A Murder too Soon

by Michael Jecks

  I nodded, but not happily, and turned away. As I passed the narrow way between hall and kitchen, where One-Eye had tried to spit me on his knife, I saw something that made me pause. There was a small pile of trash at the entrance, and now, prodding it with a toe, I saw a familiar leather pack. It was my bag.

  Pulling it free, I searched inside. All had been emptied, as though someone had upended it. There was nothing inside.

  I wondered who could have done this. There was nothing of value in it, after all. What could someone have been hoping to find in a servant’s bag?

  It was pointless standing there with my empty pack in my hand, so I dropped it back on the rubbish heap and turned and went back to my bench, hoping that the guards would see my contempt for them in the way I held myself. I suspect that they didn’t notice. Certainly, as soon as I made off, I heard them begin to chat in a desultory manner about the lunch they had eaten, the prospects for supper, the beers they would drink, and a certain maid with a saucy smile. I tried to pick up more about her, because she sounded an exceedingly friendly young woman, from what one guard was saying, but they stopped talking before they could mention her name, and I heard them declaring that the gate was closed.

  When I glanced around, I saw that the fair man whom I had seen on the day of the murder was again trying to leave the place. Squire George of Carlisle stood before the guard, and if he was not so clearly a member of the wealthier class, I would have said he was pleading.

  ‘I have to get out! This is intolerable.’

  The guard shrugged. It wasn’t his problem, he seemed to imply.

  ‘Have you no cares for other people?’ the squire demanded. ‘I should …’

  The two guards had grim faces now, and any bantering tones were gone as they stood carefully side by side. Their polearms lowered slightly, and one narrowed his eyes. ‘We have cares only for our Queen and her officers,’ he said. ‘Now be off.’

  ‘I am a squire!’

  But his voice had a panicky, fretful tone to it. If I could hear that, so could these two. I sat on my bench and prepared to watch a good bout, which would make a pleasant change after all the injuries I had endured, but before any blows could be struck, the squire threw up his hands and made his way towards me.

  ‘What, did you not find the entertainment to your liking?’ he demanded.

  ‘Do I look like someone who would take amusement from another’s suffering?’ I said.

  He eyed my nose and features for a moment, peering closely with distaste. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I seem to be a target for men’s fists.’

  ‘Perhaps I should punch you too. It would work off some of my feelings towards those two,’ he said, throwing a glower over his shoulder at the two guards. When he looked back at me, a grin was already twisting his features. ‘I apologize. Those two put me further out of sorts.’

  ‘I doubt whether punching me would work well. Perhaps you will be thrown into gaol for your assault and held there for a week or two until the next manor court. That wouldn’t help you get out of here any faster, nor allow you to see Alys any sooner.’

  ‘All my life is out there,’ the fellow said. He slumped on to the bench beside me, and I’d swear that he had tears in his eyes. ‘All I wish is to ensure that my wife is fit and healthy, that my son is well …’

  From the look of his hose and the cut of his jack, tight-fitting and of good material, I’d say that this was a fellow worth getting to know. It was plain that he had money, and although I was earning a regular retainer, I was always happy to try my luck with a new gull who left his purse dangling too close to my light fingers. I shifted up a little as if conspiratorially, and my hand naturally fell to the small gap between us. His purse was so close, and I had already made sure that it was held by only two laces. A simple slip of my knife with its razor edge, and the purse would be mine. The knife was a small eating knife that I kept in a sheath on my left hip.

  ‘Oh?’ I said encouragingly. ‘You have still not told Lady Anne about your wife?’

  ‘How can I? It is impossible to find her alone to speak to. I want to let her know about Alys and our child, but Lady Anne is so busy, and there are no moments to speak with her alone. Even in her chamber, her father is there, or Sir Walter, or another. And all I want to do is leave and be with Alys when our child is born.’

