House of Shadows

ACT THREE

Morrow of the Feast of St Andrew [1],

Eighteenth Year of the Reign of King Edward II,

Bermondsey, Surrey

The monk looked at the newlyweds standing smiling before him, each so obviously joyful in the company of the other, and knew only pleasure in their happiness at first. They were so happy, and yet he knew as well as they did what risks they ran. Suddenly his belly clenched, and for a moment he couldn’t think why. Then he remembered the old story of Lady Alice and Brother Francis all those years before.

That was all long ago. A woman with no shame, a whoring bitch who tempted the poor chaplain from his vows and threatened his soul with her lusts. It was said that the two had disappeared soon after, snatched away by the devil himself.

‘Brother Lawrence, we are so grateful to you.’

The two had walked to him, and Lawrence was uncomfortable with their gratitude. Not so these two, please, God, he prayed. She was so terribly young, he much more experienced. It was that reflection that brought on the sense of fear again. In Christ’s name, he knew full well that it might matter not a whit that they adored each other. Their families might do all in their power to destroy them. Others had in the past.

‘We have been wanting to marry since we first met here, on the afternoon of the feast of St Peter ad Vincula last year,’ she said.

That day, he thought with a shock.

‘The day that the traitor escaped,’ her husband confirmed.

‘We saw them, I think,’ she continued. ‘I saw the men coming over the river in the early darkness. It was my husband here who saved me. God knows what men such as they would have done to me. He pulled me aside until they’d all ridden away.’

John, the novice, was listening intently, Lawrence saw. The older monk motioned to him with a frown, and John walked off a short distance. Lawrence didn’t want him listening to anything that might be difficult to keep to himself. A boy had enough to hold secret as it was. The fewer the temptations of gossip the better.

‘What were you doing here at such a time?’ he asked.

She flushed a little. ‘I was a fool! I saw William that afternoon and came to speak to him. We remained longer than we should. It was only my husband here who saved me!’

Her expression was so joyous as she turned to him that the monk had to look away. He folded his hands, and as the two embraced he bowed his head and prayed for them. They would need God’s help if they were to survive.

‘When the men came, we saw the ghost. It terrified me, but my husband held me close and protected me. Of course, later we realized!’ The monk’s quick look made her nod sadly. ‘Yes, I told my father.’

He motioned to her to be quiet and drew her away from the others, but when they were finished, and he had made the sign of the cross over her in forgiveness, he shook his head. It was a sad, sad confession to have to make. He only hoped no more harm would come of her actions.

The girl’s maid, Avice, stood at the side of the novice, but the monk saw that in her eyes, too, there was little pleasure to see her mistress wedded. Only a certain reserved anxiety, as though she, too, was viewing their future and disliked what she saw. The only witness who genuinely approved of the match appeared to be John, his new novice, who stood with a fixed grin on his face.

Brother Lawrence sighed inwardly. He tapped John on the shoulder and nodded back towards the priory. John made a sign of acquiescence. Their order demanded silence as well as obedience.

The two turned away from the little clearing where the marriage had been sworn and witnessed, but as Lawrence walked away he realized that John had stopped and was now gazing back at the newlyweds again.

John gave a defensive shrug of his shoulders.

Lawrence could see what he meant. The two were so full of joy. But the older brother could not help but tell himself: ‘For now, yes. She is the happiest woman alive. But when her family hears what she has done…my God! I only hope no evil comes of this!’

Vigil of the Feast of St George the Martyr [2],

Surrey Side of the Thames

Sir Baldwin de Furnshill was a reluctant visitor to this, the greatest city of the realm.

Content with his lot as a rural knight living in Devon, he would have been happy not to have returned. He had been here many years before, when he had still been one of those fortunates, a respected and honoured member of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, a Knight Templar. But his order had been destroyed by that snake King Philip IV of France, and his dishonourable, mendacious lackey Pope Clement V. Those two had seen to the destruction of the Temple and the murder of many loyal brothers in their avaricious pursuit of the order’s wealth.

Yes, the last time Sir Baldwin had seen London and Westminster had been more than ten years ago, when he had fled France after his order’s dissolution. He had arrived here in the hope that he might find some few of his old companions and had made his way to the Temple. Once there, he stood and stared, dumbfounded. He should not have gone. It was depressing to see how his order’s headquarters in Britain had been so pillaged. Where once the rich and powerful had congregated to petition the order, where kings had come to borrow money and others came to give up their secular lives, accepting a life of rigorous training, obedience, poverty and chastity, now beggars and peasants gathered. Drunks walked in cloisters meant for spiritual contemplation. He felt sickened to see how this deeply religious place had been so debased.

Still, the tall, bearded knight with the calm, square face could easily understand how a city like this must be thrilling to a man like his companion, Simon Puttock, from Devon. Just how impressed Simon was would have been perfectly plain to a less observant man than him.

‘Christ’s ballocks, Baldwin! Look at the size of it! I thought Exeter’s bridge was huge, but this!’

Baldwin grinned to himself. His companion was more than a decade younger, and, although they had often worked together in the last eight years, he as keeper of the king’s peace charged with capturing and prosecuting felons, Simon as bailiff to the Abbot of Tavistock with responsibility for law and order on the troublesome tin-mining lands of Dartmoor, Baldwin had never truly accustomed himself to Simon’s parochial view of the world. ‘Yes, I would say it is perhaps the most impressive bridge in all Christendom.’

Which was true. It might not have been as elegant as some, God knew. The bridges of Paris, of Rome and of Avignon were all marvellous to behold – but there was something about the immensity of this, with the gaudy red and white, blue and gilt paintwork on the huge buildings that stood over the roadway like an enormous series of tunnels, that was almost otherworldly. Nineteen arches, some hundred or more shops on it, the chapel, the drawbridge halfway along its length – it was an immense creation.

Men in other cities built from a desire to make their world beautiful; Baldwin believed that Londoners built to be rigorously efficient – and to overwhelm visitors.

They were here, to Baldwin’s disgust, because he had been persuaded by the Bishop of Exeter. It was much against his better judgement, but he had a feeling that many in power were not to be trusted, and if the government were dishonourable, it ill behoved him to complain without attempting to do something about it himself. So here he was, recently elected to the English Parliament, ready to do his duty and uphold the honour and integrity of the nation’s laws so far as he was personally able.

That thought made him curl his lip with self-deprecating amusement. It made him feel ridiculous. He was a rural knight. At home in Devon he understood life. Here he was aware at all times how alien the people seemed…how foreign he felt. And that it was people here, like those in the Parliament, who had eagerly helped destroy his order.

The Bishop of Exeter had a house just by the Temple, he knew, west of the city walls, just by the Fleet river. Truth be told, Baldwin could have brought Simon by that route, but he hadn’t. He needed to prepare himself before he took another look at the Temple grounds. Instead he had chosen to come here, south of the river, and to cross the Thames over the drawbridge at London’s great bridge. Once here, he could turn west more easily, he thought.

But when they had passed over the river and entered the city walls, Baldwin gazed that way with a heavy heart. If he must go there and see his old order’s headquarters buildings, he would do so after resting. To go there now, tired and depressed, would serve no useful purpose to anyone.

‘Follow me. I know a place to stay,’ he said, and led the way into the great city, taking Simon eastwards, away from the bishop’s London house – the enormous place just outside the Temple’s grounds.

William de Monte Acuto stood pensively in his hall, a middle-height man clad in a rich scarlet tunic with fur trimming his collar. Few even in London had known wealth such as he had enjoyed – once, but no longer.

Only a short time ago he had been a strong, healthy, fair-haired man with chiselled features that were his own secret pride. His chin was powerful and square, his nose straight, his brow unmarked by scars even after a number of battles at sea, and he knew that women looked at him with lust in their eyes.

But no longer. Where once his calm blue eyes had exuded confidence, now there was a drawn introspection. Laughter lines were replaced by tormented tracks at either side of his mouth: the marks of anxiety and loss. Few had known such wealth, no – and fewer had seen it disappear so speedily.

‘Continue,’ he said.

This growing rage was hardly new to him. Since his fall from favour, the anger had never been far from him. Still, that someone could have betrayed him was unthinkable – it was almost a prerequisite in business, aye, but this was one of his own. Any man who had spent a little time on board ship to make money knew that many merchants were in truth little better than pirates. Nothing was ever intended as a personal insult, of course, but if a man could steal another’s cargo at sea, far away from prying eyes, then he would be an arrant fool not to do so. It was natural.

But this…this was different. This was a man he had brought up, a man he would have trusted to the ends of the earth, just as any lord would trust his most devoted men-at-arms. This was intolerable!

‘Master, I am truly sorry…’

‘I said: “continue”,’ William stated softly. He didn’t need to look at the messenger to know how his cold tone would have affected the man. Any man who had served him as long as old Perce would know that his voice was more often an indicator of his mood than were his eyes.

‘As you ordered, I followed him. He went up towards the water, as you reckoned, near the Bishop of Winchester’s house.’

Once William had owned properties in London itself. That was back in the past, when he had been rich. Not now, though. Now all he had was this small manor in Surrey, a short way south of Southwark.

‘So he went to the whores?’ William hoped so. Perhaps this was all: the lad was wandering up to the bishop’s lands. The wenches were so common up there, they were known as ‘Winchester geese’. The bishop waxed fat on their rents, and what could be more natural than that a lad of his age, almost twenty, should want to go and slake his natural desires?

‘He didn’t stop there. He carried on, master.’

William closed his eyes. ‘And?’

‘Master, I am sorry. I can tell you only what happened.’

‘Then do so!’

‘I saw him. He went up past St Thomas’s and over to Bermondsey. There was a woman there. It was Juliet Capun.’

‘So I was right. He is betraying me,’ William said heavily. He turned and walked slowly to his table, sitting on his great chair, trying to hold back the tears. Looking up, he nodded. ‘You’ve done well, Perce. Very well.’

He barely heard the man’s sad apologies, and Perce’s departure went unnoticed. At least Perce was still loyal to him. It was treachery that offended him more than anything.

Especially the treachery of his own son.

It was naughty to tease the novices, but it was also a time-honoured tradition, and when his novice asked about the ghost, Brother Lawrence was not the man to let an opportunity pass him by. There were brief periods during which he was permitted to instruct John, and he did have a duty to let the boy know about the appalling history of the priory.

Only later would he realize what had been happening as he slowly paced about the cloister, but at the time all he thought about was the expression of rapt horror on John’s face as he told the story of the ghosts of the priory.

‘Her name was Lady Alice,’ he said with relish. The basics he knew, of course, but any story had to be embellished to make it believable, and twenty years here in the convent had lent his imagination wings. ‘She was brought here for safekeeping, and her lover was a chaplain, a strong, bold fellow called…Francis. He was here to watch over her, but she had a lustful spirit that could not be tamed. She was tempted, and she succumbed and tormented poor Francis until he also yielded.

‘Well, Francis saw that their love could lead only to disaster, so he tried to extricate himself from her clutches. Too late, poor man. Too late. Their passion would not permit them to keep apart, and I fear that they sought each other out. I know-’ he held up a hand in pained agreement ‘-what they did was appalling. To sin in such manner here in the house of God…and not only once, so I heard…Well, God’s fury was roused!’

Lawrence knew also how to maintain suspense, and while he tried to think of a suitable ending to this story he could sense the novice’s increasing torment.

‘And? Brother? What happened to them?’

Lawrence shook his head sadly. ‘They died. Both of them. But it is said that no one ever found their bodies. You see, some say that they decided to flee the priory, where they were honour bound to live out their lives in the service of God as their oaths demanded, and while trying to cross the marshes in the night they sank into a bog and perished. Some say that they were so miserable with their sins that they went to the river and threw themselves in. But the truth is concealed in the prior’s books. Did you know that there is a chronicle of the earliest times of our foundation? In there, I have heard tell-’ and he dropped his voice and looked about him as the novice leaned closer, his eyes grown round with thrilled horror ‘-it says that a great devilish beast came and bore them away, John. So terrifying was it that all who saw it fell to the ground, and some were never right in their minds again after that.’

He withdrew, nodding with solemn sagacity, eyeing the novice. ‘And ever since that day, men have said that they have seen their ghosts – especially in the undercroft just here. See that? There is where the two are supposed to have been captured in flagrante delicto. You understand that?’

The boy did. No one at the convent could deny that they had more thoughts about such indecent acts than about anything else.

‘Well, let that be a lesson to you. A man who commits a mortal sin of that nature is accursed, but a monk! He is damned for ever, as is the whore with whom he consorts. Never forget that, John, or you, too, will see the ghosts, and they’ll beckon you to join them. Great, tall ghosts, enormous, with grasping hands to pull you down to hell!’

A tolling bell caught his attention.

‘Hurry, lad. It’s time to wash your hands for vespers.’

‘But…’

‘What?’

‘Would a crime like that be more evil than any other?’

‘Perhaps not. The king ordering Prior Walter to be arrested and held in the Tower: that, too, is a great crime against God; He will punish the guilty.’

Lawrence watched as the lad nodded seriously. Dear heaven, but he must try to moderate his tone. He had let the boy see his own pain, and that was a dangerous thing, now that the prior had been arrested and marched away. Prior Walter was ever a strong defender of the rights and liberties of Bermondsey – for all the good it had done him. Accused of aiding the escape of King Edward’s most detested traitor, Lord Mortimer, who had managed to get out of the Tower of London and make his way, so they said, to France, there was nothing he could say or do in his own defence. When a man was accused by the king, no defence was adequate.

That was the state of the kingdom now. No man was secure if once accused. The king’s deplorable adviser, confidant and, so it was rumoured, lover, Sir Hugh Le Despenser, held sway. After the last civil war, the king and Despenser had emerged victorious, and both had sought all who had stood against them. Knights, bannerets and even lords were arrested and barbarically executed. Even priors had to tread warily.

Because the prior was thought ‘unsound’ by the king’s special advisers, he was taken away and replaced with this…this affected, primping coxcomb. A vain, foolish courtier, John de Cusance, whose interest in the priory extended only so far as the quality of the food. He had neither interest in nor understanding of the holy mission of the priory, which existed solely to fight for the souls of the men of this world by the careful round of prayers and services. This new prior was no protection to them. Prior John had his position because his brother was close to the king’s especial adviser, Sir Hugh Le Despenser.

Brother Lawrence watched the boy scuttle off in the direction of the laver to wash his hands. He could remember how enthusiastic he had been at John’s age.

His face hardened. That was a long time ago. A long, long time ago.

Feast of St George the Martyr [3],

Bermondsey Marsh

Old Elena could scarcely see it sticking up from the mud and filth, her eyes were so tightly narrowed against the rain that slanted down that morning.

