Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

Chapter Fourteen

The Lady Katharine sat in the hall, at her side the maid whom Baldwin correctly assumed to be Anney. He had not studied her before, but did so now and liked what he saw. She had a broad, intelligent face with calm grey eyes, and looked the kind of woman who would be steady in an emergency.

Unfortunately they were not alone. Servants bustled about under the stern gaze of Daniel, who studiously ignored Baldwin; Thomas of Exeter stood near the fire, a smirk of contentment on his full features, sipping wine from a cup as he surveyed the room; James van Relenghes sat with his guard at a bench nearby. Then, as if there weren’t already enough people, the priest came in. Baldwin felt exposed and unwelcome, making his request in front of so many, but he knew he must go ahead and do it.

‘My Lady, may I ask for a moment of your time – perhaps in private?’

Lady Katharine wore a thin, gauzy veil over her eyes, and he couldn’t read her expression from her thin, bloodless lips, but he could hear the petulance in her voice. ‘Now, Sir Baldwin? Can’t it wait a day? My son’s dead and I have his funeral to think of. Leave me to my grief for this day at least!’

‘I cannot, Lady,’ Baldwin said quietly and regretfully. ‘I have but one request to make. There are some facts which have come to my notice, and I would like to see your son’s body again – in daylight.’

She seemed to stiffen. Her hand, still gripping a small swatch of cloth, froze into immobility by her face. ‘Why?’ she demanded agitatedly.

‘Lady, I only saw his body in the dark, and now I have heard things which might mean…’

‘You think he was murdered? That it wasn’t an accident?’ she said, her voice rising with an edge of hysteria.

Before Baldwin could answer, James van Relenghes approached, shaking his head sadly. ‘This will not do, Sir Baldwin. It is not fair to discompose the lady on the day she is to bury her only child. There can be no excuse, sir, none. Do you really mean to say you think Herbert was murdered?’

‘I do not know,’ Baldwin said unhappily. As he spoke, the Fleming took Lady Katharine’s hand and patted it comfortingly, as if she needed protection from Baldwin himself. The knight did not like being cast in the role of bully manipulating a poor widow, and he allowed a hint of truculence to seep into his voice. ‘It is regrettable, but we have to make sure, as far as is practicably possible, that it was a mere accident that he died.’

‘I won’t have it!’ Thomas cried suddenly. ‘You are trying to make out that someone here had wanted to kill the boy, and that’s not on. Think what people would say – especially die serfs.’

‘Consider, Master Thomas, what people would say if you refused permission for us to inspect the body in daylight,’ Simon said mildly.

Thomas gaped. ‘What do you mean? Are you threatening me?’

‘No,’ Baldwin said suavely, ‘but the good bailiff is quite right. What would people think if they heard that the man who prevented a proper inspection was the very man who benefited from the death of the heir?’

‘If you put it like that…’ Thomas said, suddenly pale. ‘Maybe it – urn – it would be better to allow you to carry on.’

‘In God’s name! Do as you wish!’ Lady Katharine burst out. ‘My husband is gone, and now so is my beloved son. All your vaunted skills cannot avail me. Do what you think necessary!’ She turned on her heel and stalked off to the other side of the room.

And Baldwin noticed that James van Relenghes went immediately to her side.

Nicholas and two of his men respectfully carried Herbert from the storeroom, using an old door as a stretcher, and set the corpse down on a thick rug laid over the cobbles of the yard. Removing the door, they stood back quietly, waiting for Baldwin to carry out his inspection. The knight spent some minutes gathering together a small jury, and only then did he go to stand by the body.

There were several witnesses: Stephen was there, as was Godfrey – for the first time without his master, Simon noted. Baldwin had called several workers from their duties in the vill or the house to come and observe his inquest, for he was no Coroner, and wanted as many witnesses as possible.

When he was satisfied enough people were present, Baldwin crouched down and hesitantly touched the little figure’s winding-cloth. It covered the boy’s whole body, reaching down to his feet, where it was tied up. ‘Poor fellow,’ he muttered, and took the knife Nicholas held out to him, quickly slicing through the cord and pulling the linen away.

Simon, who knew the fragility of his own stomach, had already withdrawn. From a safe distance, he saw one of the jurymen suddenly whip his hand over his mouth and stumble backwards to vomit at the stable’s wall. Another curled his lip at the smell, but the rest, evidently struck from a similar mould to Baldwin himself, craned their necks with fascination.

The child was flaccid and pale, except for the skin of his back, which had gone an odd, dark colour as if it was badly bruised, but Simon knew from long experience with Baldwin that this was normal, bearing in mind that the lad had been lying face uppermost for so long. Simon wasn’t surprised to see how the boy’s limbs moved so easily; he knew that after a day or more the stiffening of rigor mortis wore off. The sight of the body being rolled over and studied was all too familiar, and yet the fact that it was so small brought a lump to his throat, reminding him of his own beloved Peterkin.

