The Tournament of Blood (25 page)

‘Then you know that I wish to find the murderer of Wymond. Geoffrey told me that you saw Wymond out near the lances.’

‘Yes. And there was a man near him, but he was behind Wymond and not distinct,’ she said.

‘You didn’t recognise him?’

‘No. I was concentrating on my husband,’ she said simply.

‘Of course. Tell me, how did you come to be a ward of Sir John?’

She sighed. ‘There was a tournament at Exeter, and my mother and brother went to watch my father’s battle as I understand it – you see, I was a tiny toddler at the time. There
was a terrible accident and my father fell, struck down by accident. I am told he was popular, as some of these knights can be, and the crowds moved to the front of the stand to shout their anger
at the man who had killed him. The stands were not sound enough, and the movement of the people led to the stand collapsing. My mother and baby brother were crushed.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘I have never known any different, Sir Baldwin,’ she said with a spark of defiance. ‘I have grown from childhood knowing no parents.’

‘So Sir John was your uncle, or perhaps—’

‘He is
nothing
!’ Her eyes flashed with rage and she was silent. Then she lifted her head proudly. ‘You do not understand, Sir Baldwin. That man, Sir John, was the
knight who killed my father Sir Godwin. It was his blow that took away my father and my mother and their baby boy. I had no other family and he offered to protect me until I grew to maturity. Yet
all the time I think he had his eyes fixed greedily upon my inheritance. He sought to win all that my father had left me.’

‘It would be an act of gross cynicism.’

‘It is. He hated my father – things he has said prove that. He insists that I should marry his son, and that way he will keep my family’s inheritance tied to his own. Well, I
decided many years ago that I would never agree – and then I met Geoffrey. I love him. That is why we married.’

‘Sir John knows nothing of this?’

‘Nor his son. We shall declare our marriage here, as soon as Geoffrey has been knighted and before all the knights and their ladies. Sir John may try to contest the legality of the
wedding, but he would find it difficult to separate us if Lord Hugh gives us his blessing.’

Baldwin nodded, considering. He had known that Alice was Sir Godwin’s daughter, but only now did her appalling position occur to him in all its horror. However, the investigation was more
important than his feelings of sympathy for the girl. Right now Baldwin was confused about one point. He knew that Sir John owed money to Benjamin. If the banker had demanded his money back, Sir
John could have decided to kill him – but if Wymond’s death was connected with Benjamin’s in some way, the implication was that Sir John must also have had a motive to kill the
carpenter.

‘Tell me,’ he asked Alice, ‘do you know whether Sir John had any reason to dislike Wymond?’

She looked at him very directly. ‘The carpenter helped build a stage for Sir John some six years ago. It collapsed when Sir Walter forced Sir Richard Prouse against it, and Sir John blamed
Wymond because the carpenter had used shoddy wood. He was making profit from my guardian by taking money to use the best materials, then buying cheap rubbish and pocketing the
difference.’

‘Did Sir John have a grudge against Benjamin as well as Wymond?’

‘Oh yes. He owed him an enormous sum. And that little man, Hal – he hated him as well. He hated the lot of them. Called them every name under the sun.’

‘Sir John told me you could confirm that he came back to your tent last night and that he could not thus have murdered Wymond.’

She looked at him in surprise. ‘He came in and saw that I was well, but that was late, after I had returned from seeing Geoffrey. As a matter of fact, he woke me when he came
in.’

Her face was full of innocence, but Baldwin didn’t know whether he could believe her or not. Her evidence suggested that Sir John had had enough time to commit a murder. But Baldwin had no
idea when Wymond had died. Then a thought struck him. ‘You say that you saw a man with Wymond – could it have been Sir John?’

She considered. ‘Perhaps. But if it had been him, surely I would have realised?’ she added fairly.

Baldwin nodded and soon afterwards left her, to move to the table where Sir Walter sat. The Cornishman was a powerful-looking man, Baldwin thought, with dark eyes that glanced keenly about him.
This was no fool, whatever one might assume about such a muscle-bound, oafish-looking fellow. Baldwin introduced himself and Sir Walter was polite in return. It was always safer for a knight to be
courteous in case offence might be given.