Foul weather, this, especially since it was so unexpected. In the past they had grown used to the swyving rains that fell incessantly through the summer and into autumn, but for the last couple of years the weather had been better, and through the summer there had been food to eat and fewer deaths. This year, though, she wasn’t sure that the houses wouldn’t all be flooded again. She’d have to get her belongings up into the eaves again, just in case.

She had been to the market this morning, and when she left her home here by the Thames in Surrey the sun had been shining. There were no clouds, and if it was windy – well, when wasn’t it up here?

It was on the way back that the weather had set in suddenly, a low, dark squall rushing up the river, and all she could do was lower her head and try to hurry homewards before she was drenched. Too late to worry now. A chilly trickle at the back of her neck told her that the bastard rain had already penetrated. Even if she hung up all her clothing in her hovel before her fire, it would still be clammy and dank in the morning. One day’s rain spelled two days’ misery.

Her home was east of the priory, and she averted her head as she passed it, trying not to shiver. Here, in the gloom of the late afternoon there was an unwholesome aspect to the place. Made her feel chilled to see it. When she was a mere bratchett she had been prone to wander, and her parents had told her tales of the ghost there to control her. It had been enough to stop her wandering about the countryside. The stories of a foul, grey figure calling to travellers and drowning them had been used by parents for generations to quiet noisy and froward children.

But she’d seen it. A pale, grey figure out on the mudflats. Others told her that she’d just been taking too much of her ale and that she’d caught sight of one of the monks out on the marshlands, but she knew what she’d seen. A ghost.

That was her view, and no one would change it. Especially not some pissy priest. The fellow’d heard her talking about the figure on the marshes, and he’d gone to her to tell her not to be so ‘foolish’.

She paused, squinting ahead with a surly cast to her mouth. ‘Foolish,’ he’d said, like she was some superstitious chit with chaff in her brains. He could go to the devil. Wasn’t as though the priory was a bastion of honour and integrity. That idea had been discarded in the last year. It was only a short while ago that the prior himself had been taken away. Walter de Luiz, aye, because he’d helped rescue that traitor Mortimer from the Tower.

Elena made her way around the outer wall, casting a glance about her at the grey, stirred waters of the river as she went. There were always bits and pieces which a careful woman might collect and sell if she kept an eye on the shoreline.

There was little enough love in the world. That was Elena’s view, and no one would persuade her otherwise. She was a God-fearing woman, none more so, and it made her anxious that God had forsaken them. He’d taken away the Holy Land, hadn’t he, and that showed how He had turned His face from His flock.

She saw something in among the low, tussocky grasses and hesitated. With the rain slashing down, she really wanted to be indoors, not picking her way through the boggy wetlands to see whether this was a worthwhile item, but in the end poverty dictated her actions. She grunted to herself, threw a look of resentment at the heavens and began to make her way to it. It could be a spar of wood, from the look of it. Every item had some value to the poor, and few were poorer than she.

Once, when she was only a chit, she had heard a preacher foretell disaster. It was a little after the Holy Land had been wrested from the Crusaders, and his words often came back to her. Famine, aye, and war and plague. Well, there was no plague of men, God be praised, but murrains attacked the sheep and cattle, and that was bad enough. Then the famine came. Christ Jesus! In the summer nine years ago, one in every ten folk about here had starved. There had been times a body couldn’t walk along the road without seeing another poor soul tottering, only to fall and lie still at last in the mud. So many dead. So many starving and desperate.

For a moment she remembered her Thomas. His smile, his cheery hugs, his lovemaking…

Pointless. That was two years ago, nearly. She’d found him the morning of the feast of St Peter ad Vincula, the day after she’d first seen the ghost on the marshes. That was what the ghost did for her: it showed Elena that her man was about to die.

Last night she thought she’d seen the ghost again. A tall, grey figure out on the marshes, clad in hood and cloak.

‘You can’t take my man again,’ she rasped to herself.

Since his death, life had been hard. Always more people about trying to scrape a living. The weak, the hungry, the halt and lame, all came through here to reach London, the great city that drew in all: the rich, the poor, the hopeful, the desperate. It took them in and spat out their bones when the life had been sucked from them.

In this weather the city was almost entirely concealed, she thought, glancing over the pocked river’s surface. The bridge was a faint smudge from here, all of half a mile or more away in the murkiness caused by the rain. Opposite, on the far bank of the river, was the great Tower of the king where the traitor had been held until his escape. He’d have had to take a boat to here. Not that Elena had seen him, of course. He was over the river and on a horse early in the night. The night her man died.

The Tower was a glimmering white vision even in this dull light. When she had been young, not a worn old wench in her late forties, she had been used to staring over at that fortress in admiration, imagining all the rich lords and ladies who visited the place. Now she knew it was a place of terror, a prison for those who had fallen out of favour with the king, like Prior Walter de Luiz. He was in there even now.

It was in between her and the Tower, rising from behind a hillock on the very edge of the water. Grunting with the effort, she made her way to it, slipping and cursing on the fine, watery mud that made up so much of this landscape. Once she almost toppled headlong, but then she reached the hillock and recognized it.

No spar. Nothing but a long, slim, elegant arm sticking up from behind a hillock of muddy sand.

John the novice was studying in the cloister as she stumbled towards it, frowning as he tried to make sense of the words on the page.

A novice’s life was harsh by some standards, but he had been happy here, and would have remained so if he’d be left to do God’s work. There was a genuine delight in his work, a feeling that all was right while he was in here. Of course, he hadn’t taken the final vows yet – he was too young still – but he would. So long as the new prior permitted him, of course.

Prior John de Cusance was an unknown figure. Walter de Luiz was the master of the priory when the novice first arrived, and all had loved him. Lawrence always said that Prior Walter was one of those rare men who would get on in the world even though he was invariably kind and generous. It made him unique. He was a man to emulate…as was Lawrence himself, of course. There were rumours that Lawrence had himself gone out to the muddy flats to help the notorious traitor and rebel Mortimer escape from the Tower. Not that Lawrence ever took any credit for such matters, of course. He was far too self-effacing.

No, John’s friends had never understood his impatience about joining the monastery. They all wanted women, money, ale, or the chance to win renown and glory. There were plenty of them who’d be happy to throw their lives away in a tournament, or in some battle whose only purpose was to win a leader greater prestige, or his soldiers some profit at the point of a sword. What was the use of that?

John had always aimed higher. Yes, if he’d wished he could have joined the warrior monks, the Knights Hospitaller – but he couldn’t in all conscience. No, if he were to do that, he’d be living in the secular world, and there was nothing in that for him. He had decided to renounce that life while a lad, and at the first opportunity he presented himself to the bishop and asked to be allowed to devote his life to God and His works.

Never had he been tempted to reconsider his choice. However, when he heard the shivering scream that burst from Elena up near the river, he was aware of a presentiment of terror that would grow to shake even his iron belief.

There was a fixed procedure here in Surrey when a body was discovered, and there were so often bodies washed up on the banks that all knew it. The First Finder had to go quickly to the four nearest neighbours. There were some folk who lived at the edge of the priory’s lands, and Elena hurried there before sending for a coroner.

Brother Lawrence was quickly on the scene, splashing through the filthy puddles of this benighted land. When he saw her, he crossed himself hurriedly, his face twisted with sadness. ‘This is indeed terrible!’

The vill’s constable, a taciturn veteran from the old king’s Welsh wars, glanced across at him. ‘She was a pretty little thing.’

Lawrence nodded. ‘Do you not know her?’

Constable Hob peered down at her and shook his head. ‘I hadn’t looked at her – why? Should I? There are often bodies down here. Folk are killed in London and the river brings their bodies down this way. She could have been from anywhere.’

‘She was from London,’ Lawrence said. ‘I know her. She was called Juliet, daughter of Henry Capun.’

‘Shite!’ Hob reached down and turned the girl’s head, staring at her features. ‘Oh, God’s ballocks!’

‘Yes. Her father is a paid banneret in the household of Sir Hugh Le Despenser,’ Lawrence said mournfully.

The constable gripped his heavy staff and leaned on it. ‘That will make for a pretty fine.’

Lawrence could not help but agree. It was bad enough to discover a body in the vill, but to have a wealthy and important man’s daughter found dead was doubly so. And any man who could call on the aid of my lord Despenser was a very important man indeed.

Constable Hob looked at the monk with a speculative air, and Lawrence submitted to the question. He beckoned the man to walk with him, and they meandered over the damp marshlands away from the body and eavesdroppers.

‘You know something of this?’ the constable asked.

‘I do not know…How did she die?’

‘She was stabbed.’

‘And then thrown in the water?’

Hob shot a look over his shoulder to see that no one could hear. ‘No. That’s what we always say because sometimes the coroner will give us a lower penalty if it’s clear that the body’s nothing to do with anyone in the vill. This girl was stabbed right here, from the look of her. There’s a dagger in her hand, so perhaps she killed herself?’

Lawrence looked back. ‘She had everything to live for. I cannot believe that.’

‘You knew her?’

Lawrence looked at him steadily. He knew Hob well. Quietly, he said, ‘I saw her married. I was witness to it. It was a match of love. Which is why it was not declared: they did not wish for her father to grow angry and harm them.’

‘It was a concealed marriage?’

‘They gave their vows in front of me and two witnesses. It was a legal match.’

Hob puffed out his cheeks. ‘This will be a…’

But before he could say more, there was a harsh bellow from a man nearer the river.

‘There’s another body here!’

Morrow of the Feast of St George the Martyr [4],

Bishop Stapledon’s Hall, Temple

There was a roiling in Sir Baldwin’s belly when he first saw the bishop’s London home – not because of the house itself but because just south and east of it, like a giant peering over a smaller man’s shoulder, he could see his order’s chief preceptory in England. It made him want to bow and pray for his comrades who had once inhabited the place. As it was, he was glad of the thin rain that fell so steadily. It persuaded him to keep his head down, so he caught only fleeting glimpses.

‘That’s a huge place,’ Simon said, seeing where his eyes were gazing.

‘A good size,’ Baldwin agreed, but then realized his friend was looking at Bishop Stapledon’s home.

Marching up to the gatehouse, Simon told the porter who they were and asked for the bishop. Seeing how Baldwin’s eyes remained fixed on the building between them and the river, the man said: ‘It’s the old Templar estate.’ He spat into the street. ‘God damn the evil bastards.’

Simon knew Baldwin’s background and hurriedly led him away. The knight’s jaw was working, and he had a sour look on his face, like a man who had bitten into a sloe.

‘He knows nothing,’ Simon said.

‘No.’

It was a flat statement, but it was clear that Sir Baldwin found no comfort in the knowledge. The sight of the preceptory was enough to bring back to his mind all the injustice of his friends’ deaths. Baldwin was aware that many people here and abroad knew that the Templars were innocent of the obscene crimes of which they had been accused, but that scarcely helped in the face of such blind contempt. It made him aware of a quick loathing for the man. He could have swept out his sword and taken the fool’s head off without a second thought.

‘Come, Baldwin.’

‘Yes. I am all right. He is just a cretin. He has no understanding of the truth.’

‘No,’ Simon agreed soothingly. He could never confess it to Baldwin, but he found it hard to believe Baldwin’s often-repeated assertions of his order’s innocence. There was no smoke without a spark, was his view.

The bishop’s main hall was an imposing chamber. On all the walls were pictures of saints, while in one corner stood a small row of bookshelves. Richly decorated books stood there, while on the opposite wall were more shelves, this time displaying a series of the bishop’s best plate. Pewter and silver shone in the light from the enormous window in the south wall, and tiny motes danced as the two entered, ushered in by an obsequious clerk.

Bishop Stapledon, Walter II of Exeter, was sitting on a leather-covered stool at the far end of the room where the light was best. He was reading a parchment, spectacles held near his nose as he peered down, and when he looked up there was a peevish look about him, as though he had been reading disagreeable news.

Even as he stood and smiled in welcome, Baldwin found himself trying to remember when the bishop had last seemed truly happy. It was a long time ago – perhaps before he had been given the post of Lord High Treasurer to the king. So much had happened since, with the depredations of the appalling Despensers.

No man was safe from the intolerable greed of Sir Hugh Le Despenser. Once, it was said, he had confessed that he cared for nothing so long as he became rich. That he had achieved. Since he had launched his acquisitive campaign, he had become the richest man in the kingdom, save only for the king himself. In this cruel environment even the widows of men killed in the king’s service were deprived of lands and money. One woman, Madam Baret, had been tortured with such irrational ferocity that she had been driven mad, all in order that Despenser could steal her property. Stapledon had once been a moderating influence, but now he could surely see that he had achieved little.

‘Sir Baldwin, I am glad to see you again. And you, bailiff. I hope your journey was not too arduous?’

‘It was almost relaxing,’ Baldwin said shortly. He did not want to be here. If he were to look over his shoulder through the great window, he knew he would see the preceptory again. It was a constant reminder of hideous injustice. He could almost hear again the burning pyres as the Templars were roasted to death.

‘I wish my own had been,’ the bishop said heavily.

‘Your journey?’ Simon enquired.

‘The news at every stage,’ Stapledon said. He shook his head, glancing down at the papers again, then set them on the table. ‘We are still so near to war with France…the queen has gone to Paris to deal with her brother, but no one can say how successful she may be.’

‘Which is why you asked me to come here to London as a member of the Parliament,’ Baldwin stated.

‘Yes.’ The bishop grunted to himself, then looked up through the window. ‘You know what has happened to that site?’

Simon quickly interrupted. ‘That was the Templars’, wasn’t it? The porter told us just now.’

‘Yes, it was. And it was to have been handed to the Hospitallers,’ the bishop agreed. He dropped his gaze to his lap and fiddled with a loose strand of wool. ‘But now the king has given it all over to Hugh Le Despenser. He will enjoy it, I am sure.’

Baldwin did not need to listen carefully to hear the bitterness in the bishop’s voice. He would have liked to have believed that its cause was the blatant nature of the theft of a religious order’s property and not merely jealousy that it had not come to him. ‘Despenser is most fortunate,’ he observed.

Stapledon shot him a look. ‘Perhaps. But now he has asked me to help him. Yesterday the daughter of one of his servants was found dead. Out on the marshes between the Rosary and Bermondsey Priory.’

‘The coroner has been informed?’

‘A coroner will be there today, I believe.’

‘Then surely there is little I can do to help.’

‘You are here as a Member of Parliament, Sir Baldwin, but I would be grateful if you could help enquire into the matter. My Lord Despenser has requested an enquiry, and as an unbiased witness I would ask you to go and see what you may learn.’

Henry Capun hurled his drinking horn across the room. It struck the wall and shattered, throwing shards of green pottery in every direction. Two servants ducked, expecting his intolerable burden of rage to be expended on them, but as soon as it erupted it was gone, and all he knew was the return of that terrible emptiness.

