The Templar, the Queen and Her Lover: (Knights Templar 24) Page 29

  Joan set her jaw. Since her suffering at the hands of her own husband, she was less inclined to see another woman put to the same slow, intolerable torture of a loveless marriage. Isabella had lost her husband to another lover – all knew of it, there was no point denying the fact – and could never find peace in her own country. She deserved the little relaxation she had discovered here.

  The brat who scampered about in the wake of the musicians sent his ball rolling along the chamber, and Joan almost shouted at the miserable churl, but then the ball hit the delicately booted foot of the Queen. She glanced down, startled, and stared at the ball, then over her shoulder at the boy.

  For a moment all was breathless and expectant. The lead musician’s mouth opened in horror, the fiddler made a squawk by accident, and Joan herself allowed a smile to touch her mouth. But then the Queen beckoned the lad over and held out his ball to him.

  You could not ever tell how Queen Isabella would respond, Joan of Bar told herself. She decided that she would have a strategic headache and retire to her rooms the next time these musicians came to play.

  Baldwin and Simon were hailed as soon as they left the buttery, and Simon heard his companion groan to himself as they recognised the tones of Lord John Cromwell.

  ‘Can we escape?’ Baldwin whispered.

  ‘I think not,’ Simon said with a chuckle. ‘Why else were we brought here if not to answer the call of Lord Cromwell?’

  Baldwin grunted and turned, fitting a smile to his face. ‘My Lord Cromwell. How may I serve you?’

  ‘That man who was killed. I don’t want some sort of diplomatic incident. You are used to investigating murders, Sir Baldwin. I want you to show that it was nothing political.’

  Baldwin blinked. ‘Pray, Lord Cromwell, since you have decided the conclusion, how precisely would you like me to begin my study?’

  ‘Don’t be clever, Sir Baldwin,’ Cromwell snarled. ‘This isn’t some easy-going footpad knocking a man on the pate. This is murder, very clearly. We appear to have suffered from rather too many of them of late, don’t we? First the poor devil Enguerrand de Foix, then the guard from the Château Gaillard, and now our own man-at-arms. Sir Charles is devastated, and quite capable of causing mayhem in the attempt to kill the man responsible. But having the brain and reasoning capacity of a bloody Lancastrian, he’ll be likely to find that the man responsible was the personal steward to King Charles. That cannot be permitted. I will not have our entire purpose ruined because of one man’s desire to avenge a blasted servant. Is that clear?’

  ‘Perfectly. However, if you want me to research this latest death, it may be a problem, bearing in mind that the land is strange to me, the people more so, and I have no knowledge of French law. Really, Lord Cromwell, I believe—’

  ‘You will have to do your best.’

  ‘One thing: if you wish me to do this, you must be aware that I will be truthful. If you expect me to investigate, I will investigate to the very best of my ability. You understand? And if I am questioned, I shall tell the truth.’

  ‘You will remember that you are here on a diplomatic mission, Sir Baldwin. If someone asks you about this crime, you will remember your status, and you will advise your questioner to come to me. You will answer nothing, except to me.’

  The lord scowled ferociously at him, then barely glanced at Simon as he wished them both God speed, and strode away, his boots splashing in the little puddles left by the previous night’s rains.

  ‘And that, I think, told me, eh?’ Baldwin said with a dry chuckle. ‘Come, let us see what it is that the good lord wishes us to see, and try to blinker ourselves to all other possibilities.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jean sat and counted his coins. One livre and a few sous. Hardly enough to keep him going for long in a city so ruinously expensive as this. It was tempting to try to gamble his way to some money – there were bear pits and cock-fighting pits here – but he knew only too well how easy it was for a man to lose his all in such ventures. There was no straightforward way to keep a man’s soul together other than slow, steady employment.

