As if he had somehow caught the drift of her thoughts, Harold Greencliff suddenly rose. Without a word, he swept from the room, his face downcast and his eyes avoiding meeting the gaze of any of the other people there. When she looked at her husband and the knight, Margaret saw the sympathy there, but the boy appeared not to have noticed as he slammed the door and stalked out into the open air.
After a moment, Baldwin stood and followed the boy.
Outside, the night was a grey curtain that hid the land around, and Greencliff was invisible in his dark tunic. But it was easy to find him from the sound of tortured sobbing that came from the side of the house. Baldwin stood undecided for a moment, not sure whether to go and interrupt the boy in his misery or not. He made up his mind. Steeling himself he strode on.
The boy was leaning against the log pile, eyes thrown upward at the star-filled sky, heaving great breaths and sobbing them out again in his despair and misery. He did not turn as the knight came up beside him, but continued his solitary skyward stare.
“What will you do, Harold?” asked Baldwin softly after a few minutes.
“Do? What can I do? What is there for me here? I’ve lost my only friends: my best friend is a murderer who tried to put all of the blame on to me; my woman, the one woman I thought wanted me as her husband, has made up her mind I’m not good enough for her! Not good enough to sweep her stables! What is there for me? What can I do, where can I go to find peace?”
Remembering Sarah Cottey and her spirited defence of him, Baldwin considered. He said slowly, “There are others who may be better friends or lovers, Harold.”
“There’s no one. I have no one. No friends, no family, nothing.” The tone was definite, the finality as certain as the slam of a tomb closing. In the face of it, Baldwin felt unequal to any further battle for the boy’s confidence. Turning, he stared away as he thought for a minute.
“Harold, if you need help, tell me. If you want to leave the area and go to Gascony like you said before, I’ll release you from your villeinage. But remember, you can only run from things you leave behind, not from things inside you. If you go but take the woman and your friend with you in your heart, you’ll never find peace. There must be another woman here that would be better for you, someone who can ease your life and…”
It was this that finally made the boy spin to face him. “Why? So you can take my woman? She’s told me that already, that you want her. It’s obvious why – a wealthy merchant’s widow and the wealthy knight – but don’t try to tell me it’s better for me when all you’re trying to do is look after yourself. Don’t try to tell me you’re trying to help me when what you’re doing is stealing my woman!”
Simon was sitting alone in the hall when the knight came back.
“How is he?”
Dropping into his chair, Baldwin gave him a grimace and puffed out his cheeks in a sigh. “There’s nothing I can say. He doesn’t trust me. I think if he stays for a week he’ll be here for ever, but if he goes far away I wouldn’t be too surprised. You never know, it might be best for him. It certainly did me good when I went abroad.”
There was a slight noise, and the door from the screens opened to show Angelina Trevellyn. She walked in as slowly and gravely as a nun and sat opposite the knight, her face showing a sad and compassionate concern. “How is he?” she asked softly, her voice low.
“I think,” Baldwin said, staring at her sceptically, “that you should find out for yourself, madam.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was your lover.”
Simon wriggled in his seat. He had no desire to be here for this. He glanced at the door in mute appeal, but no one entered, and he dared not interrupt them himself. Cringing back, he tried to make himself as small as possible.
“That was before,” she said calmly.
Baldwin spoke drily. “What, before you realised you were about to become a widow and could have your choice of the men – or should I say knights? – of the area, madam? Before you thought you could do better for yourself? Before you thought it would be pleasant to own a man with a title in preference to a mere merchant whom you had always feared and disliked?”
“That is hardly fair,” she said, giving a slightly nervous smile. Baldwin did not smile back.
“Isn’t it? I think it probably is. When did you decide on me? Was that some time ago too? Or was it a snap decision, like choosing to take a local farmer as your lover? It must have been funny until you got pregnant. That was the one thing that surprised me. Why were you so upset about being pregnant? Why should a married woman be so fearful that she is prepared to go to a woman reputed to be a witch to force the child to miscarry before her husband can find out?”
“I thought it would be wrong to bring up a child as his own when it might not be,” she said with a hint of defiance.
“I doubt that, I doubt it a great deal. I think it was because you knew that he could not have children. Oh, yes,” he carried on as her face coloured, “Walter de la Forte knew about that too. He told us. Tell me, though: when did you choose me? Was it when you saw my house here and realised how large my estates were? Or was it before, when you first saw me and thought I might be more enjoyable than a mere farmer?”
“I don’t have to listen to this!” she said, standing and glaring at him angrily, the light reflecting from her eyes in green glints of cold fury.
To Simon, it seemed that the knight stared at her for a moment as if trying to remember something, perhaps how he had felt when he had first seen her and been so enamoured of the beautiful green-eyed Gascon lady. “No,” he said softly, “you can go whenever you want, can’t you? Do whatever you want. You are wealthy now, and have money and lands. Well, go then. I wish you well.”
As his friend turned back to his fire, Simon thought he saw doubt in the woman’s eyes, but then her rage took her over and she flounced from the room. Soon her voice could be heard outside, shrilly calling for her horse and servant, then shrieking when she felt that she was being thwarted.
“I think that you have probably just had a very lucky escape!” said Simon meditatively, but when he glanced over at him, the bailiff caught a fleeting glimpse of the deep sadness that passed over the knight’s face.
The door opened and Margaret walked in, a tray with wine and minted water in her hands. “Have you seen Angelina Trevellyn?” she asked in bewilderment. “She’s demanding her horse, and when I suggested she might be better to wait here the night and leave in the morning, I thought she was going to launch herself at me in her rage! What have you said to upset her? Baldwin, why what is it?”
But even as she set the tray down and leaned towards him with a compassionate frown on her face, even as he tried to smile, he found he could not. And only by blinking could he stop the tears that suddenly threatened.
Chapter Twenty-eight
When they had been back in their draughty castle for almost two months after the murders, Simon and Margaret received a letter from Baldwin. Of course, Margaret could not read or write, but Simon had been fortunate enough to have been schooled by the priests at Crediton when he was young, and he and the educated knight often exchanged letters when they had the opportunity.
“What does he have to say?” she asked, not bothering to rise as she once had done. Before, the novelty had made her look at the indecipherable characters over his shoulder, but now that he had been bailiff for a little over a year, she was well used to seeing missives arrive, and the event was not such as would make her leave her plate of food. Funny, she thought vaguely, that being pregnant can make one so hungry all the time.