The Abbot's Gibbet (17 page)

Marion stitched on in silence for a moment while she considered. It would be a significant achievement to once again have nobility in the family. And Avice could not wish for a better mate. None of the greater families would countenance having the daughter of a trader attach herself to them, and she was lucky that John had accepted her. Marion watched her husband affectionately. He was staring sulkily at the fire and refusing to meet her gaze.

“Husband, you know that it is best for her that she marries into a good family.”

“I would prefer her to be happy.”

“
I
am happy.”

The softness of her tone made him look up, searching her face for a trace of falsehood. “But she seems set on this Venetian, and from the way he’s mooning around, if he doesn’t love her, I don’t know what love is.”

“That is not love, just infatuation. They will both grow out of it,” she said confidently. “Arthur, we know all about John and nothing about this other boy. Which is the safer partner for our daughter?”

The Abbot’s Gibbet

145

“Did you know that Pietro is the son of a banker?

The father is negotiating with the Abbot even now.”

She paused while she absorbed this. “Perhaps so, but money is not the only issue.”

“Marion, some of these Italian bankers are extremely rich. With that kind of money Pietro could
buy
a knighthood, maybe even a Dukedom.”

“A new title isn’t the same as an ancient one,” she protested uncertainly.

“And how do you know the Venetian isn’t from a titled family? Many of these Italian bankers come from noble stock.”

“I hardly think . . .”

“If he is, we are losing a good man for our daughter, aren’t we?”

“What do you suggest we do, then?”

“Only this: that we find out what we can about the Camminos. I shall set the groom on to this. Henry’s always been nosey. He’d love checking up on them.”

Marion considered, then nodded agreement. “If you think it’s worthwhile, husband.”

Arthur watched his wife as she returned to her needlework. She appeared content, and when she glanced up and saw his look, she smiled again. He returned to his staring at the fire; he would never understand women. Still, he resolved to have enquiries made about the Venetians as quickly as possible. If he was to bow to his daughter’s wishes, he would first have to make sure that she would not later have cause to regret her choice.

Margaret took the cloth from the merchant and held it up against her body while Jeanne considered it. Then they both began giggling again. Jordan kept his pleas-146

Michael Jecks

ant expression, but it was becoming a little fixed. When he glanced at Hugh, all he could see was a morose scowl, and he had to wonder to which of the two women the miserable-looking sod belonged. If his wife had possessed a servant such as that, he swore, he would dismiss the creature immediately. Hugh was weighed down with the mass of foodstuffs and his arms felt inches longer. The gaiety of the women was incomprehensible to him, and he didn’t trust the salesman, either. Jordan Lybbe seemed too pat, too smarmy in the way he sang the praises of the pair as they held bolts of material against themselves. It was bordering on the familiar, and Hugh was deeply suspicious. The man almost seemed to be flirting, and what made it worse was that the women gave every appearance of loving it. Hugh glanced up and down the alleyway. The day was drawing in, and people were clearing from the pathways between the stalls, preparing to return to their rented houses, or rooms at inns and taverns, some to get back to their warm beds in the straw over the horses. Firstly, though, all would be looking forward to the entertainers who inevitably tagged along in the wake of the fair. In the alcoholic haze in many rooms tonight, people would be blearily watching fools performing acrobatics or singing, and few if any of them would remember a thing about it in the morning. Their only reminder would be the size of their hangover and lightness of their purses. He could visualize it only too well, and he wanted to be a part of it. But there was precious little chance that he could enjoy any of the festivities while his master was the guest of the Abbot. It would be unseemly for a bailiff’s servant to cavort with jugglers or dancers while staying in a convent.