‘It is a pleasure to meet you. I have heard much about you from Lord Hugh,’ Baldwin said. ‘You know him well?’

‘I see him fairly often. I live between his castles of Exeter and Tiverton, so he occasionally visits me.’

‘A good lord.’

‘Yes. Honourable and generous.’

‘Yes.’ Sir Walter smiled widely. ‘Very generous.’

So Baldwin had guessed correctly. This man was more interested in obtaining a financial reward than in displaying the other aspects of knighthood. It was the modern way, he knew, but he could
not help but feel it to be contemptible.

‘So shall I meet you in the lists, Sir Baldwin?’

‘I fear not, Sir Walter. I am over-ancient for lance-play.’

‘True,’ Sir Walter said without thinking. He was eyeing the quality of Baldwin’s clothing sadly, as though mourning the wealth that he would miss by not being able to capture
Baldwin in the ring. ‘Still, there’ll be others, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ Baldwin smiled. ‘I am sure you will find enough targets for your lance.’

‘I always do,’ Sir Walter yawned.

‘You have fought often?’

‘Enough. I’ve made my money from tournaments in Europe.’

‘It is an expensive pursuit.’

‘It can be,’ Sir Walter agreed. ‘But if you win often enough, the expense is left to the other man.’

‘Quite so,’ Baldwin said. ‘It is the loser who has to travel to the money-lender to have his purse robbed by those such as Benjamin Dudenay.’

‘You knew that bastard, did you? He was a godless, poxed shit, that man. Thank Christ he’s long dead.’

‘Did you know the carpenter who died – Wymond? He was an associate of Benjamin’s,’ Baldwin said mildly, but his eyes were fixed upon the other man with greater than
normal keenness.

Sir Walter met his gaze with a fixed stare. ‘You think I killed them? You’re mad.’

As he spoke, his wife returned to the table. She walked with an effortless grace which Baldwin considered would suit a queen, as she approached the table where the two men sat. ‘My
husband? Is all quite well?’

Sir Walter eased his shoulders and appeared to physically relax. He leaned back in his seat and grinned mirthlessly. ‘This good knight seeks to accuse me of murdering a peasant. If you
want to, Sir Baldwin, carry on. No one would convict me of a crime of that nature. No, I wouldn’t worry about an accusation like that.’

As he spoke, he glanced idly about the room, and suddenly Baldwin saw him clench his jaw and glare with real rage. He almost stood as though to go and fight.

Lady Helen put a hand on his arm. ‘My husband, please. The fellow is only a boy. He means nothing.’

Baldwin turned to see Squire William with his friends, but although the other lads were enjoying their freedom and Lord Hugh’s ale, Squire William appeared to be staring directly at
her.

Sir Walter turned and leaned towards Sir Baldwin. ‘I didn’t kill that pathetic carpenter, nor that thieving arse of a banker, but I’ll tell you this: if that little shit ever
touches my wife, you can come straight to me when you find his corpse. All right?’

Much later, Hal left the tavern, stumbling along the road in the clear night air.

The atmosphere in there was just awful. Horrid! Smoke-filled from the badly drawing fire, cold from the multiple draughts that sought entry through the shuttered but unglazed windows, loud with
the roars of the men-at-arms and their squires as they drank, belched, ate, sang, and quarrelled. One man was stabbed, although his attacker apologised profusely once he had calmed himself. And all
this accompanied by the wailing and thumping from the musicians in the little gallery.

Hal swayed gently at the foot of the castle and sniffed back another sob. There was no point in weeping and wailing. Wymond wouldn’t have wanted him to be upset; Wymond was too strong and
hearty for that, but Hal was desolate without his friend and lover.

They had met many years ago now, building a tournament together, and they had hit it off immediately. Then they met Benjamin, who was not interested in them in the same way, for which Hal was
grateful. He couldn’t fancy the banker. He had always been attracted to very masculine men like Wymond, and Benjamin’s podgy figure was revolting. Not that he’d thought Wymond
could possibly want
him
. No, Wymond was the source of some delightful fantasies, but Hal never thought it could go further – until one night he got the carpenter terribly drunk and
the two of them fell together as soon as they returned to their rooms. Rough, coarse, occasionally cruel – all described Wymond; and yet he was also curiously vulnerable. The harshness was a
show put on to protect him from hurt.

