Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

Chapter Thirty-Two

Petronilla left the room with her belly churning. In the screens she stopped, uncertain where to go, staring about her with confusion. Only when Stephen called a second time did she hear him. Even with the revulsion she felt for him now, she couldn’t refuse his pleading expression.

‘They’ve gone to see the footprints, haven’t they?’ he asked.

She nodded. His gaunt features were almost corpselike. ‘You’re safe. They won’t find anything. I cleared it all.’

‘Pet, you’re an angel,’ he said, taking her hand. She instinctively drew away. ‘Come, forgive me! You know the truth. I may not be a good priest, but I am not a bad man. Ah, well, God will give me strength. Petronilla, you have to tell the bailiff that you left me. Don’t worry about protecting me, because I am safe already. I have immunity from the bailiff or the Warden. You must tell them you left me before I went down to the stream – that way you will be safe as well.’

‘Safe?’ she demanded, the tears springing back to her eyes.

‘You will live, girl!’

‘Petronilla?’

She turned at the voice of one of the grooms. Stephen stepped back to conceal himself in the doorway to the pantry. ‘Yes?’ she asked.

‘That damned Fleming needs his cut stitched, but no one’s about to help. Would you come?’

‘Give me a moment.’

He turned and wandered back to the kitchen, and Petronilla was about to follow him when Stephen grabbed her arm.

‘Don’t forget, Pet! If anyone asks you, tell them you left me before I went to the stream. You’re safe enough then.’

Hugh grew bored with answering questions from the two boys about his fighting skills and where he had learned to use half- and quarter-staffs. The lads were keen to know all about him at first, but the taciturn servant fitted no boy’s dream of the ideal soldier, especially since he didn’t even own a sword, a fact they ascertained early on, and soon they were demanding details of Edgar’s life and weapons training, a fact for which Hugh’s gratitude was roughly matched by Edgar’s annoyance.

It was in an attempt to get some peace that Edgar went to the buttery. Petronilla had left some minutes before, and now Wat sat alone on an empty ale barrel. Edgar didn’t notice that Wat’s face was a little flushed, nor that his smile was slightly fixed. To the servant’s mind, he had found a young boy, someone who would be the perfect playmate for the two pests in the hall. Nodding to himself, he went back to the hall, and smiled thinly at the boys as they began to bombard him with even more questions.

‘I have to prepare my master’s room now, so I shall leave you two with Wat,’ he said, leading them through to the buttery. ‘Don’t wander. My master will probably want to speak to you again when he comes back.’

Wat beamed at them. He felt wonderful again. The half pint of wine which Petronilla had given him was coursing through his veins like liquid fire, and he felt more alive and awake now than he had all day. He wanted to run and laugh and tell jokes and play – but no one else was about to enjoy the sport with him. Petronilla was fun: he should go and find her, maybe persuade her to drink some more wine with him. But he wasn’t sure where she had gone. It was sad, especially since he was expected to sit with these two children and look after them when he wanted to go and find other adults like himself.

Alan sat quietly on a stool near the door. Jordan remained standing by the door, staring awkwardly down at the paved floor. To Wat, both looked filled with trepidation, and he felt sorry for them. It wasn’t fair that he should be complaining about having to entertain them, not when they had obviously been through so much.

Wat was a generous lad. He felt much better after trying the best wine in the buttery: it had cheered him no end, and he was filled with the conviction that the same cure could be worked on the two boys. He glanced at them, wondering, and swiftly arrived at the conclusion that the only means of testing his hypothesis was to try it out.

He let himself down from his barrel and went to the door. Peeping out, he could see no one, and grinned to himself.

‘Feeling thirsty?’ he asked the two visitors.

Baldwin dropped lightly from his horse as a groom took the bridle. ‘Simon, something about all we have heard rings false. I want to speak to the girl Petronilla.’

In the kitchen, Petronilla cleaned the weeping fluid from the wound, while a groom threaded a borrowed needle. Kneeling at van Relenghes’s side, he gave the Fleming a grin to try to reassure him, but as he stood poised, van Relenghes looked over at Petronilla.

‘Pretty maid, I beg that you do me this service. Your touch must be softer than a groom’s, and I hope your hand will be steadier.’

The groom gave her the needle, and she stood indecisively, staring down at him. Then, with a little sigh, and while the groom resignedly took hold of van Relenghes’s legs to stop him thrashing around too much, she knelt and pinched the two flaps of skin together, stabbing the needle through and tying the thread.

It was hideous. She could feel the glittering, almost insane stare of his eyes, fixed on her with an awful concentration; each time she jabbed through his flesh, she saw his fists tighten at his side, although he made no sound and no other movement. The only sign of his torment was the sweat which appeared first like a fine dew on his brow, and then ran together into small streams that flowed over his temples; it was reflected by her own, which she had to keep wiping away with her sleeve.

