‘I went back up to the moors with the sack. Next morning, Walwynus caught up with me and asked me to return the pewter. I refused, for a bargain is a bargain, but he swore at me and said that he would pay me more than the pewter was worth if I would only give it back. I refused again, for I wanted it. That was when he drew his dagger and made ready to attack me. I pulled my own knife out, and when he lunged at me, I stabbed at his knife hand. I caught him, and his hand lost some fingers. He stopped fighting, and started weeping. I left him. The pewter is in the back of my wagon. If you want it, you can buy it back.’
Baldwin had sat staring a while, and now he blinked in astonishment. He shot a glance at Simon, who sat nodding knowingly. ‘This pewter… may we have a look at it?’
Simon said, ‘I doubt whether that is necessary, Baldwin. No innocent burgher has reported the theft as yet. Any man who had all this plate stolen would notice immediately – unless it was already concealed. Concealed because it was stolen! This is all from the abbey – that’s the point. Maybe Walwynus thought he was stealing some pewter from a wealthy man’s’house, but he didn’t realise that it was all originally taken from the church. And as soon as he learned that, he hurried here to persuade Rudolf to give it back. He failed, so he tried to take it by force, but Wally was undernourished and slow, while Rudolf here was quick and assured. So Rudolf won and Wally lost his fingers.’
‘It was out by the cross just west of here,’ Rudolf confirmed. ‘The westernmost of the three. He fell when I had struck fingers from his hand, and he collapsed beside the stone cross. I saw him stand, his hand resting on the cross itself to help himself up. I felt sorry for him.’
‘He left his blood there,’ Simon said.
‘There were no fingers,’ Baldwin observed.
The coroner muttered, ‘There are enough scavenging animals here to take them. Magpies, crows, buzzards…’
Simon nodded. ‘Why did you fear to speak to us, Rudolf?’
‘I had been seen drawing my knife against him in the town, and then again out by the rock. It seemed natural to me to think that I would be viewed as the man’s murderer when I heard that he had died.’
‘Who saw you out by the cross?’ Simon asked.
‘It was a monk, I don’t know his name, he was just a man standing there with the cowl and habit. Oh, and he carried a stick.’
‘So! I suppose you’d defend this man’s murderer as well, would you?’ Sir Tristram sneered.
Peter hadn’t heard him walk up behind him, and now he turned, his lips still moving as he spoke the words of the viaticum. He refused to rise to the bait, and continued through the office until he had completed the prayers, and only then did he stand and confront Sir Tristram. ‘Well? Are you so offended that I should serve another?’
‘You! You serve your own ends at all times, don’t you? Scotch-lover!’
Peter felt his scar pull as he smiled. ‘You never understood how our faith demands that we should protect and serve even our enemies, did you?’
‘The bailiff told me that there was a monk here from Tynemouth. At the time it never occurred to me that it could be you! I thought you were dead long ago.’
‘You would have preferred it. If you had swung this blow…’
‘I would not have missed your scrawny neck, Monk.’
‘You have never forgiven me, have you? All I did was help a brother monk to save a man’s life.’
‘He was a Scots raider. You are lucky you weren’t found with him. If I’d found you, you’d have died.’
‘My woman found him,’ Peter said. He could remember her racing towards him, her braids flying in the wind, panic in her face. His friend and he had hurried to the man’s body. When he tried to turn his memory to her, he found himself seeing her broken body – although he had not seen it. She was buried while he lay near to death.
‘More evil. You are supposed to be chaste, yet you lived with your concubine.’
‘She was a good woman,’ Peter said defensively.
‘She was a Scottish whore.’
Peter’s anger flickered, but he had no spirit to fan the flames. Not after so many years. ‘It was wrong. Yet it is also wrong to label her that way. She was an honourable girl.’
‘Honourable? Perhaps the slatterns in the alehouses are honourable, then. And what did the man you saved do, hey? He took her for himself, didn’t he? He took her and raped her and killed her. All because you saved him. You would deal with the enemy.’
‘She was no man’s enemy. She was a woman caught up in a stupid, irrational war of greed,’ Peter flared.
‘And she persuaded you to forswear your oath, Brother. You screwed her, didn’t you? And that makes you an oathbreaker.’
Peter looked away, his anger dissipating, trying