Hal sighed and closed his eyes, feeling the tears approaching once more as the memories flooded back. The tears weren’t only for Wymond, but for himself. He didn’t know how he could
live without his lover.

If he could, he would have admitted his other job, too, but he daren’t. All he could achieve was enemies. Nothing more. Lord Hugh’s men would be furious if they learned that he,
Wymond and the banker had spied for Hugh Despenser.

Hal suddenly wondered whether Wymond’s death was the result of his spying.

It was so inexplicable! Hal had gone to bed thinking that his lover would soon follow him. They tended not to share beds while working, because it was too tiring, but both slept in the same
room. Hal had thought Wymond was going to return – in fact, he had a feeling he
had
half woken when Wymond had returned – and now he knew that it was the murderer who had woken
him.

And the next morning Hal had let him stay in his bed. How did he not realise that something was wrong? How could he have missed the glaring, terrible fact that his lover was dead? True, they
never rose together normally, they didn’t care to be too obvious about their relationship, but Hal, when he woke and hurried from the tent, should have realised that Wymond was dead.

Hal walked the few paces to the bridge over the tiny stream and sat at its edge. Disconsolate, he had no energy. The prospect of all the years to come, long decades alone, seemed intolerable.
That was the curse of his kind: no companionship. If another man with the same simple urges was ever found, he was to be held on to with a fierce grip, for it was so hard to seek out another. At
least a man who lost his wife could count upon being able to find a new woman; most would have a son or daughter to remind them of the happiness they had once known, but not Hal. His life was ended
as effectively as if he had hanged himself. Whoever had killed his lover had destroyed him too.

He closed his eyes and wept silently. The tears had been with him all day, but only now that he was alone could he indulge in his misery. And he would be alone for the rest of his life.

‘Are you all right, master?’

Hal looked up into sympathetic eyes. ‘No. I am devastated,’ he wept.

‘There is a cure for that.’

‘Ale, wine, both give oblivion, but I need a stronger cure for my bereavement.’

‘I was thinking that the best cure is to talk about it, master. Would you like to tell me your troubles?’

‘No. But if you aren’t busy, I will buy you a pot of wine and we can talk and you can take my mind from them.’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Wymond’s killer, and he smiled as he helped Hal to his feet.

Just as the skies had promised, the morning of the first day of the tournament was clear and fine when Simon walked from the castle towards the tilting ground, resolutely
putting all thought of Wymond and Benjamin from his mind.

He was up before dawn and drank his morning whet of a pint of thin ale at the castle’s bar before setting off. As he gathered up watchmen and inspected the field to make sure that all was
ready, walking about the
ber frois
and reassuring himself that everything was prepared, he couldn’t help but be glad that Coroner Roger was responsible for investigating sudden
death. Simon had enough to occupy him already.

He checked that Lord Hugh’s seat was safe and hadn’t been stolen (stranger things had happened) before peering beneath the stand and making sure all looked sound. It would be
dreadful to have Lord Hugh’s own stand collapse, not that it was only the fear of poor construction that made him nervous. He was concerned. The sight of Wymond’s mutilated body had
shocked him and the more he considered it, the more he was sure that a killer who could strike once in so devastating a manner could do so again. That was why Simon had wanted to come and check the
area once more. To make sure that there were no more unpleasant surprises lurking for Lord Hugh.

Lord Hugh had listened with frowning disbelief when Simon and Roger spoke to him of Wymond’s death, but his first thoughts were for his tournament.

‘Whoever it was must be mad,’ he concluded after consideration. ‘But you must find him, Coroner, Bailiff. If someone could be a danger to other people here, you must stop
him.’

‘Fine,’ Simon muttered to himself. ‘Show me who he is and I’ll catch the bastard!’

With no clear idea who could have killed Wymond or why, Simon found himself scouting about the stands, glancing beneath all those which did not have solid wooden walls, poking in the bushes
lining the field with a stick and generally reassuring himself that no one was lying there dead like Wymond the previous day. He had to keep occupied, keep moving – the alternative was to sit
and fester, wondering who and why, and whether another attack would take place.