The Tolls of Death

Chapter Twenty-One

This, Baldwin thought, jogging along on his horse, was the sort of manor he might have retired to, had his Order survived. Far from anywhere, deep in Cornwall’s bleak moors, with no opportunity for temptation by women, gambling, gluttony or sloth. The life here would have been harsh, but attractive for all that.

Temple church was a pleasant block in grey moorstone, and there was a small vicar’s house, a well-thatched hovel, nearby. Built on the side of the hill, the church enjoyed views over the tree- and field-studded lands south and east, and moors beyond. Here any wind from the sea would rush straight up and whistle about it.

But Baldwin was sure that he would have enjoyed life here as a corrodiary, a pensioned Templar Knight. For a Poor Fellow Soldier of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, this would represent final security after the trials of a life in the centre of the world, in the deep deserts of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. A life of fighting in the brutal dry heat of the lands about Jerusalem, or the still more daunting city states near the coast. It was there that Baldwin had chosen to join his Order, when the Templars saved him after the ferocious battles for Acre, when the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the whole of the Crusader lands of Outremer fell to the Egyptian Mameluke hordes.

He could recall the fighting: the screams, the blood, the chunks of flesh hacked from still-living bodies like joints butchered from a carcass and left tossed to the ground for the dogs. Fighting while the sweat ran in rivulets down his brow, down his back, down his breast. Fighting while he gradually lost all hope. Fighting while his strength ebbed, while his parched throat pleaded for a moment’s rest so he could take a slurp of anything to ease it. Fighting while his friends died around him. Fighting even when he could scarcely remember why he was there, why he had travelled all that way.

He shivered at the memory of those friends and comrades. Bodies of men he had known lying at the foot of the city’s walls. Some had become friends after the arduous journey from England, going like him to protect God’s lands from invasion. They had set off full of enthusiasm: hopeful, intrepid men, but when they arrived, the place was all but lost, and they began to die. Some sickened, losing their energy with their diarrhoea, and more fell as the arrows rained down, or as their legs were hacked from beneath them. Too many to remember. It was one thing to see an unknown dead Christian; infinitely worse when the man was a companion who had bought a drink, or spoken kindly and shown honour.

Baldwin could recall so many faces among the dead. In the desert their faces were ravaged by the heat, desiccating and mummified before they could rot, while those who fell in Acre seemed almost to melt in the humidity of the coast.

Yes, he could easily believe how calming this place would have seemed to him, had his Order survived long enough to permit him to come here as an old man. A cool place, in which sudden death and the odour of decomposing human flesh was unknown. A land in which the rain fell gently as rose petals; no parched throats here. A green and lovely land.

‘Baldwin?’

Simon’s concerned voice brought him out of his reverie, and he gave the Bailiff a shamefaced grin as he kicked his horse’s flanks and led the way the last few yards to the church.

The priest was nowhere about. Worse, Baldwin had expected the interior to be clean and tidy. Instead there were signs of neglect. The floor bore leaves and dirt which should have been swept clean, and when Baldwin glanced about him, there was a subtle impression of mess. At the altar, the cloth was slightly skew-whiff; a candle had been knocked and leaned drunkenly from its candlestick. Neither was significant, perhaps, but they indicated a hint of slipshod care towards the building that rankled with Baldwin. And then, he had to shrug as he recognised the injustice of him, a renegade Templar, a man who was a criminal because he had betrayed his oaths, thinking less of a priest because he was late to sweep his floor, had knocked a candle with his elbow after Mass, and had managed to catch the altar-cloth as he made his way from the church.

Baldwin left the building, glanced towards the little home and walked to it, rapping sharply on the door.

Made of planks of elm nailed onto a couple of horizontal bars, the door moved alarmingly as he knocked. Listening, Baldwin was sure he could hear a snore. It made him frown. First the effeminate Father Adam at Cardinham, now this. His mind flew back to the church. The man hadn’t done a thing in there yet today, and that was scandalous. He was lazy and degenerate, as Baldwin had first thought. Well, he would learn that a knight would brook no such sloth!

He thrust at the door firmly. It creaked as the peg which held it closed stopped it, but the creak became a loud crack as Baldwin angrily kicked it open. It bounced back against the wall and trembled as though it had the senses of a man and felt terror at his rage.

‘Priest?’ he roared. ‘Where are you?’

There was a sharp gurgling sound, and he peered into the gloom to see a quivering figure sitting bolt upright on a palliasse. The reek of sour ale permeated the entire house, and he curled his lip at the odour.

‘It is almost afternoon, priest,’ he said, and was just in time to move aside as the pathetic creature vomited over the place where he had stood.