  There had been many times since leaving the south when he had wished that he had not gone away to war with his father and brother. It would have been so much better to have stayed at home with his wife and lived the contented life of a shepherd. He would never have made himself rich, it was true, but that was by the by. If he had stuck to it, he would have a small family now, his wife would have given him boys to keep the sheep, and he would have been able to build a smallholding. Left something for the children when he died. As it was, what did he have to leave? A few sous. Nothing more.

  His wife had been raped before she died. Oh, at the time the folks had said it was someone who’d sought her out. The local priest, they reckoned. He made advances to so many, that one. He was safe, a Catholic in an area where so many followed Waldes. If he picked on a Waldensian, she might not defend herself, because he could declare her heretic and perhaps see her burned. And if she was not one of the Poor of Lyons, that would hardly help her if he denounced her. She would still be interrogated by the bishop.

  When he returned, still ravaged by his memories of that dreadful campaign, the only thing he sought was the solace of his wife. It was the one thought that kept him together during the long march from the far north of the kingdom to his own southern home. One battle had shown him his father’s destruction, his brother’s too. It was plenty enough for a young man. He had had his fill of war and death. Never again. All he craved was the springtime in the mountains, with the little flowers bursting forth in the meadows. He could recall the scent now, if he closed his eyes. It was always so wondrous.

  His Huguette had been a beautiful woman. Sixteen when they married, seventeen when she was killed, she had long, lustrous black hair, eyes of an unusual grey hue, and a slim build that was voluptuous when naked, and he had worshipped her.

  When he returned, they told him all about it. Strangers with carts who had passed through, all wearing the insignia of the bishop’s men. They’d stopped the night and departed early the following morning, and later that day one of the men of the village had discovered Huguette’s body. The villagers told him all. No one held back. Why should they? He was the injured party. He deserved to hear the facts.

  But as he sat in his empty house, staring at the bed on which she had died, feeling the cold of the night sinking into his bones, thinking about her, about their happiness, he knew that the one thing his Huguette would have wished was that he should not launch himself into some vain attempt at revenge. There was no point. She was a devoted Waldensian, and the idea of seeking a man in order to kill him was alien to her. If a man were to insult her, she would not defend herself; if he struck her cheek, she would turn and offer him the other. It was her faith, and it would be a heretical act for him to assume the responsibility of avenging her injuries. He couldn’t.

  Perhaps it was not only the desire to comply with her own wishes, though. He had just seen his father and brother die, and had been forced to flee the butchery of the battlefield. The simple fact was, he had seen enough horror. He wanted to have some peace, and the thought that he might himself draw steel to harm a man, even in justifiable revenge, was too appalling to consider.

  So in the morning, he had packed all his belongings and gone to the door. He had found one little reminder of the mountains – a small pale yellow flower which had always been one of Huguette’s favourites was blooming in their little garden. He picked it, and carefully pressed it between two pieces of horn which he liberated from a lantern. Over time, the flower dried, but it still looked lovely to him. Years old, it was now, yet it still held a little freshness for him. Of course, when he bore witness to the death of Agnes and saw the dreadful result of the bishop’s execution, he lost it together with all his other belongings. A convicted felon has few rights to anything – ownership of trinkets was not possible.

  He wished he still had that little flower. No matte
r. There were more immediate matters to concern him. Such as, how to earn a few sous and keep his body and soul together?

  When Simon and Baldwin entered the chapel, the corpse was already lying cleaned and tidied before the altar, and both bent the knee and crossed themselves with a little holy water from the font before marching along the pretty tiled floor to the bier.

  ‘Sir Charles, do you object to our looking at Paul’s body?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Why? He’s dead, man!’

  It was so unlike the usually urbane Sir Charles that Baldwin gave a fleeting frown of surprise, but then he nodded to himself. ‘Yes, I understand, Sir Charles. However, it is possible that I may be able to learn something about his death which could help me to discover his killer. You want to find whoever was responsible?’

  Sir Charles moved away from Paul’s body. ‘Very well. But when you learn who did this, I want to know first. You understand me? I want to know who it was.’