  I tried not to pull a face. There are two places I never want to be: at the birth of a brat and at my own death, if possible. Still, some men do like to put themselves through troubles. This fellow was no different. The purse was at the back of my hand now. I could feel it. The coins gave it substance and weight. I licked my lips. ‘Why worry? Go fetch a pot of wine and we can celebrate the boy’s birth.’

  ‘Wet his head?’ the man said, and he shifted in his seat. I let go of my little knife hurriedly. ‘How can I do that? It may be bad luck. If the child isn’t born yet, it could mean that my woman will have a poor birth, perhaps even a stillbirth!’

  ‘Apologies. I have no children. I didn’t think,’ I said, baring my teeth hopefully.

  He grimaced. Perhaps trying to smile with all the damage done to my face was not so good an idea. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘But to drink now … it would be a terrible temptation to fate.’

  ‘Then, perhaps just a pot of wine to calm your nerves,’ I said. ‘You need something to settle yourself.’

  ‘How can I sit here drinking when poor Alys is out there, perhaps even now … even now …’

  ‘Is this your first child?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And your wife is strong enough?’

  ‘She … she is well enough, I think.’

  There was a hesitation about him. I wondered at that as I tried to manoeuvre myself nearer to him on the bench. I got a splinter in my arse for my troubles.

  ‘Do you have something worrying you?’ I said. ‘Apart from the woman and child, I mean.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  He turned to me and I was reminded that this youngster, when not bent with trouble, was a large fellow with the sort of physique that would make an oak tree whimper. Lancelot du Lac would take one look at this fellow and go hunting for an easier foe. In short, when the lad inflated his lungs, he made me feel as though he’d sucked all the ether from the courtyard. I felt light-headed again.

  ‘I was only trying to help.’

  ‘You can’t help me,’ he said, and as suddenly as he had risen in rage, he was sunken in gloom once more. ‘I’m lost. I should be at Alys’s side, but instead I’m locked away in this prison!’

  I was confused. In trying to lighten his mood, all I had achieved, apparently, was to make him angry enough to want to hit me. I’d had enough for one day. Standing, I left him and made my way to the buttery again.

  It was the one room where I felt secure just now.

  There are some fellows who fill a man with a sense of good humour and content, and others who … I don’t know … who just set the teeth on edge, I suppose. That squire was one such. I had no idea what could make a man so impatient, so angry and desperate to leave. Few would hanker after witnessing a woman going through the pains of childbirth, especially a woman whom they loved. His desire to be away was inexplicable. A birth was one thing, but murder was another. It wasn’t as if he had to worry about One-Eye coming after him to open him from gizzard to gills. Pouring a jug of ale from the strong barrel, I shook my head. The squire had nothing to worry about. I had fears and concerns because of the murder of Lady Margery. It wasn’t as though the squire had to worry about that, was it?

  Yes, I nearly dropped the jug. For a second, my hands almost released it, nerveless as a corpse’s, before I came to my senses again.

  I’d suddenly thought that the young man could have been the murderer of Lady Margery. It was ridiculous, I know, but sometimes these flashes of inspiration can strike and make even the most level-headed man review matters. If the squire had been responsible for Lady Margery’s de
ath, he would obviously be in a great hurry to escape the manor. He would want to put as many miles between him and the scene of his crime as possible. In short, he would behave exactly as he had. And while he had told me that Blount was outside in the courtyard, so was he. Either of them could have slipped in through the door and murdered Lady Margery.

  I thought about the squire’s behaviour, how he had been so keen to run away, his desperation, his fears. Suddenly, his smiles took on a more sinister appearance. Perhaps there was still more reason for the squire to want to escape the palace. Not because he had a woman in the town over the marshes, but because he had been pushing his pork sword in another man’s sheath.