She had been his little princess. He could still recall her birth. At the time he’d wanted a lad, of course. What man didn’t? He was a knight banneret, a man of standing, and a boy child was worth more in his world. A boy could be trained to be a warrior; he could earn a father some rewards for being brought up in a good warrior’s household. He might win new allies, hopefully gain a wealthy wife, and should always be a delight to his old father. A daughter? Nothing but a damned drain on a man’s resources.

He had gone to see her soon after the midwives allowed him into his wife’s chamber. God, he could remember that time. He had been slightly drunk. Well, fairly gone, truth be known. He’d not meant to do it, but when he got in there he’d looked at her, and when he heard he had a daughter he’d shouted with anger. His moods were always quick when he was that bit younger.

‘My lord, be silent!’ the midwife snapped, drawing his daughter away as though fearing that he might kill her.

‘Don’t command me, bitch! I wanted a boy, and she’s given me that!’

‘Your child was in God’s hands.’

‘In His hands, eh?’

‘Yes, and He sent you this babe in His mercy, perhaps to show you the error of your ways and give you a happier life.’

‘Leave your moralizing, gossip. I have no need of it,’ he spat, and lurched from the room. But not before he’d seen his wife’s face. She’d been very upset. Indeed, later that night, as he sat in his hall drinking morosely, he’d heard her weeping. That noise stabbed at him – in truth, he had always loved her, ever since he first clapped eyes on her in the company of his best friend.

To his chagrin, he had soon taken a liking to the child. She had a smile that struck at his heart. When she looked at him and gurgled, it made his mood lift. Later, when she was learning to talk, her attempts made him chuckle with delight. Her little mistakes were to him the very essence of joy.

Yet she was also a reminder to him of his callousness towards her mother. If he had not been so harsh on that first night, perhaps his wife would not have insisted on trying to conceive again so soon after Juliet’s birth, and that might have meant that she wouldn’t have…well, there was no point raking over dead soil. She had died in the next childbirth. Her womb wasn’t strong enough so soon after Juliet, the midwife had said, the poisonous old…She’d seemed to have a reproving tone in her voice, as though accusing him. Him! The one man in the world who’d never have hurt his wife intentionally.

But Juliet grew too quickly. He blinked – and she had become a woman. A woman with the desires of all women. And she committed the one crime she could neither help nor regret – any more than he could forgive.

She had fallen in love.

‘Oh, Christ Jesus!’ he blurted, and covered his face with his hands.

Simon had been on many investigations with his friend. The two had proved themselves adept at seeking felons back in their own lands.

Here, though, he felt completely out of his place.

They left the bishop’s hall and made their way along the paths that followed the line of the Fleet River, down to the Thames itself, and there Baldwin gazed up-and down-river before setting two fingers into his mouth and emitting an ear-piercing blast.

‘In God’s name!’ Simon protested, clapping a hand over his ear.

‘Ach, you have to get these men’s attention somehow. Lazy devils, all of them,’ Baldwin muttered almost to himself. But as he spoke he was waving, and soon Simon saw a man in a rowing boat leave a little group of boats a few tens of yards down the river and make his way against the current towards them.

‘Over the river, masters?’

‘We need to get to Bermondsey in Surrey,’ Baldwin stated, grasping the prow.

‘That far? You realize how long it’ll take me to work my way back upstream from there?’

Baldwin gave him a beatific smile. ‘No. Why don’t you tell us as you row?’

The news of Juliet’s death had struck the whole house dumb. Servants went about their business but with a quiet, nervous urgency, scarcely daring to speak to each other, the master’s distress was so evident.

In the main chamber, where her mistress used to sit, her maid Avice sat staring at the needlework Juliet had been working on.

‘Avice? God’s blood, wench, stop that whining.’

She looked up to see Juliet’s brother, Timothy, in the doorway. ‘Master, don’t you know?’

‘That she’s dead? Yes. You expect me to play the hypocrite? No. She was an embarrassment to us all. And a cause of shame. Better that she is dead than carries on to do any more damage to us.’

‘Oh, master! But she was so…’

‘They found her with that man. She betrayed us. Us! Her own flesh and blood. She is better gone. Now, dry your eyes. I won’t have all the maids in the house looking like mourners at a wake. Fetch me wine. I’ll be in the hall.’

Simon hated boats. He always had. The damned rocking motion made his belly rebel at the best of times, whether it was calm or rough sea weather, but at least here the movements were moderately gentle. As though in sympathy, the drizzle had also stopped. In fact, he could almost have described the journey as soothing were it not for the continual swearing of the oarsman, who kept up a running commentary all the way over the river.

He appeared to have it in his mind to explain every little detail of the view to these obvious foreigners.

‘That there, right? That’s St Benet Paul’s wharf. Just here, that’s St Paul’s wharf. Serves the great cathedral there. See the spire? Fuckin’ huge, eh? Then that river there, that’s called the Walbrook Stream, that is. And that there’s the great bridge. Never seen one like it, I dare say. Shit, look at the size of the fucker! Huge, eh? Like a…oh, right, and this here, just beyond that open land. That’s the Tower.’

It was here that his voice grew quieter, as though the mere mention of the name of the Tower was to bring misfortune.

Simon studied it with interest. There was a strong wall about the place, and the White Tower rose within it. ‘It looks impregnable.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘And as a prison, it is hard to equal it.’

The oarsman hawked long and hard and spat a gobbet of phlegm over the side of the boat. ‘Hard, perhaps. Let’s hope no bastard tries to. Enough poor bastards have died in that fucker.’

‘And one escaped,’ Baldwin commented.

‘Him? Yeah. Must have been lucky,’ the man said with a shifty glower.

‘They say that Mortimer escaped over the water to the far bank?’ Baldwin pressed him.

‘So they say.’

Simon followed Baldwin’s gaze. ‘What is it, Baldwin?’

‘That place – is it a new palace?’

The oarsman threw a cursory look over his shoulder. ‘That? Haven’t you heard? It’s called the Rosary. King himself is having it built. Suppose he wants to wake up and see his pretty Tower each day.’

‘And it may make it harder for a man to escape from the Tower and reach this shore,’ Baldwin commented.

‘Don’t know about that. We’re here.’

Baldwin took a coin from his purse and passed it to the man, then climbed out pensively.

‘What is it?’ Simon asked him as Baldwin stood watching the wherryman laboriously making his way back upstream.

‘Nothing. I was just considering how everyone here must fear that place.’

Lawrence saw them as soon as they began to make their way over the marshes towards the bodies.

‘Who are they?’

‘Christ knows. I don’t,’ Hob muttered.

The first, Lawrence saw, was the younger of the two. He was clad in a green tunic and hard-wearing grey hosen, with a leather jerkin. He had brown hair and was clearly used to the hardships of travel, from his sunburned features and scuffed boots. The other was an altogether older man, with a red tunic that had seen many better days. He had a greying beard and hair, and his eyes appeared particularly penetrating even at this distance. The beard followed the line of his jaw, delineating the strong features, and he had a scar that wandered down one side of his face. Lawrence could see that his eyes were darting hither and thither as they approached. He was no foolish man-at-arms who put all his faith in his weapons; he clearly had a brain.

‘Lordings,’ Hob said.

Lawrence was amused to hear the deferential tone in his voice. There was clearly something in the new man’s appearance that persuaded Hob to be cautious.

‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, and this is my companion, Simon Puttock, bailiff. We have been sent by my Lord Bishop Stapledon to see if we may assist with this dead person.’

‘Which one?’ Hob asked.

It was clear that his question surprised the two men. ‘How many corpses do you have here?’ Simon said.

‘One girl, one man.’

‘The girl is the daughter of a man named Capun?’

‘Yes. Juliet. The lad was a friend of hers. A lad we all knew as Pilgrim.’

‘Why was he called that? He had made a pilgrimage?’

‘He was quite religious,’ Lawrence said earnestly. ‘He once made the journey to Canterbury, and several others to our Lady of-’

‘I apologize, brother, but my time is short. Did you know him quite well?’

Lawrence pursed his lips. It was rare for a man of the cloth to be cut short quite so bluntly. ‘Well enough. I would like to think of myself as a friend of his.’

‘But surely you are a monk. You are enclosed within your walls, are you not? I had thought that the monks of Cluny were dissuaded from conversation. Is it not true that a Cluniac monk should not speak?’

‘It is preferable that we do not. We try to ensure our own passage to heaven by virtue of our prayers, and by our performance of all that is pleasing to God. We know that the perfection of the world demanded that there be peace and silence, so we try to do all we can to keep the world in harmony.’

‘Yet you are here?’ Simon asked.

Lawrence met his gaze with mild reproof. ‘Friend, even a priory has need of men who can discuss the requirements of the brethren. I am the cellarer. If I may not be permitted to walk in the world and purchase all that is needful, our convent and our order must soon collapse!’

‘You knew this “Pilgrim”, then. What was his real name?’ Baldwin asked.

‘His name was William de Monte Acuto, the same as his father. That was why his alias was so commonly used.’

‘How did you know him?’ Simon asked. He was not sure he liked this man. The tone of superiority was common enough among priests and monks, but it still irked him.

‘He and his father used to be wealthy. They were wont to supply us with grain.’

‘How kind,’ Baldwin said drily. ‘Can you tell us where this man William lives?’

‘Naturally,’ Lawrence said, and described the way to the man’s home. It was an easy enough journey: apparently William had a small manor just south of Southwark.

‘You plainly knew him well enough,’ Simon said. ‘Was there anyone who disliked the man enough to kill him?’

Lawrence looked away, and the fingers of his right hand danced over his left sleeve.

Baldwin nodded. ‘There were many?’

‘You understand our language?’

‘Enough of it. So he was a man who could upset many others?’

Lawrence sighed to himself. ‘No, not generally. But his family had a certain enmity with her family, I fear.’

‘Fascinating.’

Hearing a new voice startled Baldwin and Simon, and both spun on their heels to see who had arrived behind them.

With two servants, one holding their horses, stood a knight. He was a full three inches taller than Baldwin, so maybe an inch over six feet. He had shrewd brown eyes that flitted over Baldwin’s frame, noting the scars, the squared shoulders, the over-muscled right arm.

‘Coroner,’ Lawrence said and bent his head respectfully.

Studying him, Baldwin was less than enthusiastic. The coroner was one of those foppish knights who valued fashion more highly than honour. This was one of those modern men who sought position and money rather than accepting a life of service. He was a mercenary.

He wore tight, parti-coloured hosen in red and blue, with a red surcoat trimmed with fur. Fine golden threads were stitched on his breast to create a pattern that glistened in the occasional flares of sunshine. On his head was one of those hats that, to Baldwin’s eye, looked plain ridiculous. It bore a liripipe so long it was wrapped about his head and then dangled behind him. A typical example of a modern warrior, Baldwin thought. More keen on fashions at court than real work.

‘I am Sir Jean de Fouvilles. I am coroner here.’

‘I am glad to meet you,’ Baldwin said untruthfully.

Originally, so he believed, coroners had been installed as a bulwark against the overweening powers of the sheriffs, but more recently the coroners themselves had become symbols of corruption, and Baldwin distrusted them – especially this one. He smelled of courtly intrigue.

‘Where are these bodies, then?’ the coroner demanded.

While Hob marched him away to the first, the cellarer close on their heels, Baldwin and Simon trailed after them.

‘You were not impressed with that monk?’ Simon guessed with a grin.

‘Was it that obvious? Well, I fear not. In my day our order depended on frugal living to keep ourselves in a state of readiness for war. We ate little, drank little and exercised regularly. These Cluniacs eat a great deal.’ He added cynically: ‘That must be why he is always out here dealing with others for more food.’

‘What was that you said about being able to understand his language?’

‘Monks who follow the Cluniac rule are expected to hold their tongues even under great provocation. There was a story I once heard of a monk who watched a felon steal his prior’s horse and would not sound the alarm. So over time they have built up their own language using fingers and signs.’

They had caught up with the other three, and the coroner was peering down at the body with a speculative eye. ‘This is the Capun girl?’

Hob was already at his side. ‘Yes, sir. Juliet Capun.’

‘Really?’ the coroner commented, gazing about him at the view. ‘What was she doing here?’

Simon could see his point. From here, all about them were low, reedy hillocks interspersed with little pools and puddles of brackish water. This land bordered the river, and the marshes all around were proof of the multitude of little streams that passed through this land on the way to the sea.

‘That is the Rosary?’ Simon asked, pointing as he took his bearings.

To the north and west of them stood the new palace that Baldwin and Simon had seen from the river. Massive walls were rising amid a scaffolding of larch boughs lashed together. It made for an apparently disorderly jumble of wood and cordage, although Simon could make out the basic structure. When complete, it would be a manor house, moated and easily defensible, with a short river trip to the safety of the Tower of London. It was easy to see why the king might seek to build on this new location.

‘Aye,’ Hob said. ‘And the master in charge of the works is Master Capun. That is why he was so common over here, and his daughter often came with him.’

‘What of the dead man?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Pilgrim? His father was William de Monte Acuto. He’s a merchant. Rich once – not now.’

‘He lost his treasure? How?’ Baldwin wondered.

‘I don’t know. I’m only a constable.’

The coroner looked at Baldwin for a moment with mammoth disdain, then turned back to the constable. ‘She was stabbed?’

‘There is a blade in her hand,’ Baldwin observed.

‘It was a fierce wound,’ the coroner commented. ‘Very likely a self-murder. So common with young women.’

Baldwin gave him a long, considering look. ‘You think so? Strange that she should still grip the weapon, then. In my experience, suicides usually drop their weapons as they die. The muscles relax…’

‘Yes, I am sure you are an expert in such matters,’ the coroner said patronizingly.

Simon looked away, but not before he had seen how her tunic had been stained with blood. She lay on her back, a shortish woman, pretty enough, with dark hair and a pleasant, oval face. Her left leg was curled back underneath her, as though she had just slipped on to her back. There was but one stab wound, but it had entered under and beside her left breast, almost at her flank. A long dagger would easily puncture lungs and heart if angled correctly. The dagger in her hand was eight inches or more long.

It was an odd weapon for a woman. Everyone would carry a knife of some sort, of course, but most women would use daggers that were considerably shorter. This was more a man’s tool, to Simon’s eye.

The coroner was continuing. ‘So she was guilty of self-murder, or another man was here and kindly left his dagger behind when he fled the scene of his killing. Not very likely.’

Simon saw Baldwin experimentally punching his left torso with a fist, testing the theory of self-murder. Catching sight of Simon’s enquiring look, the knight shrugged and shook his head. ‘Who would commit self-murder with so complicated a blow?’

Hob was apparently keen to take the men over to view the next body. ‘Come this way, towards the river, but beware the pools! They can swallow a man, some of them.’

