“Where did you hear that?”
The shopkeeper’s smile broadened. “Here. I have many women come here for their wimples and so on, and as soon as Sir Hector and his men arrived, the gossip increased tenfold. Everyone knows how taken he was with poor Sarra at first-until they had their quarrel, anyway.”
“What quarrel?” Baldwin was not keen on inane chatter, but he knew how sometimes elements of the truth could intrude even into the malicious chitchat of an alewife.
“Sir Hector, on the day before she died, suddenly threw Sarra out and ordered her not to bother him again. He had lost interest in her.”
“Who told you this?”
“A friend of Margery-that is, Paul the innkeeper’s wife. She heard him shouting at Sarra. He said he had found a real woman, and didn’t need a cheap tavern slut any more.”
“Who did he mean?”
“Who knows? Perhaps you should ask him…”
12
W alking back, the men were quiet. Baldwin was sunk in gloom, wondering whether he would ever understand what was happening, while his servant was trying to hide his relief at leaving Fletcher’s shop. Hugh meandered behind, as stolidly uncommunicative as usual.
The bailiff shoved his hands into his belt. They were walking up the hill now, and it was harder to push their way through the crowds teeming the roadway. The items on sale changed as they progressed toward the town center. Fish were laid out on trestles, their eyes dull, mouths gaping wide as if still straining for water, while others lay, their colors dim, in barrels alongside. The bakers were next, with loaves and rolls of bread arranged in sweet- smelling piles, ranging from good melchet, made from sieved flour to give it its pale cream color, to less fine cockets, and low-grade brown loaves made from maslin, a wheat and rye mixture for the poorer people. As they approached the shambles where the butchers had their stalls, they came to the cordwainers, with the new shoes on show. Nearby cobblers plied their trade, mending old boots. The smells increased as they came close to the tanners, who took the skins from the butchers and produced rough, dried leather which they sold to the curriers to be smoothed and shaved to an even thickness before oiling it ready for crafting. Gloves, purses, leather bottles and boxes, with patterns carved or painted on them, stood to demonstrate the skills of the craftsmen.
Simon barely gave the goods a glance, ignoring both the stallholders’ cries and the young children trying to attract his attention by dragging on his cloak. The sights and sounds were familiar, and he had no wish to purchase anything.
As they came to the church, his eye lighted on a slim figure waiting at Peter’s door. She turned as the four approached-it was the woman in gray.
Giving money to the poor was an important responsibility of the wealthy, and all rich men tended to provide for those less well-off in the parish. The church had an almoner whose duty it was to see to the well-being of those who could not earn their own living. For, while it was right that those who were too lazy to work should be punished, all accepted that if a man was injured and incapable of looking after himself and his family, or if a man were to die and leave his woman and children without support, it was only right that a Christian community should aid them.
As he watched, the almoner passed the woman some bread and meats. Peter, he knew, had always provided well for beggars. At his table, before food was passed even to guests, bread and other foods were put in a bowl “to serve God first.” The almoner saved it to give to those who had most need. The woman held the gift in her apron, walking round to the site of the new church, and there Simon saw her kneel. Her child appeared from playing near a scaffold, and they ate with no sign of pleasure, only a kind of desperate haste, peering round as if fearing that if they did not consume it as quickly as possible, someone might take it from them.
“Simon, look-our friend,” Baldwin murmured, nodding ahead. Following his gaze, Simon saw the captain.
Sir Hector stood with his back to them, near the entrance to the church. Every now and again he would peer at the inn, then round at the trees, as if measuring the time by the shadows, or searching for someone who could be hiding behind one of the heavy trunks. Simon looked up and down the street. “Is he out here on his own?”
“For a mercenary captain to let himself be separated from all his men shows a distinct lack of foresight,” said Baldwin. “I suppose here in England he feels that it is safe enough. In Gascony or France he would not be so foolhardy, not with all the enemies he has there.”
They continued on their way, and from the corner of his eye, Simon saw the woman walk out of the church with her child. She joined the street a little in front of him and his friend, and as he watched her, she approached Sir Hector, holding out her alms bowl like a supplicant.
“What?” Sir Hector spun as she spoke, scowling ferociously. “Who are you?”
His voice carried clearly over the hustle of the road, but the woman’s response was smothered. To Simon’s surprise, the knight fell back as if stunned, staring with horror. Mouth gaping, he stood transfixed. Suddenly he moved forward, struck her hand with a clenched fist, and shoved her roughly away from him. The bowl left her hand, whirling off against a wall, and clattered to the ground; a man walking by did not see it, and there was a loud crack as he stepped on it by mistake. She gave a shriek, both hands going to her head as she tried to take in this disaster. Simon thought she looked as if she could hardly comprehend such misfortune. He guessed that the bowl was not only her receptacle for gifts when begging, it was probably her sole means of gathering liquid. To lose it was an unbelievable calamity.
She sank to her knees, touching the two pieces of wood with a kind of bewildered despair, her son wailing beside her unheeded. Sir Hector watched her for a moment with a sneer twisting his visage, then turned back to his solitary vigil.
Baldwin pulled out some coins from his purse as he passed her, dropping them into her lap. “Buy a new bowl and some food,” he muttered.
Seeing them, she was too awestruck to thank him, and staggered up, hauling her son with her, to the shelter of the wall. She clutched the coins to her breast, staring at Baldwin with wild eyes before suddenly darting off.
“That was uncharitable, Sir Hector.”
The captain jerked around at the sound of mild reproof in Baldwin’s voice; for a split second Simon thought he was going to hit the Keeper. Evidently Edgar did too, for he hastened to stand by the side of his master.
“Sir Baldwin. You always appear just as I find myself out of spirits.” His tone was bantering, but to Simon he looked as if he was holding himself in with difficulty. The bailiff was not surprised. Beating a beggar was hardly the sort of behavior to enhance a man’s reputation-but then Sir Hector was a mercenary, a breed of man held in low esteem all over the world. It appeared odd that the captain should be ashamed of a brief loss of temper, a trivial incident, compared with some of his previous actions.
“ You bought that blue tunic: Sarra wore it when she died. Why did you not tell me you had purchased it?” Baldwin’s face was set and angry. It was not only the beating of the poor woman, he was intensely annoyed at having to find out from the shopkeeper something which the knight could have told him that morning.
“I did not think it was something which concerned you. I still don’t.”
“I do. When did you give it to her?”
“ Give it to her? You think I’d waste that much money on a-” Sir Hector’s voice had risen almost to a shout, and his jaw stuck out pugnaciously. His eyes moved from Baldwin to Edgar, who had taken a short step forward, so that if the captain was to attack Baldwin, he would have to expose his side to the servant. Edgar smiled thinly and the mercenary brought himself under control with an effort.
“Sir Hector, you have made me go off on a wild-goose chase when you could have told me the truth this morning. Who was the tunic for, if not for her-and why was Sarra wearing it?”
“I have no idea why she was wearing it. She must have found it in one of my trunks. I told you we’d argued earlier. She was trying to warn me about my best men, and I told her to go…Well, I did not see her again. How she came to wear that tunic, I have no idea.”
“Perhaps she thought you had bought it for her,” Simon suggested.
“Why should she think that?”
