For the Love of Old Bones - and other stories (Templar Series) (3 page)

His story struck a cold chill in my bowels and I felt the anger colouring my face. ‘Do you think this Edward tried to force himself on her?’ I demanded. ‘If he did, by Christ’s blood, he’ll answer to me!’

‘Oh, no, sir. I’m sure he’d not have done that. Edward’s been coming here for donkey’s years.’

‘Was he drunk?’ Baldwin asked quietly. I couldn’t help but feel he thought my outburst was excessive, but then I must admit I was finding his coolness annoying.

The innkeeper gave a faint grin. ‘You know Ed, Sir Baldwin! It’d be a rare day he wasn’t a bit drunk. Still, he wasn’t bitter or angry, just a little, well, thoughtful, I suppose.’

‘Did you see where they went?’

‘Yes, sir. I thought . . . Well, she was an attractive girl, and I couldn’t help watching her. They went down the street a short way and into the alley near Ralph’s place. The one where she was found last night. They went inside, but then I had to go to serve a customer. A while later she was back, took up her pack and went off. Ed came in a few minutes after her, and he went to his seat at the back. He stayed there for a good bit, before taking a game of dice.’

‘Who were the other players?’ Baldwin asked.

‘The Coroner’s men-at-arms, Sir Baldwin. I’m sure they’ll remember him, he played with them for a long time.’

‘When did he leave?’

‘Early evening. One of the girls spent her time trying to tempt him, but he told her to piss off, and walked out.’

‘So by now he was more bitter? In his cups he became angry?’

‘I suppose so, Sir Baldwin. But like I say, he left here long after her.’

Sir Baldwin led the way to the street. There he paused and motioned to his servant, spoke to him quietly, and sent him off on some errand. Then he and I began to make our way back to the Dean’s house, but to my surprise he turned off and instead headed back towards that damned alley. By now Sir Baldwin’s attitude was making me quite warm. The man was deliberately taking over my inquest, and wouldn’t even explain what he was up to. I tried to control my growing annoyance, but I think a little of my feeling must have come across from the way he stopped and stared at me.

‘Is there something the matter, Sir Eustace?’ he asked.

‘Yes, there is,’ I declared hotly. ‘God’s bones! What in the name of hell are we going down here for?’

He began to walk again. ‘I have an inclination that we might see something in daylight which we missed before. Clearly the girl had her purse stolen or she mislaid it between leaving the inn and going to the alehouse. I merely wonder whether she might have lost it here.’

I kicked a pebble from my path, but there was little to say. His decision was logical, and the purse had to be somewhere. Like him, I knew that most thieves would drop a purse once they had emptied it. There was no point keeping hold of something which could prove guilt.

It was only a short way from the inn, and soon we were in the gloomy corridor. The place where her body had lain was scuffed and muddy from all the feet which had come to see where she had died, and I was confident the knight was wasting his time. I leaned against the wall while he probed and searched. Then he gave a short exclamation, and sprang towards me, snatching something from the ground at my feet.

‘What is it?’ I asked, and in answer the grinning knight held out a small circle of yellow metal, crusted with mud.

‘So the thief dropped her ring as he fled?’ I suggested. His look sent a shiver of expectation trickling down my spine.

He ignored my words and peered at the wall. It was of cob and had probably been the outer wall of a house, but now it simply enclosed a garden. Baldwin turned and went back to the street, going to the front door and asking the bemused owner if he could go into the garden. As we walked through the house, he gave me a dry little smile. ‘If someone stole her purse, he may well have taken out all the coins and thrown it, empty, over the nearest wall. That would be sensible, wouldn’t it?’

I grunted. As far as I was concerned the man was a fool, wasting my time as well as his own. I saw no reason to alter my opinion when we arrived in the yard. Sir Baldwin crouched and scrabbled amongst the weeds near the wall. And then, to my astonishment, he lifted up her purse. I couldn’t mistake it.

He hefted it in his hand, head on one side as he surveyed me. ‘It’s still full, Coroner,’ he said softly, and there was a chill coldness in his voice and manner which I didn’t like. But I felt it would be better not to take umbrage. Saying no more, he turned away and stalked from the place.

We had only gone a short way down the street when it happened. I should have expected it, of course, but when the tranter shouted and pointed at me, it was still a shock.