  ‘Sir Charles,’ Baldwin sighed. ‘If I could, I would be delighted. But there are some here who would be happy to see you seek out the killer and disrupt the talks here. Do you really want to see the negotiations fail?’

  ‘The talks? Pah! You think I care about all this horse shit, when my man has been murdered?’

  ‘And what if someone killed Paul deliberately to provoke you? What if this entire affair is nothing to do with you or Paul, but was intended to upset the truce between the two countries?’

  ‘Why would someone want that? If a Frenchman wished to damage the peace, he would advise Charles to demand that our king come over to pay homage. He would not do it, so the matter would be resolved. No need to kill my man.’

  ‘No need, perhaps. But if the same goal could be achieved without embarrassment to the Queen, a Frenchman would prefer it. Killing an English servant would be one effective method of provoking an English knight if that knight was known to have a temper. Do you want to achieve their aims for them?’

  ‘Sir Baldwin, you misunderstand me. I care nothing for them or their plans. All I want is the chance to avenge my man. I will do that. You find out who was responsible, if you wish, but when you do, I want to be told who it was. I will not want to learn that someone else has been given the name so that another can take the fellow. It is for me.’

  ‘You think it was one man, then?’ Baldwin asked, moving about the body. It was obvious that he would get no joy from Sir Charles. The man would have his revenge, no matter what.

  ‘I had thought it was a cut-purse whose attack went wrong.’

  ‘How could one man do this? Knock Paul down, then kill him in this manner? There were surely at least two. And in any case, if he was murdered at the gate there, wouldn’t the guards have heard it happen?’

  ‘Over the noise of the storm last night?’ Simon pointed out.

  Baldwin considered. ‘Perhaps. But is it likely someone would want to commit a crime like this just outside the walls of a castle? More probable by far that he’d do it elsewhere, and then dump the body. I could imagine killing a man in a house, in a street, in the open countryside – but right outside the King’s own palace? That stretches my credibility too far.’

  ‘So? What of it?’ Sir Charles snapped.

  ‘Just this: if it was not an attack outside the castle, then it becomes a premeditated murder. Someone had planned it – possibly to avenge some form of insult real or imagined which Paul was supposed to have delivered, or to get to you, Sir Charles, or to damage the negotiations. Discover the motivation and we will be close to learning who was responsible.’

  ‘Find him, then. Find him for me.’

  ‘Him. Him, or them?’ Baldwin mused. He shook his head. ‘It is thoroughly unlikely that this was the crime of an individual. I cannot believe it.’

  He pulled the sheet aside and peered at the wound while Simon averted his gaze. Sir Charles gazed on, unbothered by the sight. It was the fact of his friend’s death that concerned him, not the actual manner of it. He had seen death in too many forms, and inflicted too much of it himself, to be overly bothered by the sight of another corpse.

  ‘Here is the wound,’ Baldwin said. He enlisted Sir Charles’s aid to roll the body over. ‘Nothing on the back. No mark at all.’ Gently he allowed Paul to return to his recumbent position. ‘Only this great slash in his belly.’

  ‘What of his neck?’ Sir Charles asked.

  ‘Nothing there. No cut in his throat, no stab down from his collar. I’ve seen that often enough. No indication of throttling, either. No, just this one slash at his gut.’ He eyed the massive wound again, and then he frowned. ‘The sergent was right – this wound is aimed upwards. I suppose the killer could have thrust to the heart, and made the slash opening his belly once he was already dead.’

  ‘What would that tell us?’ Sir Charles demanded.

  ‘Perhaps nothing. Perhaps a lot. Until we have more, we cannot tell,’ Baldwin said thoughtfully. Then he beckoned Simon. ‘Come. Let us go and view the place where he was found.’

  The place had been washed clean of most of the blood by some thoughtful person who had hurled some water over the spot. Baldwin stood and eyed it, but he could discern nothing from the general mess.

