“They might,” Baldwin agreed. “But they have a heavy weight of silver with them. It will be a burden to them and slow them down.”
Sir Hector stared at him. He could think of no sensible excuse which would carry conviction as to why he must quit the town. From all Baldwin had said, he was right and it would be better to remain a little longer. He considered the alternatives, but he knew full well that too much suspicion must lie on his head if he were to lead his men away. Slowly, and with great reluctance, he nodded his agreement.
16
Sniffing disdainfully at the mess, Hugh trod carefully along the alley. There was no idea of cleanliness here. Even when he lived with his parents they had enforced the rules of keeping to their midden and not just peeing against the doorposts of the house. Here, the people didn’t care. The sewers and middens were so far away that people used whatever was nearest. At least to a farmer, the nearest object was usually a tree, Hugh thought to himself, avoiding a pile of excrement, and not his neighbor’s house.
Hugh turned into the side-alley with a set frown of concentration. The woman’s body had been removed during the night, and there was nothing to show of the horror of the previous night. This little branchlet from the main thoroughfare faced east, and the light in the misty morning was charitable to the dirty buildings, hiding streaked and worn limewash, and dissipating the harsh light of the late summer sun so that cracks and holes could not cast such strong shadows.
He stood with his hands on his hips and squinted round the space. He had observed Baldwin often enough when the knight was investigating the site of a tragedy, but the quick eye for details that the knight possessed was not transferable to Hugh, and he knew it. Where Baldwin might have seen a dozen hints for finding the boy, Hugh only saw a mess.
Folding his arms, he leaned a shoulder against a wall and peered at the ground. His master had said that the boy had been in front of his mother, and had seen the attacker coming up behind Simon as the bailiff called the boy to him.
Casting his mind back, Hugh noted where the bodies had lain the night before. He was sure that Simon, having been unconscious for so long, all through the night, must have fallen where he had been hit. Hugh stepped to the spot where, as far as he could tell, his master’s feet had been resting. There were a pair of scuff-marks, and he thought they might have been caused by the bailiff’s feet jerking as he was coshed.
Nodding grimly to himself, Hugh crouched down and stared before him. The dirt had been flattened in some patches. All around there was a light coating of ash, from the many wood fires which had driven off the night’s chill for the townspeople. Though behind him it had all been disturbed by the passage of the men collecting the two figures, and there were clear footprints where the man appointed to stand guard over the woman had waited, Hugh thought he could see where she had lain. As he bent lower, he caught his breath.
From the corner of his eye, he had caught a glimpse of the guard’s footprints. Viewed from this low angle, he discovered he could see them more clearly. To test it, he rested his hands on the ground and held his head almost at floor-level, and found he could see the prints much more distinctly. Wriggling, he squirmed until he was staring excitedly at roughly where the woman’s head had been, and gave a short exclamation of delight. He could see a series of small barefoot prints.
The ones nearest were surprisingly clear. He could make out the individual toes as if the lad had waited there for some time, and perhaps he had, Hugh reflected. After all, Simon had appeared after hearing the boy crying. He could have been there, standing beside his dead mother for an hour or more. People from the houses all round would not leave their dwellings after dark, he was sure, not to go to the aid of a brat they might not know, not when there were the sounds of misery to hint that some danger lurked.
He thought he could make out a scuffle, as if the child had retreated, then shuffled as he began to run away. More marks seemed to lead toward a wall. Rising, he followed after, every now and again lowering himself to make sure of the direction, until he came to a large patch where the muck and dirt had been flattened and dispersed. Going down on one knee, he studied it with bafflement. It was just before the wall, near a hole. Feeling a quick excitement, he dropped by the hole and gazed inside. It was dark and small, and he reached in with a hand, lying heedlessly on his back in the stinking filth. He could feel the sides and roof, and, stretching to his uttermost, he could just touch the furthest extreme. There was no child.
Standing and brushing the dirt from his shoulders, he felt a pang of compassion as he wondered whether it was here that the boy had been caught by the attacker. Maybe, he thought, the flattened patch was caused by the struggle between the two, the man catching hold of the boy who was the only witness to the attack on the bailiff, and possibly the cruel murder of his own mother.
If that was the case, he thought, resting his hands on his hips with a new determination, the people who lived closest must have heard the poor lad’s screams. He stared at the walls all round. There was no doorway on which to bang, but in the alley there were several. Striding out, he turned right and beat upon the timbers of the nearest.
The latch was slipped and the door creaked open; a small, dirty, anxious young girl peeped round it. Seeing Hugh’s fierce glower, her eyes widened in a panic and he realized that the door was about to be slammed. Immediately, he smiled. He also took the precaution of shoving his heavy boot into the gap. “Hello,” he said.
The grubby child looked at his boot with perceptible alarm, and her mouth opened to scream, but before any sound could come out, Hugh squatted reassuringly.
“I want to speak to your mother. Is she here?”
Casting a glance behind, the small face nodded, and soon, to his relief, there was an adult with them.
She was a little under his height, but with the sallow, gray complexion of the poor. Standing in the doorway, she could have been the sister of the murdered woman, and the apron and wimple which she wore in an attempt to appear respectable only added to the impression of sad dilapidation that permeated the buildings of the little alley.
“There was a woman killed here last night.”
“I know. Poor Judith.”
The name meant nothing to Hugh. “She was killed down that alley, which runs beside this place. Did you hear anything?”
“There’s always noises round a place like this. We heard lots of things.”
“A scream?”
“Only her boy. We never heard her.”
“You heard her boy?”
“Rollo? Yes. He was making enough noise to bring the roof down on our heads,” she said.
“You heard him, and you did nothing?” he asked, aghast. “That child might be dead; the same man who killed his mother probably took him and killed him. If you’d gone to him when he cried you might have saved his life!”
“Yes. And I might have got myself killed,” she said, wiping a grimy hand over her forehead. There was no remorse Hugh could perceive, only a weary acceptance. “What good would that have done the lad? Or her, come to that? I have five little ones to look after, now my husband’s dead. What do you expect me to do? Run out and get myself killed at the first alarm?”
Hugh could not help taking a step back. He was not known for his courage, but he was repelled by the dour cowardice of this woman. He could understand nervous people staying in behind their doors after hearing a shriek, but not when it was a child who was being attacked! In his home village, it was the norm for all to go to the aid of a neighbor in trouble, no matter what the cause. If a man was under attack, all would help him.
“Well?” she asked at last. “Do you want to see him or not?”
“Do you know where he is?”
Eyeing him with exasperation, she knocked her little girl on the head and sent her scurrying back into the house. Soon she reappeared dragging an unwilling boy, who held back in fear at the sight of a man.
“What’s he doing here?” Hugh asked, dumbfounded.
“I couldn’t leave the poor bugger out in the cold all night.”
