Ignoring them, he rode on, and they parted in deference to his office, leaving a clear path to the gate. Here, preventing them from entering, was the constable.
“Hello, Tanner,” Baldwin said, pulling up.
The constable nodded grimly, jerking his head toward the house. “He’s in his hall, Sir Baldwin.”
“Who found him?”
“His neighbor, Matthew Coffyn.”
Baldwin nodded. “Have you sent men to seek the killer?”
“As soon as I heard, I had men chase the main roads, but it’s unlikely they’ll see anyone this late at night.”
“Was there any report of a man riding or running away?”
“No, sir, nothing. As far as I know, no one heard anything.”
That was the hardest part of searching for a murderer, the knight knew. It was largely a pointless exercise sending men after a killer when there was no hint as to who could be responsible. Yet if no one was sent, the Coroner would look askance at the constable. And at least the posse would be able to spread the news of the killing, putting remote farmers on their guard against another attack. “Well, perhaps they will be fortunate this time,” he murmured. And maybe they won’t, he added to himself. Maybe this was a murder committed by someone in the town, someone who bore the goldsmith a grudge and wanted to take his revenge. Who, Baldwin wondered, could have enough of a hatred for the man to want to kill him?
Leaving the messenger holding their horses for them, he and his servant marched on to the hall.
The great studded door stood open, and they entered the black maw of the screens passage. Baldwin hesitated at the door to the hall, through which a little light glimmered, but after a moment strode to the door at the far end of the corridor. He found himself looking out at a large courtyard. Stabling for at least thirty horses was over to the left of the cobbled space, while the kitchen lay on the right, at some short distance from the house itself. Between the hall and the kitchen Baldwin could make out the dividing wall between this place and the next, which meant that this yard was almost completely walled in. Opposite him was a gatehouse set between two large buildings, one of which looked like a barn and storeshed for wagons and equipment, while the other, judging by the gentle lowing emanating from it, was serving as a cattle shed. At this time of day, all was still, and at some windows he could see yellow lights shining.
“Do you want to see the body?” Edgar asked quietly. He wondered why his master was peering out so intently. It wasn’t like him to bypass a murder victim like this. To his relief, Baldwin nodded pensively. Edgar led the way back to the hall.
The knight found himself in a room only a shade larger than his own, but with the rich drapery lighted by many candles, it was infinitely more imposing. It was a new house, and no expense had been spared in its construction. The walls were of solid moorstone, and a good fire burned at the hearth in the middle of the floor. Chairs and benches lined the walls; thick tapestries covered the windows; at the far end a raised dais held the lord’s table, at the back of which was a curtain which Baldwin knew would conceal another door, one which would lead to the private rooms of the solar block. A building this modern would be sure to have separate sleeping quarters for the master so he could enjoy a little privacy from his servants in the hall. A sideboard with a skewed cloth stood against the wall to the side of the dais, and Baldwin’s gaze rested on it for a moment before his attention was drawn to the figure on the floor.
Baldwin had seen many dead men in his life. He had seen corpses by the hundred in Acre when the Egyptians attacked; he’d witnessed his comrades dying in agony on the pyres because they had dared attest to the honor of their Order; and he had seen many victims of murder since becoming Keeper. Like everyone else, he was used to the sight of those who had expired of old age or disease. There were many ways to die.
At least, he thought to himself, this one is straightforward. There could be no doubt as to the reason for Godfrey of London’s death. The blood seeping from his crushed skull left little to the imagination.
Baldwin didn’t move his eyes from the corpse. “Any weapon?”
There was a thin, dark man with a fearful round face standing by the doorway gripping an oak cudgel. Edgar recognized him as an ostler from the inn. He must have been co-opted to guard the corpse.
“I don’t know, sir. Tanner just told me to stay here and make sure no one came in until you arrived.”
“Has anyone been in?”
“No, sir.”
“Were you here when this man was found?”
“No, sir. Tanner called me here as soon as he arrived, so as to guard the room and see the girl safe.”
Baldwin raised an eyebrow. “Girl?”
“Yes, sir. She had been found here unconscious. With the man.”
“Man? What man?”
“Putthe, the bottler. He was here too.”
Baldwin closed his eyes a moment, then spoke slowly and deliberately. “Go out to the front gate and tell Tanner to get up here now. You stay there and keep people out. You understand?”
Once the ostler had scurried from the room, Baldwin walked to a large candle standing high on a wall sconce. Taking it, he raised it high over his head to light the room more clearly, peering all about him with care.
There was little to see now, but he could discern areas where the rushes had been scuffed and moved. Before going to them, he bent at the side of the dead man.
He was some seven paces from the door, his head pointing toward the nearest window, one which gave out to the yard at the back of the house, near to the kitchen. The figure lay oddly to Baldwin’s eyes, but the knight knew that dead men often assumed strange or even bizarre postures. Godfrey’s right arm was at his side, while his left was held out, bent at the elbow with the hand up. If he was standing, Baldwin thought, it would look as if he was holding up his hand to tell someone to halt. The strangeness of the pose lay in its very naturalness. If it wasn’t for the hideous wound, Baldwin would have thought the man was merely resting.
The knight squatted, the candle held high once more as he surveyed the body and the surrounding floor. He could see no object lying nearby which could have inflicted such a vicious wound. This was no sudden, mad attack, the man clubbed as he walked across the floor, the weapon then dropped as the killer realized with horror what he had done. And yet, the knight reminded himself, there were plenty of cases where a murderer had slain in hot blood and then rushed off still clutching the implement of death.
While Edgar looked on imperturbably, Baldwin set the candle down and performed a quick investigation. He felt the man’s skin at the top of his torso. It was still warm. Then the knight sniffed at Godfrey’s mouth. There was no sweet, sickly odor of alcohol that he could discern. He probed gently at the quickly clotting wound. Beneath his fingers he could feel the smashed bones moving, and he nodded to himself. He had seen head wounds often enough. This one was certainly adequate to have caused death.
Heaving, he rolled the body over to seek additional wounds, and opened the man’s tunic to check there were no stab wounds. It was all too common for a man to inflict an apparently obvious wound on a corpse after committing a murder in an attempt to throw suspicion onto someone else. But there was nothing to be seen.
He had just hauled the body back into its original position when Tanner entered. Baldwin ignored him. Slowly easing himself up from his knees, which cracked as he came upright, he took hold of the candle and walked to the nearest mark in the rushes.