31 - City of Fiends (24 page)

‘Master Henry, it would seem that William believes you must have had a hand in the murder of his mother. I shall speak with him later, but for now, is there anything you would like to tell
us?’

‘It’s nonsense! How could anybody believe that? I am a merchant in the Freedom of the City, not a cut-throat.’

‘Why then should William Marsille make such an accusation?’

‘Because he’s a fool!’

‘It is one thing to be a fool, and another to make scurrilous accusations, Master Paffard,’ Baldwin said.

‘It’s because he hates us. That’s why,’ Gregory said.

‘Why?’

‘Because Father told them that he’d see them thrown into the gutter,’ Gregory said.

Baldwin eyed the fellow. Gregory looked intelligent, but he was restless. His gaze moved on, away from Baldwin and on to the fire, then to his father, to Sir Richard, to the jug on the sideboard
– it was as though he found it difficult to maintain his concentration. Or was it a sign of guilt?

‘Do you own their house?’ Baldwin asked Henry.

‘Yes – and I want them out. Those boys think the world owes them a living,’ Henry said. ‘Well, I don’t. I want my property back so I can give it to someone
who’ll pay the rent.
They
haven’t paid for weeks.’

‘So you have told them they will lose their home,’ Baldwin said. ‘What else? They wouldn’t accuse you of murdering their mother just because of that. And you
wouldn’t suddenly threaten them with eviction after weeks of no rent without some other motive.’

‘They’ve been upsetting people,’ Henry Paffard said. ‘I told them they must leave the house because they have broken the peace. It is my duty as a responsible landlord to
keep the peace between people living here.’

‘That is still no reason to say that you killed their mother, Master Paffard. So what
is
the reason for that?’ Baldwin insisted.

‘Their mother came here earlier. She wanted me to go tonight to see her in that alley.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. How could I?’ Henry demanded. Some of his old arrogance was already returning. ‘The woman was lunatic’

‘Because she thought you guilty of murder?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Why?’ Baldwin asked. ‘All around here say how well you treated your maid.’

‘Yes,’ Gregory sneered. ‘Everyone is so impressed with my father. He was so generous, so kind to that maid.’

‘Quiet, Gregory,’ his father threatened. ‘You don’t know . . . You don’t understand.’

‘You allowed her to use your front door,’ Baldwin said. ‘That means she was more than just a maid to you.’

‘She had been here many years. She’d earned the right,’ Henry retorted.

Baldwin eyed him for a long moment. The man’s manner intrigued him. He was waspish and arrogant, but there was another tone to his voice that spoke of some kind of internal conflict. He
was a man to watch, Baldwin decided.

‘They’re jealous,’ Gregory said. ‘It rankles that they have to depend on us, while they think that they ought to be in here instead of us.’

‘Why would the Marsilles think that?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Their father Nicholas was a friend of my father. After he died, his investments and properties had nothing behind them, he owed so much money. My father has been forced to protect them.
That is why they infest that house. It’s a matter of charity. We have looked after them with care, but we can’t carry on if they offend all their neighbours.’

‘That is why they hate you and your family?’ Baldwin said, looking at Henry.

‘Yes. They would pass around any scandalous lies to upset me.’

‘And in so doing, guarantee that they would lose their home? It makes little rational sense to me,’ Baldwin noted.

‘You saw them!’ Gregory said spitefully. ‘They aren’t rational. All the bad luck they attract, they blame on us.’

Marsilles’ House

It was pitch dark outside now, and without a moon-curser in sight, Baldwin stumbled as they made their way to the Marsilles’ home. Simon had to catch his arm.

Simon was still feeling embarrassed about his reaction to the body in the alley. He had thought he had grown accustomed to such sights, but the first glimpse of her face had sent his belly
reeling, and the ales he had drunk in the Cock Inn had fought for release.

The entrance to the little house where the Marsilles lived was further up Combe Street, past the alley in which Alice had been discovered, and up the next. Along this squalid little way they
went, until they came to a dog-leg, and it was just past this that Simon realised they had been walking along one of the walls of the Marsilles’ place.

‘God’s cods,’ he muttered as he looked at it. ‘I wouldn’t keep my cattle in a shed like that.’

It was no more than a lean-to, built against the side of a more substantial building, and as Simon looked at it, he could see holes where the rotten planks of wood had decayed. There were
patches of cob where someone had tried to fill in the worst of the holes in a vain attempt to stave off the elements. The roof of shingles was black and he suspected that it held many gaps
between.

In the dog-leg, the alley formed a natural courtyard, and as well as the Marsilles’ door, he saw two more in the adjacent wall as the door opened and Edgar let them inside.

William Marsille was sitting on a table, holding a cool, damp towel to his head, wincing, while his brother stood next to him, glowering at Edgar. Hugh stood behind him at the wall, wearing his
customary frown.

Simon walked in and glanced about him with interest.

The chamber was small. There was scarcely enough space in it for a few men to stand; it was perhaps fifteen feet by six or seven, no more. The fire was a small heap of embers in a hearth, and
the chestnut shingles must have been adequate to allow the smoke to leach out, because there was no chimney, nor even a louvre. To one side of the fire was a table, with three chairs about it, all
good quality and entirely out of place with this chamber. There was a good iron-strapped chest, too, such as a merchant would use for his money, and a sideboard took up much of the outer wall. It
must have formed a partial barrier to the cold, he thought. A ladder rose to the eaves, in which a series of loose boards had been laid, and up there Simon could see the palliasse on which the
entire family slept. It was a miserable hovel, yet with furniture that would not have looked out of place in the Guild Hall, he thought.

‘How is your head?’ Baldwin asked.

