‘But they had been friends?’ Baldwin enquired, looking back at their guide.
‘Yeah.’ He spat a long dribble of phlegm at the ground and eyed the horizon thoughtfully. ‘I was on the jury, and I reckoned with the rest that it was almost certainly Armstrong’s fault. Wally was always pacifying him when he lost his temper. Not that he ever did with Wally. I thought that they had some sort of bond, like warriors. You know? You see two men who have served in the King’s Host, and they’ll be companions for life. These two seemed that way. But one day they flared into an argument, Hal was nearer – he reckoned he heard them shouting about some girl. It’s often about a woman, isn’t it?’
‘Local girl?’ Baldwin asked.
The coroner answered first. ‘No, it was a girl from their home, up in Scotland. I recall now: Walwynus said that some wench had been raped and killed, and Martyn made some comment about her.’
‘That’s right,’ the miner said. ‘Hal heard them and he asked Wally about it later. Wally told him this girl, she’d saved his life when he’d been at death’s door. She’d nursed him and protected him, and Martyn took her memory and insulted her. He was in his cups, of course, but he said something about her being a brave, eager slut, and that got Wally so angry, he was about to jump on Martyn, but Martyn saw he’d gone too far and pulled his knife first. And that was that.’
‘Did you ever learn where these two came from?’ Baldwin asked.
‘Christ! Miles away. Up northwards somewhere. They always spoke like foreigners. Scotland somewhere.’
‘Would anyone else know more accurately? A friend or someone?’
‘That monk, the scarred one. He knew them up north, I heard tell. Hal said so. Said Wally told him. They weren’t friends, though. Wally was terrified of the monk.’
‘You think he thought the monk posed a danger to him?’
‘Don’t know about that so much,’ the miner grunted. ‘But he was scared, right enough. Scared shitless.’
‘Did Walwynus have many enemies?’ Baldwin asked. ‘No. Most liked him.’
‘Then was he killed for money?’
‘Doubt it. He had little enough.’
‘Can you think of any other reason why someone might choose to kill him?’
The miner gave a sly grin. ‘There is a man might know.’
‘Who?’ Coroner Roger demanded. ‘Come on, fellow, this is like drawing teeth!’
‘True enough!’ the miner cackled. ‘You should ask Ellis the tooth-butcher. See what he has to say.’
They had arrived at a fiat space, and Baldwin could see a body lying on the ground almost at the same time as he smelled it. A scruffy man in worn clothing stood blearily by, a long polearm in his hand as he wiped the sleep from his eyes. At his side was a small barrel which showed the cause of his lethargy.
The coroner dropped from his horse and began to study the corpse without touching it.
While he was thus occupied, Baldwin leaned to the miner again. ‘Who is this Ellis? Why should he wish to see the man dead?’
‘Because Ellis reckoned Wally here was giving his sister one! You ask Ellis about his sister Sara.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Because Ellis was here last Friday morning. I saw him, heard him shouting and threating Wally. Go on – you ask Ellis!’
Chapter Fourteen
After the previous day’s rainy beginning, it had been a relief to wake to bright sunlight. Simon hadn’t needed the prodding finger of the novice to wake him, for he could feel the warmth of the sun reaching out to him even through his closed eyes. Lazily, he had opened them to find himself gazing at Sir Tristram’s bare body. The knight had swung open the rough board shutter and was staring down into the yard. Seeing him thus naked in the morning light, Simon was surprised at the number of wounds on his body.
There were two star-shaped scars, both on his upper left shoulder, which looked as though they must have been made by arrows. The great barbed arrows of old would have done far more damage, but the modern ‘prickers’, designed to penetrate mail, were little more than square-sectioned steel needles. Simon had seen other men wounded by these arrows, and they always had this characteristic star-shape. On his flank there was a great gouge lined with sore-looking red flesh that probably resulted from a sword or axe blow; his left upper arm bore a long, raking slash; both legs were mottled with scars, some fine, thin ones like cobwebs, others deep-looking stab wounds or slashes, as though he had been in a hundred different fights with all different types of weapon.
Simon couldn’t help but let a low whistle pass from his lips, and Sir Tristram whirled round.
There were many knights whom Simon had met who had been suave and silky in movement as well as tone, men who would turn elegantly upon hearing someone behind them. Others, like his old friend Baldwin himself, were strangely precise in their movements. These were the masters of defence, men who had trained all their childhood and youth, men who could pick up any weapon and use it effectively, men who could fight as though dancing, while holding a seven-pound sword in one hand as if it was as light as a willow-wand.
This was not one such. Sir Tristram spun around like a man expecting death and the devil. His face was pulled into a snarl, his teeth bared, his whole being transfigured. From a tall man at a window he became a crouching, bestial creature, one hand forward, the other held back, ready to punch. But there was something missing. It was as though Sir Tristram had seen
