'He must have gabbled this out to Hugo when he ran ahead of me outside the New Inn that day, when I made him take me to his master,' said John thoughtfully. 'That's almost certainly another reason why Hugo decided to give Longus an alibi — just to spite me.'
'What do you mean by that?' asked Henry. '
'Well, I was on the point of arresting his armourer, so it must have given Hugo great delight to frustrate me! He was paying me back for humiliating him over his behaviour with de Charterai, both on the tourney field and at that banquet.'
'So why then should this Robert later want to slay Hugo?' asked a puzzled Rufus. 'It seems that they were literally as thick as thieves.'
The coroner took up the story again, 'Longus claims that when Hugo discovered not only that his stepmother Avelina had been left a substantial life interest in the manor's income but was likely to go off with it with his arch-enemy Reginald de Charterai, he tried to get him to produce a fatal accident for her as well! But evil as he is, Longus baulked at killing such a high-born woman, partly because of the risk, but also because of her past kindness to him.'
'The business of her paying for an apothecary for him?' asked the sheriff,
'Yes, he says he was taken with a severe bloody flux last year and claims Avelina saved his life by getting a leech out from Tiverton to treat him.'
'So why kill Hugo?' persisted the sheriff,
'Because Hugo threatened to withdraw his alibi for the killing of the silversmith if he refused to arrange some lethal mishap for Avelina. Longus claims he wouldn't go along With that and the only way out, if he wanted to avoid the risk of Hugo betraying him, was to get rid of him. So he and Crues followed Hugo on one of his night-time adventures with a village girl and stabbed him as he lay sleeping in the ox byre.'
'And poor Agnes remembered hearing their voices?' said Rufus.
The coroner shrugged. 'She wasn't sure of that, poor girl. And she didn't know who they were, anyway, But once the rumour got around the village, Longus couldn't risk it and she had to go. Probably unnecessarily, as it happens.'
There was silence as they all reflected on this sad catalogue of violence. It was broken by Henry, who picked at his big nose and flicked the harvest on to the rushes.
'How do the other Peverel men come out of this? Have we got anything against them?'
John scowled ferociously, 'I certainly have! I owe that arrogant bastard Ralph something, but there's nothing that we can arrest him for!'
'Joel is just a selfish young fool and Odo seems in the clear,' observed the sheriff. 'I feel sorry for him, with that affliction that hinders him taking his rightful place as manor-lord,'
'And that swine Ralph will probably defeat his claim again, when it comes to court,' added de Wolfe, with feeling.
'Where does our late unlamented sheriff fit into the picture?' queried the castle constable. 'De Revelle soon made himself scarce when we burst in to arrest those two men.'
The coroner gave a sardonic laugh. 'There's only one thing, apart from whores, that interests Richard, and that's increasing his wealth. He desperately wanted that land which old William Peverel refused him, so he was buttering up the sons to get hold of it, as they seemed more amenable to the idea.'
'I wouldn't put it past him to have planted the idea of getting rid of the old man in Hugo's head,' grunted Henry. 'But we can never prove it.'
John rose from his bench and beckoned to his officer and clerks,
'There will be inquests to arrange, now that we know what happened,' he declared. 'At least the families of August Scrope and Agnes will have the satisfaction of knowing that justice has been done — or will be when the next visit of the judges is due, for those armourers will surely hang.'
'If they survive Stigand's hospitality,' said Ralph Morin. 'Lately, we've had a few dying down below of the yellow ague, I think it's from all those rats that infest those cells.'
Thomas shivered as he made for the door — he had spent a few days in that awful place some months ago when falsely accused of a series of murders and the memory lingered. The rest of the group filed out, with de Wolfe following them. Henry de Furnellis came to the door with him, and put a hand on his shoulder.
'Try to forget yesterday's episode, John! I know you feel shamed by what happened, but you must put it behind you, That Ralph is not worth your continued anger — I feel there is something evil about him, and no doubt God will repay him sooner or later.'
As de Wolfe departed, he thought to himself that perhaps he was not prepared to wait that long.
The official tournament ground between Salisbury and Wilton was once again busy, to the gratification of the treasury clerk who oversaw the collection of the entry fees, At the rates that the Curia Regis had set for the benefit of King Richard's exchequer, he would be taking many hundreds of marks back to Winchester at the end of the three-day event. As usual, this first day was for the grand melee, before the jousting began on the morrow.
Two hours after dawn, on a blustery day in early November, the Red and Blue teams assembled on their respective hillocks. As it was one of the main meetings of the year before winter set in, there were more hopeful contenders than usual, from all over England ar;td the Continent. The number of spectators was also larger, both high-born and those commoners who came in the hope of enjoying blood and maiming, as well as those whose main interest was gambling on the winners.
A large open-fronted tent with a few rows of benches had been set up alongside the recet for the aristocracy and their ladies, offering shelter from occasional rain showers and the curious stares of the more lowly folk straggling along the boundary ropes, Two of these ladies were Avelina and Beatrice, chaperoned by their maids and by Joel Peverel, looking dandified in a fur-lined surcoat over a red-and-gold tunic. The women also wore heavy pelisses against the wind and ornately embroidered felt coifs tied firmly under their chins.
The heralds and umpires were ready at their stations in front of the recet and soon the trumpet blasts and stentorian cries announced the imminent start of hostilities. In the front row of almost three score mounted knights, in the Red army away to the north, was Ralph Peverel. He had fretted for days because he had been deprived of his usual armourer, Robert Longus, but had managed to hire another man from Dorchester who seemed adequate enough. His chain mail was bright, though this rain would soon tarnish it, his weapons were sharp and his shield had been repaired and repainted after that swine John de Wolfe had chopped a piece out of it.
While waiting for the final trumpet to sound, he looked along the line and saw some familiar faces from the tourney circuit, but there was no one he knew well, He despised his weakling brother Joel for being more interested in getting his leg over a woman than pursuing a man's sport, for he had no partners today, as he had when his father and Hugo were alive.
A quarter of a mile to the south, a similar mass of men and destriers were assembled, all displaying their blue markers, Towards the end of the third rank was a big grey stallion with hairy feet, carrying a tall man with a hooked nose and dark-stubbled cheeks, His right hand supported a twelve-foot lance and his left arm bore a black shield with a white wolf's head.
John gazed at the distant Reds. Though by no means an imaginative man, he wondered whether the instrument of his death was among them today, Would that man kill him this time, as he had almost done two weeks earlier? As the tension built all around him, with horses shuffling, snorting and pawing the ground, he thought back over the days in which the idea of settling once and for all his debt of honour with Ralph Peverel had fermented.
Both Gwyn and Henry de Furnellis had tried to dissuade him from his plan — and as for Nesta, she was beside herself with desperate anxiety at the prospect of him once again putting himself in peril of death. Stubborn and intractable, de Wolfe had shrugged off all their arguments, pointing out that, once on the back of Odin, his leg would be no problem and that he was otherwise as fit as any other man. Eventually Gwyn accepted the inevitable and devoted himself to preparing John's equipment and pestering Andrew the farrier to ensure that Odin was in perfect condition. They trained almost every day on Bull Mead, where the swinging practice tilts had been left in place after the last event, until even the Cornishman was satisfied that his master was as good a fighter as he had ever been.