Father John opened his eyes blearily and wiped his mouth. God’s bones, but it was hard to keep the stuff down nowadays. Gone were the days of his youth in Oxford when he could quaff a gallon of ale at a sitting, near enough, and wake refreshed. Now he had to sleep for practically a whole day. Not that it stopped his feelings of dullness and general lethargy.

‘Since you have chosen to enter already, Lording, I suppose there’s little point in asking you in,’ he said acerbically, eyeing his visitor without pleasure.

The intruder looked like a knight from an old romance: tall, well-formed, with little of the belly that a man might expect by his age. If anything the fellow had the look of a much younger man, although there was something about him which looked curiously out of place. Ah yes, the beard. A strange affectation, John considered. Why a man would wear a half-beard like that was beyond him. Perhaps a full-blooded chest-long beard would be all right, or none whatever, but this thin covering over the line of the jaw was plain silly.

Another wave of nausea smothered him for a moment. When he could open his eyes again, he saw three others: another belted knight — a younger, more disdainful fellow; also a rather scruffy-looking, big-built man who scowled at him darkly, and a clerk. Oh, God in Heaven save me from clerks! he thought. Weren’t there enough of them in places like London and Oxford? Did the Good Lord have to send them here to the moors too?

‘Ach! My mouth tastes dreadful!’ he muttered, and went outside. His trough was at the rear of the churchyard, and he plunged his head into it, coming up with a great exhalation. He smiled for almost exactly three heartbeats, thinking how refreshing it was, then puked again, thankfully missing the trough.

‘You have missed your Mass, Father.’

He turned and studied the tall knight. His belly was roiling like a boiling pan, but he felt better nonetheless. ‘Sir, I don’t know who you are, though I’m sadly afraid I’ll soon learn — no matter! I perform my functions here to the best of my abilities. Poor they may be, but occasionally, like last night, if I am out of sorts, I will pray to God and He will give me dispensation to miss an occasional service. If He feels able to allow me some peace, I see no reason why I should take complaints from a man like you, whom I neither know, nor wish to know.’ He sat back on the edge of his stone trough as a shiver ran through his frame. Soon, very soon, he would need to be sick again.

‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill. What were you doing last night to cause such a foul illness in your belly?’

‘Perhaps it is your business, but …’ John pulled a face and considered before shaking his head. ‘No! I can’t see it’s any business of yours what I may or may not do when I have a few moments to myself.’

‘Really?’

John’s eyes widened as the man lunged at him. A fist gathered up the robes at his shoulder and lifted him bodily from the trough. ‘Don’t bandy words, priest! A man was murdered last night! I want to know what made you turn to your drink. The sight of so much blood, or the feel of it on you?’

‘Where is this blood?’ John asked rhetorically, glancing down at his robe so far as he was able with the knight’s fist bunching at his chin. ‘I see none. Granted, I do have some puke on me, but that is an occupational risk of drinking.’

‘Do you care nothing for the dead man?’

‘Perhaps if you told me who it was, I’d be able to say. If at the same time you were prepared to release me, I might feel disposed to discuss my feelings with you.’

‘The miller: Serlo from Cardinham.’

‘In truth?’ John asked. ‘A shame, I suppose. Although he wasn’t the sort of man to be missed by many.’

‘You seem callous, priest,’ said the second knight.

‘Should I pretend affection? He wasn’t from my flock and I won’t miss him.’

‘You should be more helpful,’ Roger grated. ‘My master here is a Coroner. We could insist you answer our questions on oath.’

‘I am a priest. I don’t have to respond, even to a Coroner.’

‘We have heard already that you are a supporter of Lancaster. How would it be if we were to spread news of your loyalty?’

John gave him a hard stare. ‘It wouldn’t change my attitude to my flock, clerk. I’m not the sort of man to be scared by threats like that and I am surprised that you should suggest I could be.’

Baldwin released him and John motioned to the trough. ‘May I sit again?’

‘If you wish,’ Baldwin said, but there was a half-grin on his face, acknowledging that there was little point in attempting to scare this man. Father John would be resistant to all threats … and yet there was something in his eyes that looked very much like fear. Baldwin studied him more closely. Many a man who was unused to killing would drown the memory in wine or ale, as he knew; some would get themselves drunk in order to steel themselves to the task of murder. ‘Did you see Serlo yesterday?’ he asked.

‘No. I was up here all day,’ John said with a twist of his mouth as he burped uneasily. ‘And all night.’

‘You were upset?’

‘I was lonely,’ John said with perfect honesty. ‘I often am.’

Simon stepped forward. ‘I am Simon Puttock, Father. We have heard that a girl, Julia, who is living with the priest in Cardinham, came from here.’

