“No!” shouted his companion. “He’ll kill you.”
“She bit me!”
“Put the gag back on.”
“Look!” He touched his cheek. “My face is bleeding!”
“Shut her mouth again!”
“The vixen!”
When the man replaced the gag, he pulled it tighter than ever and took satisfaction from her groan of anguish. The side of her face was already on fire and the edges of her mouth were now ignited with pain as well. As a final act of torture, he put the blindfold back in place. Standing in front of her again, he wiped the blood from his own face.
“I’ll get even for this!” he vowed.
“Come on,” said his companion. “She’s obviously not hungry.”
He sniggered. “Except for you.”
“We’ll be back, my lady.”
“When this is all over, we’ll both be back.”
“Yes!”
“That was his promise. Keep her locked-up safe and sound here until it is all over. Then we both have her.”
The man with the bleeding face grabbed her hair.
“I’m first!”
They went out of the cellar and slid the bolt back in the trap door. Golde shuddered violently. These men would never keep to any bargain with her husband. She was not their hostage. When the time came, she would be their victim.
Gervase Bret held the piece of material against the kirtle. It matched perfectly. He was puzzled. How had her apparel got snagged on a twig over a mile from the place where Bertha had been found dead? What reason had she to be in the orchard of a private house?
He went upstairs to the stark bedroom where Alwin the Sailor still lay in a half-sleep of torment. The old woman got up from the stool and Gervase thanked her for allowing him to inspect Bertha’s attire. When the neighbour went back downstairs, Gervase moved the stool closer to the bed and sat down so that his face was near to that of the injured man.
“Alwin?” he called. “Can you hear me, Alwin?”
“What do you want?”
“We are close to finding Philippe.”
“He is mine!” he said, trying in vain to sit up. “Let me have him! I’ll kill him!”
Gervase eased him back. “Rest, rest,” he said. “If he is to be caught, we must have your help. We know that he is leaving next Wednesday. You found that out from Leofstand.”
“Leofstand was his pilot!”
“Why not you, Alwin?”
“I refused to take him again.”
“Did he not pay well enough?”
“All the money in France could not buy my boat.”
“Why not?”
“It was the way he looked at Bertha.”
“Just looked?”
“It was enough.”
“Did you not warn her about him?”
“Of course. But she went behind my back.”
Gervase remembered what another sailor had told Ralph Delchard to ask. “Tell me about Boulogne,” he said.
Reaction was instant. Alwin gurgled noisily and rolled his head from side to side. He went into such a frantic paroxysm that Gervase feared the man was dying. Putting an arm around him, he held the patient until the tremors finally faded. The sailor made a supreme effort to control himself. For several minutes, he held a fierce debate inside his own mind and it produced some more convulsions. When he reached a decision, it imposed a weary calm upon him.
“I have to tell someone,” he whispered. “I talked to the priest about it. Not Reinbald, he is too young to understand. Father Colswein. The old priest who died. He had been married himself.
He knew the problems. I talked to him, and Helto learned something of it as well.”
“Helto the Doctor?”
“He cured me, Master Bret.”
“Of what?”
There was no point in keeping it buried deep inside him any longer. Alwin knew that his life was dwindling away. If his confession could in any way assist the capture of his daughter’s killer, he was ready to make it. Gervase was as young as Reinbald but he had a maturity that the priest lacked. Also, he was a stranger. That made it easier.
“It was a long time ago,” he began. “I sailed to Boulogne to pick up a cargo of wine. We were caught in a storm and had a bad crossing. I needed something to cheer me up. When we reached harbour, I went to an inn. Drink was taken. There was a woman there. An Egyptian. I thought she was beautiful.”
“Did you stay the night with her?”
“Three nights-God forgive me!”
“Were you married at the time?”
“Yes.”
“Had Bertha been born?”
“No,” said Alwin. “We wanted children but none came at first.
When I got back from Boulogne, it was impossible.”
“Why?”
“The woman was diseased. I had to go to Helto.”
“But he cured you?”
“In time. It was no easy matter.”
“What happened then?”
“Bertha,” he said, a wan smile appearing between the bandages.
“Our own child. It was a miracle. I vowed to put the past behind me and lead a decent life from then on. But I made one big mistake.”
“You confessed to your wife,” guessed Gervase.
“I felt I had to, Master Bret.” His voice grew faint. “It was a fatal error. My happiness ended there and then. My wife told her sister, Juliana, and she lashed me with her tongue every time we met. My sister-in-law made me pay dearly.”
“What of Bertha?”
“When she was born, I was hardly allowed near her. I spent more time at sea, taking on longer voyages. Anything to occupy my mind and get me away from Juliana. One day, I went back to Boulogne. The Egyptian woman was still there.” He rolled onto his back. “With my son.”
“She had a child by you?”
“So she claimed, and the times certainly fitted.”
“Did you meet him?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alwin. “Whenever I went to Boulogne. The woman and I fell in together again, you see. I pretended that she and the boy were my real family.” He gave a wry laugh. “Bertha was conceived in love and I could not be a proper father to her.
My son was born out of lust yet he looked up to me. For a while.”
“Why did he stop?”
“His mother and I quarrelled,” said Alwin sadly. “The next time I was in Boulogne, I sought to make it up but she had left the city. They told me she had gone back to Egypt.” He let out a long wheeze. “That was it. Years passed. I forgot them. Then my own wife was taken seriously ill. I promised her faithfully that I would bring Bertha up as a God-fearing Christian and I kept to that promise. If anything, I was too strict with her but I sought to protect her, Master Bret. That is a father’s duty.” He closed his eyes as he relived another tribulation. “Then came the letter.”
“Letter?”
“From Boulogne. Leofstand brought it back.”
“Was it from the woman?”
“Yes,” he said. “A scrivener wrote it for her. She was as unlettered as me. They had come back to Boulogne but she was no longer able to look after our son. She begged me to help her.
I could not refuse.” He opened his eyes and fixed them on Gervase. “She loved me. She trusted me. She had named our son after me.”
Gervase sat up with a start. He knew the rest.
“Alain!”
“The letter did not tell me what was wrong with him. I only found out when I reached Boulogne. He had caught the disease in Egypt. What future was there for him? I would have needed a heart of stone to turn my back on him.”
“So you brought him back?”
“To the leper hospital of St. Nicholas.”
“Did he know that you were his father?”
“No,” said Alwin firmly. “That was the only condition on which I agreed to take him. His mother told him that I was just a friend.
He never knew that I was his father. And Bertha never knew that he was her half-brother.” His guilt made him wince. “I brought him over in my boat but we sailed up the river one evening when it was still light. Do you know what I did, Master Bret? I dropped anchor in midstream and waited. I waited until it was dark enough to sail into Fordwich when nobody would see us. I was ashamed of my own son! I brought him ashore in the night to hide his ugliness. I felt like a leper myself.”