He grabbed at his drinking horn and drank deeply. It was a pleasant cup, with a small face moulded into the end, the whole thing glazed in green. Far better than being down on one of the other tables, where the drinkers had to share a pitcher and wipe it before passing it to their neighbour.
By the time the servants had arrived to clear the tables of their debris, Simon was feeling very relaxed. He belched quietly behind a hand, smiling apologetically to Juliana at his side.
Soon the tables were away, secreted out into the buttery or in the small yard behind, and all the guests had been moved so that their benches ringed the room; now they could rest their backs comfortably against the walls. It was at this point that the musicians entered and started singing.
Not bad, Simon thought, although by this stage he would have thought a dog’s howling contained a certain merit. There were three men playing, one with a fiddle, one with a citole and the last with a drum, which he tried to beat in time. From the glazed look in his eyes, his failure was down to Vincent’s over-lavish hospitality. The trio sang several carols, and then were joined by a dark-haired young woman who gave a demonstration of her tumbling and dancing skills.
Simon waved his drinking horn in time to the music as she sprang onto her hands and walked the length of the room, then somersaulted, landing with her legs outspread before and behind, waiting for the applause to finish.
‘By God’s Cods,’ Simon cried. ‘She’s damn good!’
She rose and continued, this time with a slower, more contemplative dance. The drummer had been persuaded to return to the buttery, and now the music was more sedate; soon the girl stopped her dancing and stood before Vincent to sing a carol. It was a popular one, and several of the other guests joined in. Simon himself did with gusto, singing the chorus enthusiastically, if not entirely accurately.
Looking about the group ranged on benches at the walls, Simon saw only delight on all faces, except when he looked to his left and caught Nicholas Karvinel watching him. As soon as Simon met his gaze, Karvinel turned away, but Simon had seen his face and recognised the self-loathing of the cuckold.
Chapter Eighteen
Baldwin too had enjoyed the meal, although he was careful to eat and drink less than he could. His system had been used to a sparse diet for so long now that if he consumed too much it caused a reaction and his whole body was upset for days afterwards. So instead of having his mazer of wine topped up continually, he insisted upon waiting until he had emptied it before allowing the bottler to refill it.
He saw that Simon was fascinated by the dancer. She was light on her feet when whirling to the music, elegant and deceptively subtle, just like a Saracen woman would have been, although she walked with the heavy precision of a professional dancer.
Baldwin could remember Eastern women from his time in Acre and Cyprus, before he joined the Templars. This one had the same smoothly flowing movements, the same confidence in her body and ability, and he wondered for an instant whether she was perhaps the daughter of one of the soldiers who had gone out to the Holy Land to defend it – but then he realised how ridiculous such a thought was. Although she was darkly beautiful, her complexion was of soft English peach and she was in her early twenties, no more. The daughter of a soldier in Acre would be at least thirty by now.
‘An excellent dancer,’ he complimented Vincent.
‘Yes. She is the daughter of a baker of ours. He pulls his hair out, as you’d expect. A girl like her flaunting herself before the eager eyes of so many men,’ Vincent grinned. ‘There are enough to be jealous of Elias.’
‘She’s Mary?’
‘Yes, I thought you knew,’ Vincent said off-handedly.
It was intriguing to watch her. Baldwin, his eyes on her feet in an attempt to keep up with the rapid movements, could easily imagine how a young lad could become infatuated by her: a boy brought up in the secluded, bachelor environment of the glover’s household. Meeting this splendid creature each morning to collect his daily loaf of bread, was it any surprise that he should be knocked sideways?
‘Sir Baldwin,’ Vincent had risen and was standing before him. ‘You haven’t met my friend, have you? This is Nicholas Karvinel – the man who has helped to make your gloves.’
‘Master Karvinel, it is a pleasure,’ Baldwin said, with a faint hint of remoteness in his tone. ‘Tell me, aren’t you the poor fellow that was robbed on the road south of the city? And you later found one of the outlaws in a tavern?’
Unaccountably the man looked wary, glancing at Vincent. ‘Um, yes,’ he said after a pause, ‘and I’m glad to say the bastard swung, God rot him!’
‘Well, at least you caught the villain,’ Baldwin said politely.
‘Yes, that at least was good.’
Vincent excused himself and went to speak to another guest, and Baldwin was left smiling blankly at a man about whom he knew nothing except for his reputation for miserably bad luck.
At his side, Jeanne rescued him. ‘It must have been dreadful to hear that the other glover was murdered. Such a terrible thing to happen to anyone, that kind of petit treason. The thought that your own servant should kill you…’
‘It is a horrible thing to dwell upon, my Lady,’ Nicholas Karvinel agreed. ‘But there is murder and madness upon all the streets. All we can do is hang those who would break the laws. It’s the only rule they understand. And the apprentice who kills his master is very certainly deserving of his end. What sort of world would we live in if we allowed that kind of lunacy?’
‘Ugh, yes! Horrid,’ Jeanne said, with affected revulsion. Baldwin restrained the grin that threatened to crack his serious features. His wife was already bored with the man and disliked his opinions, although she was too well-bred to contradict him. ‘Tell me,’ she continued, ‘how magnificent are these gloves to be?’
‘Ah, my Lady, you wouldn’t expect me to give away the secrets of my work? My commission was to produce splendid gloves so that the Dean and Chapter could show their appreciation to the city and the friends of the Cathedral. I couldn’t possibly tell you what they would be like.’
‘Oh, I see. But you got all you needed from the poor dead glover?’
‘The gloves were almost finished. I only had to add some gems – ah! You have made me confess that much already!’
‘But I understood that jewels and the money for the commission were already paid to poor Master Ralph. Has the Cathedral had to pay twice?’
‘I couldn’t afford to do the work for free,’ Karvinel smiled, ‘but the Cathedral needed only to pay me for finishing Ralph’s work.’
Baldwin was listening to him with interest. ‘I suppose you have had to help many other people who would have made use of Ralph the glover’s services?’
‘A few people have come to me, Sir Knight,’ the man conceded, then added: ‘but I hope you don’t think I might have arranged poor Ralph’s death just to win over some of his clients!’
‘My Heavens! What a thought,’ Baldwin said, as if shocked. Then: ‘What happened to the rest of the attacking outlaws?’
‘Eh? What, the men who waylaid me and my man?’
Baldwin didn’t bother to nod. He merely remained staring unblinking.
Karvinel was more heavily set than Vincent, but was sluggish; he lacked the drive which seemed a major part of le Berwe’s make-up. Baldwin reflected that it was probably due to the fact that he was financially in dire straits. Vincent was a success, Nicholas Karvinel a failure.
Vincent was suave and confident in his manner, no matter what he was talking about or to whom; Karvinel was, in comparison, wary and aggressive. The latter now stood with every sign of being cowed by Fate. His eyes moved about the room constantly; his hands were clasped with an outward show of humility and meekness, but there was something about him which Baldwin distrusted.