As the coroner cautiously set off behind Hob, Baldwin slipped down to study the girl’s body. He peered at her face, her clothing, looked carefully at her fingers, and then took the dagger from her hand. ‘A good blade, this – a little nicked and marked, but good and useful. And it smells,’ he said, his lip curling, ‘as though it’s been used often to gut fish!’

‘Hardly a feminine tool.’

‘No,’ Baldwin agreed. He stood and set his jaw. ‘Come, let us catch up with our little cellarer.’

It took little effort. Lawrence was not a swift walker.

‘How far to this man?’ Baldwin asked Lawrence as the monk made his way cautiously over the soggy ground.

‘He lies only some tens of yards away.’

‘The constable said he was known to this woman?’

‘Yes,’ Lawrence said. He was silent for a moment, wrestling with his conscience, but he held his tongue. Hob was one thing, but the idea that he should vouchsafe information to a strange knight, no matter how apparently honourable, was alien to him.

Baldwin could sense his reticence. ‘Tell me, how long have you been here in the priory?’

‘Many years. I came here as a novice four and twenty years ago,’ Lawrence said, smiling.

‘Much has changed in that time.’

‘And not all for the better,’ he agreed.

‘The priory is itself at least secure.’

‘Mostly…but last year our prior was removed. It was a terrible, shocking incident.’

‘Taken?’

‘Walter de Luiz, one of the kindest, gentlest men on God’s earth, and he was snatched by the king’s men. He languishes there,’ he said, nodding towards the Tower of London over the river.

‘And you have a new master?’ Baldwin was careful not to ask whether he was viewed as a prior.

Lawrence noted and admired the distinction. ‘Yes. John de Cusance. He is more to the king’s liking, it is said. Poor Prior Walter was accused of taking part in the escape of the traitor Mortimer from the Tower, and for that he remains incarcerated.’

‘Politics are a terrible thing,’ Baldwin said with bitterness. In his mind he saw again the pyres on which the Grand Master of his order, along with the Treasurer, were burned to death.

Lawrence shot him a look but saw nothing in his eyes to indicate that the knight was a threat. In these days of butchery and random executions at the whim of a foul king who demanded absolute loyalty as a right and stole from all in order to enrich his atrocious lover, Hugh Le Despenser, a man was always best served to watch his tongue.

Lawrence eyed the knight as they reached the other body. There, the monk looked down on Pilgrim, lying dead in a natural hollow in the ground.

Simon reached the edge of the dip and peered over. It was sad to see someone so young with his life ended, and this fellow was clearly not yet twenty. Hair of a golden hue, worn long in the most fashionable style, was fanned about his head like the rays about the sun. He lay as though sleeping, with his arms on his breast, and Simon almost expected to see them rise and fall with his breath.

All about him the water pooled black and oily, and the dark moisture had soaked into his clothing. Simon saw Baldwin reach down and touch the clothing, sniffing at his fingers afterwards. Blood had run from two wounds in his breast, both high, both capable of stabbing his heart.

‘This is clear enough, then,’ the coroner decided after a moment’s contemplation. ‘Surely this man wanted the girl, she refused him, and he chose to press his suit. To defend herself, she stabbed him, and then began to run away. Appalled by her homicide, the poor child took her own life.’

Baldwin turned slowly to stare at him. ‘You seriously believe that this man, who was perfectly fit, strong, and taller and more powerful in every way than that young woman, you suggest that she was able to draw steel more swiftly and stab him twice without his being able to protect himself? And then what: she was so plagued by remorse for protecting herself that she returned to his body to prepare it as though for burial!’

‘I suppose some other person came by, found him and decided to settle him in this manner,’ the coroner said superciliously. ‘Perhaps a monk from the priory.’

‘Your confidence in the matter speaks volumes!’

‘Sir knight, I am not sure that you realize to whom you speak. I am the king’s own coroner here. I have experience of matters such as this.’

‘How many murders have you recorded?’

The coroner glanced down at the body again. ‘Enough.’

‘I am sure you have often been taken up with other matters, coroner, but I have been investigating murders these last ten years with my friend Simon here. I am sure you have much experience yourself, but I would caution you against deciding too soon on any theory about this unhappy couple.’

As he spoke, Baldwin was circling about the area, looking at the ground. There was little to be concluded. All about here there was a mass of prints. The soft, stubby grasses had recorded little that he could make sense of, and yet there was one indication that made him pause and crouch.

In a direct line away from the two bodies, thus heading towards the river itself, there were a pair of parallel, scraped indentations. Where the grass was thinner, gouges had been made in the soil. Baldwin followed the trail for some little distance, until he came to a flat area that was a little more dry. Here he saw that there were more marks. Two or three pairs of feet had been here, and then he saw something else: a series of deep indentations. They were an inch to an inch and a half across, curious pockmarks in the soil. He could not understand them, but noted them as he looked about him. One thing was noticeable: this was higher ground.

Making his way back to the others, he scanned the landscape.

‘I think he was killed over there and dragged here by one or two people. A little earlier, or later, the woman was killed over there. It is clear enough that she did not commit suicide.’

‘You are sure of this, I suppose?’ the coroner said.

‘Quite certain. There are signs of the man with others over there, and signs of his boots scraping up the earth from there to here.’

‘Well, it is an amusing theory. I look forward to learning what the jury makes of it tomorrow.’ The coroner smiled. ‘But for now I should like to know why a man should be dragged over here, when they could have rolled him into the Thames over there?’

Baldwin cocked his head. ‘That is all? I should like to know why someone who hated him so much as to wish to kill him would then spend time settling his body.’

Lawrence watched the coroner dismiss the question with a sneer and march off, discussing setting a guard about the bodies as he went. Then the cellarer took a deep breath. He couldn’t speak directly. It was too foreign to his nature. However, he did have a feeling that these two strangers were more interested in reaching the truth than most others, certainly more than that damned coroner. He wanted to tell them about the wedding. At least these men might make use of the information.

He felt himself in a quandary. If he held his tongue, the fool of a coroner might well decide to take the easiest suspect and accuse him. There were so many down this way who would have no opportunity to defend themselves if he set his face against them. There was no justice for the poor.

‘Brother Lawrence,’ Baldwin said, ‘tell me: you appeared to be about to speak more when that fool arrived. This Pilgrim – did he have many enemies apart from this woman’s family?’

‘Well, Pilgrim was a young man, and who can tell what mischief he may have attempted? There could be someone somewhere who had cause to nurse a grievance against him. Juliet surely would not. She was an amiable, kindly soul. I always thought that she would make a good mother, although not with-’

‘Not with whom?’ Baldwin demanded.

‘I was forced to swear an oath of silence before I could do this thing,’ Lawrence said unhappily.

‘What “thing”? Marry her?’ Baldwin asked keenly, and Lawrence could do nothing but look away.

But he was relieved. The secret was out.

Timothy Capun had never been tall. He possessed the frame of a man who had suffered from malnutrition as a child, a permanent reminder of the famine eight years before. His face held evidence of the virulent malady that had caused his face to be pocked and marked with scars, so his appearance was not the most prepossessing.

Entering the great hall and seeing his father seated on one of the benches near the middle of the room, close by the great fire that had been relighted against the damp cool of this unseasonal summer, his face grew morose, and he crossed the hall’s tiled floor to stand by Henry Capun’s side.

‘What do you want?’

‘Father, I wanted to offer you my sympathy. We both loved her.’

Henry looked up at his son. His face was twisted, but then his pain left his features and he could stare at his son with entirely blank eyes. ‘Did you do it?’

‘What, father?’

‘You know what. Did you kill your sister? Because even if it means I live the rest of my days in a gaol and depart this earth straight to hell, I swear if I learn you killed my little Juliet I’ll see your body swinging.’

‘Father, you don’t think I could hurt my sister? I loved her too.’

Henry spat, ‘You have no understanding of the word “love”!’

It was some little while later that Baldwin and Simon reviewed the monk’s words while sitting in a dingy, noisome tavern near the south side of the bridge.

‘I did not like that coroner,’ Baldwin admitted. ‘He struck me as too confident. A man who is that confident is a danger to justice. He ought to listen and gauge the evidence, not go rushing to assume only one solution to a problem.’

‘You were not keen on the monk, either.’

‘True,’ Baldwin admitted. He considered, at last grunting: ‘Ach – he is a monk from an order that holds to certainties in the same way as that coroner does. Cluniacs are so convinced of their place in the world and the security of their posts in heaven that there are rarely any chinks in their armour to allow even a small iota of doubt to enter. I do not trust men who never doubt themselves. Doubt seems to me to be an essential ingredient in an investigation. You doubt what each witness says; you question them because you doubt your own understanding; you have to doubt everything if you are to get to the truth.’

‘You mistrust him simply because he is a monk?’

Baldwin nodded. ‘Aye. I fear so. Still, he was useful, was he not?’

‘We know that she was married, yes. Although to whom…to the dead lad?’

Baldwin grunted. After letting slip that tantalizing detail, the monk had clammed up, claiming that the whole affair was secret and he had sworn to hold his tongue. He would not answer any more questions.

‘We must wait until tomorrow, anyway, to hear what is said at the inquest.’

‘I look forward to seeing the First Finder describe what she found,’ Baldwin said. ‘Those two bodies…they were strangely set out. The man, Pilgrim, had been dragged down to be concealed, and then laid out neatly.’

‘As though a monk had killed him and tidied him up?’ Simon said.

‘Possibly. But what reason could the monk have had for killing him?’

‘The girl was attractive. Could a monk have desired her, killed the boy from jealousy and then killed her?’

‘Possibly. And yet Brother Lawrence was convinced that the girl’s family had a hatred for Pilgrim. They would think that their little girl had married beneath herself. Perhaps they sought to punish both?’

‘I would like to speak to them.’

Baldwin eyed him. ‘These are the very ones who have asked for Bishop Walter to enquire into the death.’

‘It would hardly be the first time that the guilty were those who demanded the greatest efforts. And in any case, if they are innocent they may still be able to help us with some aspects of the girl’s life. Any information can be useful.’

‘True!’ Baldwin said. He finished his drink. ‘And yet I dare say that of all possible suspects this family is the one that is least likely.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if one of the corpses was to be set out neatly, surely any father would lay out his own daughter, rather than the bastard who’d ravished her – married or not?’

They found the Capun house with ease. London was a huge city, but men as wealthy and powerful as Henry Capun were not common.

Simon had never heard of the man, and he was comfortably certain that neither had Baldwin, but it soon became obvious that Henry Capun was a renowned man in London, and when they caught sight of his house Simon for one was daunted by the size of the place. He was perfectly used to seeing large houses, and he had himself participated in the questioning of noblemen and others – but that had been different. It had been in his own county of Devon. Standing here in the street they called the Strand, just outside the city’s walls, not too far from the bishop’s own hall, Simon was overwhelmed by a sense of his own insignificance.

If he had been alone, he would have left there and then, but fortunately it appeared that Baldwin suffered fewer qualms about questioning the man. The knight rapped sharply on the timbers of the porter’s door and curtly demanded to be shown to the banneret.

Henry Capun looked as though he had been drinking too much for too long. His features were flabby and choleric. He had a circular face, with a neck that was thick from excess, and his paunch was like a barrel slung low over his belt. Simon privately thought that this was one of those men who wore his soul on his sleeve for all to see. He was an insipid fellow, weak and ravaged by the least setback.

His initial impression was to be quickly destroyed.

‘Who are you?’

While Baldwin introduced them, Henry studied them minutely, Simon saw. Then he jerked his chin at Simon. ‘You’re a bailiff from Dartmoor? You knew Abbot Champeaux?’

Simon nodded. ‘I worked for him these last eight years or so.’

‘I knew him. A good man, and a damned hard one to win a bargain from. Aye, I knew him. He’ll be missed.’ He turned back to Baldwin. ‘Not as much as my daughter will in this house, though. Bishop Stapledon told you to find her murderer, I hope?’

‘He did.’

‘And?’

‘We have just come here from the place where she died. The inquest will be tomorrow – someone has told you of this?’

‘Yes. The coroner was good enough to send a man to tell me when I may go to hear about her…her death.’

His voice dropped for those last two words, and his head sank on his shoulders as though its weight was insupportable. But then he rallied and fixed Baldwin with a stern gaze. ‘I want the murderer found. I don’t care who it is, how rich he is – I want him found and hanged.’

‘Then you can help us. We are new to this city. My friend and I arrived only yesterday. What can you tell us about your daughter?’

‘Juliet was a good, dutiful child. Always was. I adored her. Perhaps I spoiled her, but after her mother…There was a feeling…I suppose I saw much in her that I had loved in her mother.’

‘Her mother died?’

‘She fell pregnant too soon after Juliet’s birth and died in the birthing. Perhaps it was natural that Juliet should be my most favoured child.’

‘She was your only child?’ Simon asked.

‘I have a son as well. Her younger brother, Timothy. He is some compensation to me.’

Simon wondered at that. It was a curious turn of phrase and sounded odd from this man’s mouth – but much of his tone and appearance was entirely out of keeping with Simon’s first summing-up. Clearly this man was more mentally rigorous than he would have thought.

‘We have heard – Sir Henry, I am sorry if this rakes up sadness for you, but I have to ask – we have heard that she formed a close liaison with a fellow.’

‘Who?’

‘Do you know of a man called Pilgrim?’

‘William de Monte Acuto? That little shite? Yes, she knew him.’

‘More than that? Did she know him well?’

Henry Capun’s face darkened, and a flush rose from his neck. ‘What are you saying, that my daughter was unchaste – even a whore? Do you think to insult her memory here in my house, Sir Knight?’

‘Sir Henry, I speak only what I have been told. Did you know that she was married?’

Henry Capun gaped. He took a stumbling step backwards, a hand reaching out wildly for a chair. Hurriedly Simon ran to his side, grasped a stool and thrust it behind the banneret. Capun half fell into it, his hand gripping Simon’s forearm as though it was the only thing to maintain his sanity. ‘She…no!’

‘This man Pilgrim was also murdered. His body lay only a short distance from your daughter’s. She was married at the end of November last year. I have spoken to the man of God who witnessed the ceremony. Her marriage was fully legal.’

‘My God! The bastard! If he had left her alone, none of this would have happened!’

‘Do you think she may have married this Pilgrim?’

‘I don’t know…my God!’

‘Well, can you think of anyone who would have had cause to harm them both?’

‘Only that murderous son of a whore William de Monte Acuto, the boy’s father!’

‘Why should he want to kill them?’ Simon blurted.

‘Because he and I are enemies. I’ll have nothing to do with him, nor he with me. Christ’s bones, if he’s killed my little Juliet, I’ll have his heart!’

‘Explain, please.’

