‘You were loud last night,’ Raphe said in a peevish tone.
‘Please do not shout – and stop that accursed dog from barking or I will kill it myself!’
‘I suppose your head’s not good.’
‘There are times when you can be highly observant,’ I said. It was meant to sting. It probably didn’t. Raphe was never strong on sarcasm.
‘What do you want?’
‘A pot of ale, or watered wine. A pint of it.’
‘I don’t know what—’
‘Get it now, or you can leave my service this morning,’ I snarled.
When I opened my eyes, there was no sign of him. That was good news. However, there was also a lack of Sir Richard. While that was also good news, it was more than a little shocking that he had obviously risen and left the room while I was yet asleep. The man must have the constitution of an elephant. Still, at least it was peaceful without his bellowing.
I went out to the privy, and, returning, found a jug of wine and a cup on the table. I drank off some of it in a hurry, and my throat felt like a drain as the liquid gurgled into my stomach. A second cup, sipped more slowly, soon followed the first, and by the time I had drunk half of the third, the world was looking considerably happier. I even managed to refrain from shouting too loudly at Raphe as he moved about the room – I won’t say he ‘bustled’, since that implies more energy than he possesses, but he sort of moped around and gave the impression of restrained energy. The dog, meanwhile, came in, took one look at me, and decided that suicide was not on his list of things to do today. He curled up with his nose under his tail before the fire.
Raphe had fetched me a fresh loaf from the baker’s, and I was about to get stuck into it when I was struck by a sudden thought. ‘Raphe, is there no sign of Mistress Cat?’
‘She was gone before Sir Richard,’ he said, and there was a slight sneer, as though he always thought her too good for me.
‘Did she leave me a message?’
‘No. Nothing.’
I sent him away with a lash from my tongue that almost severed my skull from my body. If Sir blasted Richard had not appeared last night, I would have been woken this morning by the sight of that beautiful young woman at my side in my bed. And now, instead, she had slipped away and I had missed my opportunity. Who could tell how long it would be before I could find her again, and next time her shadow Henry would no doubt be at her side once more. He would not be conducive to lengthy fraternizing. His presence would be obstructive to my lecherous intentions, I was sure. It was deeply annoying.
Setting to with the bread, I made as good a breakfast as I could under the circumstances. My belly recoiled from the sight of the beef, the fat white and glistening, and the cold pork was no more appealing. Finally, I stuck to a little cheese and the bread. A fourth cup of wine helped rekindle my appetite, and I ate a slice or two of the beef, and it was as I was sitting back that the front door slammed, and a bawled ‘RAPHE! Bring me wine!’ rattled the floorboards and brought down a fine scattering of dust. The dog sprang to his feet and began a high-pitched barking. Simultaneously, someone shoved a fine-bladed stiletto into the base of my skull – well, it felt like it, anyway.
‘Morning! Ye slept well, Master Blackjack. Or should I say, Master Peter?’
I gave him a sour look. ‘There were good reasons why I had to use a different name when I saw her first.’
‘Aye, such as hiding from her.’
‘If I was hiding, I would hardly bring her to my own home. It wasn’t concealing myself from her, but from … certain men.’
‘You make a habit of meeting such men, do ye?’ He turned. ‘Raphe! Can you not make that brute belt up?’
I clung to my pate to hold it in place. It felt like a dish walloped by a club and was apparently trying to flee the scene.
He continued in only slightly more moderate tones, ‘That brute still here? I thought I told your boy to kill the thing!’
I was in a bad enough temper already. Kicking the mutt, I said, ‘Yes, well, we have decided to keep him.’