  I poured ale and drank deeply, and common sense returned. It felt as though my sanity had been teetering, like a heavy rock balanced on a smaller one, waiting to fall. But now reason was restored to her pedestal. The man would have needed a motive to commit such a murder. Men do not regularly kill their lovers, even when they are already married. For that, the squire would have wanted to see her dead. What could be the cause of that? A jealousy, a hatred, an unreasoning passion? It was hardly likely. Still, I decided I should mention it to Blount, and see what he …

  But no. If I told him, he would know that I had not killed the woman as he had ordered. That was a pretty conundrum. There would be consequences, were he to realize that I was not the hound from hell that he had anticipated, and paid for. Because my entire livelihood and lifestyle depended on the money flowing still, regularly and reliably, so that I could afford the new clothes, the fine foods and wine, and the women. Confessing that Lady Margery was not dead by my hand might make him wonder whether his investment in me was worth the money.

  I heard a snivelling sound and temporarily set my worries and troubles aside. It seemed to come from behind the barrels, and I had a vision of a large rat. There were enough of them around here. I’d seen one the size of a cat the other morning. I pulled my dagger from its sheath and crept slowly towards the barrels.

  Yes, I had forgotten the brat. He was there, still partly asleep, his mouth hanging slackly. Anyone would think I’d filled him to the pate with the strongest wines in the buttery, but no, all I’d given him was a few pots. Still, it took a fair amount of shaking to bestir him. At last his eyes gazed up at me blearily, and I asked him what he was doing on the floor.

  ‘It was easier to lie here than fall here,’ he said, with eminently reasonable logic.

  ‘Do you think you should seek your father now?’

  ‘I don’t think he wants to see me. He wants to go and fight the other man.’

  Which other man? I was going to ask, but the boy looked down and spoke so softly that it made me still my tongue.

  ‘He was too friendly with my mother, I’ve heard. He said I was a bastard, in all likelihood, and the squire forced him to wear the cuckold’s horns.’

  It was enough to make me want to laugh aloud, to be honest. The idea that she could have been playing hide the sausage with the squire, I mean, just when I had persuaded myself that it was highly unlikely … It obviously wasn’t funny that she was dead. And then I thought about the earnest expression of panic on the squire’s face and I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself. If I had ever mistaken a man’s motives more, I could not think of the time. Then again, perhaps it was mere hogwash. Sir Walter was likely wrong. Why would the squire with a young wife throw himself at a woman like Lady Margery?

  And then the humour was wiped from my face as I heard a quiet step behind me.

  The lad’s father did not bother to demand explanations, but stepped past me and cuffed his son about the head, staring at the boy as he began to weep.

  I felt I had to speak. I said, ‘What was that for?’

  He turned to stare at me. ‘You think you have the right to question a father’s righteous chastisement of his own son?’

  Well, if he was going to put it like that, of course I had no right whatsoever. However, that didn’t stop me wanting to protect the little fellow. And then I reflected that this man could already have murdered his wife. I didn’t wish to be his second victim. ‘No, of course not,’ I said hurriedly, stepping away to give him more space.

  He slapped the boy again, making his head whip around. I swear, if there were stones in his head, I would have heard them rattling like dice in a pot. The boy looked up at him then, and when I expected him to plead for mercy, instead I had a shiver of horror run down my knave’s spine as he hissed, ‘You think to beat me like you did Mother, and think I will endure like her? I will not! I will not!’

  His father lifted his hand again, but before he could let his blow fall, the boy had darted between us and pelted out along the screens to the main courtyard.

  That was when his father began to sob and collapsed on a barrel.

  ‘What’s the point? What is the point?’ he wailed.

  ‘Do you want me to try to catch him?’ I said, my thumb over my shoulder, pointing in the direction the lad had fled.

  ‘What then? He hates me enough already. He blames me for his mother’s death. I had thought that this would bring him and me together, but her death has only enlarged the gulf between us. The divide separating us is as vast as the seas. He will do nothing that might please me. He loathes me.’

  ‘I’m sure he doesn’t. You’re his father, after all.’

  ‘Only in law; he’s not my blood, and that seems to count for much with the brat,’ the man snapped, and then hid his face in his hands. ‘What will I do with him?’

  ‘If you go and catch him, you could lock him in a room until he sees sense,’ I hazarded.

