They followed him along a broad screens passage, and into a wide hall. It was as Baldwin had suspected. Six men, all sitting at tables, were enjoying their first whet of the day, supping ale from large pots and wiping their mouths with the back of their hands, eyeing him suspiciously. For all that it had the charm of a garrison, Baldwin could see that the hall was well-appointed. Above the entrance was a carved minstrel’s gallery, and the dais at the far end was deep enough for twenty to sit at table. In the middle of the floor was the hearth, with a cone of timbers smoldering quietly inside a ring of moorstone blocks. He counted seven good-sized tables, apart from the two large ones on the dais.
But even with the tapestries, all of which displayed hunting scenes, there was an atmosphere that belied the apparent homeliness of the scene. The men were plainly not the servants of a prosperous man, they were little more than brigands, and the rolled palliasses and packs against the wall were proof enough that the garrison slept and lived here.
Matthew Coffyn was seated at his table, and Baldwin studied him as he was led to the merchant’s presence.
Coffyn was a tall man, Baldwin saw, with a paunch and thick neck that were testaments to his wealth-he could afford as much food as he wanted. For all that, he had a miserable appearance, with a pointed, weakly chin and thin lips under a straight, narrow nose. His eyes were dark, and met the knight’s with a curious sadness. Yet there was also a petulance about him, giving the impression of a spoiled child. This was added to by the shock of unkempt, mousy hair, which gave him the look of a youngster, and also by the signs of nervous energy. Although Coffyn was quiet and sat very still in his seat, every now and again his hand would go to his mouth, and he would worry at his nails like a dog seeking to extract the very last vestige of meat from a whitened bone. Baldwin could see thin red marks on two nails where Coffyn had already chewed them to the quick and drawn blood.
Much of this Baldwin came to notice later, as they spoke. His initial thought was, This man is vain and arrogant. Still, Coffyn rose to his feet as Baldwin came to his table, and welcomed him with every sign of respect, begging him to sit at the merchant’s side, and pressing him to accept wine. Edgar stood behind his master, while Coffyn waved at the men at the table, and gradually, with an ill humor, they filed out.
“You are here because of the terrible event last night, of course?”
Baldwin inclined his head in assent. “I understand you were the first to find him?”
“That’s right. It was a horrible thing to come across. Poor Godfrey! Do you have any idea who could have done it?”
This last was said with a sudden flash of his eyes, and Baldwin was struck with the conviction that the man already had his own suspect filed and catalogued in his mind-and tried and hanged, too. The knight sighed. People were so often willing to allocate blame and condemn on flimsy evidence. All too often, he knew, it came down to prejudice or pure malice for another. “Not yet, sir.”
“Fear not, Sir Baldwin. God will show you who was responsible.”
“In the meantime, could you tell me what happened last night?”
Coffyn motioned to his bottler, and the man refilled their cups. “I was away yesterday; I had to go to Exeter. It was lucky I came back when I did, because I’d been expecting to stay overnight, but my business was swiftly completed, and I managed to return a little after dark. I had only been home a little while when I heard someone shout from Godfrey’s place…”
“Could you discern what was said?”
“Oh yes, Sir Baldwin. It was Godfrey, and he shouted, ”So you’d defile my daughter too, would you?“ We-that is, my men and I-wouldn’t have worried about that-I mean, you hear people having rows even in the best households, and someone shouting may not signify much, but there was something about the tone that made me suspect something was wrong. Anyway, only a short while later there was a loud scream. God!” He wiped a hand over his brow and took a hasty slurp from his cup. “God, it was awful! Now I know it was his soul passing, but at the time, I swear I thought it was the devil! It was a hideous cry, a bellow of anguish-something I’ll never forget as long as I live.”
Baldwin gave a sympathetic murmur.
“After that,” Coffyn resumed, “I got my guard to come with me and we ran round there.”
“Hold on! Did you go in by the front or the back of Godfrey’s house?”
“By the front, of course! Would you expect me to clamber over his wall?” Coffyn retorted. “We didn’t wait to hammer on his door, we went straight in.”
“I see. And what did you find?”
“Godfrey: dead. His daughter, little Cecily, unconscious nearby. His servant, that miserable old sod with the crab-apple face, out cold near the door. My God, it was terrible!”
“You saw no one else there in the house?”
“No.”
“What about in the street outside when you hurried there?”
“No, there was no one. I’m quite sure of that.”
“And you couldn’t hear the sound of someone running away or anything?”
“No. But we wouldn’t-I mean, we were running so hard…If anyone had been there, we’d hardly have noticed.”
“That’s fine. Now, what was your impression when you first went into the room? Did you think it was a robbery? Or was it a straightforward attack on the man?”
Coffyn gave him a long-suffering glance as if he was convinced that Baldwin was feeble-minded. “I told you what I heard. Does it sound as if someone was robbing the place? I think an intruder was trying to rape Cecily, and her father came upon the bastard. You take my word for it-when you speak to Cecily, you’ll find that a man was trying to ravish her.”
“I suppose it is one possible explanation,” Baldwin agreed.
“Of course it is. The man tried to have his way with her, but was attacked by her father. He struck Godfrey down, and decided to make good his escape, so he knocked out the girl and made off. But he cannot escape God’s own justice!”
“What about the servant, Putthe?”
“He came upon the man, and was knocked down too. The assailant slipped out the back, and I arrived there a few minutes later,” Coffyn said dismissively.
“No, that’s not right. For one thing, Godfrey must have been knocked down as he entered the room…”
“Pish! He was heard approaching, so the man hid himself behind the door and clobbered him as he entered.”
“…and yet if Godfrey ran in and shouted, as you say he did, the rapist must have been in front of him in the room. So how was he struck on the back of the head?”
“There must have been something to distract him…perhaps he heard Putthe running toward him along the screens, and he turned, and that was when his killer struck.”
“I don’t think so. If that were the case, I feel sure that Godfrey would have crumpled on the spot, and thus ended up facing the doorway. As it is, he fell the other way, as if he was knocked down a few moments after he came into the room.”
“Well, that’s for you to sort out. I’ve told you all I can,” Coffyn decided, and made a move as if to get up.
Baldwin sipped reflectively at his wine. “Tell me: are you aware of any enemies that Godfrey might have had? Would there be anyone who loathed him, who was a thorn in his side, or who felt jealous of him?”
“Only one, I suppose,” Coffyn said reluctantly. “The Irishman-the two of them never seemed to hit it off. It’s hardly surprising, for who could be a friend of a man who was prepared to defraud the Church of money on the basis of trickery? You remember his supposed blindness? Mind you, I think Godfrey disliked him for more mundane reasons. He wanted to buy the plot that John was living on, and John refused to let him have it.”
“Why would Godfrey have wanted a run-down little place like that?”
“Godfrey was a rich man. He had his whims. I think he wanted somewhere else to put his livestock, and he has a growing number of staff-had, I should say. That little yard with the cottage would have been ideal, bordering right on his land.”
“How does John of Irelaunde strike you? Has he ever shown you aggression?”
Coffyn’s lip curled into a sneer. “That little sod? He wouldn’t dare! If he had, I would have let my men loose
