‘Right,’ said Michael, rubbing his hands together as he turned to the shivering young men. ‘To business. You were with Albon when he felclass="underline" tell us exactly what occurred.’
‘A townsman threw a stone that killed him,’ said Nuport sullenly, resentful at the unpleasant direction his life was about to take. ‘In other words, he was murdered. And we plan to avenge him.’
‘Did you see a missile lobbed?’ asked Bartholomew.
‘No,’ replied Nuport shortly.
‘Then did you see a townsman running away shortly afterwards?’
‘No,’ said Nuport a second time, and scowled. ‘The culprit kept himself hidden. But it does not matter if we spotted him or not, because it is obvious what happened.’
‘Really,’ said Michael flatly. He addressed the others. ‘Now tell us what you know to be true, not what your lurid imaginations suggest.’
‘Sir William ordered us into a fan formation, so as to cover more ground,’ obliged Mull. He looked miserable – what little hair he had left was plastered to his head, while water dripped from his gaudy clothes. ‘Which meant that we grew further apart with every step we took, so none of us were with him when he … But Thomas was the closest. Tell him, Tom.’
Thomas spoke reluctantly. ‘I heard him yell, and I assumed he had caught the hermit – he was an excellent tracker. But I arrived to find his horse grazing and him lying senseless next to it.’
‘So he might have fallen off by accident,’ said Bartholomew, who was a dismal rider, and quite often toppled out of his saddle for no reason apparent to those who were good at it.
‘It is possible,’ replied Thomas. ‘But highly unlikely. He was a knight.’
‘What did he shout, exactly?’
‘It sounded like “you”, but I cannot be certain. However, I can tell you that none of us knocked him from his seat, because the offender would have galloped away afterwards, and I would have heard the hoofs. But there was just the yell and the thump of him hitting the ground. It means the killer was on foot, whereas we were all mounted.’
‘Did you meet anyone else in the woods?’
All the young men shook their heads.
‘They were deserted,’ said Mull. ‘Probably because it was raining, and they are not a very nice place to be at the best of times. They are terribly boggy and full of brambles.’
‘My father can go to the Devil,’ announced Thomas suddenly and angrily. ‘I am not scrubbing floors – I am going to find that damned hermit. He stabbed my mother, and I bet he killed Sir William, too, thus destroying our one chance to escape this hellhole and do something interesting.’
‘Jan did not kill your mother, no matter what Albon thought,’ said Michael quietly. ‘Indeed, I suspect he is also dead – dispatched to prevent him from revealing what he saw as he prowled the castle that night.’
At that point, they were joined by Ella. She had been inside the pavilion with Albon’s body, listening to the discussion secretly, but now she emerged to stand with her brother.
‘The monk is right, Tom,’ she said softly, squeezing his arm to make him look at her. ‘We have known Jan all our lives and he has never hurt a fly. Besides, he is terrified of horses – he would have gone nowhere near Sir William’s great destrier.’
‘Well, Matt?’ asked Michael, when the twins and the squires had trooped away. Most went willingly, more than happy to exchange their outlandish clothes for dry ones, although resentment was in Thomas’s every step and Nuport was patently livid. ‘What do you think?’
‘They did not kill Albon,’ replied Bartholomew. ‘He represented a life of adventure and they wanted him alive. Of course, Nuport does have an unpredictable temper …’
The rest of the day was taken up with interviewing as many castle residents as would speak to them. It was a frenzied business. Not only was Michael acutely aware that he only had until the following evening to earn the hundred marks, but everyone was frantically busy with preparations for the royal visit. Lichet had failed to implement Marishal’s meticulously planned timetable while he had been in charge, which had lost them three full days. Marishal was determined to make up for lost time, and drove everyone relentlessly. No one had time to talk, and their answers were necessarily terse. Bartholomew grew increasingly frustrated with their lack of progress, and, desperate to achieve something useful, he went to re-examine the cistern.
It had been eerie the first time he had visited, when others had been with him, but it was far more so on his own. It was full of echoing drips, and the lamp he carried did not penetrate very far into the darkness. Splashes and ripples came from every direction, and the near-constant rain of the last few days had caused the water to rise dramatically, so that the pavement where he had examined the bodies of Margery and Roos was now at least six feet below the surface.
He did not stay long, and escaped outside with relief. He met Richard at the top of the stairs, and used him to conduct one or two experiments regarding how far sound carried from the bailey to the cistern and vice versa, although it told him nothing to help with the murders.
Dusk came, but there was no let-up in Marishal’s preparations, even though it was clear that everyone was exhausted. He seemed to be everywhere, issuing directions in a non-stop torrent. He was an exacting taskmaster, and if a job was not done to his satisfaction, the culprit could expect a dressing-down and an order to do it again. Whether it was a genuine desire for perfection, or an attempt to distract himself from his grief, Bartholomew did not know.
The squires and Ella suffered most under his blistering tongue, and there was a general consensus among servants and courtiers alike that this should have happened years ago. As an act of petty retaliation, the twins managed to stage one or two small pranks, but people were too busy to be amused at their victims’ discomfiture, so they soon desisted.
Bartholomew was about to return to Michael, when there was a commotion outside the Oxford Tower. Marishal emerged from it with Quintone, who was grinning triumphantly. People stopped what they were doing to stare.
‘I am releasing him,’ Marishal announced in ringing tones. ‘I have been reflecting on Lichet’s claims all day, and I have decided that he is wrong. He is so determined to have the reward that he has overlooked certain basic facts.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Thomas, dangerously bold. ‘Because if you are mistaken, you are freeing the bastard who murdered our mother and your wife.’
‘I am sure,’ replied Marishal. ‘For two reasons. First, the ale barrel was empty when the servants retired to bed, and a new one had been brought from the cellars during the night. And second, Isabel did entertain Quintone in her bed, because three witnesses now attest to it – witnesses who told the truth once threatened with dismissal if they did not.’
‘Perhaps you are right, but you still cannot let him go,’ persisted Thomas stubbornly. ‘Not until the Lady gives her permission. She may not agree with your assessment of the situation.’
‘And Lichet certainly won’t,’ murmured Ella.
The look Marishal shot them was enough to make both flinch. ‘Do you think I would make this sort of decision without consulting her? We discussed it at length, and she concurs with me.’