‘Can’t sleep?’
His low voice made her jump, unsettling Joel, who whimpered and snuffled in his sleep, but then she chuckled softly. ‘Not easily, no. Do you think we could afford a larger palliasse?’
Rather than talk among their children, they rose from the bed and moved to the fireside. Emma had made a mat of pieces of material, and they sat on it, wrapping Hamelin’s great woollen cloak about them. Hamelin prodded the embers into flame and added more logs, before staring into it.
‘Where did Wally get all that money?’ Emma asked after some while.
‘I just don’t know. Nowhere he should have. I got the feeling that he was keen to get rid of it. He was pleased to have found an excuse, I think, like it was stained with another man’s blood or something.’
She shivered at the thought. ‘You don’t think it’s cursed?’
Hamelin was silent for a while. ‘You know, I felt today as though Wally and Joel were somehow connected. Like it seemed unfair that Joel should die so young, so perhaps God had taken Wally instead, like there was some sort of balance of fairness. Wally had lived long enough, so he died. Especially since he’d been involved in something he shouldn’t have.’
‘But what?’
‘Haven’t a clue. He never had any money, that was certain, not from his farming and his attempts to grow vegetables, and yet he always managed to scrape together some pennies for drinks whenever he came into town.’
The dog started to growl again, a low, menacing rumbling, and Hamelin threw a stone at it.
‘Husband, don’t you think you could find work in the town, rather than having to go up to work on the moors?’ Emma asked reluctantly. They had been through this many times before.
‘No,’ he said uncompromisingly. ‘If Hal and me can only find another source of tin, we’ll be laughing. It’s just this early period that’s hard. We’ll soon be on our feet again. Don’t you worry. And what else could I do here without money? That bastard Mark made it impossible for me to start a new business.’
The dog began again, and this time they could hear the steps outside. Soon there was a light tapping at their door.
Hamelin snatched up his knife. It was a good weapon with a foot-long blade, and he held it to the door as he went to it. ‘Who is it?’ he hissed.
‘Watchman. Is that Hamelin? Don’t open the door, there’s no need. I’ve been asked to tell you, the abbot wants to see you first thing tomorrow. Go to the Court Gate when it opens. That’s all.’
Hamelin relaxed as he listened to the footsteps leaving. He thrust his knife back in its sheath and returned to his wife’s side.
She was frowning. ‘What could the abbot want with you?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Who cares? Maybe I’ve infringed one of his burgh laws, spending too much time in the town when I should be out on the moors working.’
‘Not our revered abbot, surely!’ she chuckled, nestling into his shoulder.
‘So long as he doesn’t want to fine me.’
‘That would be that overblown bag of pus Joce Blakemoor, wouldn’t it? He’s in charge of fining miners.’
Hamelin grunted. ‘I heard that no one ever liked him. Not when he was growing up here, not when he grew to be an adult. Everyone was delighted when he went away to learn to be a merchant, and no one was pleased when he came back.’
‘How did he get to be elected receiver if no one liked him?’
‘It’s one of those jobs. You buy it, and then get to cream off all the profits for your own pocket. He had money when he came back.’
‘It’s easy to make money when you have some.’
Hamelin turned to kiss her, then he gently laid her down on her back. ‘We’ll have money too, my love. Trust me. Nothing can go wrong for us now our little Joel is all right.’
Up in the dorter, the abbot lowered his voice, When he was young, he would have been sorely tempted to stop outside and listen, and he only hoped that Reginald wouldn’t submit to the same temptation.
‘The matter of theft is repellent in a place like this, Baldwin. In a close-knit community like this, where the brothers all sleep, eat and pray together, supposedly in one large family, the family of Christ, it is uniquely abhorrent to think that one of your companions is prepared to flout the laws of God and steal from his own brothers. I do not wish to spread such a rumour. Especially, I should say, among the novices like Reginald. They talk so much, and they believe all they hear. Something like this – well! To think that a lad like Gerard is capable of stealing is, is… It is dreadful.’
Abbot Robert looked so upset that Baldwin wanted to open his heart to the man, to explain that he could easily understand the revulsion – he had himself been a Knight Templar, a warrior monk, and had taken the same three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience as the monks in this abbey – but he knew he could not. That would mean confessing to his membership of the Order, which would inevitably colour Abbot Robert’s opinion of him, and might even lead to the abbot insisting on his being evicted from the guest room. Hospitality was one thing: harbouring a man whom the Pope had branded a heretic was quite another. Whether the abbot believed, as some few English prelates did, that the Templars could be guilty, was beside the point, as Baldwin knew. The main thing was, Abbot Robert would be exposing himself and his abbey to danger.
‘I think I understand,’ Baldwin said kindly.
‘In that case, you will understand, too, that accusing a brother of theft is an equally serious matter. Especially one who is so young.’
‘Yet one of your monks did accuse him,’ Baldwin said.
‘He is an older man,