Henry scowled. He had recovered from his first shock, but he was still shaky as he reached out for a mazer of wine on the table. ‘When we were younger, William and I were friends. We were of a similar age, had similar backgrounds, and we were keen to do all we could to advance ourselves. But then I did better than him and started to win honours and money, and we lost contact. I think he blamed me for his own lack of opportunities, and that led to bad feeling. It was nothing to do with me, though. I treated him in the same way as I ever had. The trouble is, William has a lousy temper. He always did have.’

‘How did your lives change so greatly?’ Baldwin murmured.

‘William sought to advance himself early on, and he allied himself to men in the early days of the century. When the king was still a prince, William did all he could to curry favour. Meanwhile I concentrated on money and left politics alone. When I had money, I was noticed by powerful men, and they advanced my cause for me.’

Which meant that he was able to bribe the powerful to achieve what he wanted, Baldwin reckoned, while his erstwhile friend and companion languished. ‘You were allied with those who are still in power, then?’

Henry’s mouth twisted. ‘I can count the young Hugh Le Despenser as a friend. William was allied with Piers Gaveston.’

Gaveston, the king’s companion, was so detested by the barons that he was captured and hanged like a common felon in the fifth year of the king’s reign. [5] Baldwin began to understand the depths of the jealousy William de Monte Acuto might feel for this man – especially since as Gaveston’s star waned the Despensers’ waxed full mightily.

Simon was frowning. ‘You say that this man de Monte Acuto might have killed your daughter – but that hardly makes sense. Why should he kill her when the only effect of her liaison with his son was to annoy you? And why kill his own son?’

Henry looked at him for a moment. ‘Because, bailiff, he would look on any alliance with me as being a betrayal of his own honour. He hates me for all I have done.’ He looked away, closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘You see, there is one last thing I didn’t mention. The woman I married, my poor wife Cecily, I won from him. He was wooing her when I snatched her away. He has never forgiven me for her death.’

And neither have I, he added to himself.

Thursday Next after the Feast of St George the Martyr [6],

Bermondsey Marsh

The next morning was bright and clear, with only a few clouds sitting stationary over the city. Baldwin and Simon rose early, and after a light breakfast they crossed the bridge and turned left to go up to Bermondsey again.

The space about the two bodies was filled with people. There was huddled a jury of men, for the most part grim-faced at the stern duty before them, although one or two of those who were only twelve or thirteen were anxious at the sight of the coroner. People here were used to seeing the rich and powerful, but few enjoyed the sight of those who could fleece them unmercifully for any infraction.

Baldwin reckoned that the inquest itself was notable only for the severity of the coroner. In his own experience, many coroners could be too demanding, and frequently they were thoroughly corrupt, soliciting bribes to prevent a man being taken to court or demanding more to ensure that some other fellow was arrested in his place. There were any number of tricks that could guarantee a man a well-filled purse.

This man started proceedings by fining the vill because not all the men of over twelve years had appeared. Then he imposed another fine because Hob did not answer him in the required manner, apparently. Before they had reached the point at which the bodies were displayed, the jury was already cowed. Baldwin could see that their damp shuffling in the mud was stilled, and they stared at the ground with sullen resentment.

Not that the coroner minded. He appeared to relish their grim bitterness.

Soon, though, when the witnesses began to come forward, Baldwin found his attention being diverted – especially when he caught his first sight of the man he had been keen to question: William de Monte Acuto, the father of the dead Pilgrim.

To his surprise, for he had expected someone who would show the same dissipation as Henry Capun, William was a tall man with the physique of a warrior. He had the same muscled neck, powerful right arm and thick thighs as a knight. Clearly this was a man who had fought in his youth. He had a calm face, and even with sorrow marking his eyes he was still a handsome fellow, the kind of man whom women would like. There was a softness and soulfulness in his features that was attractive and spoke of an inner gentleness. It was a great shame that he had allied himself with Piers Gaveston, but, as Baldwin knew, men would connect themselves with the greatest fools and felons in order to protect themselves politically.

‘I am William de Monte Acuto.’

The coroner was questioning the witnesses in a bullying manner, as though he enjoyed cowing those who came before him. With William, he seemed a little unsure how to continue. At last he jerked his head at the woman’s body lying on the ground before them. ‘You know her?’

‘I do.’ William did not look down at her, but kept his gaze fixed forward.

‘She knew your son?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where was your son on the night of the vigil of the feast of St George? That is two nights ago, Master William, the night of Tuesday and Wednesday.’

‘He was with me at our house.’

‘And no doubt your servants will vouch for you?’

‘Of course they will – but I am happy to swear on the Gospels if you do not trust my word.’

Baldwin smiled at the man’s suave courtesy. It was in marked contrast to the coroner’s hectoring manner.

‘I am glad to hear it. Perhaps we should have both you and your servants swear in like manner?’

‘If you command it, coroner.’

‘Your son desired this girl, did he not? Were they lovers?’

William de Monte Acuto’s face hardened, but with pain, not anger. ‘My son was a man. This young woman was lively and pretty, so perhaps it is so.’

‘You were not aware that he was wooing her?’

‘I guessed so, yes.’

‘He lies dead there, stabbed through the heart. She holds a dagger in her hand. Perhaps she killed him, then herself?’

William looked at the coroner for the first time now, his face blank of anything but his sorrow. ‘My son is dead, and you wish me to speculate about who did it?’

Later, Baldwin managed to push through the crowd and reach William de Monte Acuto. ‘May I speak to you a moment, friend?’

‘What – do you wish to question me like that cretin of a coroner?’

‘No, I merely seek the truth – I act for my lord Bishop Stapledon.’

‘Then how can a poor man like me refuse?’ William said sarcastically. ‘The king has many advisers, but there are few who can command the respect of my lord bishop.’

Simon said, ‘Friend, I have a son. You have my sympathy. To lose a son is terrible…to then be questioned by that coroner is obscene.’

William bent his head. ‘I could have happily taken his head from his shoulders.’

‘Your son,’ Baldwin said. ‘When did you know he was missing?’

‘The day he was found. I have a hall with a solar at each end. The servants sleep in the eaves between them. William used to sleep at the other end of the house, and recently…well, we were not on good terms in the last days.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of Juliet, of course!’ His anger subsided as quickly as it had flared, and he hesitated. ‘I had no wish for my son to be associated with her.’

‘Her father and you were once friends?’

‘Yes, we were. But then Cecily died because of him, and he started his rise to prominence and wouldn’t talk to simple folks like me and my son. We weren’t significant enough to measure in his estimation. No, he’d prefer to be spending his time with all those magnificent fellows in their great houses.’

‘Whereas you…?’

‘I stayed where I had been born. I never lost my roots. I am a simple man, when all is said and done. I was born a serf, and I make my own way in the world. My business keeps me well enough. Henry Capun is a knight now, and he can claim Hugh Le Despenser as a friend. What use am I to him now?’

‘Who could have wished to harm your son?’

‘Only one man,’ William said darkly. ‘Henry Capun hates me and would seek to ruin me in any way he might. Killing poor William is just one way to attack me. Poor William!’

‘You think he would kill his daughter in order to get at you?’ Baldwin asked sharply.

William looked at him. ‘My only love, Cecily, was taken from me by him. She died because she was desperate to give him a son. She wasn’t ready for another child after little Juliet’s birth, but he was ever a demanding devil, and she fell pregnant again. It killed her.’

‘This son of his, Timothy – he is from another woman?’

‘Yes. Henry married Edith after Cecily died, and Edith gave him Timothy, but then she, too, died in the famine seven years ago or more.’

‘Still,’ Simon suggested, ‘he would have loved his daughter, surely?’

William wiped a hand over his face. ‘God forgive me for saying it, but I doubt it. He looked on her as a chattel. Nothing more. If she was no further use, he’d have discarded her as easily as a man throwing away a broken staff.’

When the carter arrived at the gates, John was sent to find Lawrence. The cellarer was the main contact for any tradesmen with food.

John could see him with the group about the body with the coroner and hurried to him just as he saw Simon and Baldwin approaching him. The two men were a little alarming, with their strange accents. Especially the knight, with his black, intense eyes. John only hoped that Lawrence was not in trouble.

The arrest of Prior Walter the previous year had alarmed all the monks. That their leader could be removed and replaced at the whim of the king was unsettling. For John it was worse, though, because he knew secrets none of the others had heard. Every day he feared that the men would come to arrest his master, Lawrence. The cellarer had been involved in the escape of Mortimer. He knew that. He’d seen Lawrence return that night.

Simon and Baldwin caught sight of the cellarer, and, while the coroner demanded refreshment and adjourned the inquest, Simon led the way to the monk, struck with a thought.

‘Brother Lawrence – when you mentioned the marriage of Juliet, you said you heard the vows. Were there any witnesses apart from you?’

‘I cannot tell you of that wedding. I swore.’

Simon was staring at him with a shrewd narrowing of his eyes. ‘If a maiden weds, it is rare indeed that she will do so without her maid at least at her side. Was her maid there?’

‘You must ask her that. Why?’

‘I was wondering…’

Another voice interrupted them. ‘Yes? What were you wondering, master?’

Simon could almost smell the man before he heard him. There was an unpleasant odour of sourness, and when Simon caught sight of his ravaged face he could see why. It was only natural that a man so terribly scarred by the pox or some similar malady should be noisome to others. ‘Who are you?’

‘I was going to ask you the same, master. You have so much interest in my household, I thought you might like to explain what you were questioning this man about?’

‘Your household? You are son to Sir Henry?’

His knowledge of Timothy’s father should have been no surprise, for as Simon had already noticed most people in London seemed to know of Sir Henry, and yet it seemed to make the son still more suspicious. The man laid one hand on Simon’s arm, the other on his sword. ‘I’d like to know more of you and your fascination with my family.’

‘Good. When you have let go my arm, I shall be happy to talk,’ Simon said.

In response, Timothy half drew his sword. ‘You’ll talk now, or answer to-’

As he spoke, Baldwin’s bright blue sword blade rang, and rested gently on his throat. ‘Master Capun, I would have you release my companion. And do please take your hand from your sword. We would not want more blood shed, would we?’

Simon took Timothy’s hand and pulled his arm free. The younger man’s eyes were filled with loathing, but he didn’t try to prevent him. As soon as Timothy’s hand had fallen away from the hilt, Baldwin whipped his sword away and sheathed it in one fluid movement.

‘We wanted to speak to you,’ Simon said, glancing about him to find Lawrence. The monk had disappeared as soon as Baldwin’s sword flashed from its scabbard.

‘Why?’

‘Your sister is dead, and you ask why we want to talk to you? We are seeking to learn what happened that night.’

‘Ask that bastard over there. That son of a diseased pig was there. William killed them.’

‘Your father hinted as much,’ Baldwin said. ‘Except it really makes little sense. Why should a man like him kill his own son, just to have some form of revenge on your family? He could kill your sister, granted – but why harm Pilgrim?’

‘Pilgrim loved my sister. Perhaps he tried to protect her from his mad father? I don’t pretend to understand him.’

‘You suggest that William the elder could have tried to kill your sister? Have you ever seen him threaten her?’

‘I have not seen him attack her directly, but the man is insanely jealous of my father. He would do anything to hurt him.’

Baldwin eyed him. The fellow was arrogant and bitter, but he had lost his half-sister and such feelings were not unnatural. ‘That is no reason to want to harm his own son.’

‘Who else could have done that to Pilgrim? You saw the body there, laid out with love. Who else but a father could have done that to him?’

‘Not you, eh?’ Simon said.

‘I would have spat on his face and cut his ballocks off for what he did to my sister! She may have been-’

‘What?’

‘My father’s first-born. He loved her greatly,’ Timothy grunted. ‘Look at me: is it any surprise? Would you prefer a son looking like this, or a daughter as pretty as she?’

Baldwin was not to be moved from his questioning. There were, after all, many others who suffered from scars. ‘You say he raped her? That is why you would castrate him?’

‘In a way,’ Timothy said evasively.

‘She knew him? They indulged in the natural pleasures of a man and woman?’

‘Yes! I know, for I saw them together. And it was disgusting! He had his…anyway, I rushed in, and it was only because she grabbed me and stopped me that I couldn’t actually run him through, the cunning bastard!’

‘Where was this?’

‘In my house, in the stables behind the hall. He had inveigled his way into the place, and she went to see him. It was only because she begged me that I didn’t tell our father. It would have broken his heart to know what they were up to. Carnal behaviour like that, to a man of honour and integrity, would be insufferable. But I swore to her that if I ever saw Pilgrim with her again, I would have his head off.’

Baldwin nodded thoughtfully. ‘His head yet remains on his shoulders, but that does not mean you are innocent.’

‘Me? If I could have, I would have killed him, and done it gladly. He was a ravisher of women.’

He was about to push away from them, but Baldwin placed his hand on the fellow’s breast and prevented him. ‘A few more questions before you go. Did you know that they were married?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘I have spoken to the man of God who listened to their vows. They were married.’

Timothy’s mouth opened, but no words came. Instead he looked from one to the other, and then down at the ground with a frown. ‘But…she couldn’t have…She knew what that would do to Father…Why didn’t she tell me?’

‘You can answer that for yourself,’ Baldwin said unkindly. ‘Are you sure she didn’t tell you that she was wedded?’

‘Never! My Christ, if I’d known that…’ He looked up at Baldwin again, and now there was a fierce, cold rage in his eyes. ‘If she’d done that and not asked Father first, she deserved what happened to her!’

Later, when the two sat to discuss the matter, Simon was unsure of Timothy’s innocence.

‘I’d not be surprised if the poxy fool mused and let the resentment build until he seethed against her. He might have reasoned that the affront to the family’s honour justified a severe punishment.’

‘Perhaps. I am certain of only one thing: that the coroner’s tale is entirely wrong!’

Simon agreed with Baldwin. The coroner’s summing-up had been devastating for the vill.

‘So we come to the essential facts. The two bodies. One, the woman, held the knife. I do not doubt that the knife was the weapon that ended both these two young lives.’

‘Clearly he doesn’t doubt – he didn’t even bother to measure the blade and test the depths of the wounds, the width of the injuries, nor any other comparative measurements,’ Baldwin whispered with contempt.

The coroner had continued. ‘The dagger will be sold as deodand. It is clear enough that the woman killed her lover, and, feeling remorse, she first settled his body into that comfortable posture, and then she walked away to commit self-murder, dropping to lie dead where she was discovered. For these crimes…’

It was at this point, as he was outlining the full total of fines that would be imposed on the poor peasants of the area for allowing this infringement of the king’s peace, that Baldwin nudged Simon and began to make his way from the place, muttering angrily: ‘I suppose that little child was strong enough to pick up her dead lover and dragged him across the mud?’

He paused and stared into the middle distance. ‘We never answered why someone should have killed him up there and then dragged him away. Plainly the idea was to conceal his body. Yet why? Surely the likely reason was to hide him from Juliet when she arrived? So someone planned the murder as a double killing. The man was slaughtered first, his body hidden, but treated respectfully, and then the girl arrived and was killed in her turn. But she did not merit such respect. Instead she was left discarded. Why? Was she being punished for a crime of which the boy was innocent?’

