Bourc had left. She won’t say why. We know she hated her husband – she hardly hides the fact, does she? Even her servants were not with her when her husband disappeared, from the sound of things.”
“Simon, for the love of God! You can’t believe this! How could a woman like her kill? It’s not possible – it’s mad!”
“Listen to me, old friend. You know as well as I do that there have been warlike women before, women who could kill, or wage war. You know this. Why should Mrs. Trevellyn be different?”
“But Simon…”
“You recall how her husband’s body was? Lying as if outstretched? You remember I said it was as if he was pleading? Couldn’t she have got Greencliff to cut his throat while he was begging her not to kill him?”
“But Simon! You cannot believe that, surely! A woman like her…” Through his horror, Baldwin, realised that his friend was pleading with him, his face set, his eyes intense.
“Baldwin, I don’t know, I don’t know! That’s the point! I have to make sure she’s innocent of the murders.”
“But you said that Greencliff admitted to them.”
“Yes, and he had a knife with blood on it, but even so, he might have had help… Or he might have helped another. I don’t know. All I do know is that she is involved somehow. I don’t know how or why, but I’m sure she knows what happened. Baldwin, I must know what she has done. So must you!”
Margaret was worried by the sight of the two men. She had expected Simon’s return to be a joyful occasion, not miserable like this. The two men were hardly talking.
They entered the hall together, but almost immediately Baldwin muttered about wanting to change out of his clothes, damp as they were from his journey, and left them alone. Simon stood and watched him go, then sighed and dropped on to a bench.
“Simon, what has happened?”
Briefly he explained, telling her about their visit to Mrs. Trevellyn, and his conclusions. Margaret listened with misery. She could not comprehend the feelings of the knight, who at last appeared to have found his ideal woman, only to have his best friend suggest that she could have been involved in a murder – maybe two.
When the door opened, both looked up. Seeing it was Hugh, she turned back to her husband. “But you only have some suspicions against her, nothing concrete, nothing that should make Baldwin doubt her. Why not leave him to make his own choice. If she is as beautiful as you say, then…”
“But that’s the point!” he exclaimed despairingly. “If I’m right, she might have been involved not just in one murder, but two! And one of the dead was her own husband. If she killed her own husband, would she not be a danger to Baldwin?”
To Hugh it looked as if his master was ravaged by doubts. It seemed as if he was pulled in different directions, by his friendship to the knight and the wish to see him happy, and by his confusion over the woman’s role in the death of her husband. Gearing his throat, he interrupted. “Sir?”
“What?”
“I don’t know if it’s important, sir,” the servant said, and quickly explained what Jennie Miller had said about Harold Greencliff and Mrs. Trevellyn.
It was one of the few times he had ever been able to shock his master, and Hugh rather enjoyed it.
“You mean Jennie Miller thinks that Mrs. Trevellyn herself killed old Agatha?”
Their evening was quiet. With Baldwin’s reserved and withdrawn manner, there was little conversation. Simon and Margaret sat opposite Hugh and Edgar at the great table. Baldwin was at his place at the head, but he was unwilling to talk, and soon after he had finished his meal, he announced that he was ready to go to bed.
Before he could rise from his seat, Margaret went to him and poured him more wine, then stood beside him. “No, you need to talk with Simon,” she said, and motioned to Hugh to clear the table. Sighing he got up and began to collect the plates. After a glare from Margaret, Edgar stood too, and began to help. Soon they were taking out the dishes, and when they had both disappeared, Margaret turned to her husband.
“Right, Simon. Tell Baldwin what we heard today from Hugh.”
He gazed at her in surprise, and then looked apologetically at Baldwin, who stared back impassively as he was told of the rumours in Wefford about Mrs. Trevellyn and Harold Greencliff. Then, with a sigh, he picked up his pot and sipped at his wine.
“All right, but there’s no proof that she has been unfaithful to her husband, no proof of an affair, and certainly nothing to suggest that she killed Agatha or her husband. It’s pure gossip, as you say.”
Margaret sat down again, looking from one to the other. “Baldwin,” she said, “did you think her evidence was strange?”
“Strange?” he glanced at her in surprise. “How do you mean?”
“From what Simon told me, Mrs. Trevellyn will not say what she was doing at the old woman’s house. And there really isn’t anyone else who seems to have had a reason to want to kill her husband. Doesn’t it seem strange?”
“Well…” He shrugged, dubious.
“And yet this boy has admitted to it. I don’t see why he would do that unless he was involved, but I think you should question him and see what he has to say.”
“There’s no point trying to do that,” Simon interrupted, “I tried to get him to speak about it yesterday and all the way back today, but I got nothing from him. He just didn’t seem to want to talk about it at all.”
“What?” Baldwin frowned at this. “Not at all?”
“No. He refused to talk about it. He wouldn’t talk about Agatha Kyteler’s death or Alan Trevellyn’s. As soon as I mentioned either he went as silent as a corpse and said nothing until we spoke of something else.”
“But he did confess to killing them?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, when we asked him, he kept reminding us that his knife had their blood on it. And it did – well, it had some blood on it, anyway.”
“That does seem odd.”
“What does?” asked Margaret.
The knight glanced at her. “The fact that he confessed without giving any reason why. Usually people boast of the reason why they murdered someone if they admit to it. ”He robbed me“, or ”he threatened me“, they say, and use that as justification for the killing. If they don’t confess, and it’s more common that they don’t, they deny all knowledge of the crime. At least, that’s my experience.”
“So you think that because he said he did do it, it looks odd?” she said slowly.
“Yes. Nobody wants to surrender themselves to a punishment or death for no reason. It would be mad, stupid – or…” He suddenly broke off, and his eyes turned to the fire with a frown that spoke of a level of intentness Simon had not seen before. It was as if he was consumed with a total concentration which absorbed him completely. A low gasp escaped from his lips, almost a moan of pain.
“What is it? Are you all right?” asked Simon, and was surprised to be silenced by a curt wave of the knight’s hand.
There was a reason, Baldwin thought to himself distractedly. If a man was committed, or if he was devoted in his life, tied to a cause, he could subject himself even to death. Who could know that better than he, he who had seen his comrades sent to torture and to death by the flames. They were all dedicated because they all believed in their cause: in the honour and purity of the military Order, in the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon: the Knights Templar. They had refused to agree to the confessions put to them by the Inquisition, they had suffered and died, not for a lie, but because they believed: in themselves and their masters and their God. And now Harold Greencliff was behaving in the same way, as if he too had a cause. A love, greater even than his own love for life.
Simon’s eyes flitted from his wife to the knight in his bewilderment. What Baldwin was thinking was totally hidden from him. What had he been saying? Something about not surrendering to something not done? That was it, he had been saying that anyone would be mad to admit to something that they had not done. The bailiffs eyes narrowed: was that what he was thinking? That Angelina Trevellyn had killed her husband and would be mad to admit it? That she would never confess, that someone who did confess to a crime must be a fool or mad? And she was neither?
He felt his eyes drawn to the fire. But why kill old Agatha Kyteler, he wondered. Then a quick frown pulled his