His voice drew Simon back to the present, and he studied the boys. The older one, Philip, was a nervy youth who, in Simon’s opinion, needed a damn good thrashing to wake up his ideas.
William, on the other hand, even with his injury, was clearly a more mature individual, for all that he looked two years younger at about sixteen.

‘I’m still alive. But if I keel over in a year and a day, I trust you will bring your servant to trial on my behalf,’ he sneered weakly.

‘You were about to attack a man. We could not allow that, no matter what the provocation.’

‘I had intense provocation. He killed my mother.’

‘Who did?’ Baldwin asked.

‘Henry Paffard.’

‘Did you see him?’ Sir Richard demanded. He had walked to the table and now sat, forearms resting on the tabletop.

‘If I’d seen him, I’d have killed him,’ William said. Wolf had wandered to his side, and now sat, looking up at him hopefully. He put a hand on the dog’s head and
stroked him.

‘So it is only supposition?’ Baldwin said. ‘But he had already told you that you would have to leave this place?’

William looked up and about him with a wry grimace. ‘Hardly a great threat, would you say? Yes, he sent his bottler, and said that he would see us all thrown into the street because of a
tiny squabble between Emma de Coyntes and Mother.’

‘What was your mother doing in the alley?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘Seeing Henry. She said that she knew something,’ William told him. ‘She said that it was to do with Gregory, and that Henry wouldn’t want it bruited about.’

‘What was it?’ Sir Richard demanded.

‘I don’t know,’ William said. ‘She didn’t tell us.’

At his side, Philip’s head drooped. He was still deeply in shock, from the expression on his face, and Simon wondered how he himself would have responded, had he seen his own mother slain
and mutilated in an alley. Not well, he concluded.

‘So, could your mother have witnessed Alice being slain, do you think?’ Baldwin asked. He was thinking of the tall priest again, wondering whether Laurence could have been there. It
would have explained Juliana’s reticence to talk about Alice’s death, if the perpetrator was a priest.

‘No. She would have said if she had . . . But she had been out when Alice was killed, so Henry might have thought she saw him do it,’ William said.

‘Or Gregory, if your story is correct,’ Baldwin pointed out.

‘Or, she saw nothing,’ Sir Richard summarised. ‘I think you are lucky you didn’t get close to the merchant, boy. You could have injured him, and ended on the gallows
tree. You have nothing to prove he killed your mother or his maid. There is no witness, no evidence, nothing.’

‘Someone must know what she knew,’ Philip said. ‘Another maid, or a woman around here. They all gossip among themselves.’

Simon nodded and cast a look at Baldwin. The latter was watching Philip closely with that intensity Simon recognised so well.

‘We can ask and find out,’ William said. ‘I will speak to all the women and see what they know.’

‘You will leave them well alone,’ Sir Richard growled in response. ‘You almost landed yourself in very deep water tonight. Your mother is dead. You must concentrate on
arranging her funeral and inquest, rather than trying to bring more mischief on yourself and your family.’

‘Sir Richard is quite right,’ Baldwin said, more gently to the two bereaved youths. ‘You should avoid anything to do with the Paffard family. If Henry Paffard is hurt or
injured in the next weeks, everybody will assume it was one of you. There is nothing you can do to escape the fact that all in this street know your feelings about Henry and his son. It is a shame
your mother did not confide in you. Could it have been Gregory’s affection for the maid, do you think?’

Philip suddenly looked up, his eyes narrowed. ‘
Gregory?
’

‘We were told that he was a wastrel and had an affection for the maid.’

‘Not him. It was his father. That man thinks he can use any woman in his house,’ Philip muttered.

‘My brother was in love with Alice,’ William explained. ‘He offered her his hand, but she told him she was happier with her rich merchant. With Henry.’

Baldwin gave a grunt of understanding. ‘I see.’

‘We won’t be here long anyway, if they have their way,’ William added.

He looked as though he had come to the end of his self-control and was about to burst into tears, Simon thought. He had an instinctive sympathy for the fellow. Glancing at Baldwin, he said,
‘We will not allow that in the immediate future.’

‘How can you stop him?’ William demanded hoarsely. ‘This is his house, and the only things we own are these pieces of furniture we managed to salvage. That bastard can have us
thrown out tonight, if he wants.’

‘If he wishes to make the Cathedral angry, he can try. We are here because we have been asked to come by the Precentor, and if Henry Paffard tries to evict you, he will incur my wrath
also. I will personally visit him and have him change his mind,’ Baldwin said firmly. ‘If the worst comes to the worst, I will ask the Precentor to threaten excommunication.’

‘You don’t have the authority to promise that,’ Philip said ungraciously. ‘You are a knight. A secular knight doesn’t have the power to demand things like that of
the Church.’

‘Once
I
was a monk, and I travelled to the Kingdom of Jerusalem before you were born,’ Baldwin growled. ‘I was a fighting pilgrim in the Holy Land, and I have more
authority in this than you can know. And besides,’ he added, drawing his sword and setting it on the table where the peacock-blue metal gleamed wickedly in the candle-light, ‘I can back
up promises with steel, when necessary.’

Farm near Clyst St George

Ulric felt as though there were no more tears left in him as he dropped from his pony at the little farm.

A man’s body was being dragged from the doorway by two laughing fellows, over to a pile of corpses. Sir Charles was still on his horse, directing the men with the wagon and carts. They
must all be secured for the night behind the main farmhouse.

They had come down from the hill among the trees late in the evening, when many of the folk were in their houses eating their food. Quiet, domestic people, with only two older men and some
youngsters sitting at table with their women, but a dog had set up a warning bark, and as Sir Charles’ men poured into the yard area, men had appeared in doorways only to be cut down.

This was another of those places with little actual value. No gold, no silver. Only a little food. Nothing else.

‘Ulric, fetch me something to drink,’ Sir Charles called.