Shaking his head, he continued onwards, glowering at the ground as he went.

Rather than make their way nearer to the river, which was invariably damp, especially nearer the king’s new moated palace, the Rosary, the two walked down to the priory, intending to make their way past it and down to the road that led to the great bridge.

At the gate they saw Brother Lawrence with a carter. Lawrence saw them approach and suddenly grew curt with the carter, sending him into the priory, before standing and waiting for the two to reach him.

‘You left us swiftly, brother,’ Baldwin said.

‘I had no desire to be involved with that whelp,’ Lawrence admitted. ‘Is it as I feared, then? More fines for the poor folk who can scarce support themselves as it is?’

‘You will not find a more stern and forbidding coroner in the country,’ Baldwin said.

‘He is a measure of the government. Was any culprit selected?’

Baldwin showed his teeth in a smile. ‘Who would you have picked?’

‘Me?’ Lawrence looked up at him, then considered. ‘Clearly it is plain that Pilgrim was innocent. Someone killed him, and yet treated his corpse with reverence, so his killer at least recognized that he was a decent enough fellow. He didn’t want to leave his corpse lying there…’

‘Which says little for the man who murdered Juliet,’ Baldwin said. ‘He left her crumpled in a mess.’

Simon nodded. ‘Perhaps someone else came along and the murderer was forced to flee?’

‘It is possible,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘What do you think, brother?’

Lawrence sighed and peered up into the sky. ‘Did you know that this priory has a reputation? Many hundreds of years ago there was an illicit affair between a woman and a chaplain. It is said that the devil came and took them and that the man’s ghost is seen here on the flats occasionally.’

‘Here?’ Simon asked. He only stopped himself from gazing about him with superstitious concern by reminding himself how Baldwin would make him regret such a display.

Baldwin smiled airily and turned to peer at Simon. Saying nothing to the bailiff, he asked Lawrence: ‘How would a woman come to be living here in a monastery?’

‘I believe that she was here for safekeeping…some form of wardship, no doubt.’

‘Hard to believe that someone could send a young impressionable ward to a place like this,’ Baldwin commented.

‘What happens to those who see the ghost?’ Simon asked.

‘They die, so the rumour says.’

‘Well, neither of these two were taken away, and I do not believe that the devil would be overly concerned about the sudden arrival of a witness. Nor do I think he’d have set out young Pilgrim in so considerate a manner,’ Baldwin said caustically. ‘Personally I would be easier in my mind believing that there has been an entirely human agent at work here.’

‘We all have our own beliefs, Sir Baldwin. Perhaps yours are more secular than mine.’

‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin conceded. ‘Tell me, brother, where should we seek the woman who found the first body?’

‘That was Elena. She will be out there on the shore. She seeks what she can from the Thames at low tide. There is often something discarded in the waters which she can make use of or sell.’

Elena cursed as she missed it, dragging the thin rope back through the waters and coiling it in a rough bundle beside her.

The plank looked hardly rotted at all. From the way it floated it was probably nicely dried, hardly green, and would have been worth having. Still, on it went with the river. Her rope with the weight had been too weak to haul it in to the beach. The cord had snapped, the weight falling into the water while the beam floated on serenely. She looked down at the remaining rope with disgust, half-tempted to fling that into the water as well.

‘Mistress?’

‘Who are you?’ she demanded querulously. The sun was hidden behind clouds, but it was still bright enough for her to want to shield her eyes with a hand as she studied the two men walking towards her. ‘You were in the crowds at the inquest, weren’t you?’

‘We were, madam,’ Baldwin said. ‘We wanted to talk to you for a moment about what you saw that day when you found them.’

‘I saw their bodies, that was all.’

‘Was there anyone else out here on that day?’

‘It was wet. There was no one out who had any sense.’

‘You were.’

‘I had to get to the market.’

‘Were the bodies wet through? If it had been raining, did you notice whether they had been there for long or not?’

‘I am no constable. I walk about here to try to earn what I can from what I find. There were two bodies there, but I didn’t know about looking for how wet they were. No, I just found young Juliet, and seeing her there, that was sad.’

‘You knew her?’

‘A little. A pretty little thing she was, and so happy when she was out here.’

‘What was she doing out here?’ Simon asked, gazing about him with frank distaste. At least on Dartmoor there were some areas of dry pasture. Here all seemed waterlogged.

‘Waiting to see her man. I had often seen her. Sometimes she was alone, with only her maid, but often she was with her man. Mostly it’s been just the younger William in the last weeks,’ Elena said helpfully.

‘Perhaps she wanted company because of the stories of a ghost, eh, Simon?’

Elena scowled. ‘Don’t jest about the ghost. Us who live here know to fear that figure.’

‘You know someone who’s seen it?’ Simon asked.

‘I have seen it myself. It’s a sign of bad omen.’

‘What happened to you after you saw the figure?’ Baldwin asked lightly. ‘A corn on your foot? Or you found that you were growing wet while walking across this marsh?’

She looked at him with a chilly certainty. ‘The first time I saw the figure, my husband Thomas died. Last time, next morning I found poor Juliet’s body.’

Brother Lawrence watched them go to seek Elena with a sense of growing unease and anxiety.

It had seemed such a sensible idea at the time. When he and the prior had concocted their scheme, the idea of driving others away from the river had been essential. They didn’t want Roger Mortimer escaping from the Tower only to be arrested as soon as he set foot on the Surrey side.

Lawrence had first mooted the idea of the ghost. All knew of the ghost. Those in the priory mentioned it in undertones and used the story to scare the novices when they could, but the locals had heard of it, too, and people like Elena believed in it. What better way could there be to keep unwanted eyes from the shore than by having a fearsome ghost wandering the place?

It had gone so well, too. Terrible, of course, that Elena’s old man had seen them. Lawrence saw him, saw his gaping, stupid face, and raised his arms to loom over the fellow, and he had turned to flee, bolting over the flats like a rabbit from a hound. Next morning the fool was dead. A great shame, but Lawrence did not feel over-guilty. There were other considerations, and rescuing Mortimer was crucial. The country had to have him safe so that the muttered plans to remove this intolerable king could be put into action.

He saw John and began to make his way to the lad.

All would have been well, too, had not that woman seen him. Juliet. He hadn’t realized at the time, but she had witnessed him and the men from the boat. Clearly, seeing the men pile from the boat while the ‘ghost’ held it steady for them made her understand that his costume was only a ruse. And equally, seeing where the boat landed, so close to the priory’s kiddles, the salmon traps set out along the line of the river banks, made her understand that a man from the priory was probably responsible. So the officers came and took the representative of all power in the priory – the prior himself.

Lawrence could blame himself, of course, but that wouldn’t have Prior Walter released. He was incarcerated in the same Tower from which they had rescued Mortimer. This new fool John de Cusance, Prior John, was installed, and there was little Lawrence could do about it.

Vengeance against those who had reported his and the prior’s actions? That was not a pretty act. But he knew many would consider it justified. Reasonable, even.

So now an escape was needed. He had to find a way out – perhaps a boat?

Her conviction was enough to wipe the cynical amusement from Baldwin’s voice. He apologized, eyeing her more closely than before, wondering whether she had reliable evidence. All too often he had found that those who claimed to have seen ghosts were in fact drunk at the time.

‘Madam, I had not seen that such a figure could have so unfortunate a result. Tell me, that I should know this figure of evil, what does it look like? Is it clad in, say, the robes of a Cluniac monk?’

‘You think I’m stupid enough to mistake the devil for one of the priory’s men?’ she scoffed. ‘This man was tall, maybe a foot or more over your height, Sir Knight, and he wore a long cloak with a separate cowl and hood. I don’t know the colour, because it was nighttime, but I could see the cloak because it moved so strongly in the wind.’

‘You saw no face?’

‘I did not want to!’ she stated firmly.

‘It could not have been this unfortunate fellow, Pilgrim de Monte Acuto?’ he hazarded, although he knew the answer before she spoke. The body had worn neither cloak nor cowl and hood.

‘Pilgrim? I’ve seen him and his father up here often enough, I think I’d recognize them!’

‘They are often up here on the marshes, you mean?’ Simon said.

‘Very often. The girl was a strong lure.’

Baldwin was struck by her comment. ‘For Pilgrim, you mean?’

Elena was suddenly dumb.

‘My God! You mean that the father wanted her too?’ he cried, and turned away, slapping at his brow. ‘Christ Jesus! Simon, the one aspect I could not accept was that William would murder his son for no reason. Yet here we have a reason: the father was a competitor with his son for this girl’s affections. The two men discussed her, argued, and the father slew his son in a fit of rage.’

‘Why did he drag the body away from the ground where he was killed?’

‘Remorse? Or, as I suggested before: he wanted the body to be concealed, so he pulled Pilgrim’s corpse from high ground where it would have been too obvious, instead setting it down in that malodorous little hollow, so that when he spoke to the woman he loved she wouldn’t glance over his shoulder and see his son lying slaughtered.’

‘Do you think he killed his son because he heard that his son had married her, and jealousy forced him to act as he did?’ Simon wondered.

‘Possibly,’ Baldwin said. Now that he was following a definite path, he was feeling more confident by the moment. ‘He told his son to leave the marsh and leave his lady love to him, and when he did I wonder if Pilgrim laughed at him and taunted him? So many people have said what a generous-hearted, kindly soul Pilgrim was, but even the kindest lad can be cruel to a parent. If his father did not know…A father who doted on his son’s wife would be cause for great humour, I would imagine. The poor man!’

It was mid-afternoon by the time they reached the city gate again, and there Baldwin stopped thoughtfully.

‘I suppose we should go and tell the good coroner about our discovery,’ Simon said, seeing his eyes flitting westwards.

‘That was in my mind. Yet it was my lord bishop who asked us to investigate this crime. Let us inform him first, and then we may arrest William ourselves. I have no desire to inflate the coroner’s reputation.’

So deciding, the two friends set off. Following the line of the Thames, they were forced to take a detour when they reached the Walbrook Stream, but then soon they were out through the west gate and crossing the Fleet river.

Bishop Walter was waiting for them in his hall, but this time he was shouting orders at servants, eyeing parchments full of lists and dictating to a clerk.

‘Ah, Sir Baldwin, I am glad indeed to see you. And you, Simon, of course. Is it possible that you have had some luck in the mission I gave you? I heard that the inquest had been held, but I have to say that I did not feel that the coroner’s conclusion was sound. The idea of the young woman committing murder and then killing herself seems most curious to me.’

‘I think that I have a more credible answer which fits the facts more firmly than the coroner’s.’

Bishop Walter listened intently, waving a clerk away irritably as he heard about the possible jealousy of the older William. ‘But this is astonishing! As you say, were he suddenly to hear from his son that he was unable to marry the woman he adored, that might well tip him over the edge. After all, once she was married to his son, it would be impossible for him to marry her – even if she was a widow. No father may marry a daughter, and the wife of his son has become his daughter, naturally, in God’s eyes.’

‘It may be worse than that,’ Baldwin considered. ‘William had lost his love before, to Sir Henry. The thought of losing his only link with her, her daughter, may have added to his mental turmoil. The poor man!’

‘So the shock drove him to kill his son, and then his daughter-in-law presumably rejected his advances, too, so he slew her. A terrible story, Sir Baldwin. Terrible. The poor man.’

‘It is a shocking tale,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘And I feel that I should go and confront him with his crime. I have the king’s authority to keep his peace. I am sure that with your approval it would be easy enough to go and have him arrested.’

‘I shall raise a small force from my household,’ the bishop promised. Then he hesitated. ‘But one thing. As a courtesy to my friends, would you object to going and telling Sir Henry? He has a right to know how his daughter died, after all.’

‘I should prefer to go straight to William.’ Baldwin’s tone was blank, but he felt angry to have the bishop ask this. It was clearly a political gesture, designed to satisfy the Despensers that Stapledon had done all in his powers to help them. Justice demanded that Baldwin confront the felon, not play the messenger to a politician’s ally.

‘William lives the other side of the river, while Sir Henry is but a short walk away. Would it really make a great difference? It is, as I suggest, merely a matter of courtesy.’

Baldwin considered, glancing at Simon. The bailiff shrugged, then nodded.

No, it was not against any principle of law, so far as Baldwin could see, but the idea of informing a victim’s family of a deliberation before even arresting the man accused seemed wrong: putting the cart before the horse. But if the bishop insisted, Baldwin did not feel strongly enough about it to argue. ‘Very well, my lord. Do you prepare a small force and I shall return here as soon as I may.’

The hall was still, and Baldwin was reminded of a calm before a thunderstorm. There was the noise of servants out behind the hall, but they seemed to be muffled. Baldwin had never before known an English house to be so quiet, and the idea that any master could persuade a rowdy, boisterous group of servants to be so respectful spoke volumes of the love all had for the daughter of the house – or perhaps the fear that all felt for their master.

‘You have something to tell me?’

Henry had appeared in the doorway, and now he strode across the floor to stand near the two visitors.

Baldwin looked at Simon, then said: ‘Sir Henry, we have had some fortune. As I told you yesterday, we have learned that your daughter had married Pilgrim. Their marriage was legal and binding. However, just as you did not know, I think it is likely that Pilgrim’s father was also kept in the dark.’

‘So I am not the only fool, you mean? Should I be grateful for the fact that his son held his father in a similar disregard as my daughter did me?’

‘This is difficult for me to assess, Sir Henry. I never knew your daughter. However, I am convinced that she would not have intended to hurt you or your family. Yet it is all too easy for a young woman to fall in love with a man who…who may not be viewed as quite suitable.’

‘So what are you telling me, then?’

A maid entered the room with a tray on which was one jug and one mazer. She set it on the cupboard, poured a generous helping and took it to her master.

As Baldwin continued, Simon noticed that the girl stopped at the screens entrance and waited, a hand on the doorpost, peering into the room with a pale face as she eavesdropped.

‘We think that the father of Pilgrim learned that his son was going out there to meet your daughter. I read the facts as these: he remonstrated with his son. His son then taunted him with the fact that they were married. The news threw William into a rage and he killed his son and then, when he saw your daughter, he killed her too. Perhaps he was driven mad by the thought of his son’s disobedience.’

Simon was impressed with Baldwin’s cautious description of the events. There was no need to add to the burden of misery already felt by this poor man. He had lost his daughter already: best not to tell him that it might have been solely because this already acknowledged enemy of his had an infatuation for her.

‘So…he killed her. Sweet Christ!’

Simon nodded – and then felt the stirrings of doubt.

