“Hello, Tanner,” said Baldwin, acknowledging the constable’s nod before turning to the huddled form of Harold Greencliff. Striding across the floor, he carefully seated himself in his favourite chair and fixed a narrow-eyed glower on the unfortunate man. Seeing the frown of concentration on his face, Simon grinned to himself as he crossed over to a bench nearby. He had seen that expression on the knight’s face before. It looked as if Baldwin was wearing a magisterial attitude of distaste, but the bailiff was sure that it was no more than a front to hide his bafflement.
But as he sat, he caught a glimpse of something deeper. There was pain in his friend’s eyes, a pain that struck at the knight’s very soul, and Simon realised what was so affecting him. The knight was a man of honour, who would want only to see that the law should be upheld. He would not want to convict the wrong person and he would not want to let the guilty go free. But that may well mean that he must find this farmer innocent, and if so, there was only one conclusion: Angelina Trevellyn must be guilty. The Bourc had confirmed she was there.
“Harold Greencliff, do you know why we had you brought here?” the knight began, and the shape by the beam stirred.
To Simon it looked as if the youth was beyond fear. His pale face stared back at the knight, but without any apparent care. He seemed disinterested, unfeeling, as if whatever happened to him was irrelevant now. Nothing could shake him more than the events of the last few days. It was as if he had already decided that his life was forfeit, and that there was no point in even hoping for any reprieve. Seeing the look in the knight’s eyes, he appeared to recover a little, though, and struggled to get up, rising from a sprawl to kneel beside the post as if he was drunk and embracing a support. He nodded.
“You have admitted to killing Agatha Kyteler and Alan Trevellyn. Do you still affirm your guilt?”
“Yes.” It was said with a note of contempt, as if the knight should not have harboured any doubts.
“When did you kill Agatha Kyteler? Was it after Angelina Trevellyn went to…”
“Leave Angelina out of this…” The pain of his expression and the suffering in his voice were all too obvious, and Simon nodded to himself. That barb touched a nerve, he thought.
“Leave her out of it?” Baldwin’s voice was deceptively soft at first, but then it hardened as he leaned forwards and continued more harshly. “How can we leave her out of it when she must bear part of the responsibility? If you killed them both, you killed them for her. You murdered the old woman so that your secret should be safe and you murdered Trevellyn so that his wife could be free of him, didn’t you?”
The boy stared at him, mouth gaping in shock as he slowly shook his head from side to side.
“We know why Mrs. Trevellyn went to see Agatha Kyteler. We know that she went to get rid of the child she did not want.”
“No.” It came as a low moan, but Baldwin continued doggedly.
“She went there to keep her pregnancy secret, to hide it from her husband.”
“No!”
“And then your knife was used to kill Alan Trevellyn as well, I suppose because he found out about the secret. We know you were there with her at the time. We followed your trail back. Your knife was still covered in blood when Simon here arrested you.”
The knight paused. The look on the boy’s face had become contemplative, and now a faint smile tugged at his lips. He nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what happened. I had to kill the witch after she realised that Mrs. Trevellyn was pregnant, and I had to kill Trevellyn when he heard about our visit to the witch.”
“How?”
Greencliff stopped and stared at the knight at the simple question. “How? What do you mean?”
“How did Alan Trevellyn hear about the visit to the old woman? Who told him? I doubt whether you did, after all!”
“I…”
“And why did you need to kill Agatha Kyteler?”
“To keep her quiet!”
“But she always kept quiet before, didn’t she?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I…”
“But you did know, didn’t you? You knew that Sarah Cottey had been to see her, didn’t you? And you knew that no stories had spread afterwards.”
“No, that’s not true…”
“No? Do you mean you didn’t know that Sarah had been to see old Agatha?”
“I… No, I didn’t know, I…”
“You knew.” The flat statement cut him off, and he sat with a red face as the knight continued. “You knew full well that the old woman never spoke of the women who visited her, just as she never spoke of the men who went to see her. She always held her tongue, unlike others. No, you would not have killed her for that. And Alan Trevellyn? Why would you have killed him? So that you could have his wife?” The youth opened his mouth as if to agree, but the knight made a terse gesture with his hand to cut him off. “That’s nonsense. Why kill the man and then leave? Why kill him to win his wife and then leave her behind? You broke yourself off from your life and your woman at the same time. Are you really that stupid?”
Now the boy was staring blankly at the knight. Looking at him, Simon was reminded of a hare gazing at a harrier. He was left with the impression that he and Tanner need not be present.
“So why, then? Why did you do it? Tell me that.”
It was almost as if that simple demand for factual reasoning was enough. Harold Greencliff seemed to relax, nearly slumping back against the post, with an almost contented, a smug, expression on his face.
But his face changed as soon as the knight rested his chin on his hand and gazed at him, saying, “Very well. I shall tell you what happened. I shall tell you why but not as you mean. I don’t think you killed anyone.
“When Agatha Kyteler died, you were standing by Angelina’s horse. She left you and went to the old woman’s house. You waited there and when she returned, you both went home. You didn’t go to the house and kill. You couldn’t have! When you went to the Trevellyn house, you didn’t see Alan Trevellyn. You went to see your lover, and she took you to the places where her husband could not be. She was not stupid enough to take you somewhere he could see you together.”
“Then how did my dagger get his blood on it?”
Baldwin waved a contemptuous hand. “There are many ways for a shepherd to get blood on his blade! What did you do that morning? Kill a ewe? A lamb? I’ll bet it was something other than Trevellyn’s blood on the knife!”
Simon pursed his lips. It did not seem likely. No, it was more probable that it was Trevellyn’s blood. If a shepherd killed a sheep – if any man used his knife – he would clean it before putting it away again.
“No! It was me! I did it! I killed them both, I…”
But if that was the case, Simon frowned, if that was so, then why was the blade still dirty? Everyone always cleaned their blades, didn’t they?
Could it be because someone wanted it to stay bloody? Harold must surely have cleaned it if he had used it, but if another had used it to murder, would they have left it filthy to prove Harold’s guilt? Was it to put the blame on him?
Now the knight leaned back as if exhausted, his features seeming somehow older, his face sagging as if through old age, his features seeming to become grey and ancient.
“No,” he said softly. “You aren’t a killer. A man, certainly, but not a murderer. You couldn’t have killed the old woman and Trevellyn later, not even for the love of a woman like Angelina. But you could lie for her. You could lie and say that you did kill for her. You could do that and make us believe you. So that she was safe. So that she went free.”
“No!”
“Because all along, all the time, you knew who had really done it, didn’t you? All along you knew that only one person could have done it. Only that dear woman, only dear, sweet Angelina could have had the chance to kill both the old woman and her own husband. Nobody else had the chance. Did they?”
And it was then, as the knight asked the question, that Simon suddenly realised. “Oh, my good God in heaven!” broke from his lips in a soft cry that was almost a prayer as the truth dawned and he saw what had truly happened.
As if he was looking at a sequence of pictures that built up a large tapestry, he saw in their turn the house of
