“You should get dressed,” he grinned.
“It was you who delayed the process,” she retorted, spreading the green velvet tunic beside her over the patch where he had been lying only a few moments before. “If you hadn’t decided to attack me as soon as we got up here, I’d be ready now.”
“My apologies, Lady. In future I’ll leave you to dress alone.”
“I don’t think so,” she chuckled, rising from the mattress and pulling a shift over her head. Simon watched her as she clothed herself, smiling to himself. When she was ready, and he had pulled on his hose, shirt, and tunic, he held out his hand and they left the room together.
Simon was filled with expectation. He knew only too well how much Baldwin wanted a wife, a woman who could comfort him and provide him with children, and his friend had selected the widow. All Simon hoped was that she would accept him and be the lady he longed for.
He walked down to the screens. The way was curtained. Margaret paused, her grip on his hand tightening. “Do you think they’ve agreed?”
“That’s in their hands.”
He smiled, but she could see his confusion: he wanted to go in and hear good news, but he wasn’t sure that he would.
“Come, my love,” she murmured, her mouth at his ear. “The anticipation is killing me.”
With a resolute movement, Simon swept the curtain aside and they walked in. In front of the fire sat Jeanne. Baldwin was nowhere to be seen. Jeanne rose elegantly as they approached. “I think Baldwin will be back shortly.”
“He left you here?” Simon asked.
Jeanne caught the note of enquiry in his voice, and her eyebrow rose. “His dog came in here and jumped up at us,” she said, and lifted her arm. There, beneath her arm, were two massive muddy footprints. “Baldwin is seeing to him.”
Simon shook his head. So his friend had failed. As soon as he had tried to persuade Jeanne to marry him, the blasted dog had ruined things again.
“Uther has already caused the removal of Emma from my service,” Jeanne continued, seating herself. “I fear Baldwin was rather angry with the dog. I can’t imagine why.”
Her words made Simon grit his teeth. She was being so cold and unresponsive, yet Simon was convinced she knew perfectly well that Baldwin wanted to have her for his wife, and she must also be aware that he adored his dogs-especially “Chopsie.” “It is a shame,” he said quietly. “I hope Baldwin will not do anything hasty with Uther.”
“”Hasty?“ Oh, I don’t think his treatment of the brute would be at all hasty.”
Just then there was a clap from behind them. Simon spun around to see his friend walking in, wiping his hands on a towel as if cleaning them of dirt-or, Simon thought, blood.
“Simon! Margaret! Are you ready to eat?”
The bailiff couldn’t stop himself glancing at Jeanne. Baldwin saw the look, and raised his eyebrows. She returned his glance, innocently widening her eyes.
“I told them you were seeing to Uther,” she said. “Have you done it?”
“Baldwin, you haven’t had him killed, have you?” Margaret demanded.
“No,” said Baldwin.
“But…Then what were you doing?” Simon stammered.
The knight laughed out loud. “I don’t want him leaping all over me while I am celebrating! Simon, Margaret, meet the lady who will be my wife! Jeanne de Liddinstone has accepted me, providing I keep the brute away from her while she is in her best tunic.” 26
S imon and the cheerful knight rode into Crediton in the middle of the morning. They went straight to the Dean’s house, and it was here that they heard about the near riot. Baldwin immediately insisted on riding out to the leper camp to ensure that all was now well. They found Ralph morosely wandering about the grassed area.
“Brother Ralph, I came to offer you my apologies for last night.”
“Sir Baldwin, that is very good of you. And I am pleased to see you too, Simon. Yes, it was a dreadful shock.”
“And two dead?”
“Yes. Edmund Quivil died immediately. He never spoke again. The other, the smith, was soon dead as well. His skull was crushed when another tried to stop him killing poor Edmund.”
“I shall have to see Edmund’s parents,” Baldwin murmured, shaking his head. “What a ridiculous waste, though. If only Jack had been sensible.”
“Do you want to see the bodies?”
“Where are they?”
“I have them in the chapel. I thought they might as well wait there until the Coroner could view them. We don’t want them out in the open to rot.”
“Er, quite so.”
He and Simon studied the corpses. The knight was shocked to see how skinny Quivil had become.
“He lost his appetite as soon as he was diagnosed, and the weight fell off him while he was here,” Ralph explained.
“And you say that the other man who died had his head stoved in?”
“Yes. Quivil’s friend here, Thomas Rodde, tried to save him, but the blow had already been struck.”
“I was too late.”
Baldwin turned to see Rodde approaching. Although this was the lepers’ own chapel, Rodde obeyed the rules by standing some three yards from the others, sadly eyeing the cold body. “He could have defended himself if he’d wanted.”
“He turned the other cheek, Thomas,” said the monk quietly. “He behaved as a good Christian should.”
“But he didn’t need to.”
“I think he had lost the will to live. Everything he counted as most dear was taken from him.”
“Yes. Even his woman was to go to be a nun.”
“Mary chose that route for herself,” Ralph pointed out quietly.
“And you will not allow my wife in to be with me?”
“Your wife?” Baldwin asked.
Ralph nodded. “This man is the husband of the woman you know as Cecily.”
Simon gave a gasp. “So it was you she was talking to on the night her father was killed!”
Thomas Rodde gave a slight grin. “It appears you know much about my business, sir. But yes, I was there.”
“Come outside and let us talk,” said Baldwin. “We have much to ask you.”
They walked out into the bright but chilly sunlight, and stood near the gate where two had died the night before. Rodde shook his head when his eye caught a glimpse of a reddish-brown smudge on the grass.
“He was a good friend to you?” asked Baldwin, noticing his expression.
“Yes. He was brought here the day I arrived. That night he was attacked by other inmates, and I saved him. He was my friend from that moment.”
“It’s no surprise he decided to let Jack kill him, then,” said Simon. “If the poor bastard was hounded in here by his peers, and bullied outside by the townsfolk.”
“No,” agreed Rodde. “Yet I wish he’d let his illness take its course. There was no need for him to die. He could have had plenty of enjoyment in the years he had to come. I would have shown him how.”
“You have yourself been ill for many years?” Baldwin asked.
“Yes, sir. I was struck down when I was almost twenty. My father was another goldsmith in London, and we lived close to Godfrey and my wife.” There was a defiance in his voice, as if daring Baldwin to deny that he, a leper, could still be married. Seeing no dispute in the knight’s eye, he continued. “We grew up together, living almost next door. It was only natural that we should marry.”
“What sort of a man was Godfrey?”
“Him?” Rodde blew out his cheeks as he considered. “He was a good, generous man in those days. It was only more recently that he changed, or so I understand. As soon as I was denounced for this-” he waved his hand at his face “-he became quite hysterical. His wife, Cecily’s mother, was horror-struck, and I think lost her mind. Because of that she was run over by a cart and died. That, I think, was what made Godfrey snap. Until then, he had tried to help me and Cecily. He had found a good place for me in a leper hospital, and provided the place with alms and money, and allowed Cecily to come and visit me, but when his wife died, he was embittered. He blamed me for his wife’s death, and by extension he blamed Cecily herself.”