[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter (31 page)

Adela Empryngham buried her face in her hands for a moment before looking up with tears trickling down her cheeks.

'If only I hadn't quarrelled with Gerard, if I'd stayed with him on Tuesday night, Simeon - Raymond - wouldn't have been able to lure him to his death while we were all asleep. It's true, isn't it?' she demanded, her voice rising on a note of hysteria.

Martha got up and hurried over to her, clasping the younger woman in a comforting embrace.

'There, there, my dear. You weren't to know. You mustn't blame yourself. Evil is the fault of the evil-doer. It can't be laid to the charge of anyone else.'

There was a general mumble of assent. It is a comfortable doctrine, and one which I more than half believe myself. We are all given the choice between right and wrong in this world.

And yet... And yet...

Mistress Lynom cut in with a question which had plainly been troubling her for several minutes, ever since it had entered her mind.

'But how could this man possibly have murdered Jeanette when you, Roger, were with him even before he entered the manor?'

Everyone looked at me for an explanation.

'I was certainly with him,' I acknowledged, 'when he approached Cederwell late on Tuesday afternoon. But, by my reckoning, he was here much earlier in the day, and that was when he murdered Lady Cederwell.'

'Earlier?' Tostig Steward demanded, voicing the general bewilderment.

'Yes,' I insisted. 'The tinker who was here this morning informed me that he had spent Monday night at Woodspring Priory and so, according to his own story, had Simeon. But neither man recognised the other, so one of them was lying.

I could see no good reason why the tinker should do so, and I already had my doubts about the friar. I decided that he could well have left the priory the previous evening, and not very early Tuesday morning as he claimed, provided there was somewhere on the road where he could have passed the night. Mistress Lynom says there is a farmhouse some three miles distant from Lynom Hall which, although moated, possesses two outhouses standing beyond the pale and open to the track which runs south to Woodspring. Furthermore,' I added, nodding significantly at Ursula, 'Dame Judith mentioned having seen a holy man pass by on Tuesday morning before she was taken upstairs to the solar, a long time before I caught up with Simeon on a two-mile journey which should have taken him little over an hour to accomplish.'

Mistress Lynom gave a crack of laughter. 'So the old witch and her prying eyes have some use after all! Who would have thought it?'

Phillipa Talke intervened. 'But none of us here saw Brother Simeon until he arrived with you. How could he possibly have gained access to my Lady without our knowing?'

Sir Hugh nodded in agreement, as did Tostig Steward and Martha Grindcobb.

'True. How do you explain that, Roger Chapman?'

'Very simply. Lady Cederwell met him on the road.' I smiled at Audrey Lambspringe. 'You told me that on Tuesday your mistress took a basket with her to the tower because she was going to visit Ulnoth, as she did two or three times each month during the winter. I should hazard therefore that she met with Simeon on his way to see her, and turned back with him. They went directly to the tower by the path through the scrubland, so avoiding being seen by anyone in the house or stables. At that point, either Lady Cederwell had not recognised Simeon, or neither had recognised the other.' I shrugged. 'We shall never know now, but there must have come a moment when the truth dawned on one or both of them... After which, we can only guess at what happened.

They were in her chapel and Simeon most likely blocked her escape to the lower floors, so she ran upwards to the lookout platform. He followed and threw her down. As she lay dying,' I added for Sir Hugh's benefit, 'the name she tried to say was Raymond, not Hamon.'

With the exception of the knight, Mistress Lynom and the man so named, my listeners looked puzzled, but no one chose to enlighten them. Instead, Sir Hugh demanded, 'Why had you begun to suspect the friar, even before the arrival of the tinker?'

