‘Leave the duke alone, you cretin,’ Ralph la Zouche snarled. ‘If you were anything more than pointless weight, you’d have known that he wants to come here.’
Paul said no more. His arse was hurting from all this riding, and his inner thighs were chafed and bloody where they rubbed against the saddle-leather. It was a chastened rector who was trailing along with these others on the way to the town where the magnificent tapestry had been stored. ‘I am sorry, Sir Ralph,’ he said diplomatically.
The man was quite changed from the suave, elegant man whom Paul had met some weeks ago. Then he had seemed as noble as a lord, rather than an outlaw. But all pretence at gallantry and chivalry had flown since his brother’s death. It was as though he had lost a limb when his brother fell, and Paul thought that a man who lost a leg or an arm could not have mourned more. Nor would he have become quite so unhinged. It was not only he who noticed this: he saw it in the eyes of Folville too. Even the duke himself had observed it, the change was so dramatic. Yet the man himself appeared either not to realise how his appearance and behaviour had slithered into the midden, or not to care. It was almost as though he saw himself as dead already.
Paul licked his lips when he saw that Sir Ralph was eyeing him closely. It was an unnerving sight, to see those bloodshot orbs fixed upon him, and not for the first time Paul felt the huge error of his ways. If only he could take back his actions with that bitch and return to England safely. But he was not likely to be safe, not while the bishop had a brain in his head. As a rector, he would be a hunted man all his days. Not even a king’s pardon could save him.
A faint tickle of a thought snagged at his mind, and he gave a quick frown. No, that would be utterly ridiculous: so dangerous, indeed, he would almost certainly die for his attempt.
And yet … There was a glorious possibility in it, were he to play it aright. And he was, of all the rectors, chaplains, annuellars and clerks of his experience, easily the quickest witted.
Here about him there was the king’s own son, with ten or eleven men-at-arms of all abilities, and all of them declared traitors. It would only take one man with a brain to let the king know where his son was, and suddenly all kinds of rewards could be forthcoming. Perhaps even a pardon.
The duke spun his horse about. ‘We will rest here tonight.’
Exeter
Baldwin left Jeanne in the hands of Edgar, and went after William, listening to the squire as they crossed the road, headed down to the Close, and crossed over the cemetery.
‘It was very easy in the end,’ William explained eagerly. ‘We found the man in short order. He was a corrodian who had been sent here some little while ago by the king.’
‘A knight?’ Baldwin asked.
‘Squire, I think. His name is Geoffrey of St Albans. Do you know of him?’
‘No, it is not a name I recognise,’ Baldwin said after a moment. ‘What did he say?’
‘He says nothing. If he won’t plead, we’ll have to put him to the peine forte et dure, and force him to make a plea. If it fails and he dies, so much the better. It’ll save us the effort of a trial.’
Baldwin glanced at him. ‘Have you ever seen a man put to that test? No? Then do not make light of such a horrible torture. It means putting unbearable weights on a man’s chest while he lies chained to the ground.’
‘I know,’ William said. ‘But it’s only for the recalcitrant. They deserve it.’
‘No one deserves it. The weights are increased steadily over days, until the victim is suffocated. He cannot breathe because the weights crush the air from his lungs. It is a slow and agonising death. Do not make jest of it.’
William caught sight of the expression in Sir Baldwin’s face, and it was not the kind of look that would tolerate humour. To change the subject, he spoke of Biset.
‘It is a surprise, to be honest. I had thought that the true culprit was another man entirely. Until this latest note appeared, all the evidence appeared to speak of John Biset being guilty. He could have had a seal to fit that little purse, he had reason to want revenge for the loss of his treasure, and he had reason to kill that man.’
Baldwin stopped. ‘What man?’
William pulled a face. ‘I should not tell you, but I doubt it matters now,’ he said, and told Baldwin about the head in the barrel. ‘I felt sure because of that, that it had to be Biset, but when I sent men to enquire, they learned that he had fled the country. All said he was flown to France.’
Baldwin nodded pensively, and the two men walked to the bishop’s gaol. When they came to the gaoler’s door, the knight was welcomed with apparent sincerity.
‘My lord, please enter here, and take your ease. I remember you, sir. Oh, yes. You have been to visit me here more than any other knight in the city. How may I serve you, Sir Baldwin?’
‘First, you can release the man Geoffrey of St Albans, and bring him to me. Then you could hurry to the cathedral bakery and fetch a good white loaf. I shall pay for it. And then ask for a jug of wine and four cups. Could you do all that for me?’
‘Of course, Sir Baldwin. Give me but a moment,’ the man said, and a short while later, Geoffrey of St Albans was in front of them.
He was not, Baldwin thought, a prepossessing sight. Where William had seen avian characteristics, Baldwin saw only the figure of a ravaged old man. All cunning and intelligence had been leached from him, and all that remained was a husk.
‘Geoffrey, please be seated,’ Baldwin said.
The man shook his head, and his eyes darted about, searching the ground at Baldwin’s feet.
Baldwin tried again. ‘Do you know what you are accused of?’
‘They say I did something, but I didn’t, sir. I was just told not to tell, so I didn’t. Then they jumped on me and dragged me here to the prison. And I’ve done nothing.’
‘That’s what they all say,’ William muttered.
‘And some speak the truth,’ Baldwin countered. ‘Geoffrey, has anybody told you what you did?’
‘I’ve done nothing.’
Baldwin nodded. He was about to speak, when a thought struck him. As the door opened and the gaoler returned, heavily laden, Baldwin said, ‘Geoffrey, are you knight or squire?’
‘Squire, sir.’
‘You have fought in many battles for the king?’
‘Yes, sir. I was in the last war with the Scottish — but they beat us. They slew so many of my friends … That Bruce, sir, he is the devil. I know it. The devil himself arrived there while we were preparing for the battle, and it was the Bruce. And then, when the battle began, there was dreadful thunder, as if the heavens were about to open up, and I looked up, but there was no cloud in the sky, not one. And then this thick, roiling smoke, and all smelling of the devil. Brimstone, that’s what it was, sir, and it came upon us, and we could do little but choke. The devil came upon us, and-’
‘Have you been taught your letters?’ Baldwin interrupted.
‘Eh?’ The old man looked at him, his mind still set upon the battlefield.
‘Can you read?’
‘No. Why?’
Exeter
And so another stage in his life was beginning.
It was infuriating to think that he had been so close. The expression on the bishop’s face was more appalled as he read each new note, and yet now the damned man was free. Even the incompetent fools who served Bishop Walter could not miss the fact that Geoffrey was too dim to be able to have composed such missives.
Still, the tale he had given the old fool had been inspired. When Geoffrey had confronted him out there in the chamber beneath the bishop’s private room, he had thought his bowels would empty. The idea that he had gone through that terrifying experience up there, and was almost free and safe, only to hear that stentorian voice behind him, had frozen the blood in his veins. But then he had thought of the ingenious story — that there were threatening messages being left for the bishop, and he had personally been given the task of checking on the chamber in order to catch the man red-handed.