‘You have been diligent!’ she mocked.
‘Not quite as diligent as you and Eldred. But let me see if I can suggest the real reason why you were silent when our predecessors were here. You advanced no claim then because the lord Nicholas was alive. There was some bond between you which forced you to hold back.’
‘Oh, yes!’ she murmured. ‘There was a bond!’
‘What exactly happened, my lady?’
‘You tell me, Master Bret. You have such a colourful imagination that I could listen to your tales for hours. What other hideous crimes are you going to lay upon me? What other weird motives did I have?’
‘There is nothing weird about the desire for revenge. Nicholas Picard cheated your son out of the holdings at Upton Pyne — or so you allege. It is no wonder that you wanted them back so much.’
‘They were mine — they are mine!’
‘Not any more, my lady.’
‘I have a prior claim.’
‘Murder cancelled it.’
Loretta stared at him with undisguised loathing, then her eye fell on the charter in front of her. It no longer lifted her spirits.
She brushed it aside and rose to her feet.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I had a bond with Nicholas Picard. The strongest bond a woman can have. When I could not get my property back from him by legal means, I chose another way. I seduced him.’
She smiled at the shocked expression on Gervase’s face. ‘It was not difficult. He had a weakness for a pretty face and I flatter myself that mine can still turn a man’s head. Besides, he had been sniffing around me for years and his attentions became more obvious after my husband died. He was such a vain man, Master Bret. He thought he would be doing me a favour. It never crossed his mind that I was only letting him enjoy my favours in order to get my property back.’
‘But you never managed that.’
‘I came close,’ she said. ‘Very close. He promised to restore those holdings to me a number of times but always drew back at the last moment. Then he made his mistake.’
‘He told you that you would never secure that property.’
‘In effect. He lost interest in me. He came to break off our romance, though he lacked the courage to do that properly. I have my pride. I am no Asa to be cast off like a dirty garment. The lord Nicholas betrayed me. He had to pay for that, Master Bret.’
‘So you gave instructions to Eldred?’
‘He will let nobody harm me.’
‘Did you order him to steal that box?’
‘I had to,’ she said simply. ‘It contained letters which the lord Nicholas made me write to him. I had to flatter his vanity. He told me that they were safely locked away in a box in his bedchamber and that he carried the only key on his person. It was important for me to retrieve my letters before someone broke open the box and found them. You and your colleagues might not have looked so favourably upon my claim had you known of a romance between the lord Nicholas and myself, especially as my letters contained more than one reference to the holdings in Upton Pyne.’
‘Had Eldred been to the manor house before?’
‘No, but I had. I described it to him in detail.’
‘Then he charmed his way past the guard dogs and took the box.’
‘It was more than a box, Master Bret,’ she said with a high laugh. ‘It was a treasure trove. There were letters in there from over a dozen women. The lord Nicholas had an obsession about keeping trophies. Some of the letters were from Asa. I got Eldred to translate them. He may not be able to speak but he can read and write. When I realised what I was holding, I used them to the best advantage by sending them to you. Asa’s claim was fatally weakened.’
‘So is yours now, my lady,’ he reminded her.
Loretta gazed at him with a mixture of hate and resignation, then she turned away and moved across to a large wooden chest which stood against the wall. There was an air of defeat about her now. Gervase moved up behind her. Loretta’s shoulders sagged.
‘The rest of the letters are in here, Master Bret,’ she whispered.
‘I will show you what was in that box.’
Lifting the lid of the chest, she slipped a hand into it and felt around for something. When it came out again, however, it held no letters. Loretta had a dagger in her grasp and she swung round to strike wildly at Gervase. He leaped back with a cry but the point of the dagger ripped its way through his sleeve and drew blood. Gervase hurled the letters into her face then grappled with her, twisting her wrist until she dropped the dagger. Alerted by his yell, the two men-at-arms came in from the hall to lend their aid. Loretta was quickly overpowered.
Gervase was panting but relieved as he stood before her. ‘These men are from the lord Hervey’s retinue,’ he said. ‘They would like to know why he was killed as well.’
‘It was none of my doing,’ she protested. ‘He stumbled on Eldred by complete chance and learned more than was good for him. I was sorry to hear of his death. Had he lived, I might now be the rightful owner of the property that was taken away from me. It was within my reach.’
‘Not any more, my lady. Take her to the castle. The sheriff will wish to hear more about that chance meeting.’
The men escorted her out and Gervase became aware of the blood which was seeping through his sleeve. The wound was not deep. He tore a strip of cloth from his apparel to bind it up.
Ignoring the pain, he picked up the letters and began to read the first of them. As soon as he realised that it was from the lady Albreda, he remembered his earlier conversation with Golde. He was holding the correspondence with which Loretta intended to blackmail the sheriff’s wife. Gervase intruded no more into her past. Holding the letters over the candle one by one, he let them burn until they floated harmlessly to the stone floor.
Albreda was safe. He would ask Golde to tell her that.
When Ralph Delchard and his men reached the North Gate, darkness was falling. Two of the four knights who accompanied him were carrying torches. The guards on sentry duty were surprised that they wanted to leave the city on foot at that hour.
Ralph brushed aside their enquiries and led his men out through the gate, determination keeping fatigue at bay. They walked in the direction taken by Hervey de Marigny after his talk with the captain of the guard. It was almost pitch dark in the shadow of the city wall and they needed their torches to guide their footsteps as they scrunched through the grass.
Eventually, they came to the siege tunnel on the eastern side.
It looked quite eerie now, a gaping wound in the earth. When Ralph peered into it, he expected to see a forbidding gloom but instead noticed a faint glow. He remembered Berold’s mention of someone who claimed that flames had come from the hole. Taking a torch from one of his men, he bent double and went into the tunnel. In the confined space, the flaming torch gave off an acrid smell but it did not completely hide the stench which came from the end of the tunnel. Ralph moved on to the point where the boulder had stopped him earlier and was amazed to see that it had been rolled back and eased into a large cavity in the side of the tunnel. He was able to work his way forward for twenty yards or more.
A slight bend was ahead of him and instinct warned him of the danger that lay around it. He drew his sword in readiness and moved on. The stench grew stronger and hissing noises filled his ears. When he came round the bend, he saw that the tunnel widened into a cave and his torch illumined a number of wooden cages around their walls. Animals of all kinds crouched and growled in their lairs but it was the wildcat which caught his attention. When it saw Ralph, it let out a screech of anger. Its cage was suddenly opened by a man’s hand and it came hurtling out to attack him.