Peterkin had been even younger than Herbert when he died. Simon swallowed, recalling the sense of frantic despair as he watched his only son slipping away so slowly. The boy had been fractious for a few days, but then he caught a fever, and for a day and night he wouldn’t eat or drink, while his bowels ran with diarrhoea. When at last the pitiable squalling became more feeble, and was finally stilled, Simon had almost felt relief to see that his boy’s suffering was over – and yet that brought with it a huge feeling of guilt, as if he knew he was glad to have lost the constant irritation of a crying child.

Standing here now and witnessing another man’s heir being subjected to this intense scrutiny filled Simon with shame, as if he was himself abusing the dead boy by his presence.

But Baldwin knew no such qualms as he touched the boy’s chill flesh. His total concentration was on the body and the wounds; he had no time for sentiment. He removed the small wooden burial cross from the boy’s chest and studied the figure, then began to look over each limb in turn. As his hands probed and prodded he kept up a continual commentary, speaking in a fast, low undertone.

‘Ribs crushed. A long mark passes over them, just as if an iron-shod cartwheel had rolled over him – although spine appears whole. Left leg badly broken…’ He peered closer. ‘Could have been done by a sharp horseshoe. The skin looks as if it has been cut open cleanly. The other leg is whole, although well scratched…’

Daniel murmured, ‘He was playing hide-and-seek up on the moorside with some of the lads from the village. Crawling around up there, the boys always get scratched by furze and brambles.’

‘Thank you, Daniel. The left arm is fine: elbow is grazed, but it has had time to heal and form a scab – I think we can discount this, it is an honourable wound of the type that all boys wear. Right arm also undamaged. Face a little scratched, and left cheek has taken a glancing blow which has partly slashed the skin. At the boy’s back we find…’

Suddenly Baldwin was silent, his hands moving over Herbert’s head, touching the cranium softly, then he bent and stared more closely, pulling apart the scalp like a man searching for lice or fleas. Finally pulling away, the knight wiped his hands on a damp cloth and stood a while staring down at the corpse. Then he looked up with a firm resolution, and raised his hand. The crowd was silent, waiting expectantly.

‘This boy has been run over by a wagon, but he was already dead. He was beaten about the head until there was scarcely a bone unbroken, probably with a lump of stone or a piece of wood. Whoever did this murdered the lad. He was not hit so harshly that the skin was greatly broken, but just enough to shatter the skull. The scratches and marks are there under his hair if you look.’

As he finished the jury shuffled unhappily. A murder meant a fine to be paid for breaking the King’s Peace, and all in the vill would have to find the money.

While the men digested this unwelcome news, Thomas appeared in the doorway, and now he stared out, his lip curled in revulsion. ‘Are you done yet?’

Simon stiffened. He glanced at Baldwin and gave a shrug as he accepted responsibility. This was Dartmoor, his territory. ‘Yes, we have finished now, Thomas. Thank you all for coming to witness Sir Baldwin’s examination of the corpse. I fear there is no doubt that Herbert of Throwleigh was murdered, and everyone in the manor must be attached. No one can leave the place until we have gained sureties from them and everyone must prepare to be questioned.’

There was a gasp from the small group, then Thomas spoke again. ‘You can’t! We’re to hold the funeral today!’

Simon felt his belly churn as the wind altered, bringing to his nostrils the faint odour of putrefaction. ‘Um, perhaps you’re right. The Coroner can order an exhumation if he wants, but we’ve already examined the body. Provided Stephen writes down the details, I think the Coroner will be satisfied.’ There was no point keeping the boy from his grave: he would soon become painfully odorous. ‘Wrap him up again.’

Thomas stomped off to give his orders, and Simon rubbed his temples. ‘What a mess!’

‘Yes,’ said Baldwin, but now he stared down at the body with a puzzled expression. ‘Why should the killer have ruined his head like that?’

It was apparent that the other diners had awaited their return, and after Baldwin’s announcement, the meal was a muted affair.

The table was set out up on the dais. There was no need for a second table; there were not enough mourners to justify more. Lady Katharine sat at the middle, with Stephen on her right, and Thomas on her left. Baldwin was installed with his wife at the end, where he would not even be able to meet Lady Katharine’s eye, let alone talk to her. Simon and his wife were at the other end. James van Relenghes and his guard took their places opposite the lady.

With the fire roaring in the hearth, the atmosphere on this spring day was stifling. Simon was well aware that Baldwin was firmly opposed to the drinking of strong ale or wine too early in the day – he generally drank fruit juices and water – and yet this morning he gratefully polished off a pint and a half of weak ale. Simon ate heartily enough, as he usually did, but every so often he cast a glance at his friend. The knight occasionally spoke to his wife, and showed her the same courteous respect as always, but he seemed preoccupied, which was natural enough.