Surely if this woman had been the daughter of William’s first love, and he had slain her in a passion, he would have treated her with the same reverence he showed towards his son? Either the man would have left both bodies slumped messily, or both set out gently and kindly? Both had earned his jealous resentment; both deserved equal respect. And surely a man with love in his bones for either must later commit self-murder in disgust and despair? Yet at the inquest William had been so composed.

Baldwin continued: ‘He will pay for his crime. We are going to arrest him even now, and I will see to it that he is held for the next court.’

Sir Henry drained his mazer, and as he held it out the servant ran into the room again, collected the jug and brought it to him, pouring another generous measure. It irked Simon that he should be so rude as to drink and not offer anything to Baldwin and himself.

Baldwin nodded and bowed, and the two men left the hall, walking along the passage to the front door. As they crossed the threshold to leave, Simon heard a pattering of feet, and he turned over-swiftly (he was not used to the presence of so many people at all times, and the evident violence of this great city was always in his mind) and would have drawn his sword, but he saw that it was only the young maidservant from the hall.

‘Masters, I can’t let you…The story you just told my master…It’s not true!’

Baldwin eyed her doubtfully. ‘What makes you say that? We have good evidence for it.’

‘But the marriage! It wasn’t Pilgrim who married my mistress! It was his father was wedded to her.’

Her story was all too swift to tell. She had been a witness with John and Lawrence when William and Juliet plighted their troths, in a quieter area of the marsh near the priory. The two had been seeing each other for some months, and after a while Juliet had agreed to make him a happy, married man again. However, she had stipulated that, although William could enjoy her, they could not tell anyone else until she had broached the subject with her father.

‘She hoped that some day her father would be able to understand, masters. She hoped that he would forgive her. But he couldn’t. He is a strong-willed man, firm of resolve, and once he has made a decision he will not alter it.’

‘But what you have told us doesn’t necessarily change anything,’ Simon said. ‘If William saw his son out there meeting his wife – again rage could well have overwhelmed him and he might have slain his own son in a fit of fury.’

‘You think my mistress would be unfaithful to her husband?’

‘You think she wasn’t?’

‘No! She was the most loyal, devoted wife!’

‘Then why else would she have been visiting Pilgrim so often? We have heard that they were often together on the marshes.’

‘That I don’t know,’ she said. Her eyes were already back on the doorway.

‘Have you heard of this ghost of the riverside? Some say that those who see it soon after find that someone they know has died.’

She blanched. ‘I have seen it! But no one died.’

‘When?’

‘Last year, when my mistress first met her husband. She and I were walking about the place in the middle of the evening, when we saw a large figure. Full tall, he was, and clad all in grey, with a hood and cloak.’

‘What made you think he was a ghost?’ Baldwin wondered.

‘His height, and his gait. He went…’

In mute demonstration, she held her arms out wide and walked straddle-legged, her head low on her shoulders. It was hard for Baldwin not to smile. She looked like a man-at-arms who had been spending too long in the saddle. And yet…an idea flashed into his mind.

‘You did not have a friend die?’ Simon asked.

‘No. But the next day I heard that Elena’s husband was dead. Surely that was it.’

Baldwin was frowning, but there came a spark to his face as she spoke. ‘This was the feast day of St Peter ad Vincula, wasn’t it? The night that Mortimer fled the Tower?’

‘Yes, master,’ she said, but now her face was anxious, and her eyes moved back towards the house.

‘Maid, did you tell anyone about that?’

‘No.’

‘Did your mistress see the ghost too?’

‘Yes, but she was angry. She didn’t seem fearful. She saw it at the water, she told me. I heard her talking about it with that monk, Lawrence.’

There was the sound of the main door opening. She said nothing more, but fled for the house as though fearing that the ghost of the marsh might be at her heels at any moment.

‘There’s something there, isn’t there?’ Simon said.

‘I think someone was playing the fool pretending to be a ghost up there that night. It was the night of Mortimer’s escape, and what better way to keep stray eyes at bay than to have a ghost who could kill your nearest and dearest. Probably Elena’s husband met the good Lord Roger and was killed for his pains. Thank God we don’t have to investigate that murder too!’

‘Do you think William could have killed the two?’ Simon asked, and explained his new doubts.

Baldwin considered. ‘I think this ghost is a fiction, and Juliet saw through it somehow. And she told of her doubts. Perhaps she was killed because of that – in case she had seen something else? She was killed to silence her.’

‘While Pilgrim knew nothing?’

‘So he was left tidily, while she was left in a mess because she was guilty of speaking out? Ach, I do not know. Let’s go to William and see whether he can help any further.’

They found William in his hall sitting in his chair. ‘Excuse my remaining in my seat, gentles. I am still tired after that appalling inquest.’ He spoke calmly, but when the small guard party appeared in his doorway behind Baldwin and Simon his eyes widened a little.

They had gathered the bishop’s men quickly and taken the bishop’s own little boat to cross the river, making their way down past the Rosary and grounding the boat in the shallows at the far side.

William’s small manor was a scant mile the other side of Southwark. Bishop Walter had given precise directions to one of his men, and he led the way along the quiet Surrey lanes until they reached William’s house.

For all that it was a small property, it was not maintained well. All about were proofs of the family’s poverty. The limewash was streaked, and timbers were failing. When Baldwin looked about, it was clear that this was a sadly dilapidated property compared with others nearby.

The interior continued with the same impression. Where tapestries and rich hangings covered the walls of the manor houses in the Strand, here the walls were bare of all decoration. Not even a simple picture broke the grey, sombre colours. The only decoration in the whole hall was William’s chair.

‘You like this? It was given to my father. Alas, it is about all that remains of my inheritance.’

‘We are not here for social purposes, I fear,’ Baldwin said.

‘I didn’t think you were – I’m not a fool yet!’ William said with a flare of asperity.

‘We know you were there,’ Simon said. ‘It makes sense that you killed your son when you learned he was trying to ensnare your wife, but why kill her too?’

William leaned back in his chair, staring from Simon to Baldwin. ‘What?’

‘Tell us the truth,’ Baldwin said.

‘I was out there, yes, to see my wife. I had no idea my son was there too. I assume he was dead before I went, but I wanted to see Juliet.’

‘Why there?’ Baldwin frowned. ‘It is a miserable place!’

‘She had an ally who was a boatman. She could always cross the river without fearing being followed, and the man would drop her off near the Rosary.’

‘Damn the Rosary! It seems to appear in all conversations,’ Simon muttered.

‘You want to learn more about it? I can tell you much.’

‘Finish your tale first. What did you want with her that night?’ Baldwin said.

‘She was my wife,’ William said, and his voice was choked. He appeared to recover swiftly, but now his voice was thick, and he swallowed a great deal as though his throat was blocked. ‘I wanted to see her every waking moment.’

He shouted for a servant, and shortly afterwards a wiry, sallow-faced man appeared. ‘Perce, fetch ale. I apologize,’ he continued. ‘Money has been thin in my purse recently, and where I used to offer wine now I must resort to ale.’

When Perce returned and Baldwin and Simon were holding large mugs of ale, he continued.

‘I wished to see her to try to persuade her again that she should announce her marriage to me. I didn’t want her going back to her father, or that snake of a brother of hers. Have you seen him? Timothy, he is called, but a man less like a disciple of Christ I cannot imagine. He is marked like a leper almost.

‘As was her wont, she refused me. The time was not yet right, she said. I spent too much time trying to persuade her, but she would have none of it. When I asked her about my son, she laughed at the thought that she might have had an affair with him. But there was something in her speech that worried me, I confess.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it didn’t sound natural. I am an older man, Sir Baldwin. You are too. You know as I do that you can hear a lie in the tone of a lover’s voice. I heard it then. Oh, don’t look at me like that! I killed no one that night. I heard that note and knew then that she had been seeing my son. I was upset, I confess. But not upset enough to slaughter the only two people in the world whom I loved. That would be insane!’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I left her, with an immensely heavy heart and tears ready to spring. I couldn’t force her to lie to me any further, and I sought solace in returning here and considering to myself that I would be cruel indeed to force her to join me here when she really wanted a younger man. I was prepared to perjure myself and declare that we had never married.’

‘How did you? Your wooing must have been difficult in the extreme.’

‘I think she came to love me as a father. Perhaps she never enjoyed the company of her own? It happened that we met one day near the Rosary while I was watching the building works. She saw me and came to apologize.’

‘Apologize for what?’

‘Didn’t you hear? The Rosary was my manor. When it was taken from me, I lost all my lands.’

Baldwin was surprised. ‘The lands about the Rosary? Marshes like them must be worth little!’

‘My flocks were able to meander and pasture there, but more important was the fishing. I had traps all over the river bank, kiddles to catch salmon. My lands were worth a great deal.’

‘How did you lose them?’

‘I thought you must know all this. Ten years ago I was a companion to Piers Gaveston. I was loyal to him, even when the barons took against him and exiled him. I remained loyal, and when he returned to this country I fought for him. My reward was a series of manors from here all the way to Kent. But now Piers is dead I have no patron. And in the last few years Despenser has whittled away my possessions. The last act was to take my lands for the Rosary, along with all the rest of my lands. All I have left is this hall.’

‘Under what pretext did he take them?’

‘Oh, the easiest possible. He alleged that I was associated with the Lord Mortimer. He suggested that I had aided Mortimer in his escape from the Tower. But I swear I had nothing to do with it.’

‘Many about here appear to have been accused of aiding Mortimer to escape,’ Baldwin noted. ‘The prior too. A new man has been installed.’

‘That man Cusance. He is a companion to Despenser. They wanted a nice berth for him because he and his brother have served Despenser well. So Despenser had Walter de Luiz arrested and gave the living to his friend. It is a disgrace! To think that a politician could remove an honourable, godly man and replace him with a sham. All in the priory hate him. None trusts him.’

‘Was there anyone else who could have wanted to have you impoverished?’ Simon wanted to know. ‘Surely Despenser wouldn’t have simply picked on you for no reason. Someone must have suggested you had some part in that.’

‘I have no idea who could have suggested such a thing,’ William said. ‘An enemy like that must have been obvious. I could hardly miss the fact that someone hated me so much as to want to take away my life. Look at me! Only two years ago I was a powerful man with a good livelihood. Now I have lost all – even my wife and son.’

‘If you used to visit the marshes so regularly,’ Simon wanted to know, ‘did you ever see the figure? The ghost?’

William shivered and appeared to withdraw into his chair. ‘I saw it once, with my wife. It petrified me. But then…’

Baldwin nodded. ‘The next day you heard of the escape?’

‘Yes. It made me think that the ghost was perhaps a clever ploy to scare away watchers. A clever ruse. And I believed it. So would you, out near the river with a fine mist coming down.’

‘What did your wife think?’

‘At the time she, too, was terrified.’

‘Did you discuss it with her?’

‘Yes. In fact she was proud afterwards to have reported what she saw to her father, and through him to the city authorities. It’s probably because of her that the prior was removed.’

‘Who would have known that?’

‘I know Juliet mentioned it on our wedding day – but I don’t think she talked about it apart from then. At the time she was so filled with what that marshland meant to her, you see. She was full of excitement. Joyful, just like me.’

A tear ran slowly, unregarded, down William’s cheek. ‘First I lost Cecily, now her daughter and my son. There is nothing left for me.’

‘Master William, tell me,’ Baldwin said. ‘Sir Henry – would you doubt his personal loyalty to Despenser?’

‘No, I think that he is entirely loyal. There are many things I say to his detriment, but I wouldn’t disparage his faithfulness.’

Baldwin stood. ‘I ask that you remain here in your hall until this matter is reconsidered. Others may seek to punish you if you leave here.’

‘Any man could break into this place. There’s only me and Perce now that my son is dead.’

‘I shall leave these men with you. You will be safe.’

Baldwin turned to leave. ‘One thing: how do people reach these salmon traps – kiddles you called them?’

‘Mine were further into the water, and a boat was needed. Others, like the monks, have theirs nearer the shore. They sometimes use stilts to cross the mud.’

Baldwin commanded one of the bishop’s men to hurry to the bishop and inform him that he was not convinced that William was guilty as they had considered. He asked that a man be sent to Sir Henry, too, to ensure that Juliet’s father was aware that William was not arrested and was likely innocent.

Before they reached the water, Baldwin suddenly stopped. Simon saw him staring over the flats. ‘Are you all right, Baldwin?’

‘No, I don’t think I am. My mind has been fogged. Juliet was killed and left; Pilgrim was killed but treated with respect. If Pilgrim was not murdered by his father, then who else could have left him in such a kindly manner?’

‘As I said before – a monk?’

‘Precisely. The only trouble is: Juliet. Who could have killed Pilgrim and Juliet and treated them in so different a manner?’

‘A monk may be disinclined to touch a woman’s body, I suppose.’

Baldwin gave a swift grin. ‘Or more inclined, so I’ve heard. But this matter grows only more opaque. Why treat the two so differently?’

‘Two killers?’

‘Too coincidental. I cannot believe that.’

‘Someone else came along and prevented the killer from treating the woman in the same manner?’

Baldwin nodded. ‘I am still fascinated by Elena telling us about the figure. She must have realized we’d learn about men on stilts.’

‘Yes, which makes me infer that she knew what she was saying and she was trying to give us a hint. Now I think I understand it, too.’

Friday Next after the Feast of St George the Martyr [7] ,

Bermondsey Marsh

Baldwin had woken Simon as soon as dawn broke, and long before most of the city had risen the two were already on the southern shore of the Thames.

‘This affair is surely not so complex as it appears,’ Baldwin said. ‘Let us return to the place where the bodies were found and see if there is anything about the land which may lead us to an answer.’

The two men were walking away from the marvellous new development of the Rosary, their feet sinking into the thick tussocks of reed amid the meagre grass, before seeing some distance away a figure stalking about.

‘I think that there we can see a part of the answer,’ Baldwin murmured.

Simon followed his gaze. All he could see was a man standing at the water’s edge, sometimes moving slowly about with great deliberation, like a toddler learning his first steps. ‘There?’ he asked.

But Baldwin was already striding towards the priory, and Simon had to hurry to catch up with him.

‘What do you mean?’ he demanded as he reached his friend.

‘Look up there,’ Baldwin replied.

At the gatehouse Simon saw a cart emerge. There was a man leading the pony, and alongside it a monk paced slowly. Even from this distance, it was easy to recognise the figure.

‘Lawrence?’

Baldwin said no more as they approached the cellarer.

‘Sir Baldwin! You are up and about early this morning.’

‘As are you,’ Baldwin said, eyeing the cart. ‘You are off to the city?’

‘There is always a need to keep friends content. We have rights to some fisheries, and every so often we send a gift to friends in the city.’

‘Do you gather them yourself?’

‘Me? Sir Baldwin, can you imagine an old fellow like me on stilts walking about the river’s banks? Better to have a youngster do things like that.’

‘Oh? I’d heard you might have been about during the evening when Juliet and her man were killed.’

