‘So what are you doing in my house?’ Pagan demanded.
‘Looking for evidence that you are a murderer,’ Baldwin said.
‘Me?’ Pagan’s face seemed to fall, but then he held his head at an angle and pointed the sword more aggressively. ‘You dare to accuse me?’
‘Man, I would put that sword down,’ Baldwin said firmly, and waited until he had. ‘We know that your father was an armourer, and that you are living up here. When Lady Lucy was killed she was tortured to death. Her body was taken all the way down to the camp ball game, and then over to the mire at the back of Sir Geoffrey’s house — a mire you would know all too well since you used to live there with your master — and thrown in.’
‘Why should I do all that?’ Pagan blustered. ‘She was no enemy of mine!’
‘It is just possible that you decided to throw her in there to place suspicion on to Sir Geoffrey so that he would be removed from the manor. Perhaps you thought you might be able to win it back for your lady, if you first had him evicted from it.’
‘I had nothing to do with her death. I only heard of her murder after she was found,’ Pagan said.
‘Show us your father’s forge.’
Pagan wavered, then rammed his sword back into its sheath, and led the way back out through the front door, round the building to a small lean-to shed that stood at the rear. A square chimney of steel projected from the roof, and the ground here was all darkened with black dust. Lumps of clinker lay about; deformed, sharpened pieces of hardened stone or metal. They had been trodden into the ground all about here as a means of keeping the mud at bay.
Pagan opened the door and shoved it wide. ‘Go on, take a look.’
Baldwin glanced at Edgar, who stood near the door with his eyes fixed on Pagan while Baldwin and Simon walked inside.
It was dark, but when Baldwin had released the two shutters and allowed the light to enter, he found himself in a room that was perhaps six feet by ten. There were racks of metal, mostly rough pigs of steel, and a sturdy little anvil that stood on a large oak block made from a single log. Staples had been hammered into it, and a series of tools hung from them: pincers, pliers, shaped devices to grip and twist hot metal. Baldwin looked about him and felt his flesh cringe. It was so like the rooms he had heard of in France during the torture of the Templars.
‘Nothing here, see?’ Pagan said.
Baldwin did not hear him, and it was only when Pagan touched his arm to repeat his comment that Baldwin reacted.
He spun, his hand reaching out and taking Pagan’s shirt in his fist, while his other hand flew to his dagger and pulled it free. While he wrenched at Pagan’s shirt, forcing him back against the wall, his dagger’s point was under Pagan’s chin.
‘Did you do it to her? If you did, tell me now and I’ll end your life quickly right here.’
Pagan’s head was at the wall, but there was no fear in his eyes as he shook his head. Surprise, yes, but no fear. ‘I am used to the idea of death, Sir Knight. Your blade doesn’t scare me. I swear I had nothing to do with the death of that child. I couldn’t have hurt a hair on her. Not a woman.’
Baldwin felt a thrill of revulsion run through his soul. He had a sudden vision of Pagan lying at his feet, the blood pumping from a slash in his throat, and the thought made him feel physically sick. Yet it was this room. It had all the atmosphere of a place of torture, and such places reminded him only too clearly of the hideous injustice committed against his companions in the Order.
‘It’s just a workshop,’ Simon said.
Baldwin released the man and sheathed his dagger. ‘I am sorry, Pagan. I should not have done that. It was … just a feeling I had. I am sorry.’
Simon was quite right, too. It was a smithy, nothing more. There was the forge. There was the anvil, the tools, the foot bellows to pump air to the fire, now well rotten. ‘It is only rarely used now?’
Pagan shrugged. ‘I don’t think anyone has used the place in ten years or more. When was Kells? I forget. I have never used it myself. I once made a horseshoe, the one you saw. I would not have made a good smith.’
Simon grunted. He could understand that. While Baldwin and the smith’s son talked, he wandered around the place. There was a fine black dust all about, and he ran his fingers in it, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. It was rough to the touch, and smelled metallic. At one point there was a tall, straight tree-limb supporting the roof with another series of staples set into it, some hung with more tools like the ones on the anvil. All were rusty and darkened with the iron filings and dust. He moved on, and saw a little rag on the floor.
It was nothing, just a shred of bright green material, but it made him pause in wonder for a moment, and then he realised why: it was relatively free of the dust that lay all over everything else. He stooped to pick it up, and found that there was a crust of black stuff on the underside. Immediately he knew what it was, and even as he called Baldwin, his eyes were on the supporting timber in front of him.
This was farther from the anvil, and had no tools hanging from it, but there was one staple, set up high. It had one face that was bright and uncrusted.
‘She was here,’ he said.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Robert Crokers set the bowl at the bitch’s head and she looked up at him appreciatively.
By some miracle, bearing in mind the barbaric wound inflicted on her, only two pups had been stillborn. She herself had lost some blood, and he wondered whether there would be a fresh gush, as he’d sometimes seen in other animals giving birth. When that happened, it meant that the mother was sure to die, and he only prayed that she would be safe.
And so she was. After giving birth to four healthy little squirming, mewling blind and bald lumps, she set to cleaning herself and them while he stood by watching them with delight. In that moment he had felt his heart swell with pride, as though these were his own creation. It must be how a father felt, he thought, on seeing a child for the first time. An awe and awareness of how unimportant he was; his only purpose was to serve these little scraps of flesh.
The pups looked much like rats, they were so small, pink and blind. It was impossible to look at them and see that they would one day grow to be like her. For now all he could do was hope that they’d show even a small portion of the intelligence she had. She’d always been a good worker, and the fact that she’d been so badly hurt spoke volumes of the way that she’d tried to protect her master and his land. He reached down cautiously to touch one, and stopped when he heard the low rumbling snarl.
‘You’re right, little girl. They’re yours, not mine. I’ve no place here.’ He smiled and backed away from her. She watched him for a moment, then appeared to give a mental shrug and set to cleaning them again.
That was when he heard the hooves.
‘You still say you had nothing to do with the woman’s death?’ Baldwin rasped. He grabbed Pagan’s arm.
‘What are you talking about?’
Simon held the cloth to him. ‘Whose dress did this come from?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Lady Lucy of Meeth. She wore a dress like this. And this has her blood on it.’
‘I should think it was used as a gag,’ Baldwin said. He was tempted to punch Pagan, to beat the truth from him. ‘And the staple.’
Pagan shook his head. ‘What of it?’
‘It’s been hammered in only recently,’ Simon said. ‘So when you said no one’s been in here for ten years or so, that was a lie.’
‘I don’t know who could have been here. I haven’t been inside in ten or more years. I lived at the manor until we were thrown from there, and then I lived with my master Ailward and his family, until Ailward’s death. Then I came back up here to sleep, but only to my room. Not here to the smithy. Why should I?’
Simon grunted. ‘Baldwin, that’s one thing Isabel and Malkin told us, you remember? That Pagan used to live with them until Ailward died. And Lucy died before him, if we believe what Perkin has said.’