‘If by that you mean to ask, was it I who put her in pup, the answer’s no,’ John said testily. ‘Nor was it Father Adam. Another man did that to her — or with her, I suppose,’ he corrected himself. ‘I don’t think there was any coercion involved. Just subtle words and a certain kindness to a young and impressionable woman.’

‘Perhaps the promise of a marriage?’ Simon asked. ‘It’s what all too often happens, and then the man bolts like a cat with his tail on fire when he realises she’s with child.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘You can’t tell us?’

John looked up at Simon. ‘Perhaps I could, but I don’t betray the confessions of my flock to men who barge into my house, no matter how wellborn they may be.’

‘What do you fear?’ Baldwin asked.

‘I fear giving away information that could cause trouble for others. It is not my place to cause other folk problems,’ he said coolly.

‘Very well,’ Baldwin said. ‘Perhaps you can answer some other questions, though. We have heard of a woman, Matefrid, who is dead. Her son died in the machinery of Serlo’s mill. Do you know of him and her?’

‘Danny and Matty?’ John recalled with a smile. ‘Lovely folk. Good-looking, too. It was a great shame. Horrible death, and made worse by the way that Serlo ranted afterwards, claiming that the boy was no more than a cretin. It didn’t endear him to many people. Mind, it was an appalling fine that the Coroner imposed upon him.’

Jules glanced at Baldwin in response to his enquiring look. ‘Before my time,’ he said.

Simon had heard something in John’s voice. ‘You say Serlo ranted afterwards, but you don’t seem to condemn him.’

John shrugged. ‘I’m the youngest of five brothers. The oldest has the manor, the second and third died, the fourth was born a fool, and I was told I had this vocation. I always looked up to my older brother and in return he defended me from all my foes. I think Serlo was the same as me in many ways; the only difference was, I grew independent, but Serlo was always in his brother’s shadow. Was he an evil man? I knew Danny while he worked for Serlo, and he never complained. If anything, Serlo was kind towards him, but that doesn’t mean he knows how to describe his feelings. He was out of his depth when Danny died, and he presented himself as a tough man of business. It was all he knew.’

‘Who was Dan’s father?’

‘What is it with you and paternity?’ John demanded. ‘Do you mean to accuse me of fathering all the bastards in Cardinham and Temple? Anyway, I don’t know. There were rumours, though.’

Simon snorted. ‘We’ve heard some. A man from the castle.’

‘So I believe.’

‘Our interest lies in the other women here: Athelina was supported by a lover, as was Julia, whom you threw from the parish, and also Matty.’

‘No one threw Julia from here, she was offered an opportunity to go nearer to her lover and took it.’ He was still a moment, then added, ‘I heard her say once that her lover was Athelina’s too, but that he stopped supporting Athelina when he fathered Julia’s child.’

‘That would explain why Athelina found money coming scarce,’ Simon noted.

‘And why she started going to the castle to demand more,’ Baldwin agreed.

‘And possibly why she was killed,’ Jules concluded. ‘Come! Let’s return and see if we may learn who this man was.’

Roger and Sir Jules spun on their heels and left.

‘What’s their hurry?’ John muttered.

‘The good Coroner needs to return to Bodmin,’ Baldwin explained. ‘It’s this escape. He wants to be back with the Hue and Cry.’

‘What escape?’

‘Lord Mortimer has escaped from the Tower of London,’ Baldwin told him, but then he murmured, ‘Friend, what scared you so last night?’

John paled. ‘Why should anyone have scared me?’

‘You drank to excess like a man who was living in terror.’

‘You imagine it.’

‘Could Dan’s father be alive still? Might he wish to punish Serlo for Dan’s death?’ Simon asked.

‘I suppose it’s possible — but who can tell?’

‘You know of no surviving members of the boy’s family? No uncle or brother who could desire revenge?’

‘What do you ask all this for?’ John said as the acid bubbled into his throat again. He swallowed hard. ‘The man’s dead — isn’t that enough?’

‘No. He was killed and then thrown into his machine, like the apprentice Danny,’ Baldwin said. ‘Had you heard about Athelina?’

‘I’d heard she was dead.’

‘Murdered as well. Perhaps these murders are connected?’

John stared out over the valley to the south. ‘The man was never here, but he confessed to another cleric. I can’t betray that confession. Matty was a good girl, but trusting. I suppose Julia is a little like that; Athelina as well. All fell for kind words and hints of possible marriage. All were used as wives for as long as it suited their lover.’

‘Matefrid remained here,’ Simon noted, ‘but Julia left. Why was that?’

‘Matty wanted to stay and raise her child. Julia was still seeing her lover, and it was more convenient for her to be nearer the castle. There is one thing, though …’

‘What?’ Simon asked.

