causing your death.”
“And, of course, we had to wonder whether you might have killed Sarra,” Baldwin murmured, pouring more drink into his goblet. “There was no reason to suspect you in particular, except we had heard about you arguing with her. The only evidence, likewise, against Sir Hector at first was that he had argued with Sarra and forced her from his presence.”
Stapledon felt his brows rise. Being too myopic to see people’s expressions, he often had to rely on his impressions… and the feeling he had now was that there was a certain stillness in the room after these words. He had no idea what had caused it for a moment, but then he stared at Sir Hector. The implication of Baldwin’s words was that there was other evidence, surely.
“There was the matter of the blue tunic, for example,” Simon said easily, taking up the baton again. “Wat always said that you had an evil temper, and that you might kill her if you saw Sarra wearing it when you had not given her permission. We thought he might have tried to oust you from leadership by sending her to you wearing it. He had been planning to supplant you for some time, according to Henry and John.”
“He would have been capable of it,” Sir Hector agreed, glancing at his guard. Wat shrugged.
“But even if he did, you would have been wrong to react to it by murdering her. No, this is what happened. The two men, Henry and John, stole the silver. Henry was inside, and Sarra arrived when he was in the middle of the robbery. He heard her approach, concealed himself, and then knocked her down. There being no other place to hide her, he shoved her into the chest, and got on with his task. Later, he left.”
“We thought,” Baldwin reflected, “that Adam then managed to climb in through the window and kill her before Henry and John could return to lock the window, but there is another possibility.”
Simon leaned forward, elbows on his knees, smiling, his goblet held negligently in one hand. “It’s this: someone else returned to the room, and Adam, waiting outside, heard him. He heard the chest lid being lifted, the murder taking place.”
“If he had, he would have told you,” Sir Hector objected.
“No, possibly not. After all, he had a dislike of officials that was close to a madness. He distrusted any man in a position of authority, as we discovered. And I suppose he might well have thought that it would be easy for you to accuse him of bad blood because of your affair with his wife. You had the perfect response to any accusation he made. I think it was that, more than the adultery itself, which unhinged his mind. The knowledge that there was no one who would look after his interests made him seek a more drastic means of redress. He killed his wife – well, he was going to anyway – and perhaps it was during a flash of rage that he regretted later. But he murdered Judith simply to add weight to our suspicion of you. The sad part is, he wasted a life for no good reason. All he achieved was to divert attention from you. When we found the body of Mary as well, it was clear that some devious scheme was in progress.”
“Do you mean to accuse me?” Sir Hector thundered, standing suddenly. “Do you dare to suggest that I killed the tart?”
Baldwin eyed him coldly, then meditatively refilled his pot. “Adam was sure you went back in and stabbed the girl. Why? He would recognize you on sight, wouldn’t he? But if he was outside, Henry and John had barred the shutters giving on to the road. Adam could not have seen in. All he knew was that someone was there, and he had heard that only you, Sir Hector, and your most trusted men were allowed into your private rooms. He heard a noise – Henry and John had gone and were not yet inside – so whoever it was, it must be you.”
“But that’s rubbish!”
“Yes, it is,” Simon agreed.
“What?”
“Adam didn’t know that someone else could also get in – the man who had to fetch the salt for your meal. Your servant, Wat.”
Sir Hector’s mouth fell open, then he turned to face his guard.
Wat was immobile for a moment. He wetted his lips, whirled, and took a half-step toward the door, but his way was barred by three of Peter Clifford’s men, all with stout cudgels in their hands. Tanner stood with them, grinning, his hands in his thick leather belt.
“Wat,” said Baldwin solemnly, “I accuse you of the murder of Sarra, a worker at the inn. You will be taken to the jail until you can be tried. If you resist… Well! I almost wish you would!”
The blustering mercenary had to be bound and led away, furiously rejecting all responsibility. It took the combined efforts of Stapledon’s men and Tanner – Hugh gave encouragement from the fringes of the melee, but managed to avoid participation – to restrain him, but at last he could be removed by a gleeful Sir Hector. While Baldwin went with them to the jail, Simon and his wife retired to their chamber.
“How are you?” he asked as she sat on the edge of their mattress. She looked dreadfully pale, and her eyes were half-closed, though the room was dark with the shutters barred against the cold darkness outside. He squatted by her and gently held her hand to his face.
“I am fine, now. Honestly.”
“You are safe, and that’s all that matters to me.”
“I thought I was going to die, for a while.”
“So did I. I hated standing there. Baldwin wouldn’t let me try to help you, and I…”
She shut his mouth with a finger. “It is over now.”
“I thought I wouldn’t be able to hold you again. I thought I was going to lose you. I love you.”
She smiled at the whispered words. “I love you too. I promise I will not leave you until you have a son.”
“I do not care about that right now. All I want is to see you well again.”
Margaret’s eyes closed, but then she remembered the conversation in the garden, and she sighed.
“What is it?”
“The Bishop was talking to me about Rollo when that man attacked us. Simon, I want us to have our own boy, not another’s. Is that selfish?”
“Selfish? Perhaps – but if you think I want any reminder of this afternoon, you are wrong. I couldn’t bear to have him in our household either. Don’t worry, I shall tell the good Bishop.”
When he returned to the hall, Baldwin was already there, seated near a frowning Stapledon. Peter was at the church exhorting the workmen to continue, and the three were alone for a while. After sitting in silence for some minutes, the Bishop peered at them. “Sir Baldwin, Simon, I must be more dense than I had realized, for I still cannot see how you have arrived at this conclusion.”
Baldwin smiled at the peering bishop. “It is a great deal more simple now, dealing with the matter in retrospect, because we actually have the sequence of events.”
“It’s hard,” Simon said, pouring himself more wine, “when you begin an investigation like this. At first everyone is trying to help, but all that means is you’ve got to try to isolate what is important from the mass of details which are uncovered. All too often there is so much which is irrelevant.”
Baldwin held his hand over his goblet as Simon offered more wine. He had already drunk far more than usual. “As you know, it looked bad for Cole from the first,” he began. “A new man joining, who was found after a couple of days with silver on him when Sir Hector’s plate had all been stolen, and then the girl was discovered… It was apparent that he must have been discovered in the course of this theft, and had killed Sarra before she could raise the alarm.”
“But,” Simon interrupted, waving his goblet so freely that wine slopped on to the floor, “How could Cole have known that he would have time to rob Sir Hector? He was too new to be trusted by most of the men there. And how could one man have carried off so much metal? If he was involved, he would have needed an accomplice.”
“Simon is correct. It was obvious to me that others should be sought. Another thing was that the girl had been stored in the chest unconscious, and killed later. That indicated to me that the murder and the robbery were not necessarily connected. Thus, although Sir Hector could hardly be implicated in stealing from himself, he might have had a hand in killing Sarra.”
“Then there was the question of whether Cole would have robbed the mercenary.” Simon smiled.
Stapledon put his head on one side. “What do you mean?”
“If you were desperate, would you steal from a mercenary warrior? From a captain, at that?” Simon asked, then, seeing the Bishop’s rueful shake of his head, pounced triumphantly. “No, of course not! Why? Because a man like that would scare any but the most hardened warrior. Is it likely that a youngster fresh from a farm would dare to challenge him?”
