he looked as if he could have burst into tears at any moment, and probably would have done so if it wasn’t for the swearing and bellowing captain ordering him around.
“What do you want?” snarled Sir Hector.
“Why, to speak with you,” Baldwin smiled, and seated himself on the edge of a closed chest.
“What if I don’t want to speak to you?”
“You have little to lose. I only need to ask a couple of questions.”
“That may be so, but I, meanwhile, have to supervise this,” he said, kicking the boy as he spoke.
“Where were you last night?”
“What?” He stared, but after a moment his eyes slitted distrustfully. “Why?”
“Were you in the hall all night?”
“I said: Why?”
“A woman was killed. Stabbed, just like Sarra was in here. In that chest.” To add a degree of emphasis, Baldwin stared at the trunk open before the boy, who snatched his hand from it in superstitious awe.
“A woman? What woman? Another tavern slut? A harlot? What’s it to do with me?”
“That depends on where you were last night.”
“I was out.”
“Where?”
Sir Hector glowered. “There’s no reason for me to hide it. I was waiting for a friend, that’s all.”
“Did she arrive?”
“How did you know it was a woman?”
“Who else could it be?” Baldwin said with asperity, suddenly tired of constantly sparring with the captain. “Sir Hector, the woman you spurned yesterday, the woman who was poor and begged you for alms – she was murdered last night. We found her body in an alley. She wasn’t even hidden, just left where she had fallen. Do you know anything of this?”
“No.”
His eyes held Baldwin’s resolutely, and the conviction they carried, and the certainty in his voice, would have been enough to make the Keeper leave immediately if this was any man other than the mercenary leader. “Could it have been one of your men?”
“No.”
“You seem very sure.”
“Keeper, my men and I are here to break a long journey back to Gascony. We have only been here once before, and that was years ago, and right now all I want to do is get away to Gascony and earn some money.”
“What of your silver?” Baldwin said, surprised that the captain could consider leaving before it had been recovered.
“I…” He glanced at the boy. “Leave us!” The lad was not loath to go. When he had scampered from the room, the captain sat on a trunk and stared at the other man. “The silver is gone, Sir Baldwin, but I think I know where it might be.”
“Please explain.”
The captain scowled at the floor. “Last night two of my men decided to leave. Henry and John, the bastards!” The word was spat out with virulence, but he calmed himself and continued more steadily. “They up and left last night, and nobody noticed – even though they had horses. And, no doubt, all my silver. They must have witnessed Cole hiding it, and removed the silver from his hoard.”
“Why do you suppose that?”
“Because they’ve disappeared! It’s the only thing that makes sense: they saw him steal my plate, so they knocked him on the head, took the silver from him, and hid it again. They knew if he told where he had put it, and the place was found empty, we’d assume he was lying and still had it all stashed away.”
“There is another possibility – that Cole had nothing to do with it,” Sir Baldwin reminded him. “I tend to that view.”
“Why?”
“Because they went to the trouble to show it was him. They actually took two plates to prove he had taken the stuff.”
“That means nothing. They could have done that to show who had really stolen it.”
“I doubt it. But why should they have decided to go now? And where do you think they have gone?” Baldwin asked the disgruntled captain.
“As to the why, because they killed the girl and thought you were getting too close to them, I suppose,” said Sir Hector, but he did not meet Baldwin’s eye. He saw no point in letting the Keeper know how much at risk Henry and John were if they were still in Sir Hector’s company when he returned to France. The knight had a long memory for disloyalty, and the suggestion that the two had plotted against him was enough to show that they were dangerous to him. They would never have made it to the French coast, to English Gascony. A channel of water offered endless possibilities for mislaying someone.
“Their running away certainly makes it look as if they are guilty,” Baldwin mused. It was possible, he thought. They were the type of person who would very easily fit the mold of thief and general bad character. He sighed. So much had happened so quickly, he felt he was losing track of essentials: while following one line of questioning, he was being buffeted by gales of irrelevance.
“What do you plan to do?” he asked.
“They have gone. I cannot find them – I hardly know this part of the country. I will go to the coast and find a new lord in Gascony.”
“And leave your silver?” Baldwin was struck by renewed doubt. There was something in the man’s attitude that grated. He had every right to be angry, but there was a hastiness to this decision to depart which was in itself suspicious; when added to the amount of silver which had been taken, it was positively incredible. The captain could not simply go and accept his loss. No leader like him could hope to keep his men loyal if they saw comrades take his money like that and get away with it. Baldwin nodded slowly. It was apparent to him that Sir Hector was determined to hunt down the two men himself without the encumbrance of a Keeper demanding clemency.
“What could I do to find it?”
The cynical question confirmed Baldwin’s conviction. “You must wait here. In my friend Peter Clifford’s house is Walter Stapledon of Exeter, the Bishop. He will know every smith in the city, and he has the men to investigate. Within two days we will have your two back here.”
“No, I will go now.”
“Really? What could be so urgent, I wonder, that would make you leave so much money behind?”
“My silver is with those two bastards, and I want it back! There is nothing so pressing for me as getting it back again.”
“Then I ask you to remain, Sir Hector,” Baldwin said sternly. “I have no doubts as to your honor and truthfulness, but I must stress that others may suspect your reasons for taking so hurried a departure, when for only two days’ delay you will probably be able to recover your silver.”
“”Probably,“ you say! How ”probably“ will I get my silver back? What is the likelihood that they will have gone to Exeter? Or they might have gone in another direction completely. What if they are heading to Bristol? I’d never get them then.”
“Neither would you if you were to go on with your journey. Sir Hector, Exeter is a matter of miles away, some ten or so. If they have not been here before, save the once, they will not know any other direction to take. In Exeter, there are many roads and alleys with silversmiths. For you to cover them all would be difficult, and you would have to locate them first. Stapledon knows them all. He can use persuasion to make sure that if your men have been there, the silver is recovered. It has to be the best chance there is of recovering it. Do you have any reason to suppose that they might be aiming for Bristol?”
“No. It’s just the only other large city I know of.”
“It was badly devastated after the siege some years ago; I don’t know if there are any smiths there who could afford to buy the quantity of plate that Henry and John took from you. And being that much further away, they would risk being robbed themselves – do you realize how far it is to the north? If you were to wait here for two days and then leave, sending fast riders on ahead, you could easily overtake two men on horseback.”
“Their horses might be fleet.”