All had expected the day to be depressing, but this new turn, the suggestion that young Herbert’s death was no accident, had affected the people there differently; from his vantage point at the end of the table, Baldwin found he could observe all their reactions.

Brother Stephen sat as though in deep shock, or perhaps, Baldwin thought, in guilty reflections on his unkind comments earlier that morning. At the other side of the large table, Thomas of Exeter ate with a furious speed, as though forcing food into himself was a means of displacing unpleasant musings. He hardly spoke a word, grunting at comments addressed to him, and rose from the table before anyone else, muttering about seeing to his horse.

In direct contrast, James van Relenghes was almost embarrassingly talkative. In different circumstances Baldwin would have thought he was trying to impress Lady Katharine. He was most attentive to her, talking of the courage and prowess of her dead husband, assuring his hostess that her son would have been no less brave. He went so far as to assert that Herbert could have felt nothing, that his death was swift, saying that he had seen so many dead men and children during his term as a soldier that he was personally convinced of the fact.

His words had no impact on the grieving woman. If anything, she was driven into a deeper despair by his constant chatter, and at last she raised a feeble hand to her temple and, pleading a severe headache, begged to be permitted to leave the company. Daniel leaped to her side and helped her to her feet.

It was almost a relief when she walked from the room with her maid Anney. All at once the others began to hurl questions at Baldwin, who deflected many, but couldn’t hide the main facts.

‘If he was killed, I am surprised I noticed nothing,’ James van Relenghes said. ‘I was out that way.’

‘On your own?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Oh no, Godfrey was with me, as usual,’ the Fleming said smoothly. ‘I fear you must look for another suspect. Perhaps the priest here.’

‘You were out there as well, Brother Stephen?’

The cleric gave an unhappy nod. ‘Yes, but I was further up the hill. I had gone out for solitude – I had no wish to have Herbert for company.’

Baldwin’s line of questioning killed off further conversation. It was as if he had accused all those present in the room of the murder. Now people avoided each other’s eyes, as if each suspected the others, or each expected to be personally accused. Before long, all had finished their food and filed from the room.

Simon and Margaret followed Baldwin and Jeanne into the small enclosed arbour behind the stables. Here, in a quiet, secluded space designed as a private garden for the lady of the house, three apple trees and two pears stood, bent by the blast of wind from the tor behind, but the manor’s stock of medicinal herbs grew tolerably strong and straight in well-regulated lines. A turf seat was set into the wall of the house, and the women sat here. In the lawn was cut a channel, and a small stream had been diverted to fill it and play musically as it fell over stones.

After the ladies had made themselves comfortable, Simon could hold his impatience no longer. ‘What’s the matter, Baldwin? You look like a man with piles anticipating a long day in the saddle.’

The knight gave a feeble grin. ‘I wish it were something so simple. I was meditating on the miserable position of that poor lad. There he was, suddenly without a father, and everyone about him would have been happy if he had dropped dead in his turn. Well, now he has, and I can imagine that some people here will be gratified by this turn of events, no matter what their pious expressions might imply.’

‘That’s a dreadful thing to say,’ Margaret protested. ‘You surely can’t think that poor Katharine isn’t genuinely brokenhearted by the loss of her son?’

‘Margaret, you are a kind and gentle woman: you have borne your husband several children, and you loved them all. You are a natural mother, and I know you grieved deeply when they died – but you didn’t see the face of that woman when she was standing at her husband’s grave. She wanted no part of her son; she wanted him away from her. Wouldn’t any woman wish for the comfort of her child at a time like that? She did not: I saw her. She was revolted by the sight of her boy.’

Margaret shook her head. ‘It may be that she had a perverse reaction; I have heard the squire was furious with Herbert on the day he died. As a wife she might have felt bitterness towards her son, but that’s not the same as hating him and wishing him dead, Baldwin.’

‘I may be entirely wrong, just as I have been over so many other aspects,’ he admitted. ‘It is my fault. I should have protected the boy.’

Jeanne could see his sadness and confusion. ‘I find that hard to believe, husband. You could probably have done nothing to save him. It is enough for you to discover his killer.’

He took her hand, but stared out over the moor behind the house and didn’t meet her eyes. ‘If I had been here, it is possible I could have prevented his death.’

‘Will you arrest the farmer?’ Margaret asked.

Baldwin shook his head. ‘There is no evidence that he was responsible for anything. Daniel pointed us to him – but then Stephen pointed me towards Lady Katharine, and Thomas had as clear a motive as Edmund.’

Suddenly his voice hardened. ‘Enough! I will stop being directed by events. So far I have been blown by other people’s winds of fancy – no more! Now I shall do what I should have done in the beginning, and investigate this damned affair properly. Simon, let’s go and see where the body was found.’