  ‘Beating him seems to achieve little,’ he continued, as if I had not spoken. ‘Perhaps I should just send him away. He could go to his uncle’s house and there learn how to behave, learn the martial arts and courtesy. Because the foul piglet has little enough of manners so far!’ Then his eyes clouded. ‘With her dead, he’ll be taken soon, no doubt.’

  ‘When you say “Only in law”, do you mean your wife had him before you married her?’

  ‘What else could I mean, you fool?’ he peered at me. ‘Have you been fighting?’

  ‘There are other reasons,’ I said coolly, ignoring his other question.

  ‘With a mouth like yours, I can see why someone might decide to ride his horse over your face,’ he said. ‘Are you suggesting that my wife could have become pregnant with another man while I was married to her? I should add to the damage on your face, would it not make a mess of my clothing.’

  ‘No, I was only thinking …’ I shut up. I wasn’t sure what else I could have been suggesting. ‘I was very sorry to hear of your wife’s death.’

  ‘Why? Did you know her?’

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘Then you cannot have been affected. Not as much as those who did know her and love her,’ he said.

  ‘No. Of course,’ I said. ‘You loved her, then?’

  ‘She was my wife. And now, with her dead …’

  ‘She was a wealthy woman, I heard.’

  He glared at me. ‘Yes, and with her dead, I have nothing. Nothing!’ His eyes welled again, but now I knew it was self-pity I felt less sympathy.

  ‘Where were you when she died?’

  ‘Out in the yard there.’ He pointed over his shoulder. ‘We had argued about things again, and I went out to calm down.’

  ‘Better than punching her, I suppose,’ I said nastily, thinking of what Kitty had told the groom.

  ‘Hold! You were the man who found her, weren’t you? The gaoler said he found you over her, as though you had struck the blow.’

  ‘No, no. I was with three ladies in the adjacent room. We heard a scuffle, and when we went out, there she was, dead, on the floor.’

  ‘So you found her already dead?’

  ‘Yes. And the gaoler was there shortly after. He must have heard something, I suppose.’ I considered this for a moment. I had heard the noise, almost immediately I had been pushed towards the door by my three
charming companions, and I found her. Except a moment or two later, there was One-Eye with his dagger. Yet that was not a part of the palace in which he would have been permitted or welcomed, surely.

  ‘Did you not see anyone else out there?’

  There was a sharpness to his tone.

  I glanced at him, but he avoided my gaze. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘My poor Meg,’ he said. ‘She was always so devoted to me and the boy.’

  ‘The gaoler said something about a jewel that was missing – a signet or seal,’ I said.

  ‘Did he?’

  I was thinking new suspicious thoughts about old One-Eye. He had been there; he had time to grab a jewel after I had fled, surely. Then he could have made out that I had been the murderer, and gone and hidden it somewhere else. And if you are going to ask why he would have brought it up, well, someone was going to at some point. If it was that large and conspicuous, somebody was sure to ask what had become of it. Gilbert had said it had no value, but what would a boy like him know? One-Eye could have it, and be pretending to Sir Walter that it was lost purely to drive up its value. Or something.

  ‘Was there something that she was habituated to wear?’

  He shot me a look. ‘Only her father’s old signet ring, which she used to wear about her neck on a silver chain. She was very proud of her father, Sir Robert Neville. He was a reckless brute of a man, but he held the Scottish Marches against the clans from the north.’

  ‘Was it a valuable ring?’

  ‘No! When Sir Robert was alive, it was a very important bauble. He used it to seal his letters and other important documents. But its authority died with him, of course.’

  ‘Didn’t you think to ask where it was?’

  He shot me a look. ‘An old ring? Of no real value? Why would I want it? It wasn’t even my family’s, and there was no precious stone or gold fitting with it. Why would I worry about that?’

  I left him there. He was lying, of course. I had heard him discuss it with One-Eye. But if it was of no intrinsic value, then she was surely not murdered for it. But why would he offer good money to One-Eye for it? Why was he so interested in it – it had been summarily dismissed during the inquest, after all.