“Women do. You had argued, then she saw the new tunic. She might have thought you had bought her a gift to apologize for shouting at her.”
Sir Hector stared in disbelief. “Are you serious? Why should I do that? She was only a-”
“You have given us your opinion of her often enough before,” Baldwin interrupted smoothly. “There is no need for further repetition. When did you buy the tunic?”
“Yesterday, a day after I’d argued with Sarra. I was just about to go out, and I was in a hurry, when she burst in to tell me that Henry was about to foment disorder in the troop. As if he’d dare!” He turned and began to make his way at a slow amble back to the inn, casting around as if casually, but with enough diligence to make Simon think he was alert for a threat. Or was looking for someone.
“Isn’t it possible she was right?” mused Baldwin.
“No,” the captain snapped. “My men are bound to me. Whether they like it or not, they know that I am a man of my word-to them at least! If I was to be deposed, the last person most of them would want in my place would be Henry. He has an annoying habit of taking on new recruits and finding out their secrets, then blackmailing them.”
“You know about that?” Baldwin burst out, aghast.
“Of course I do. All the better for me to know I am protected. While the fool carries on like that, I am secure. The other men all hate him and fear me. He has their secrets bound in his purse, while I own their lives. All the time he does that, he costs me nothing, and yet the others wouldn’t think of supporting him in any kind of coup.”
“They might support another.”
“No. There’s none who would dare to try it. Besides, with Henry and John around, I would be likely to find out soon enough if they did. No, the idea is stupid.”
Frowning, Baldwin kicked a pebble from the path. “What did she actually say?”
“That she’d overheard Henry talking to John or someone and that he was planning to form the band round himself. No, wait a moment, that’s not right. She said Henry told this other person that he would not need to worry about me for long, that he would have his own band-something like that.”
“And then you went to buy the tunic.”
“I went out and saw the tunic, and bought it, and I said it would be collected later.”
“And when you returned?”
“I told one of the men to go and fetch it.”
“And you never saw her alive again, or saw the tunic until it was on her body?”
“That’s right.”
They were at the door to the inn, and Sir Hector stood defiantly as if daring them to enter with him.
“Out of interest, Sir Hector,” asked Simon diffidently, “which man did you ask to collect it?”
“Eh? Wat, I think.”
“And then what did you do?”
“I went out. I had only returned to the hall briefly. I saw Wat and went straight out again.”
“Why? Where were you off to?”
“To see someone.”
“Who?” asked Baldwin.
“Like I said, it is no concern of yours.”
“I think it might be.”
“You are welcome to think what you like.”
“Sir Hector, I am trying to discover who might have murdered the girl, and you are not helping.”
“I didn’t kill her and I didn’t see who did. Telling you whom I was about to meet will not assist you. I can only suggest you speak to someone else and try to find out who killed this Sarra.”
Simon scuffed the dirt of the pavement with the toe of his boot. “One thing seems odd to me.”
“The whole bloody affair seems damned odd to me,” Sir Hector said heavily.
“What I mean is, her old tunic was on the floor of her room, as if she’d kicked it off in her hurry to get changed into the new one. That was why I wondered whether she might have thought it was a present for her. If she had simply seen the tunic in your room and not thought it was for her, she might have tried it on-I suppose she might even have taken it to her room to try on-but she would not have let anyone see her.”
“So what?” Sir Hector glanced at him disdainfully, his lip curled in disgust.
“It occurs to me that she must have walked from her room, over the yard, through the hall, and into your solar. She must have known that someone could have seen her. If she was trying to clandestinely don the tunic, she picked a very public way to do it.”
“So what? Maybe she wanted people to see her in a colorful tunic.”
“I think most women would only behave like that if they thought the tunic was for them in the first place. She didn’t see the need to hide her possession of it; she thought it was hers. That’s why she changed in her room and came back by such an obvious route.”
“God’s blood! If she thought that, why should she bother to go to her room in the first place? Why not simply change where she found it?”
“Absolutely right!” Simon smiled. “That’s the other problem. I would have expected, if she saw it in your room, that she would have tried it on in there. She would not have bothered to go to her room to change. Of course, if she was in her room, and someone told her about the tunic, she would have gone to your room to find it, but even then she would surely have put it on in the solar. There would have been no reason to take it back to her room to don it.”
“So what are you getting at?”
“This, Sir Hector. Since she changed in her room, the only reason I can see for her doing that and then going to the solar is that she thought it was hers. And logically, I think she must have found the tunic in her room, or been given it there.”
Baldwin stared at his friend. “I see what you’re getting at: if she thought it was a present, she would have gone straight to Sir Hector to thank him.”
“It’s how a woman would behave-dressing in the tunic to show how pleased she was with the gift.”
The mercenary glowered from one to the other. “Are you seriously suggesting that she somehow found it in her room and rushed over here to thank me for buying it for her?”
Simon shrugged. “It’s the only explanation I can believe right now. Either she found it there or she was given it there-and was told that you had bought it for her.”
“Who could have said that to her?”
“That we need to find out,” said Baldwin. “In the meantime, you never answered my question: for whom did you purchase the tunic?”
“That’s my business. It’s got nothing to do with you.”
Baldwin noticed how the captain’s gaze kept straying to the road behind him. He was sure that Sir Hector had been waiting for the same woman, whoever it might be, when he had knocked the bowl from the poor beggar’s hand. But there was little he could do to force the man to name her-and for some reason Baldwin had an instinct not to press him. “Very well. But is there anything else you forgot to mention to us this morning?”
The captain’s eyes were gray flints as he snarled, “No!”
As the Keeper of the King’s Peace and his friend left the inn, it was hard for the man watching to restrain his feelings. They had found out about the new dress; that at least should put them further on the correct track, and when he saw their faces, they told him all he wanted to know. The knight, Baldwin, kept glancing over his shoulder, back toward the inn, with his features set into a black scowl of suspicion, while his friend seemed lost in thought, brows fixed into a mask of perplexity.
At last the fruits of his plans were ripening, and would soon be ready to be plucked.
When they had gone, Sir Hector stormed through the hall and into his solar like a bear with a foot in a trap. At the door to his rooms, he pointed to one of his men. “Get me Henry the Hurdle. Bring him to my solar. Now! ”
He was seated in front of his cabinet when Henry walked in. The man looked nervous, but that was no surprise to Sir Hector. He would expect any of his men responding to an urgent summons to be anxious.
“Shut the door,” he said, and waved the servant out. Henry did as he was commanded, then, darting looks all
