maid.’
Baldwin nodded. ‘It is terrible how the lust for blood can blind some men.’
‘Well, they didn’t kill all the servants, I suppose, so that’s a mercy. The maid looking after the baby didn’t die. They left her where she was.’
‘But they took the child from her,’ Baldwin said. ‘That is truly foul. It must have sent the woman lunatic to see the babe killed.’
‘She was made of hardier stuff than that, I reckon.’ Bernard rubbed his chin. ‘She’s still in the city, I heard.’
Baldwin nodded, but he had no idea how his future was about to be so closely entwined with the woman he was discussing. Nor with her death.
Simon had been allowed to finish his food, and then to see his servants released and fed, before he was led away to discuss the murder.
It was strange to be taken out to the main city. After such a short time, it had begun to feel as though the castle was a gaol from which he would never be released. Now, he was able to walk the streets with Hugh again like a free man. Margaret and Peterkin, he had been told, would be safer staying in the castle. With so many foreign mercenaries about the city, Simon could only agree with that. He left Rob with them.
He and Hugh were taken along the main street near St Peter’s, and then his guard stopped and suggested that they wait.
‘Why?’
‘Sir Roger Mortimer wanted you to be here,’ the guard said imperturbably. He set his polearm on the ground and leaned on it like man with a staff, yawning.
‘What’s your name?’ Simon asked.
‘Herv Tyrel.’
‘Have you come with the Mortimer from Hainault?’
‘Me? No.’ The man was surprised, Simon saw.
Herv Tyrel was a thickset fellow with the brawny arms of a farmer. His brown eyes were gentle, set in a broad, amiable face, and he looked as though he would be more at home in a field with oxen than here in a city.
‘Where are you from, Herv?’
‘A little vill in Oxfordshire, a place called Henret,’ he sighed, gazing about him without relish. ‘Wish I was back there now. I’ve already lost one mate, and now God knows when we’ll get back.’
‘I think we all wish we were at home,’ Simon said. ‘I would that I was at home in Devon. This city has been too exciting already for my tastes.’
That made the man grin. ‘I know that feeling. I left home in the pay of the King, and halfway here, our Captain decided to become a servant of the Queen. I mean, the Queen’s son will be the next King, so I suppose joining their men is a good idea, but I don’t really understand…’
Simon shrugged. ‘It’s all beyond me. I just want there to be no fighting while I’m in the middle wondering what to do. Do you know what we’re supposed to be waiting for here?’
Herv shook his head. ‘I was told to wait here with you, then take you on.’
‘I see,’ Simon said. He did not care overmuch and was simply relishing his freedom. The memory of that chamber with the others was still close to the front of his mind. The light here, the scents – all were glorious reminders of life going on.
Hugh was less cheerful. He stood leaning on the wall, staring dourly at everyone in the street. He mistrusted all city dwellers as a matter of principle, and after being held captive overnight, was even less inclined to change his mind.
‘How long are we to wait?’ Simon asked. ‘I have business on behalf of Sir Roger.’
‘Not long, I hope,’ the guard answered, staring back the way they had come.
There was a shout, the sound of horses whinnying, and an outbreak of laughter. Then two horses were led from the castle’s gates, two large beasts, with a pair of ropes extending back behind them.
And then he saw the hurdle, and the small, sad figure that lay strapped to it.
Earl Hugh was clad in his armour, with a surcoat over it, but on this surcoat his arms had been reversed, the final proof of his guilt. For this signified the end of his arms – the end of his earldom. No man would inherit his estates entire as a matter of course. His son could not.
Simon watched the sad figure pass him by. Later he heard that the Earl was given no opportunity to speak on the gallows. He was taken to the place of execution of common criminals in Bristol, a demeaning enough position for a man who had risen so high in the King’s household. There he was strung up on the oak beams, and throttled until nearly dead, before being cut down, gasping and retching, to be beheaded. There, in front of the crowds, his old body was stripped and rolled off into the kennel, the gutter in the road’s centre. Later, his body fed the dogs of the city. His head, meanwhile, was taken away to be put on display at Winchester.
For all the last long years, Simon had detested the Despenser regime with a passion. He had been attacked, had lost his home, had been nearly killed, and all because of this man’s son. Now the Earl had fallen from his high pedestal and would suffer the death of a traitor.
‘What now?’ Simon said, watching the old man being dragged past on the jerking, jolting hurdle.
‘Now you can go and continue your investigation,’ Roger Mortimer said. He was walking along with three men-at-arms a few yards behind the hurdle.
As the hurdle rattled past, people threw rubbish at the occupant, while some laughed and jeered. A pair of dogs scuttled along, barking, and all the while Earl Hugh stared up at the sky as though it was his fervent wish to imprint that on his mind as his last memory.
‘Come, Hugh,’ Simon said thickly.
‘What did he want us to see
‘To make sure that we behaved,’ Simon said. ‘Another man’s death is a prime example, isn’t it?’
But although he didn’t say so, in his heart he was thinking that Sir Roger Mortimer was no better than the Earl and his son Sir Hugh le Despenser.
The room into which Sir Charles was brought was a large chamber, and he was glad to see that the man sitting on the table was unharmed.
‘Simon, my friend, I am glad to see you well,’ he said effusively. ‘When I saw you were not in the room with all the guards, I immediately thought the worst.’
‘Are you well?’ Simon asked.
‘Oh, yes. I made sure that when the surrender went ahead, I was there to give a warm welcome to the Duke of Aquitaine. He and I know each other from my time in France, and he was very happy to vouch for me, I am glad to say. So I was not held like you.’
‘I have been freed, but I must learn who the killer of that woman was. And I have been advised by Sir Roger to speak with a fosser.’
They crossed the city together, Simon’s servant Hugh still gazing about him with that air of barely controlled disgust, and came to the gaol where the fosser was held. Here it took one penny for the gaoler to realise he would like to introduce them to his prisoner, and they soon reached the chamber where Saul sat on a stool.
‘I don’t know why I’m here,’ he declared mournfully as Sir Charles and Simon walked in. Hugh stood at the door with his staff in his hands.
‘Perhaps it began when you bethought yourself that taking a dagger from a grave might be a good idea?’ Sir Charles said consideringly. ‘What do you think?’
Simon smiled to himseelf, then asked the man to tell him all about the dagger and the man at Cecily’s grave.
‘I told the other one already,’ the fosser complained. ‘Why do you have to keep me here to tell you about it all over again?’
‘Which other one?’ Simon asked sharply.