'For a number of reasons. When I first heard Simeon speak, at the High Cross in Bristol, I asked him if he were from these western parts, but he denied it and said he was from Northumbria. Yet, later, he revealed an exact knowledge of the grading and price of good Cotswold wool; something, surely, that no Dominican friar from such distant northern shires would know much about. Then again, on Wednesday morning, when we discovered Master Empryngham's body in the well, all that could be seen of him were his legs, sticking up, solid and frozen. Yet Simeon knew that the dead man was wearing a nightshirt, which proved to be exactly the case. Furthermore, he was constantly anxious to get away from here, and blew hot and cold on all my attempts to ferret out the truth. He never pretended to think Lady Cederwell's death an accident, but neither did he behave in the way a man of such zeal and fanaticism should have done in the circumstances. In addition, I recalled how he had flinched on first meeting with Mistress Empryngham in the kitchen on Tuesday afternoon. At the time I thought it for a different reason, but later I suspected that it was shock. He had not realised that she and her husband were also living here.'
 

'But Ulnoth?' inquired Mistress Lynom. 'Are you also laying his death at Simeon's door?'

'Yes, although I have no shred of proof that I am right on that score. Nevertheless, I will tell you what I believe to have happened. After he had murdered Lady Cederwell, Simeon hid for a while in the scrubland, probably too terror-stricken to proceed any further. Gradually, however, as he came to terms with what he had done and to accept it as God's will, he would have become aware, firstly, that he was cold and hungry, and secondly that he must put some distance between himself and Cederwell Manor until he could safely approach it at a later time. So he retraced his steps as far as the boulder house, which he had noticed when he passed it earlier in the day. The hermit would probably have given him food and drink, and was no doubt dismissed by Simeon as the simpleton he outwardly appeared to be. But Ulnoth was shrewd, picking up signs and odd words, carelessly let slip, to lead him to the truth.

'I know this because he gave me shelter for several nights after I had hurt my ankle. On Tuesday, after I had left Lynom to walk to Cederwell, I called on him again. He was very frightened, and kept muttering the word "death". Later, after I had overtaken Simeon on the road, and during the course of our conversation, I told him about this. The following day, I was also the one who mentioned to him my belief that there was someone watching the house from the scrubland.

Simeon pretended to disbelieve me, but coupled with what I had already told him, he must have been worried that Ulnoth had come to spy on him, as was indeed the case. While I was at the stables getting logs for Mistress Grindcobb, he went to see for himself. He had already committed two murders by this time and was growing used to the idea of killing for his own protection. He would have had no compunction in taking the hermit's life; and when I discovered Ulnoth's body, I also found a strip of black woollen cloth hanging from a thorn, which had not come from any garment he was wearing.

Unhappily for Simeon, the next day the tinker turned up and alerted me to Ulnoth's absence overnight.'

Adela Empryngham shivered suddenly. 'What of me?' she asked. 'What of the figure I saw standing in the doorway and which you all thought nothing but a dream?'
 

I nodded. 'Again I have no proof, but I think it likely that it was the friar, suddenly seized by the fear that you might still recognise him at some future time. He had been with me in the men's dormitory, and ran up the gallery stairs as soon as he had quit my side, intending to silence you as he had done your husband. But God was watching over you. You woke up and saw him. He took fright and ran away, hiding just inside the back door to emerge with the others as they went to your assistance. No easy opportunity presented itself to him again, so you are safe.'

Adela burst out sobbing, and Martha Grindcobb, who had remained close by, once more wrapped the younger woman in her arms, gently rocking her to and fro. I sympathised with Mistress Empryngham, understanding how she felt; for I could have added that I too had survived an attempted murder at Simeon's hands, convinced by now that it was he, and not Fulk Disney, who had concealed himself in the tower and pushed me from the stairs. (His story of seeing Fulk running away from the tower was, of course, a lie.) But as his object had been to rob me of Lady Cederwell's list of accusations against her husband and stepson, I thought it best to make no reference to something which could only cause embarrassment. Simeon himself must have searched for such a paper in order, if it existed, to destroy it; for without it he could not well instruct any episcopal court to proceed against Sir Hugh or his son, the main accuser being dead and no one else likely to proffer evidence in her stead. He did not want any more questions asked about Jeanette Cederwell's death in case the truth should somehow be brought to light.

