward the road and setting off at an easy walk. At the gate he hesitated, torn with indecision. He knew he should go to study the body again, see if he could speak to the girl Cecily and, from what he had heard, talk to John of Irelaunde, as well as seeking out other suspects, but he could only sit staring at the road, wondering what to do for the best.

  This confusion was a novelty. Usually Baldwin was certain of the path he must take, no matter what the issues which confused the way. If he was involved in a judicial matter, he could find a logical solution; if he investigated a robbery or murder, he would be able to decide upon an appropriate course of enquiry-after all, most killings were committed in the heat of an argument, and premeditated murder was a rarity. But whenever he had embarked upon solving a crime of this kind, he had always had the assistance of his friend Simon Puttock. This time, Simon was not around, and Baldwin found his absence to be a constant niggling emptiness. The knight had never before thought of Simon as essential to his function as a servant of the King, but now that there was a serious crime to consider, he realized that he needed the bailiff, not only in his capacity as a sounding board, but also because his friend was apt to think of points that the knight, with all his education and experience, would never have considered. “Where are you, old friend?” he muttered.

  “Sir?”

  “Nothing. Let’s get something to eat before we see the girl.”

  Thomas Rodde sat resting against an oak near the western edge of the town and dozed. The sun was warm on his face, the thick grass of the roadside was as soft as the finest down beneath him, and for a few minutes he could forget the horror of his disease and cling to a memory of what life used to be like before he became ill.

  Now he was twenty-nine those far-off days of his youth seemed to be suffused with a rosy glow. Nothing bad or evil ever seemed to interrupt their easy flow. The weather, as now he remembered it, was always balmy-and when it did rain, it was always gentle showers, never harsh, bitter drops that felt as if they had been frozen before falling.

  These reflections made him give a small smile, his eyes still closed against the brightness of the sun. He knew, logically, that the rain had been bitterly cold on occasion, just as he knew he had seen thunderstorms, had suffered biting winds while riding through the winter, and had more than once felt frozen to the core when he had been out in snowstorms-yet it was hard now to bring them to mind. It was as if his memory was separated into two parts: that before his illness, the happy life, and that after, the living death. All that happened in his early years was splendid: it was as if his childhood was a perfect dream in which even the elements had conspired to ensure his memories were delightful-and now, since developing leprosy, his entire existence had been blighted.

  Whenever he thought about the winter, it was the desolate plains of the northern marches which sprang into his mind. The misery-of being constantly damp; of having the rain driven into his face by a wind that felt so cold it froze the blood in his veins; of walking through puddles and rivulets that might have been composed of pure, liquid ice, that penetrated his cheap shoes in an instant; the pain while his feet at first went cold, then became vessels of pure fire before losing all sensation, followed by the torture of recovery. It often seemed to him that he would be better off staying out and allowing the life to leave his freezing body. Once he had attempted this, remaining in the open air as the ground around him hardened and his breath misted before his eyes. But his will to live was too deeply ingrained in his soul, and he had returned, half-unwillingly, to the protection of the fire at the leper camp.

  That was all he could recall of the bleak wasteland of Northumbria. He had loathed the climate, the country, and the people. It had been a refuge of sorts, somewhere for him to escape to, far from the disgust he saw in the eyes of his friends and family, but, like any place of sanctuary, it was no substitute for home, especially when his mild antipathy to the area developed into fierce repugnance.

  This was partly due to the apparent slowness of his disease. The suddenness of his affliction had been hard to accept, but if he had continued to slide steadily toward death, he would have been able to cope with his burden. It wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. For some reason, while he had remained in the north, he had enjoyed a period of remission, and it had left him nursing a perverse, bitter fury against God. Thomas could have borne the trials of death, but knowing that he must stay away from contact with society, was excluded from all the pursuits and pleasures which made life bearable, while remaining fit enough in body and mind, was unendurable.

  He had stayed there for six years, six long, intolerable years, living in the closed community of lepers, watching others suffering, becoming hideously disfigured, dying. And at last he was forced to leave. The Scots poured over the border in one of their periodic raids, and his little refuge was wasted. There was nothing to keep him there. To him the very air was foul, the climate worse, and he had made his way by easy stages down to the south.

  And now it was almost possible to forget some of the pain and hardship. He opened his eyes and gazed up into the cornflower-blue sky, enjoying a moment’s serenity. The tree above him stood solid and unmoving, there was a scent of thyme and wild garlic in the air, and his contentment was enhanced by a small bird high overhead, which sang with a clear, liquid tone. Closing his eyes again, he could imagine himself back in the fields of his old country home in the flat lands of Stepney in the county of Middlesex.

  His mental meanderings were called to an abrupt halt. “Thomas? Are you awake?”

  Sighing, Rodde slowly eased himself upright. “Hello, Edmund.”

  Quivil was tired, Rodde saw. His face was pale from lack of sleep, his eyes red-rimmed and hollow. Rodde had heard him at night cursing and muttering to himself. It was irritating. Since the abortive initiation ceremony, Rodde and he had shared a hut, so when Quivil couldn’t sleep, often Rodde couldn’t either. But it was impossible for Rodde to snap at him. Perhaps it
was that Quivil’s incomprehension of the injustice of his illness was so similar to his own. Whatever the reason, Rodde found himself warming to the farmer’s son, and in return Quivil appeared to look on him with near slavish devotion.

  “You look like you need a rest more than me,” Rodde observed.

  “I didn’t sleep well.”

  “No.” Further comment was unnecessary. All the lepers knew how the depression came on with increased force at night, especially for those most recently consigned to the human midden that was the hospital. Rodde’s voice was sympathetic. “What do you want?”

  “I’m going into town to collect food from the church,” Edmund said, waving toward his little handcart. “Will you help?”

  Rodde stood. Although Quivil hadn’t said as much, Rodde knew that the lad would be desperate for company. “I’ll come.”

  The street was quieter now, as the townspeople sat in their homes and ate their midday meals from good bread trenchers or wooden bowls. In his mind’s eye, Rodde could picture them: comfortable, prosperous traders with their wives and servants all around them, children running and playing among the rushes, the fires glowing and adding to the thick atmosphere as servants ladled stews, panters cut hunks of bread, bottlers topped up mugs and cups, and all about dogs sat and scratched or waited, watching hopefully. Even poor homes would have a good quart of ale and loaf for the master of the house, he knew.

  And he was going with Quivil to the church to collect what gracious charity the almoner thought fit for them. It made Thomas’ anger rise again, and it was only with an effort that he could force it down, reminding himself that it was not the fault of the people of Crediton that he was struck down with this disease-it was merely a twist of fate: luck.

  They were at the top of the main street in a few moments, and could gaze down the wide thoroughfare. As soon as they appeared, walking slowly with the little cart, Rodde’s bell sounding its doleful tone, the area before them cleared. It was so shocking, Quivil halted for a minute.