‘I don’t know who’d have said that. I wouldn’t leave the priory at night. Not with the ghost about. I’ve told you about that, haven’t I?’

‘Of course.’ Baldwin smiled. ‘And yet we’ve heard that Juliet told of the ghost out here on the night Mortimer escaped. A man could be upset to think that she had reported him – especially if it was her report that caused the good prior to be arrested.’

‘Who would think in such a way?’

‘I wonder,’ Baldwin said coolly, and now he was staring intently at the monk. ‘If a man loved his master and saw him punished by arrest, perhaps he would be so disgruntled and resentful that he might take matters into his own hands. A strong man, though. Clearly an older man would find it difficult to carry a body like Pilgrim’s.’ He glanced at the small cart. ‘Who would these fish be for?’

Lawrence kept his face neutral. ‘Sir Henry. I have been asked by the good prior to have this wagon-load delivered personally.’

‘Ah. The same man who reported that your prior might have been involved in Mortimer’s escape.’ Baldwin smiled coldly. ‘It is not a task to your taste?’

‘Our prior has been installed to replace our poor brother Walter, who has been ripped from our fold. Naturally I seek to obey my prior.’

‘Naturally,’ Baldwin said drily. ‘I would think many of your comrades would be as unhappy as you about the turn events have taken.’

‘None of us is content. But we have the gratification of knowing that at least we are serving God in our own way, no matter what the powerful in the land may think or want. And God willing, our prior may one day return to us.’

‘God willing,’ Baldwin murmured in agreement.

‘Was that any help to us?’ Simon enquired.

Baldwin splashed into a puddle and gazed down at his boot in disdain. ‘These were once good leather,’ he muttered inconsequentially. ‘Hmm? Yes, I think so. Do you consider that man to be a murderer?’

‘Lawrence? No!’

‘Nor do I,’ Baldwin said. ‘And I think that itself makes our task more easy.’

Simon glanced at him. ‘What now?’

‘Now we see if another fellow can help us,’ Baldwin said with a smile, and turned to the gatehouse. ‘A man utterly devoted to Lawrence or his old prior. Someone who is stronger, who could drag Pilgrim’s body down into that hollow, but who’s also young enough to be able to use stilts. Ah! Porter! We should like to see the novice, Brother John. Is he about today?’

‘No. He’s off to look at the kiddles.’

‘Let me guess, he would use a small boat to reach them?’

‘Trust a lad like him with a boat? He can make use of stilts like his master the cellarer!’

‘Of course! Tell me, where would I see him?’

‘Best to wait here. He’ll be returning before long. Can I fetch you a quart of ale?’

William looked about him.

There had been a time, when he was a lad, when he had looked about himself in this room and seen only magnificence. There had been tapestries and fine pewter, silver catching the light from the fire in the middle of the floor, cushions on the benches, and great hounds pacing in and out. It had been a place of enormous comfort and elegance.

As he grew older, he came to this little manor less and less. He had the larger properties, and as his mercantile ventures bore fruit he would travel abroad more often, often dreaming idly of times when he would be able to settle down and find a wife. And then he had met Cecily.

She had been the beauty he had looked for all his life. A tall woman, with flashing blue eyes and dark, Celtic hair, she entranced him. So much so that he had mentioned her to his old companion, Henry. And then, the next time he saw Henry, Henry already had her heart. It all but broke William’s.

Over time, he had healed. He had found dear Isabelle, who had been a congenial spouse who had borne him young William and two more children, and William had found his star rising with the influence of his master, Piers Gaveston. The king himself recognized William.

But then Gaveston was caught by his enemies and murdered. It was a terrible shock. Suddenly William learned what it was to lose his patron. Only three years later, the famine struck, and Isabelle and the children died. Christ’s bones, but that had been a black time! Only eight years, but it was as though he had been living a different life.

It was after the famine that Henry grew in influence. And only eighteen months ago, William first clapped eyes on Henry’s daughter, and in her face he saw the woman he had wanted to marry all those years before. Juliet ensnared him with her calm, elegant beauty, her ready wit and cheerfulness. He couldn’t resist her.

There was a thundering on his door, and he tutted to himself. ‘Perce, see who it is.’

When they had been young, he and Henry had been inseparable. The two of them had revelled in the same alehouses, whored after the same wenches in the stews, even fought together in the same actions when they came against pirates. Yet once Henry took his woman, all his love for his friend had dissipated like smoke before a wind. There was nothing left.

There was a shriek from the yard outside, and William spun on his heel in time to see Perce stumble inside. His hand was at his temple, and he walked with a dazed, unseeing expression. He entered, tottered, and then slowly fell to the floor, like a tree subsiding after the axes had hewn away one side, spinning a little to crash down on his back.

The men sent to protect and guard him were at the door, but they were reluctant to stand in the path of the force that entered now.

‘So, William,’ Sir Henry said. He thrust the war-hammer into his belt, casting a look about him. ‘I think you’d best come with me.’

Lawrence walked up the lane towards the bridge, but all the while his mind was fixed on the knight waiting at the priory’s gate. At last, with a sigh, he gave instructions to the carter about where to go with the fish, and with a heavy heart he turned back, walking along the river bank to the kiddles. There was one figure still there, a tall lad with his robes bound up to keep them dry, the stilts he wore hidden under the murky waters.

‘John? Come here a moment.’

William felt the rope pulling at his throat again, but there was little he could do to protect himself as the horses trotted onwards. It was only fortunate that he had not lost all his strength.

Ironic. That he should have been innocent of crimes, that his greatest enemy should seek to destroy him, when his only offence had been to love the same woman and then love her daughter. He married her, and the result? She died, his son died, and now he was to die as well. For William had no doubt in his mind that this must be Henry’s intention. The man was determined to remove him.

He was here between two horses, a rope about his neck gripped in Henry’s fist, while other men-at-arms rode about him. His hands were bound behind him, his wrists already chafing, but the pain was bearable compared with the anguish of the losses he had already suffered.

They had left his manor as soon as William had submitted to being tied, the men supposedly left to guard him surprisingly quiet in the face of Henry’s force. There was no point in their being killed to protect a felon. That much was obvious enough. And William had hardly covered a hundred paces from his gate when the little force passed him, one of them on his own horse. The man stared down at William, spat into the road and sped off towards the bridge and the city.

‘He’s coming back,’ Simon said.

Brother Lawrence carried a large wicker basket, a pair of stilts lying over the top. ‘Good day again.’

He set the wicker basket on the ground, where it leaked brown mud and water. The stilts rolled from it.

‘They look a handy tool,’ Baldwin commented.

‘On the flats they can be useful, and in the shallows.’

‘And if a man wished to scare all the locals away from a place, such a device would make him appear greatly taller.’

‘It would take more than-’

‘Yes. Perhaps a good grey cloak and hood would be needed also.’

Lawrence nodded and sighed. ‘You have learned much.’

‘The night that the rogue Mortimer escaped from the Tower, he came this way. We know that. Someone was out here pretending to be a ghost to scare all the people away. You.’

‘Yes. I confess. I walked about the marsh for some nights before the feast to remind people of the ghost and scare them away.’

‘Elena’s husband was killed. By you?’ Baldwin demanded harshly.

‘Me? No. But others were there, and if they met a man in a chance encounter, blood could have been shed.’

‘You say one of Mortimer’s men did it?’

‘I say one of his men could have killed Elena’s man. I do not know. That I swear on the Gospells.’

Baldwin eyed him narrowly. He spoke with conviction and apparent honesty, and Baldwin did not think him a murderer – and yet Brother Lawrence felt his guilt. His subterfuge at reintroducing people to the idea of this ghost had indirectly led to deaths. Elena’s husband, the girl, and Pilgrim. All dead for nothing.

‘Where is John?’

‘Now? I am not sure. Some distance away.’

‘You advised him to flee?’

‘All he did he did for good motives.’

‘I didn’t think you would murder a girl, even if you thought she had betrayed your prior. That was the act of a younger, angrier man.’

‘You may think so,’ Lawrence said calmly. ‘It is between him and God.’

‘Juliet told her father about the priory helping Mortimer to escape, and then he told the king’s men. That led to Prior Walter being arrested.’

‘I think so.’

‘And your novice knew of this. He heard Juliet tell you.’

‘She was proud of telling her father about the escaping men, but she told me in order to apologize, I think. She never expected the prior to be taken. She was very young.’

‘And innocent. But a lad like John, who was raised to the concepts of honour and obedience, he took a different view, didn’t he? He thought her act was disgraceful treachery, rewarding the priory’s kindness in marrying her by destroying the prior.’

Lawrence looked away. ‘I can say nothing. My lips cannot be opened except to God. But whether it is true or not, John has the benefit of clergy. You may not touch him.’

Sir Henry was aware of the eyes on him all the way along to the bridge. There, he fully expected to be accosted, but the porter at the gate meekly accepted his words about his capturing a known felon, and he rode on with his little force to his home.

‘You should have stayed away, William. I didn’t want to have to hurt you, but you couldn’t keep away, could you? What, did you want to upset me by stealing my daughter? Eh? Perhaps you did. Maybe you didn’t even give me a thought. Well, you should have done, old friend. You should have. Because now I’ve got you here, and you’re going to pay for the death of my little girl. And because you took her without my permission, first I’ll have you castrated!’

And he clambered from his horse and tugged on the rope, pulling William onwards.

William had been in a daze while he spoke, and only now, as Henry drew him towards the stables, did he realize what was happening.

‘Christ Jesus! No!’

The men grabbed him and pulled him bodily to the heavy wooden table set out by the brazier, the farrier’s tools set out nearby. And Henry smiled to hear the screams of his old friend.

‘You’ll rot in hell for what you did to my daughter, William.’

‘Sir Baldwin! Thank God I have found you! Sir Henry, he has come and taken William. You must help us. My lord bishop is in Westminster, and I can’t get him…’

‘Tell me all,’ Baldwin said urgently.

The man explained quickly how the men had arrived at William’s house, beaten down Perce and dragged William from the place.

‘Where are they now?’

Baldwin took his horse, and then stopped a man with a small piebald rounsey. ‘I am keeper of the king’s peace, acting for my Lord Bishop Stapledon. I must have your horse.’

‘You can’t take it, I-’

In answer, Baldwin drew his sword. Its wicked blue blade flashed in the sun. ‘Retrieve your horse from Bishop Stapledon’s house later this day. For now, it is needed. Simon? Mount. Lawrence – send a messenger as swiftly as you can to my lord Bishop Stapledon’s house and tell him of this. He must send men to Sir Henry’s house if we are to save William.’

The man left with alacrity at the sight of the sword, a fact that pleased Simon no end. Too many men would have argued and drawn their own steel at being ordered to give up their horse.

Soon they were cantering illegally and dangerously along the thronging streets. Simon was almost brained by a low-hanging merchant’s sign, and then, peering over his shoulder at that near catastrophe, almost rode into a tavern’s sign. After that he gazed ahead resolutely.

As they turned into the house’s yard, the screaming assailed their ears.

Baldwin had sheathed his sword after taking the horse for Simon. Now he drew it again and clapped spurs to the beast. It leaped forward, narrowly missing a groom and making him dart away with a shocked curse.

‘Free him immediately in the name of the king!’ Baldwin roared.

Simon was already on the ground. His sword was out, and it came to rest at the throat of the man holding shears near William’s groin. ‘Put that down,’ he hissed.

There were seven men about the yard. There was a man at William’s arms, holding them by the rope that bound them, while a man gripped each leg, holding them apart. The man between them was very still, his eyes fixed on the steel at his throat.

Baldwin saw Sir Henry and his son standing a short distance away.

‘Tell your men to release him, Sir Henry. If any harm comes to him, I will have you pay for it. Release him, I say!’

‘You could fall from your horse here in my yard, and no one need know what happened to you,’ Sir Henry scoffed. ‘I could have you dropped by arrow, and all would declare you had an accident. Go and leave us.’

‘This man is innocent! He did not kill your daughter!’

Timothy stepped forward. ‘So? He may not have stabbed her, but he raped her.’

‘A man cannot rape his wife,’ Baldwin grated.

‘He didn’t have permission to marry her. He took my sister and persuaded her to lie with him so he could insult my family, but there was no marriage – I deny that she was married!’

Baldwin looked about him at the men standing still and quiet. ‘Sir Henry, you are safe. You are a friend of my Lord Despenser, and anything you do here today will be forgiven. But any man here,’ he lifted his voice, ‘any other man here who attempts to hinder me or harm this man will be arrested and held by my authority as keeper of the king’s peace. And if William is harmed, I will have you all taken and I will see you hanged.’

‘Where is your authority for that?’ Timothy sneered. ‘There are only two of you!’

Baldwin felt an unbounded relief as he heard the rushing of feet outside, and as men poured into the yard wearing the livery of Walter Stapledon he smiled nastily and glanced down at Timothy.

‘Stand back.’

The bishop leaned back in his chair. ‘You are quite sure of this?’

Baldwin had explained all. ‘There is little doubt. John was utterly devoted to the cellarer, and through him his prior. The young lad was appalled by what the girl did, telling others about the ruse of using a ghost, and it was as a result of her informing that the prior was arrested. William’s son was innocent, of course. That was why he was set out so neatly. John was sorry to harm him, I suppose, but he wanted revenge on the girl, and he wouldn’t let a little thing like Pilgrim being there get in his way.’

Bishop Walter looked down at his hands. ‘It seems far-fetched.’

‘I was happy enough to believe that her brother was responsible. Timothy was very keen to preserve his family’s honour. Not his father – he still loved Juliet, but not Timothy. She was only ever a half-sister after all. But then it seemed clear that it must have been Pilgrim’s father. William was clearly hurt by his wife’s change in affection. She once loved him, but then the attraction of a man nearer her own age overwhelmed her. Yet when I considered the strange disparity in the way the two bodies were treated and learned how her words may have affected the priory, it seemed more and more likely that there was an element of revenge involved. Perhaps in a way it was the same motive as Timothy’s. A means of retaliating against an insult to the honour of a group. Not a family, but a monastery.’

‘I shall discuss the matter with the bishop here and suggest that the boy be punished.’

‘Please do so. And now I would like to re-enter the city and find my bed,’ Baldwin said.

‘You have done well, Sir Baldwin. I am grateful.’

Baldwin nodded, but as he followed Simon from the hall, along the screens corridor and out into the bishop’s yard beyond, all he could see in his mind’s eye was the faces of those whom he had suspected: Sir Henry’s, twisted with pain and hurt; William’s, torn with longing and despair; and, last, Brother Lawrence’s. A man who had seen all that his faith stood for destroyed by a novice.

Of all, Baldwin felt that the monk’s loss was somehow the worst of them all. The others at least had the strength of their hatred of each other to sustain them. Lawrence had nothing.