  ‘If there was anything to see, I rather think it would have been washed clean by now,’ he said as the two of them walked away.

  They asked an old peasant woman, who directed them to a small house along an alley nearby. There, she said, they would find the sergent who had been at the scene that morning. It took little time to find the house, and the man was eating a late breakfast of peasant bread and some soft cheese. He eyed them as Baldwin spoke, and then shrugged.

  ‘There is nothing for me to do. The man was found, but no one saw nor heard anyone. I have reported already.’

  He could, or would, say no more. Baldwin and Simon soon found themselves outside his little cottage. ‘What now?’ Simon asked.

  ‘I would think that we have more or less exhausted our enquiry already,’ Baldwin admitted. ‘If we were in England, I could round up all the neighbours in the hundred and interrogate them until someone broke. I would have the King’s authority to question whomsoever I wished. Here, though, I am powerless. Our king has no power here to compel people to respond. What should I try?’

  ‘Well, there was no evidence on the body,’ Simon mused. ‘In the absence of that, and with no witnesses, perhaps we should simply return and apologise to Lord John. He won’t like it, but at least there’s no evidence of a deliberate attempt to ruin the negotiations.’

  Baldwin pulled a grimace. ‘That is what is niggling at me,’ he admitted. ‘There was the explosion in the night when Enguerrand de Foix died, which annoys me since it implicated me in the murder; then the death of that guard, too, in the castle on the way here. It makes me suspect more, perhaps, than I should.’

  ‘What possible connection could there be between Paul and the other two?’

  ‘In God’s name, I wish I knew. Perhaps they are all unconnected? Three random murders that just happen to have taken place when the Queen came here to see her brother. But that would militate against the careful planning of the murder of the Comte de Foix. That man was dead before I arrived at the site of the killing and frustrated the attempt to make it look like an accident. When the charge blew up in my face, the killer took the opportunity to seize my knife and stab the Comte with it to divert suspicion from himself. That was the impulse of the moment – I think his plan had been carefully thought out, but he had no time to put it into execution.’

  ‘Then there was the murder of the guard from the château.’

  ‘Yes. We have no idea why that should have happened.’

  ‘What about the man who was injured during the attack – the fellow who told us about the powder,’ Simon wondered. ‘Perhaps he could help us?’

  ‘What would he know?’

  ‘Baldwin, I have no idea. But the fact is, the man was connected to both of those incidents. Perhaps he knows something tha
t could help us.’

  ‘He’s not involved in this, though, is he?’

  ‘It was you who postulated a connection between all three, Baldwin, not me.’

  ‘True enough. All these sudden deaths. And might there not be more?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Blaket told us, didn’t he, about a man who was killed in England – a waferer to the King? Why not include his murder as well? It is as explicable as all these other deaths,’ Baldwin said with exasperation.

  Robert de Chatillon winced as he leaned back in the chair, his hand at his side again. Dear Christ, the pain was unbelievable! He would never have thought that so much could have been caused by a wound that did not even bleed.

  The physician had looked at him carefully, and then declared that from the colour of his urine he was severely choleric, a diagnosis which Robert was keen to reinforce by kicking the fool downstairs. If only he’d been able to. Choleric, indeed. Who wouldn’t be bloody angry after a sudden attack like that? If anything could have made it worse, it was the fact that the killer of the old guard had escaped as well. Nothing could have been more surely guaranteed to make his ire increase. The damned fool of a physician had hurried out of the door almost immediately afterwards, prescribing a course of blood-letting and a poultice for the rib, and Robert had been content to ignore him.

  Maybe he ought to get a second man in, though. This pain was so sharp, it was impossible to think of leaving the city for some while. He ought to go with Enguerrand’s heart back to the comté, but he could not face the idea of getting on his horse again. No, it was plainly mad to think of such a thing. He would have to stay here for a while longer.