At last, Sir Hugh heaved a great sigh and clapped his hands to the arms of his chair, dragging himself slowly to his feet.

'Well, Chapman,' he said, looking down at me, 'we owe you a debt of gratitude.' He smiled at Ursula Lynom. 'We've been a couple of fools, my dear. We must trust one another more nearly in future. And now I must sleep on what's best to be done and how much to tell the Sheriff's officers when they arrive. What do you advise, Maurice?'

His son was ready with his answer: 'We have satisfactory explanations for all four deaths, Father. The weather is to blame for everything. Let it rest there.' He glanced round the little assembly. 'With one exception, these are either our own people or Mistress Lynom's. And I fancy,' he added dryly, 'that that will soon be one and the same thing.' He fixed me with a steady eye. 'Chapman, you are the only outsider amongst us. Are you willing to hold your tongue if we make it worth your while?'

I scrambled to my feet.

'I'll hold my tongue,' I agreed, 'but not for money. If I were such a knave, how could you possibly trust me? No, I'll say nothing because our villain has met with his just deserts, and because he must now be standing in the presence of his Maker in the sure and certain knowledge that nothing but eternal damnation awaits him in the bowels of Hell.'
 

Sir Hugh clapped me on the shoulder. 'You're a good man,' he said approvingly, as people do when your actions chime with their wishes. But I could see nothing to be gained by bringing further sorrow on a household which had already been so sorely afflicted. Besides, Mistress Lynom might soon prove trial enough for most of them to cope with.

So I took my leave the following morning, knowing that I had performed the job which God had brought me there to do, and also with the consciousness of having done no harm to any innocent person. The snow and ice were fast melting in a warmer, more westerly breeze, and I finally quit Cederwell Manor with the inhabitants' good wishes and blessings ringing in my ears. I turned my feet in an easterly direction, for Bristol.

My mother-in-law, Margaret Walker, was busy spinning when I walked in through her cottage door three days later.

'You're back, then,' she remarked without turning her head.

'I'm back,' I agreed, putting down my pack and cudgel with a sigh of relief and looking around for my daughter.

At the sound of my voice, Elizabeth had picked herself up from the floor, where she had been playing with an old rag doll made of cuttings of unbleached wool, and came toddling unsteadily towards me, her little arms held out in expectation. She was not disappointed as I swung her high above my head, watching her face crease into smiles of delight and hearing her excited chirrupings. When I lowered her, the arms wound themselves tightly about my neck, and a soft cheek rubbed itself against mine.

Margaret Walker did deign to look up then, and nodded briefly. But, 'The prodigal's return,' was her only comment.

I set my daughter on her feet and took a handful of coins from the pouch at my waist, laying them on the table.

'A worthwhile journey,' I wheedled.

She snorted, but was slightly mollified.

'Where did you hole up,' she asked, 'during this dreadful weather?'

'A place called Cederwell Manor.' Foolishly I added, 'On the estuary and some good few miles north of Woodspring Priory.'

She was interested at once. 'The friar was on his way to Woodspring. Did you by chance see anything of him?'
 

'We... did fall in with one another,' I reluctantly admitted.

'A wonderful preacher! We need more of his kind in the world. Morals are too lax nowadays. It needs someone with the courage to speak out against the King and his court, the fountainhead of all such corruption.'

I made no reply and fortunately Margaret asked me no more questions, busying herself instead with putting food on the table and fetching ale from the cask. Elizabeth climbed on my knee to share my meal, her soft mouth opening and closing around the tasty morsels like that of a little bird.

I felt a sudden and unaccustomed glow of contentment. I was home with two who loved me and one of whom thought me the most perfect being in the world. The fire burned on the hearth and the door was closed against the wintry weather.

Evil and wrongdoing were as remote from that cosy haven as the moon and stars were from the earth.