‘I heard that Julia has been abandoned by him too. She may be willing to help you, if she wants revenge on the man. After all, when he dropped Athelina like a hot stone, she became vindictive about his promised money — and who can say but that Julia won’t feel the same?’

On the journey back to the castle, the men were quiet, mulling over John’s words. As the priest had suggested, they must speak to Julia and see whether she would tell them who her lover had been. He could be the key to the deaths; indeed, he might be the murderer of Athelina and her children.

Clattering up the path to the castle itself, Simon sat more upright in his saddle. If this matter could be resolved speedily, the Coroner would conclude his inquests, and they could all go home. Back at last to Simon’s family, he told himself, and in his mind’s eye he saw a delightful picture of his wife.

Glancing across to Baldwin as they rode in through the main gate, he saw the same easy smile on the knight’s face. He too was missing his wife, the Lady Jeanne, and the chagrin he would feel at failing to complete this investigation must be leavened with the knowledge that he would see his lady that little bit sooner.

Aye, Simon thought, it was good to have a wife.

And then that niggling sensation returned to him. A feeling that he was being less than honest to himself and to his wife, let alone to the memory of the dead women and their children. He was not concerned about Serlo, for the miller had been a brutish man, prepared to use violence against anyone smaller or weaker than him. Although the priest John had implied he might have been different, no one else thought much of Serlo. The miller seemed to have shrugged off the death of his apprentice, but had harped on about the cost of it — the fines and expenses he must suffer. John could argue that Serlo was misunderstood, but as far as Simon was concerned, Serlo was a nasty piece of work who was no loss to anyone. It didn’t matter if his killer wasn’t found.

Yet Serlo had been murdered. His death was a crime.

Surely Simon could forget this case and return to Lydford. It was what his wife deserved.

But Meg, were he to die, murdered, would at least expect someone to try to find the murderer. If a man were to kill Simon’s son, he would like to think that someone would be prepared to seek the killer, even if that son were a brute. It would be intolerable to think that he would go unrevenged, that no one would seek to impose justice of some sort.

With a grunt of irritation, he realised that he could not give up the matter just yet. He must persevere, do all he could to learn what had really happened here, and even if he discovered who had killed Athelina, he must also try to find Serlo’s killer.

Simon could not flee homewards yet.

John cleaned himself again at the trough, and busied himself about his little church to keep his mind from less pleasant thoughts.

He might have to leave this place. If the truth was to be released about his support of Earl Thomas’s family, there was no escape, and John didn’t trust that clerk, Roger. He rarely trusted any clerks, but the man with the Coroner seemed to have no sympathy. John would be better — safer — in a convent. Whether or not Sir Henry sought to have him removed was irrelevant: the fact was, the King could make life here impossible for him. He’d ensure that another man was put in; a friend of his own, or of the Despensers, would find themselves enriched.

How had news of his loyalty been spread? he wondered again. Could Adam have said something to Roger? No. But if the clerk had learned of John’s secret, could he not also have learned of Adam’s?

John had little cause to love Adam, and yet the fellow didn’t deserve the fate reserved for men like him, inside or outside the Church. Perhaps John should give him some sort of a warning? Tell him to beware?

The march to the alehouse felt longer than usual to Warin. Usually, his boots and sword were enough of a proof of his authority, and people moved out of his path, averting their eyes in case they might give him offence, but here, today, there was an air of rebellion.

It was just as he had feared! The folk all thought the murderer was someone from the castle. Worse, they remembered the enmity between Richer and Serlo. Richer was the man who had loved Athelina, but who had lost her; he was the one who had threatened Serlo over his tolls, who had threatened to get the man ruined. Now that Serlo was dead, it was scarcely surprising that people thought he must be guilty. God’s teeth, even Warin thought him the obvious suspect!

Richer could survive the accusations. If he could stand his ground and absorb the verbal attacks of Alexander, he could stay on at Warin’s side, but if he failed, Warin would find a new man-at-arms. Alexander might try to have Richer taken and held in a gaol, but he would never risk offending Warin. A Constable didn’t pick fights with a squire, when all was said and done. No, Warin and Richer together should be able to defend themselves against a few malcontents. It should be all right.

But the atmosphere as he approached the vill was grim. Suddenly Warin wasn’t sure that he had chosen the most sensible path. It was only a few years ago in Courtrai that a bunch of peasants had taken on a French army and destroyed it, killing hundreds of knights and taking their golden spurs to hang in their churches. English peasants weren’t so bold as that, nor so competent, Warin told himself. But as he walked, his hand remained on his belt, near his sword, and when he saw a farmer spit in his direction, that hand began to shake a little.