When it was over, she rested back on her haunches. Van Relenghes closed his eyes, once, and opened them to smile at her with gratitude. Then, almost instantly, his eyes closed again, and he was unconscious. While the groom smeared egg-white over the inflamed scar, she walked weakly from the room, and stood leaning against the doorpost, a bilious roiling in her belly. She was sure she would never forget the sight or feel of the needle puncturing his skin.

‘Are you all right?’

Looking up, she saw the serious knight. ‘Oh, I am all right, Sir Baldwin. I have just been helping that Fleming, stitching his wound. But now I think I have to speak to you.’

‘Ah, good. I was hoping you would have decided to help us.’

He led her into the hall. There, to Petronilla’s secret fear, she found herself walking into what looked like a court of law. Baldwin took his seat next to his friend Simon. Flanking them on one side were Thomas, sulking, and Godfrey, while on the other were Daniel and the bailiff’s wife. When she glanced around, she saw Hugh sitting behind her, near the door.

‘Petronilla, we have not spoken to you before about the events on the day Herbert, your master, died. We have heard that you were out on the road that day, and that you spoke to van Relenghes and to his man here – do you remember that?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What did you talk to them about?’

‘It was nothing, sir. This man’s master was just chatting.’

‘Well, I suppose he was trying to find out anything he could about my Lady, but I told him nothing.’

‘You ran off up the hill when you heard something?’

‘Yes, sir. There was a shout, and when I looked up the slope I saw Stephen there, trying to beat a boy – Anney’s lad, Alan. Well, I know what Stephen’s temper can be like, so I hurried up there as quickly as I could.’

‘Why? Did you think he could hurt the boy?’

Petronilla gave him a nervous look. ‘I don’t know – Stephen can be quite severe when he thinks a boy has been making fun of him. I just wanted to make sure that Alan was all right.’

‘What did you find when you got up there?’

‘Alan had escaped. Stephen was very irritated, and if he’d caught the lad, I think he’d have given him the thrashing of his life. So I talked to him and calmed him.’

‘After you had spoken to him, as you say,’ Baldwin interrupted, ‘how did he appear to you?’

‘He was fine, Sir Baldwin,’ Petronilla smiled. ‘Quiet and calm again.’

‘How long were you with him?’

‘Not long.’

‘And then he went on down to the stream?’ Baldwin pressed.

‘I… I suppose so. He said he wanted to think…’ she said. She held Baldwin’s gaze as she felt the colour rise to her cheeks.

‘Did he say what about?’

‘It was something I had told him,’ she said with spirit. ‘A secret.’

‘Ah yes,’ Baldwin said. ‘A confession, I understand. It strikes me as being very convenient.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Petronilla,’ Baldwin said, and leaned forward to stare. ‘You expect us to believe that you went up there to protect a lad from the violent rage of this priest, and yet when you arrived, you calmed him in a moment? He can hardly have been over-fearsome if you could cool his passion so swiftly. I think it is more likely to have been the case that you told him something so terrible that it forced his mind from retribution on this child.’

She paled under the onslaught of his logic. ‘No, it was nothing like that!’ she protested. ‘I just managed to cool him – I can, I know him well.’

‘How do you know him so well?’

His eyes were horrible, she decided. All black now, as if there was nothing but a void behind them. Petronilla tried to pull her gaze away, but couldn’t. His frowning stare was compelling, and she found herself shaking her head as if in response to some unspoken question.

Simon wasn’t sure what chord the knight had struck with the girl, but it was clear that she was scared, and that led the bailiff to the obvious conclusion. ‘Petronilla, did you see Stephen murder your young master?’

She shook her head emphatically. ‘No! ’

Baldwin leaned back. ‘But do you think he murdered Herbert, Petronilla? Because I am sure you do.’

‘No, sir, oh, no!’ she declared, and the tears sprang from her eyes at last.

It had been so hard, so terribly hard, to keep it hidden all this time. To think that any man could stoop to so heinous a crime as the murder of a little child was revolting, but that it should have been done only a few yards from her, was awful! She saw that none of them believed her. Condemnation was on every face ranged before her; they had all, she could tell, convicted her in their own minds for keeping quiet about the murder of her own master.

‘No, sir, it’s not that!’ she said with a sudden passion, her head shaking from side to side. ‘He couldn’t have; really, he couldn’t!’

But it was obvious that, however impassioned, her denial was of no use. Baldwin and Simon conferred quietly, occasionally nodding towards Petronilla. She longed to tell them the truth, but daren’t. Stephen had explained to her so many times, hadn’t he? She must remain silent about their love. There was no danger to him, for even a full ecclesiastical court could only force a cleric to abjure the realm, banishing him for life – and that, Stephen had said, would only be for the most heinous of crimes… but Petronilla could be in real danger. She would be looked upon as a prostitute: no more than a common whore. But that was before Herbert had been murdered.

‘Bring Brother Stephen here,’ Simon said, and Hugh went quickly from the room.

Petronilla felt Jeanne touch her arm, and the maid followed her to a bench where she was given a space to seat herself. She wiped her nose and eyes on her apron, and then gave herself up to her grief, weeping quietly as they awaited the arrival of the priest.