because the gate was ajar, Alison stood laughing and chatting to John of Irelaunde. As Baldwin watched, he saw John tweak a curl from her wimple and chuck her under the chin.
“That bloody Irishman,” Simon grumbled. “Look at him!”
“He certainly appears to take his pleasures where he can,” Baldwin chuckled. “Ah, and who’s this?”
Riding toward them was William. He smiled broadly to them, and jogged off back the way they had come. The knight stared after him. “I wonder where he’s off to?”
Jack wiped his hands on his heavy leather apron, and stood contemplating the view bitterly. The questioning by the Keeper had unsettled him. The smith was a man of few words normally, and now he felt as if he had been forced into giving away too much-something he could regret later. Jack was all too well aware of the risks of telling law officers too much. It often led to a man being arrested and hanged.
There was a scuttling noise near the forge, and he turned to see his cat lying, tail twitching, watching a large rat scrabbling for a crumb. Jack let out a curse, and swung his boot at the cat, who, realizing her master was not of a mind to scratch her ears, flattened them against her skull before pelting off to a dark corner where she judged she should be safe enough.
Jack turned back and supped ale, disconsolately studying the sweep of the river. He was still standing there, his great mug in his fist, when he was hailed.
Entering his yard was a cheerful-looking man on a decent palfrey. “Smith? Can you make me a shoe? My fellow here has cast one.”
Jack looked up into William’s face and grunted.
“I’m very glad to find you here,” said William with feeling, falling from his saddle and strolling to a bench while Jack set to pumping the bellows. The guard held his hands to the fire, a small frown creasing his brow. He had also seen John and the maid in the road, and it had interested him a great deal. He decided he would have to tell his master as soon as he returned to Coffyn’s house. For now, though, he had another task to perform.
He grinned up at the smith. “Smiths always hear all the gossip before anyone else. But I suppose you need a tale in exchange, yes? Have you heard what the lepers are up to?”
Baldwin walked into his hall and threw his gloves onto the table. Margaret was there, sitting at the fire as she unpicked stitches from a tapestry. When Simon walked in, she stood to greet him, and he glanced down at her work.
“But you never make mistakes with your needlework!”
“Sometimes even the best seamstress must have a bad day,” she said. “How has yours been?”
Baldwin bellowed for Wat and sank down into his chair. His boots were too tight, and after wearing them all day, his feet felt as if they had swollen so much he would never be able to get them off. “Where is that blasted lad? WAT!”
“Don’t shout at him, Baldwin,” Margaret said urgently. “You’re not the only one to have had a bad day.”
Baldwin and Simon exchanged a glance as the boy came in, snivelling. Immediately behind him was Emma.
To the knight she looked as threatening as a war-horse pawing at the ground, and he flinched as he felt her eyes flit over him, registering his mud-bespattered hose and tunic, the hair lying lankly where he had been wearing his hat, and his booted feet.
“That dog of yours,” she stated firmly, “ought to be killed.”
Emma was disgruntled. This place was so far from anywhere important, she was seriously alarmed her mistress might choose to marry the knight and move here permanently. Here! So far from any decent town or city.
It had been bad enough when she had been told she was to join Jeanne when her charge was wedded the first time, to Ralph of Liddinstone. That was very hard, when she was so fond of the shops of Bordeaux, the little pie shops and sweetmeat stalls where she could purchase whatever she wanted while escorting Jeanne around, but she had accepted that it was necessary for her mistress to be married, and had finally agreed to stay with her.
But for little Jeanne to consider coming to a benighted spot like this was intolerable! The road-hah, it was what passed for a road here, at any rate-was little more than a quagmire. At the moment it was frozen into reddish muddy ruts, each of which threatened to snap the bones of a horse’s leg, but the nearest town was miles away, either northward up to Tiverton, or south to Crediton or Exeter. There was literally nothing in between, just a few hamlets filled with grubby peasants and their ragamuffin brats. How could poor Jeanne consider living in a place like this?
Crediton wasn’t so bad, she’d grudgingly agreed that yesterday when Jeanne had asked. But that was when they had only just entered the town, and soon Emma’s attitude had changed. In its favor, at least Crediton had some cobbles, and there were walkways so that ladies and gentlemen did not have to trail their finery in the filth of the sewer, or in the horse dung that lay all over…or in the feces from dogs and cats, goats and sheep, steers and heifers. In real towns, she had reminded her mistress scathingly, such wastes were found only in the market area where butchers and tanners plied their trade, but Crediton was such a one-road place that the animals got everywhere.
This farm, where the “noble” knight lived, was hardly good reason to want to live here. Emma could only gaze around her with scorn. There were no fine paintings on the walls, no elaborate carvings; it was just somewhere where a wealthy peasant wouldn’t have looked out of place. She glanced around the hall. A large table for Sir Baldwin and his guests lay at the far end, and the rest of the rush-strewn floor held other benches and tables-for the most part trestles that could easily be cleared away. There was no grace or elegance about it whatever.
And then there was the dog.
“Killed?” Baldwin repeated with horror. “But why? Uther’s always so gentle.”
“Gentle? I suppose you think when the monster knocks you flat on your back and stands slavering at your throat, he’s being playful?” Emma’s lip curled into a sneer. Her logic was unanswerable, she knew. She had always had a detestation for dogs of all sorts. Their slavish obedience, their fawning displays of affection and the filth they would eat, made her stomach churn. As if that wasn’t enough, she had a horror of the huge teeth. They looked too much like those of a wolf. “That dog should be killed,” she said again, with emphasis on the last word.
“But my dear woman, I really must say that I think Uther was only-”
“Why you should think my mistress would consider living in a hovel running with flea-bitten, mangy runts like that, I don’t know. As if it wasn’t enough that she should be killed by your hounds while she’s asleep, I expect she’ll scarcely get any rest, what with the fleas and other things. A fine place! The only way to get this household fit for a lady like her is to have the dogs out where they belong, in their kennels.”
With that, having confirmed that Baldwin’s face was as shocked as she had hoped, Emma rotated her massive bulk and steered a course through the door and out.
Baldwin passed a hand weakly over his forehead. “Is it true that she really has gone?” he asked. “I swear, if I’d had a javelin here, I would have hurled it at her, whatever the consequences!”
“Don’t worry, Baldwin,” Margaret said sympathetically. “I’m sure she’s not as bad as all that once you get to know her. Maybe it’s just that she’s some way from home and feels a little uncertain.”
“I rather think she has too many certainties for my liking,” Baldwin pointed out acidly. “And what in the name of God has got into you, Wat my lad?”
For answer, the boy began to weep, and covered his face with his hands.
“God’s Blood!” muttered the knight. “I really believe this household has gone mad in the last day. Wat, calm yourself-and if you can’t, go out to the buttery and fill yourself with strong ale. Ah! Hugh-what the hell has been going on in here? What’s the matter with him?”
Hugh watched the lad shuffle out, and set his jaw. “It was her,” he said contemptuously. “She said the fire in her lady’s room wasn’t hot enough, and when Wat tried to make it burn better, he dropped an ember on her cloak and burned a hole. She clouted his ear for it.”
“He’ll have to learn to be more careful,” said Baldwin.
To Hugh he looked very pensive, and it wasn’t due to the murder, Hugh thought. Simon’s servant had known the knight for several years now, and Hugh had seen him investigating enough other crimes to know some of his moods, but he had never yet seen Baldwin in so irascible a temper.
No, the trouble was that Baldwin was so keen on this woman, Jeanne. It was as plain as a black sheep in a white flock that he wanted her. But he was terrified of the woman’s servant.