‘Ha! Really? I daresay he’ll have his uses! Broken yer fast, have ye? Good! Much to do today. Oh, and did ye hear the story about King Arthur? Hey? No? He was off to the war, ye see, and he leaves Sir Lancelot to guard Camelot and his queen, and tells Lancelot, “Look here, Lance, my wife is the most beautiful woman in the land. She’d tempt Saint Peter, if he saw her. So to make sure she’s safe and unsullied, I have set a chastity belt about her. She’s the most precious thing in the land, and her virtue is more important to me than anything. Here’s the key. Ye’re the only man I trust with her.” And with that, he rides off with his army. But he’s only ridden twenty miles when Lancelot appears on his fleetest mount. King Arthur is told, and Lancelot is allowed into his presence. “What is the reason for your leaving Camelot without a knight? Why have you left me wife alone?” “Sire,” says Sir Lancelot, “I am sorry, but you have left me the wrong key.” Hey? You understand? Eh? Haha ha! Let’s be off, then.’
‘Eh?’ His gales of laughter had shredded what remained of my brain.
‘Have ye forgotten? We’re riding to St Botolph’s this morning. Ye’re helping me discover who killed me brother.’
Seeing the village again did not inspire feelings of joy. After yesterday’s rain, the place had that grey, filthy appearance that you see all over the countryside when raindrops have splashed and besmirched everything with mud.
The cottages and inn were spattered, the limewash covered with smudges like little streams of mud. The road itself was sodden, and as we rode along – for Sir Richard had hired us a pair of mounts – I could feel the moisture at my shins, ankles and feet. My boots were sponging up all the moisture they could, making my toes feel the chill. As it was, a brief downpour had soaked into my jack and cloak, and both were sodden. Every breeze that whirled about us sent icy chills into my bones, which only seemed to add to the grim, plodding misery of my headache.
In short, I was not happy.
Sir Richard, for much of the earlier part of the journey, was strangely quiet, as though he was mulling over a question of great importance. It was a relief. His voice was so loud it felt like a mallet pounding at my head, and in my present condition that was undesirable: his jokes were invariably hurled at a man with the force of a maul, and his laughter afterwards was so painful that I could have preferred being flayed alive. Perhaps he was silent because he was reviewing his treatment of his brother. It would be natural after deserting the fellow long enough to give him the opportunity to raise five children. It must be hard, after all, for Sir Richard to reflect that when his younger brother needed him, he had done nothing. Purely because he had rejected Peter’s decision to marry.
Mind you, if I were him, I would be considering carefully what sort of creature my brother truly was. I was unconvinced of the saintly character of the man. I held strong views about men who left their women and children and ran. I had seen a number of men who had taken that exact route, and had taken a shine to a new woman and fled their family. I suppose it is not uncommon in any life that a man might grow to find living with only one woman boring. I have always been fortunate that my good looks have earned me more than my fair share of bed-warmers, of course. Other men are less lucky. They find that they cannot entice many lovers, and so fall prey to the first woman who bats her eyelashes. And later, they feel they were ensnared, not realizing that they would never have found other women to take them. But by then there are children, and responsibilities, and they feel more pressure … and thus have more inclination to run and find others.
I had seen it often enough, yes. Some left their families, while others found their families left them, like poor Piers at the Cardinal’s Hat. He had, early in life, developed a keen interest in beers and wines of all sorts. He would drink away the day, every day, until his business was ruined and his wife took the children away with her. I suppose, in a way, for Piers the route to escape was the drink. Other men sought a new
woman as their means of escape. They would search for another as though she would give them some validation for their lives.
What they rarely seemed to appreciate was either what they already had, which was often better than others could hope for, or that the problem they were trying to run away from was not the family and their wife, but the loss of their youth. Sometimes, I have noticed, men of a certain age realize that their remaining years are to be filled with spectating other men’s lives. Their own is already losing savour as they grow old, and so they reach a certain age and suddenly understand that their life is almost over. They rush headlong into an affair which soon absorbs them. They lose the love of their wife, the affectionate trust of their children, and when their purse has run dry, the companionship of the harlot who ensnared them. The problem, as it were, was always inside them. They could run from one woman to another, but they still carried their issues in their breasts.
