Penne.”
“Oliver de Penne? Never heard of him,” said Black, ruminatively shaking his head.
“No, neither have I. I’m sure he was not from around here, I think he must have been as French as his name suggests.”
Black puckered his brow restlessly. “It just seems odd that he should have been killed like that.”
Simon’s face registered scowling concentration, and then his wife saw his brow clear as he stared past Black’s shoulder to the wall behind, musing. Glancing back at John Black again, she saw that the hunter’s face showed a mounting exasperation and dejection, as if he was already almost thinking that they had lost, that they would never find the killers, and when she looked back to her husband she could not help a brief flare of pride at the contrast.
Margaret had married Simon not because she had realised that he would become a powerful man in the shire, but because she could see in him the same incisiveness that her father had possessed. As a farmer’s daughter, she had been raised as a pragmatist. Whether the decision to be made was to cut the crops now or tomorrow, or to build a new byre or not, her father had instilled in all his children the same common-sense principle: always decide what was needed first. He used to say that it was useless to try to do something if you weren’t even sure what it was. Only when the objective was chosen and clear could it be tackled.
It seemed to her now that they were trying to make cob without straw. They had no information, so how could they expect to be able to decide anything? And yet Black had almost given up already; he seemed to have decided that they were defeated. How could he feel like that when they had not even explored some of the possibilities? She rose and returned to her stirring.
“So how much do we really know about this abbot, then Simon!” she asked thoughtfully, her back to the men.
“His name, Oliver de Penne; his position as abbot at Buckland; and the fact that his horse was a grey mare. We know he had money with him.”
“And?”
“He had spent time in France – with the pope at Avignon. It appears that he was popular with the last pope, but, if Matthew’s right, not with this one. He seems to have been an arrogant man, and prone to fighting, from what David and Matthew both said. Beyond that, not very much.”
“And he was scared of being waylaid, from what you saw?”
“Yes. Very.”
“Hmm.” She carried on stirring thoughtfully. Turning she saw her husband’s gaze resting on her and she smiled before continuing, “He was taken into the woods where no one would hear, and burned at the stake?”
“Yes.”
The hunter winced, his eyes screwed into thin slits with his distaste at his thought, as if expecting to be told his idea was nonsensical. “Bailiff, I can’t help thinking… well, look, we can’t imagine that it was any normal robber did this to the abbot – it wouldn’t make sense, would it? No, so we’re left with this strange killing, maybe there’s some kind of meaning behind it? Now, it strikes me that it’s the way they kill heretics in France.”
“Yes. Thank God we haven’t sunk so low in England. The king won’t allow the Inquisition into the country.”
“No, but do you think this could be something like that? He was French, from his name.”
“It’s possible, I suppose.” Simon stared bleakly into his drink.
“After all, it’s almost like someone’s trying to make a show out of the death, if you see what I mean.”
The bailiff stared at him. “You’re saying he could have been killed to make some sort of a point?”
Shrugging, the hunter said, “Well, I can’t see any other reason to kill him like that. Can you?”
“No. No, I can’t,” said Simon, frowning thoughtfully at his wife’s back. He shook his head. This was getting him nowhere – he knew nothing about these things. Could Baldwin help? He was only recently back from France.
Then, startled, his eyes focused sharply and he drew a quick breath as his mind considered a new possibility – could Baldwin have been involved somehow? He was recently back from France, he had Edgar as a perpetual shadow, he was a knight – could he have had something to do with the abbot’s death? Had Baldwin and the abbot known each other before?
It was with a small sigh of relief that he remembered the day he had first seen the monks and then mentioned them to the knight at Furnshill. No, of course it could not have been Baldwin, if so he would surely have expressed some interest in the travellers when Simon spoke of them. As the bailiff recalled, the knight had not shown even a passing curiosity, he had dismissed them and gone straight on to talk about his new estates.
Eyes glazing again, his attention wandered around the room until he focused again on his wife. She was clever, he knew, and keen to understand his work. He could see that, even in the way she had asked about this affair just now when Black had seemed to become so despondent, and her questions had made him start thinking again. If she had not… A quick grin suddenly cracked his serious features.
Stirring the pot, Margaret was smiling to herself. It had not taken much, but it had worked – at least Black was thinking again! With a slight feeling of smugness she threw a glance at her husband, and was irritated to see that he was grinning at her with an eyebrow lifted ironically as if he could read her mind. She stared back at him coolly; it was obvious he realised what she had done, but when she turned back to the pot she too was grinning, and had to fight to control a giggle.
“But why should someone have wanted to do that to de Penne?” she heard Black say musingly.
“I don’t know. It’s not as if he was known down here.”
“Same with Brewer. Why would someone kill him?”
“For money, I suppose. And he was hated, Cenred said, by almost all the people in the vill.”
“Well we don’t even really know that Brewer had any money. It was a rumour, but no one ever saw it.”
“So we don’t even know that he was wealthy, or at least we don’t know he kept money at the farm?”
“No.”
Simon raised a hand to his head and rubbed his brow with the back of a fist. “Oh, God. Neither killing makes any sense. Why…”
He was cut off by a loud knocking at the door. Margaret stopped her stirring and the two men sat still and silent, all their eyes turning to the tapestry that covered the entrance from the screens. Simon had to contain the urge to leap up and answer it himself in case it was a message from Tanner, and as he sat his eyes were gleaming with hope. As soon as Hugh came in with a young man, slim and dark, who was stained after riding quickly through the puddles in the lane, his face ruddy from the exertion, Simon slumped back in his seat with a grimace of disgust. This was not one of the men from the posse, he would have remembered his face. As the young man entered, he looked from Black to Simon with confusion in his dark eyes until Simon motioned him forward.
“Sir? Bailiff? I’ve been sent from Sir Baldwin Furnshill. He sends his best wishes and asks if you and your lady could join him this evening at the manor.”
Simon shot a glance at his wife and smiled at the unmistakable signs of hope on her face, forgetting his conversation with the hunter. He feigned disinterest, casually glancing in her direction. “I don’t know. Margaret? Would you like to go?” he asked, his voice showing his unconcern.
She raised an eyebrow and looked at him with an expression of exasperation on her face. He knew only too well that she wanted to meet the new master of Furnshill, she had told him so; especially now she had heard a little about the strange new knight. She ignored her husband and turned to the messenger with a sigh of patient suffering. “Please tell your master that we will be pleased to join him this evening, but do warn him that the bailiff seems a little confused today. It’s probably his age,” she said sweetly, and with a slight shake of her head, as if in disgust with her husband, she turned back to the fire and took the pot from the flames.
Simon smiled to himself. He could think of no other man he would prefer to discuss the abbot’s death with, especially since Baldwin had seemed so interested in the death of the farmer. Could he help with this killing too?
Later, as they rode together from Sandford to Cadbury, leaving Edith with a maid, Margaret turned and saw Hugh was trailing a short distance behind. Turning to Simon, she gave him a look of wary concern. “Simon, do you really think that the murders can’t have been done by the same people? It seems such a strange coincidence that both deaths should have involved fires.”
He grunted noncommittally as he turned his mind back to the mysterious deaths. “The only similarity
