‘I want what is rightfully mine.’
‘We appreciate that.’
‘But you do not,’ she challenged. ‘You think that I somehow tricked that letter out of him. You see it as some sort of payment for my favours. I know the way that men’s minds work.’ She put her head to one side and studied him quizzically. ‘I do not get the feeling that you are married, Master Bret. Are you?’
‘No.’
‘Betrothed?’
‘Yes.’
‘For how long?’
‘Too long.’
‘Do you miss her?’
‘Very much.’
‘Did you pray for her in the cathedral?’ He nodded. ‘Then you, too, have felt the strange power of love. You know what it is like to worship another human being so completely that you will do anything for them and cannot bear to be apart from them. Is that how it is with you?’
‘It is,’ he murmured.
‘What is her name?’
‘Alys.’
‘She is very fortunate.’
‘Thank you.’
‘And so were we,’ she emphasised. ‘Neither of us were innocents when we met. Both of us had a past to regret. But those mistakes helped us to recognise true love when it finally came. I would have died for that man!’
Someone walked past and looked hard at her. Asa became aware of how public a place it was for her confession. It made her self-conscious. Lowering her voice, she gabbled the rest of what she wanted to tell him.
‘I never sought any gift from him,’ she insisted. ‘He was a gift in himself. The lord Nicholas offered those holdings to me as a proof of his devotion. He wrote that letter in my house and swore that I would be named in his will. I believed him.’ Her head drooped. ‘Of course, I never thought for a moment that the time would come so soon when that letter would take on real meaning. I would far sooner have him alive than claim my inheritance. He was everything to me and I to him. If anything had happened to his wife, I swear that he would have asked me to marry him.’ Her eyes were moist. ‘Since he died, I have been distraught.’
‘I saw you at the funeral,’ he said.
‘They did not want me there.’
‘They?’
‘Respectable people. His widow, his family, his friends.’
‘Why did you come?’
‘I had to, Master Bret,’ she said simply. ‘I loved him.’
She touched his arm again and this time he did not remove it.
Disquiet did not set in until the next morning. When they parted, Ralph Delchard had confirmed their usual arrangement to meet for breakfast so that they could discuss with Gervase what lay ahead for them at the shire hall. When his colleague failed to appear, Ralph was not at first disturbed. Hervey de Marigny was usually the last to haul himself out of his bed. In any case, Ralph’s mind was still on the injury sustained by his wife, and, when Gervase joined him at the table there was a new subject to preoccupy him. Ralph listened with rapt attention to the account of his friend’s meeting with Asa at the cathedral, but took a more sceptical view of it.
‘It was no chance encounter, Gervase.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She probably followed you there,’ said Ralph. ‘Asa must have spotted you heading for the cathedral and seized her opportunity.’
‘For what?’
‘Working on your sympathy.’
‘That is not what she did, Ralph.’
‘Then she is more cunning than I thought. Asa had you so entranced that you did not even notice how subtly she was influencing you.’
‘She merely wished me to understand her situation.’
‘So that you would recruit the rest of us to her cause.’
‘No!’
‘Asa took advantage of your soft heart, Gervase.’
‘It is not that soft,’ said the other firmly. ‘Nor am I so easily led astray by a pretty face. I am not blind, Ralph. I can see when someone is trying to use me. Asa did not ask me to help her in any way. She simply wanted to correct the impression I had of her.’
‘And did she?’
‘To some extent.’
‘Did she sound no false notes at all?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘There were a few things which did not ring true. Asa spoke of being distraught at the lord Nicholas’s death but she seemed robust enough at the shire hall yesterday. She also claimed that he would have married her if his wife had died.
I was not at all sure about that. It is unlikely.’
‘Impossible!’ said Ralph scornfully. ‘Men do not marry women like Asa. She was deceiving herself — or trying to deceive you.
What else aroused your suspicion?’
‘Asa was eager to make me believe that the two of them had drifted together by accident.’
‘That woman does nothing by accident.’
‘Quite so. I think she deliberately chose the lord Nicholas and then surprised herself by falling in love with him.’ He saw the look of disbelief on his companion’s face and became defensive.
‘It can happen, Ralph. There was genuine affection between them.
She was never his harlot, I am certain of that. They were lovers.
He cared for her.’
‘Do you?’
Gervase reddened and Ralph burst out laughing. They finished their breakfast in silence before they became acutely aware of de Marigny’s absence. A servant was summoned at once and sent off to rouse the commissioner from his bed, but the man soon returned with the news that the bedchamber was empty. Ralph began to feel alarmed.
‘Where can he be?’ he said.
‘I have not seen him since yesterday evening.’
‘Nor I, Gervase. I never stirred from Golde’s side.’
‘Perhaps he went for a walk in the city.’
‘This early in the day? He values his sleep too much.’
‘Then he may be with the sheriff. Or somewhere else in the castle.’
‘We shall see,’ said Ralph, getting up. ‘It is not like Hervey to miss a meeting. And it is most unlike him to forgo a meal.’
He sent for Joscelin and the steward appeared within minutes.
When he was told the problem, he took charge at once, dispatching a number of servants on a search of the castle while assuring the visitors that there was no need for concern. Joscelin felt sure that Hervey de Marigny would soon be found and brought to the hall. Ralph was unconvinced and Gervase shared his anxiety. The pattern which the three commissioners had set each morning at the castle had been broken.
The servants returned one by one but none had located the missing man. He had last been seen leaving the castle the previous evening. None of the guards remembered his coming back. Joscelin did his best to calm the apprehension that was now spreading.
‘Let me organise a more methodical search,’ he volunteered.
‘We will be part of it,’ said Ralph.
‘I will find more men. The castle is large with many places to hide.’
‘Hervey de Marigny is not given to playing games.’
‘What was the last thing he said to you, Ralph?’ asked Gervase.
‘I cannot recall.’
‘Did he not talk about seeking out Walter Baderon?’
‘He did, Gervase,’ said the other. ‘But he can hardly have been talking to the captain of the guard at the North Gate all night! I sense trouble.’
‘There is one other possibility,’ said Joscelin tactfully.
‘Is there?’ said Ralph.
‘Some of your men have been visiting houses of resort in the city.’
‘They are soldiers, Joscelin. Entitled to their pleasures.’
‘I accept that, my lord,’ said the steward. ‘And it is, in any case, none of my business. Could not the lord Hervey have gone in search of like entertainment and stayed there all night?’
Ralph pondered. ‘He could have,’ he said at length, ‘but I am certain that he did not. Hervey de Marigny is conscientious. He knew how important it was to meet over breakfast this morning for a discussion. Something is seriously amiss here.’ He headed for the door. ‘Bring everyone you can, Joscelin. I will round up our own men. We will find him if we have to turn this castle inside out.’
Tetbald was annoyed. Having ridden all the way to Exeter in a steady drizzle, he was peeved to be kept waiting in an anteroom at the shire hall long after the echoes of the Tierce bell had died away. He took out his anger on the town reeve.