‘
Murderer! Bigamist
!’

The blood turned to ice in my veins, my bowels felt as though they had turned to water, and I swallowed and retreated before the accusing finger Edward pointed at me. He had been waiting with Sir Baldwin’s sergeant; obviously the knight had sent his man to fetch the tranter so that he could accuse me in this way. In the middle of the street, mark you!

‘What do you mean by pointing at me? Do you dare to suggest —’ I blustered, but the man leaned forward and spat at me.

‘
Look
at him, Sir Baldwin, a
noble knight
he’d have you believe, but he’s a murderer of women! He has his wife at home, but he desired this young girl, so he swore his vows to her and enjoyed her nuptial bed, and then deserted her. And now he’s murdered her to stop her spreading word of his faithlessness and deceit!’

The Dean was kind. He refused to allow the inquest to continue until I had drunk a full pint of wine, and I gratefully swallowed the jug in two draughts. I hadn’t expected my secret to be so speedily discovered. When I had drunk, the Dean sat on a bench and Sir Baldwin motioned to his servant, who walked from the room - I thought to fetch more wine - before speaking.

‘Now, Edward, perhaps you could tell us why you made your accusation?’ Sir Baldwin was seated in the Dean’s own chair across the table from me, the purse and ring before him, and I could almost feel his look, as if his eyes were shooting flames at me.

‘I knew the girl. Her name was Emily, daughter of Reginald, a merchant in Tiverton. I used to have dealings with her father, and met her at the inn yesterday afternoon. She was tired, but thrilled to be here in Crediton, and I asked her if her father was with her. She went quiet at that, and said he wasn’t. I pressed her, but she wouldn’t say much, only soon she admitted she’d married a man by exchanging vows, but her father wanted her to wed someone of his choosing, and she left home rather than tell him what she’d done.’

The Dean nodded. ‘If the two exchanged vows, the marriage was legal and valid, even if they did not have the banns read or have a priest witness their nuptials.’

‘Yes, it was valid, sir, except she confessed that her lover was the Coroner, and this Coroner of ours is married, with a daughter. I realised immediately what had happened. Emily was a beautiful girl, Sir Baldwin. Any man would be proud to possess her, and this one wanted her all the more because she wouldn’t satisfy his lust without a legal marriage. So he swore to her, and took her, and left her. And yesterday I had to tell poor Emily that he was married. She was desolate. Can you imagine it? Her lover had lied; she had lost her maidenhead to a man who could never be hers. For him she had forsaken her father and her family.’

‘What do you say to this, Coroner?’ Sir Baldwin demanded.

‘It’s rubbish! How can you trust to the word of a man like this? I . . .’

The blasted tranter cut me short. ‘Sir, another thing is, this Coroner met her while he was in Tiverton performing the inquest on a girl who’d been stabbed in the market.’

‘You cannot suggest that I had anything to do with that,’ I cried. ‘Christ’s pain! It was two days after the murder that I arrived in town!’

‘You were there all the time,’ he countered, ‘staying with the de Courtenay family at the castle.’

It was true, and there was no way I could deny it with conviction, but I still appealed to Sir Baldwin. ‘Sir, you must believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with this murder! I couldn’t have killed the poor girl. I loved her!’

That brought a chilly comment from the Dean. ‘And what of your wife, Coroner? What of her whom you should have loved before you ever perjured yourself to this poor child?’

‘Dean, I loved her! My wife and I have been married for years . . . You can’t understand, your vow of chastity has emasculated you, but a man like me can love many women and . . .’

‘Enough!’ Sir Baldwin snapped. ‘There is no need for you to say more, it is clear that you accept your bigamy.’ He turned to Edward again. ‘You have done well to bring all this to my attention, yet I would like to hear why you are so convinced that he killed her as well.’

The tranter took a deep breath. ‘After I spoke to her, she was devastated. She said she would speak to the Coroner. I said to her it would be foolish, but she begged me to intervene on her behalf, to speak to one of the Coroner’s servants and demand a meeting between them. Well, I sat back and thought about it long and hard, but finally did as she asked. I got into a game of dice with some of the Coroner’s men, and explained what had happened. The fellow gave me to believe it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened, and agreed to ask the Coroner to meet her near the alley where she was found.’