The Abbot’s Gibbet

147

As another gale of mirth rang out, he carefully set the baskets on the ground, leaning against a pole. Here he could feel the last gleam of the sun, and he closed his eyes and enjoyed the faint warmth. It was rare enough that he had time to sit in the sun nowadays. That had all stopped once he left home to earn his own living. Before that he had been first a bird scarer, throwing stones at the pigeons and crows, and sometimes getting a lucky hit and food for supper, until he was eight and old enough to become a shepherd, and if the winter months were cold and cruel—working in the snow trying to find missing animals and protecting the young lambs from foxes, buzzards, crows, wolves and all the other animals which preyed on the long-legged and stupid creatures—the summer months more than compensated. Then he could sit in the pastures with his pouch of food and a skin full of ale, and doze in the sunlight while the young sheep continually circled their grazing: walking and cropping, walking and cropping. In his mind’s eye he could see the pasturelands now, as if he was back on the hill near Drewsteignton, the forty-odd animals in front of him, their jaws moving rhythmically, taking a slow step at a time as they followed after their leader. The vision was so strong, he felt he could almost reach out and touch the nearest sheep.

Then he snapped back to wakefulness as he heard the voice.

“My friends say you’re from France. That right?”

Hugh looked first to the women: they were silent but unharmed. The merchant had been talking with such concentration he had not noticed the three men who had stealthily encircled him. Hugh moved quietly be-148

Michael Jecks

hind the pole, his hand falling on his old knife and testing it in the sheath.

“They reckoned you couldn’t understand English. Said you had problems with it before.”

They had timed their attack perfectly, Hugh saw. The clothseller and the women had been busy at the back of the stall, and it was hard to see the lane now, they were so far from the trestle at the front. If they were to call for help, it was likely they would be unconscious and their attackers far away before anyone dared to enter and find out what was happening. Not many people would care to risk their lives to protect another stallholder. Hugh stood still, and so far as he could see, none of the men had noticed him. The leader of the three, the one who had spoken, hefted a large blackthorn club in his hand, and let it rise and fall two or three times. “Let’s see if this teaches you the King’s English, you foreign bastard. Get him, lads!”

The two men at either side of Lybbe reached out to grasp him, but the merchant was too quick for them. He sprang forward, knocking the leader’s cudgel aside and gripping the man’s wrist. Ducking under his shoulder, still holding his arm, Lybbe twisted, wrenching the man’s arm back. The leader was now bent over in agony; Lybbe took the club from his unresisting fingers and rested it on his attacker’s shoulder, pushing the man away from him and forcing a little gasp of pain from his lips.

“I understand English well enough, I reckon,” Jordan said coldly. “It seems your friend didn’t, though. I told him I’d get angry if anything happened to my things here, but he obviously didn’t get my meaning.”

He twisted the arm and held it higher, and the leader’s The Abbot’s Gibbet

149

legs crumpled as he tried to stop his shoulder being prized from its socket. “I wonder, do
you
understand me? If I have any more of this, I’ll have to keep lifting your arm up, and then you’ll need to see the monks to get it mended. It might take some time.”

Watching him, Jeanne was transfixed by shock. There was an acceptance of violence in his action, a precision in his slow torturing of the man, that sent a feather of horror tickling down her spine. She had never before witnessed such intentional cruelty toward another person. Her own suffering at the hands of her husband was a different matter, for she had known that she could cope with it—and a part of her even accepted it as her due for not being able to give her man the children he craved—but this deliberate infliction of pain on another made her soul cringe.

Long Jack walked forward stealthily, lifting each foot and setting it down silently. He had been left to guard the front of the stall in case the merchant’s cries of fear and groans of agony should attract other stallholders to his defense, and he had heard the first sarcastic jibes of his friends, but when all went silent, he had become anxious. Spying on them through the curtains of hanging cloth at the rear, he could see Lybbe gripping the man in a painful armlock.

“Do you want to find out how long it will take to mend a broken shoulder? It’s excruciating, so I’m told,” Lybbe continued conversationally, lifting the arm higher. Another cry of pain broke from his victim. Long Jack pushed through the materials, using his cudgel to move the cloth aside as he came closer, ever closer. There was no sound but the rasping breath of Lybbe’s victim and the cold tones of the merchant. Long Jack got to the edge of the last hanging screen of 150

Michael Jecks

material, and took a deep breath as he prepared to rush forward.

That was when Hugh hit him over his ear, and he fell like a pole-axed steer.

