It was easy enough to find the knight. He was lounging at a table at an inn not far from the one where Simon and Margaret had stayed on their first night here.
The impression Simon gained was entirely positive. Sir Stephen Siward was a large man, heavy and tall, and with black hair cut short, and with his piercing blue eyes in that round face, he looked the sort of man who would make excellent company around a table. ‘So, you seek me?’ he said amiably. ‘What, will you join me in a cup or two of wine?’
Sir Charles agreed with alacrity, sitting on a bench, and Simon too was glad of the offer. Soon the patron had arrived with two flagons of wine and more cups, and all three could begin talking, while Hugh stood a short distance away like a guard, leaning on his staff.
‘How may I help you?’
‘Sir Stephen, this is nothing to do with the surrender of the city. This is about a woman who was killed here a little while ago.’
‘I won’t pretend I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ the knight said. He frowned into his wine, then, tipping his head back, he emptied the cup. ‘Poor Cecily. She was such an unfortunate woman. To escape one hideous attack, only to be slain in another.’
‘You knew her well?’ Simon asked.
‘No. I thought you realised: I am Coroner here for the King. I cover a wide area, but I happened to be here in the city, fortunately, when Squire William went on his mad crusade of death. You know the story of him and his wife? Oh. Well, you know then, that he assaulted the Capons’ house with a gang of men, slew the old doorman, then Capon, his wife and daughter, before finally dashing out the brains of the baby. A terrible revenge. There were – oh, I’ve lost count of them now – but many, many blade wounds on his wife’s body. Poor girl – she was only eighteen when he killed her.’
Simon felt his belly tighten at the thought of such carnage. ‘He was arrested?’
‘Oh, yes. In little time. Everyone knew him, and poor Cecily was able to identify him and some of his henchmen once she recovered. It was enough for the jury. Besides, as she accused him, he tried to launch himself at her. It was hard enough in the first place to persuade him to come to the court, but then to try to attack Cecily just because she told what she witnessed… that was shameful.’
Sir Charles leaned on an elbow. ‘Why would they leave her alive?’
‘Well, when they took the baby from her, the horror made her faint – so perhaps they thought her dead?’
‘Committed killers are rarely so careless,’ Sir Charles said. Then: ‘Why was the Squire not in gaol?’
‘The King has issued a general pardon to those who will serve him. Squire William was more than happy to take that offer with both hands. I had heard he was going to join the King when His Highness arrived here – but his body was so mutilated and decomposed, I suppose he was killed before the King arrived.’
‘Was there any sign as to who could have killed him?’ Simon asked.
‘I swear I do not know. I… But no.’
‘Please?’ Simon pressed him.
‘It is probably nothing, but I did hear that there was a priest out there, not far from where the man’s body was discovered. A fellow who recently arrived from Tewkesbury.’
‘What of it?’ Sir Charles said.
‘Only this: young Petronilla ran away with her confessor, a young priest called Paul. Now I hear that a priest by that name has been given a living just far enough from here to be safe from people in the town, and far enough away from Squire William, too, generally. Unless…’
‘You are speaking in riddles,’ Sir Charles snapped.
‘Am I? You must accept my apologies. All I meant to say was, that if this same Paul, who is some three to four leagues from Bristol, were to hear from some passing traveller that a woman called Capon, along with her father and mother and a little illegitimate baby, had been slain by her husband, and that the husband had been captured, but then freed under the King’s order – well, if you were that priest, thinking it was your woman, your baby, what would you wish to do? Forgive – forget? Or waylay the Squire and hack off his head and disembowel him for the traitor he had shown himself to be?’
Simon pursed his lips in a whistle. ‘That makes sense. What would your priest do then?’
‘Return to his church as though nothing had happened. What else would he do? There’s nowhere for him to run to now, and if he is found, what can you or I do about his crimes? Nothing, for he has Benefit of Clergy! And I confess, I find that there is little merit in the idea of chasing him down and capturing him. What, would it bring back any of the dead? No, of course not. I think it would be better to leave him alone. There is enough to think about here, with the King and Queen’s enmity.’
‘True enough,’ Sir Charles said. He made ready to stand.
‘One thing, though,’ Simon said. ‘The dagger. Why throw that into Cecily’s grave?’
‘The dagger? What dagger?’
There was instantly a falseness in his tone, and as Simon looked at him, he saw that the man’s eyes were averted. ‘Sir Stephen, a man saw you throw the dagger into the woman’s grave. Why did you do that?’
Sir Stephen looked away, over towards the castle’s open gates, as though musing on the foolishness of life.
‘I did not know Cecily, not until I had to go and view all the bodies at the Capon household, but I do distinctly recall the feeling of something akin to joy, to find one person who was still breathing in that slaughterhouse. She was a mere maidservant, but the fact that she survived seemed to me to be a good thing in its own right.’
He rubbed at his nose. ‘So, you can understand how appalled I was to be called to her body when she was killed. In fact, I was so horrified, I asked Sir Charles here to go to it instead. I could not face the accusation in her eyes. To know that she had died as well… it felt as though I too had failed her.’
‘And the dagger?’
Sir Stephen glanced at him as if startled. ‘Oh, that. Well, the dagger was the property of Squire William de la Bar of Hanham. The husband of Petronilla, the man who killed her entire family.’
‘Where did you get it?’ Sir Charles asked with frank astonishment.
‘From the man who found his body,’ Sir Stephen said.
Simon put his head to one side as Sir Stephen spoke of the dagger and of Robert Vyke finding it in the hole in the road. ‘So someone waylaid Squire William and killed him… and his knife fell into a hole. None of that explains why you set the knife in Cecily’s grave.’
‘Because I thought it would be better for her soul if the knife that slew her mistress was with her. To show that in the end, right did prevail. Her mistress was avenged.’
‘Tell me,’ Sir Charles said, as they walked away from the knight once more, ‘did that make any sense to you, because it made very little sense to me.’
‘I suppose there are some who believe that the weapon which caused so much death could be a symbol of the maid’s rising up over the earthly horrors – or something,’ Simon replied, ‘but I am fascinated by this. If the Squire was dead some days ago, according to the knight’s words, then he did not kill the maid. And nor did the dagger.’
‘In that case, we need to find out what happened to the Squire as well, if we are to learn what happened to the woman.’
They were inside the gatehouse to the castle when Simon had an idea. He led the way up to the first level, and along to the Constable’s chamber. Inside he found Sir Laurence Ashby.
‘Yes?’ the knight asked.
Simon bowed a little from respect. ‘Sir Laurence, my apologies for troubling you about this again, but I have been ordered to investigate the murder of the woman Cecily. Sir Roger himself demanded it.’