Or somewhere.
‘Ye know, I don’t like this place,’ Sir Richard said as we entered the village again.
‘Why not?’ I said. Just then, there was a cold sweat running down my spine and I could feel the clamminess at armpit and groin that spoke of the amount I had drunk the previous evening. Just at that moment, all I was thinking of was the idea of a large cup of wine at the inn.
‘The place has a run-down look about it.’ He was silent for a few moments. ‘Y’know, I knew poor Peter wasn’t happy here, but I didn’t do anything to help him.’
‘Why?’
Sir Richard was quiet for a moment or two. ‘I suppose it was the way he left his family. You are right. It was not a good act, not the behaviour of an honourable man. I should have come and tried to help Dorothy. She didn’t deserve to be left alone to cope with Peter’s leaving her and everything. But I still had the feeling that the woman shouldn’t have been his wife in the first place. I have a stiff neck, I suppose. I don’t like to bend.’
‘She gave little enough indication that she knew of you,’ I said. It was something that had been concerning me during the journey here. ‘I am surprised that your brother did not tell her about you. Surely he would have known that you were the Coroner, yet neither when we arrived here nor during the inquest did she make the slightest sign that she realized you were her brother-in-law.’
‘Aye, well, ye see, I rather expect that me brother would have kept that from her. Why should she know who I am? I was just a Coroner yesterday, for all she knew, and would Peter have told her about me being a Crowner? I don’t expect so. Why should they even talk about me?’
‘I suppose so,’ I said.
‘Besides, it was better that she didn’t know who I was yesterday. I didn’t want her to realize.’
‘Why?’ I was bemused by this, but his next words explained much.
‘Why do you reckon?’ he growled. ‘D’ye think with your ballocks only, man? How would the people in the village respond to my inquest if they knew me own brother was lying on the table before them? People react badly to learning that the man judging them is acquainted closely with the victim.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘Yes. It was necessary to keep our relationship secret. And it still is,’ he added, glancing at me with a frown. ‘I don’t want people to know Peter was my brother, because that would only confuse ’em.’
I could understand what he meant. If people knew that he was Peter’s brother, it was likely that many would be reluctant to tell him anything. They may well expect that a knight who had been deprived of his brother might become very focused on punishing someone – and in those uncertain times, ‘someone’ could mean ‘anyone’.
Besides, his problems were not my concern. I was content in that I had twofold interests in being here: the location of the box of gold that Peter had concealed somewhere, and the fact that, while I was here, I was not in London and near to Arch and Hamon. The poor fools, I thought. They might be hunting for me with diligence and care, and all the while here I was, secure from them.
Of course, there was going to be a reckoning at some point, but right now that didn’t concern me. I was sure that I would be able to work out a means of avoiding paying them, and in the meantime I was determined to enjoy my time here. I tried not to think of snippers and my ballocks.
It felt safe and well here, but the thought of those snippers sent a shiver down my spine.
I had taken the sensible precaution of bringing my wheel-lock pistol with me again. It was heavy and cumbersome, and it was irritating to have to carry the balls and powder, but at least if someone was to try to knock me on the head, he would be likely to receive an unpleasant surprise. Meanwhile, for all that it was a heavy burden, it was also comforting. I was tempted to pull it out and aim at trees as we passed them, but a glance at Sir Richard’s face persuaded me that he would be unlikely to find it amusing.
As we rode past the entrance to the church, I glanced around and was surprised to see Roger sweeping leaves from the pathway. A little farther on, in the cemetery, I could see a mound of freshly dug soil. No doubt either Dick Atwood or Roger had provided a grave ready for Peter. Roger stopped and stared at us as we passed with a blank expression.
We took the horses to the stables at the back and walked past the trestles, which still stood in the mud of the yard, and entered the inn. At the door, Sir Richard roared out in his usual fashion to ask for someone to come and serve him. It felt as if my head was suddenly slammed into an apple press and the infernal screw was applied instantly. I winced and put a hand to my head.