‘That’s true enough,’ I said, trying to demonstrate my innocence by assisting, but all I got was a chilly stare from Sir Baldwin, and I subsided.

‘He promised that the Coroner would be there late in the afternoon, and I saw her as she left the inn and told her where to go. She thanked me, and went down to the alehouse, fearful of meeting someone she might know, if she stayed at the inn, and she concealed her purse when I suggested it. An alehouse is not the place to take lots of coin. She laughed then, sort of bitter. Said it wasn’t hers now anyway. I . . . I also decided to go to the alley and see if she was all right. I was worried. I thought he might harm her.’

‘What did you see?’ Sir Baldwin asked quietly, his eyes on me.

‘Sir, I found them right where her body was later. She accused him, and he confessed, sneering . . .’ I felt the priest’s cold, angry eyes fix upon me ‘. . . and said he would pay her to go away. Said she should go back to her father and not waste the King’s Coroner’s time. She dropped to her knees in the dirt and begged him to help her, but he laughed. Said he’d already paid her a small fortune, more than he’d paid a whore before! She said she’d thought the purse of money was so that she could go and set up home for them both, and he laughed again, saying it was just the price of her virginity. That was when she stood and started throwing things at him, calling him every name under the sun. He looked touched by her rage and misery, and apologised. I heard him promise her more money if she’d stop her crying. They were walking towards me now, so I ducked into a dark corner until they’d passed, then left. I needed a drink to wash away his deceit.’

I must confess to a vague sense of disinterest in the matter now. Maybe it was the wine, but it was as if all rationality had left me, and I was merely the shell of a man observing the destruction of another. I found myself biting my nails, bleakly watching the knight and priest with bland unawareness. It was as though all my reasoning abilities had flown.
 

Sir Baldwin nodded, drumming his fingers on the table before him. Shielding his eyes, he said, ‘You went back to the inn, I suppose?’

‘No, the alehouse owned by John and his wife.’

‘And you did not see her again until you saw her body?’

‘That’s right.’

Now Sir Baldwin frowned at the table top before him. ‘Is there anything you want to add, Sir Eustace?’

‘It’s a lie,’ I spat. ‘The man’s jealous of me because she wanted me, and he’s prepared to lie to have me hanged! He hates authority! Look at him, you can see it in his eyes, for Christ’s sake! I met her, it’s true, but she had her purse on her, and she held it to me and told me to take it back because she couldn’t keep it, not now, and that was when I left her. Her tears were painful to witness, so I left her and came back here to the church for the feast. I wouldn’t have killed her! Why should I? What would have been the bloody point?’

There was plenty more I could have said, damning him, the miserable tranter, even the Dean, but I held my tongue and dumbly shook my head. The truth is, I was too appalled by my position to be able to think clearly at all, and seeing the loathing in the Dean’s eyes, where the night before they had been full of respect and friendship, left me feeling shrivelled and withdrawn.

Sir Baldwin sat silently and stared, yes, stared at me, for a good long while. All the time the room was quiet, as if everyone there was waiting for him to decide on my sentence. I wanted to scream out, ‘It’s not true, it’s all a lie!’ but I knew there was no point. Even the brilliant Sir Baldwin wouldn’t be able to prove my innocence, and, to be fair, it looked as if he had already made up his own mind about my guilt.

He finally pulled his eyes from me with an apparent effort of will, and drew them down to the table-top once more. He pulled the little purse towards him and untied the strings.

‘I believe you are innocent, Coroner,’ he said, and with those words I felt a charge like a blast of gunpowder thrill my whole body. I staggered like a man punched, and couldn’t help but let out a gasp.

‘
No
!’ The tranter shook his head in disbelief and gazed wildly from the knight to me, his mouth working in rage. ‘You can’t let him go! I told you he was there, and I saw her with him. Who else could have killed her?’

‘You,’ said Sir Baldwin equably without looking up. He up-ended the purse and tipped out a stream of copper coins. ‘And this money is why.’

Well, I confess I began to wonder about his reasoning then. He sat there, sadly studying the small pile of cash before him, like a seneschal who has just been told a serf cannot pay more towards his rent. When he spoke, his voice came from far away, as if he was relating a story long rehearsed.