The sudden crack, rustle, and groaning sigh as the man fell made Lybbe look quickly over his shoulder. Hugh shrugged, and the merchant nodded. “Your last friend seems to be having a sleep now. What’s your decision, friend?”

“I give in, I surrender,” the man gasped. Lybbe eyed him contemplatively, then kicked him hard in the base of the spine. The leader fell prostrate before the other two, who stared at their friend with angry consternation. “Get that garbage out of my stall, and don’t let it back here,” Lybbe rapped out. “You’re lucky. There are two of you, and two pieces of excrement to take away, so go!”

Hugh watched as the two men circled warily round the merchant and grabbed their friends. The unconscious man was dragged away, his head bumping gently over each tussock of grass, while the other had to be helped to his feet, cradling his sore arm, and led off. When they had disappeared, Lybbe tossed his new cudgel up, spinning, and caught it again. “And now, ladies, after what you have gone through, and especially since your servant here has just saved me from a beating, you can have your choice of cloth for half-price.”

Simon and Baldwin stared as Lizzie hurled her cup at Holcroft’s head. He ducked and it hurtled past him, shattering against the far wall.

“Murderer! Killer! Coward! Why did you have to kill him? What had he done that many others hadn’t al-The Abbot’s Gibbet 151

ready—eh? Was it because you were so weak you had to kill him? You never dared speak to me much before, did you?”

Baldwin prepared to grab her in case she flew at Holcroft. “Lizzie, please, be quiet and explain yourself.”

“Quiet? Why should I be quiet? I accuse him, that man, our port-reeve, of killing Roger.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s always wanted me, ever since he first saw me in here. Because he spotted me going off to my room with Roger yesterday, and was waiting at the doorway when I came out. He didn’t come into the tavern afterward—he must’ve hurried after Roger and killed him.”

Baldwin glanced at Holcroft.

The port-reeve sat with his head lowered as if expecting another missile. He had never anticipated that Lizzie would accuse him of murder. Hearing her denounce him gave him a fleeting terror, as if her contempt had scalded his very soul. But somehow it made him feel easier, as if her outburst had destroyed his infatuation completely, leaving nothing, not even regret, in its wake.

The loathing in her voice had cured him of his love for her, whatever its cause. He lifted his head and met Baldwin’s gaze steadily.

“She’s right. I did want her, and I was devastated when I saw her leaving the room arm-in-arm with Roger. But I swear I had no part in his death.”

“You were there waiting when I left my room,” she blazed.

“Yes, I was. If I’d wanted to kill Roger, I would’ve been out in the road to ambush him.”

152

Michael Jecks

“Oh, rubbish. You had time to chase after him, to stab him and—”

Baldwin held up a hand. “Please, Lizzie, you have done enough guessing and accusing already. Calm yourself. Agatha—more ale! Now, Lizzie, tell us exactly what happened when you, er, finished with Torre.”

She glared at Holcroft as she spoke, her voice still trembling with anger. “I heard the bell for compline, and realized we’d been longer than I’d intended, so I got up and dressed while he was still in bed. When I told him that Holcroft here fancied me, he said he had had no idea. He was upset, thinking he might have made the port-reeve miserable by taking me from the tavern so obviously, especially since Master Holcroft had been arguing with him. That argument must have been very nasty, that’s all I can say!”

“Yes, and what then?”

Under his patient questioning, she organized her thoughts. “He dressed and went out. I was still braiding my hair and putting it right. I put on my coif, and had to retie my apron, and I’d missed one of my shoes, so I had to find that and then I went out. As I was shutting the door, I saw him, Holcroft, leaning against the doorway to the tavern.”

“So he was at the back door to the screens?”

“Yes,” she snapped, irritated by the interruption.

“He stood there as I came out. When I walked toward him, he turned round and went away.”

Baldwin nodded. “Holcroft?”

“That’s all true enough. I had been waiting a while. I remember the sound of a door opening and slamming, and when I looked, I saw Torre. He saw me at the same time, and hung his head as if he was The Abbot’s Gibbet

153

ashamed, and hurried past me. I waited some time longer, and was about to go back in when Lizzie came out. She looked right through me.” He sipped his drink.