‘Eh? Somethin’ wrong?’ Sir Richard asked, all concern.
‘I am feeling a little under the weather at this moment, and I would appreciate you moderating your volume!’
‘I only called for a maid,’ he said, apparently offended, and then he grinned. ‘Don’t tell me you’re still suffering from last night, man? It was only a small drink or two! You mean to say that made your head as rough as a bear’s?’
It was a relief to see Dorothy appear, wiping her hands on her apron. Her face fell on seeing Sir Richard.
‘Two quarts of ale,’ he said without preamble. ‘We’ll take ’em in here.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And food. Do you have any pottage or stew? Some pies? I’m hungry enough to eat an entire deer and come back for the hounds that caught it, eh? Haha!’
‘Yes, sir.’
I could see that his voice was causing her as much pain as it did me. I spoke gently. ‘If you could bring them to the fire, Dorothy, we’ll be sitting near it.’
She disappeared, and Sir Richard gazed after her, then back at me. ‘Eh? What?’
‘Try, I beg, to moderate your voice! From the look on her face, you are giving her a headache to match mine.’
‘You think so?’ he said, and for once his voice was pleasantly quiet. ‘I was wonderin’ if she was worried to see me back. As if she might herself have had something to do with Peter’s death.’
I left him there and walked out to the yard, where the privy stood.
Fortunately, now that we had arrived, the rain had stopped. I could not help but cast a glance of disdain at the clouds overhead. It seemed distinctly unreasonable that they should have opened over our heads in so incontinent a manner, only to stop as soon as we arrived.
The privy was quite civilized for an inn in the countryside, with a plank set over the pit. There were two holes in it, so it was designed to be a sociable latrine, but just now all I wanted was a place to sit and find peace. It seemed obvious to me that I would find none at all in the presence of Sir Richard. The man could destroy the peace in a convent with his brash, country manner and loud voice. He was utterly without self-awareness, and although that fact did lend him a certain charm, it also had negative aspects. It seemed impossible for him to talk to women without terrifying them – apart from Cat, who almost welcomed him, if last evening was anything to go by.
Unbuckling my belt, I was fortunate not to make an expensive error. I had forgotten t
hat the pistol was hooked into it, and as the buckle released, the gun slid away from me. It was only by quickly setting my foot upon it that I saved it from a far worse than merely watery end. I carefully set it on a plank some two feet from the latrine itself and settled myself on the seat.
When I was done, and feeling slightly better for it, I chose not to walk straight back to the inn. Instead, I buckled my belt, set the gun into it, made sure that my dagger was still there and had not itself tumbled into the pit, and finally kicked the door open and made my way to the garden behind the inn, hoping to find somewhere that was not too sodden where I might sit for a while. I could hear the horses bickering and wickering in their stables, contentedly munching, no doubt, and my own belly was grumbling a little from emptiness, but I did not want food at that moment. I craved some silence.
I had an eerie sense that someone was watching me. When I glanced all about, I could see no one, but that did not ease my conviction. You know that feeling when a shiver runs through your spine, and it is said that someone has walked over your grave? I had just that feeling. It was enough to make me leave the place in a hurry – even if the odour itself had not done so.
There was a small orchard beyond the garden, and as I stood surveying the view, I caught sight of a figure moving in the branches. Immediately, I felt my heart pound … and then, peering, I made out the tousled head of Ben, my friend from the day we first arrived. I walked over to him with considerable relief.
‘Good morrow, my fine friend,’ I called. ‘How are you this damp morning?’
He had not heard my approach and was startled sufficiently to almost fall from his perch.
‘Careful, Master Ben,’ I said, and stood beneath him. There was a cracking noise, a squeak, and suddenly I had my arms full of anxious young boy.
The Dead Don't Wai Page 10
