A Wicked Deed Page 10

  No one answered.

  ‘If it was Deblunville we saw dead on the gibbet, he is unlikely to come out to greet us now,’ Michael whispered to Bartholomew. ‘And his people will be leaderless.’

  Receiving no response, Tuddenham started to move forward again. He stopped short when an arrow thudded into the ground at his feet. He looked at it quivering, and took several steps back. He was prevented from taking several more only by the fact that Grosnold was in his way.

  ‘I have already told you that we have not come with any hostile intention,’ he said, his voice tight with anger. ‘I demand to speak to Deblunville immediately!’

  More silence greeted him, and he turned to Michael and Bartholomew in exasperation. ‘You see what the man is like? He will not even speak in a civilised manner. I have had enough of this nonsense. If he is dead, then all I can say is good riddance! Hamon, lead the way home.’

  ‘Wait!’

  It was a woman’s voice that came from the outer ramparts. There was a pause, and then a figure appeared, climbing lithely on to the top of the bank. A hand grasped firmly around one of her ankles suggested that someone in the ditch behind did not share her confidence in her balancing skills and was trying to ensure she did not fall. For the second time in two days, Bartholomew found himself gazing in admiration at a woman. This one was small and delicate, with corn-fair hair knotted into a thick plait that reached almost to her knees. Even from a distance, he could see her eyes were a startling blue and that her cheeks were pink and downy, not brown and weathered from too much sun. She wore a dress of fine peach-coloured material that shone in the sun as she moved.

  ‘My God,’ breathed Tuddenham. ‘There is my poor Isilia’s piece of satin. I wondered why Deblunville wanted that.’

  ‘Who is she?’ asked Bartholomew, unable to tear his eyes away from her.

  A clatter to one side made him jump. Hamon had dropped his sword, and was standing open mouthed as he stared at the woman on the earthwork.

  ‘It is my Janelle!’ he cried in anguish. ‘Deblunville has taken her hostage!’

  Tuddenham’s little army, Bartholomew and Michael all continued to stare at the small figure standing on the earthen bank. Hamon took several steps forward, as though he would race up and snatch her away, but an arrow snapped into the grass to one side of him and he faltered, standing helplessly with his hands dangling at his sides. Tuddenham and Grosnold were shocked into silence, while Walter Wauncy’s expression was unreadable.

  ‘Janelle!’ cried Hamon in despair. ‘Has Deblunville harmed you? I will kill him if he has!’

  ‘Of course he has not harmed me!’ she snapped. ‘I am carrying his child! Why should he want to harm me?’

  In Bartholomew’s experience as a physician, a woman carrying a child was not necessarily cause for a man to celebrate, and he had attended several patients where prospective fathers had decided to prevent an unwanted birth by attempting to dispatch the mother.

  Janelle ignored Hamon and addressed Michael, whose distinctive habit marked him as a Benedictine monk. ‘Please forgive our wariness, Brother, but not all visits from Grundisburgh and Otley over the past two years have been friendly.’

  ‘Watch your tongue, Janelle!’ said Tuddenham sternly. ‘And what are you doing here anyway? Have you been abducted? Do not worry, we will soon have you safely home.’

  ‘Of course I have not been abducted,’ said Janelle scornfully. ‘I came here of my own free will. Roland Deblunville and I were married yesterday in St Botolph’s, just after dawn. Did you not notice the wild flowers around the church door?’

  ‘No!’ cried Hamon in horror. ‘You cannot have done!’

  ‘That is preposterous!’ exploded Tuddenham. ‘You have no right to wander off and marry the first man you encounter. What will your father say?’

  ‘Ask him,’ said Janelle defiantly. ‘He is here, in the house. He attended our wedding, and is delighted that hostilities between his manor and Roland’s are finally at an end. Now we can devote our energies to something more meaningful than perpetuating silly squabbles – such as making our farms more profitable.’

  ‘No wonder Bardolf did not answer our summons and all his villagers were drunk,’ muttered Grosnold. ‘The man was busy marrying off his only daughter to the greatest scoundrel in Suffolk.’

  ‘Perhaps this is not such a terrible thing,’ suggested Wauncy carefully. ‘At least the child will be born in wedlock.’

  ‘Of course it is a terrible thing!’ shouted Tuddenham. ‘And never mind the wretched brat! What about us? What will Hamon do when Deblunville inherits Clopton from Bardolf and becomes the most powerful landowner north of Ipswich?’

  ‘Hamon will have your two manors,’ snapped Grosnold, pulling off his heavy black helmet to reveal a head crisscrossed with red marks where it had rubbed. ‘It is I who will be vulnerable. My cattle will never be safe now!’

  ‘No self-interest here, Matt,’ whispered Michael to Bartholomew. ‘At least our colleagues at the University are a little more subtle in their ambitions and desires.’

  ‘Janelle!’ yelled Hamon heartbrokenly. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Well, I do not believe you married Deblunville!’ yelled Grosnold to Janelle after a moment’s reflection. ‘You are just making mischief. Your father would never betray us in so foul a fashion.’

  ‘And why should allowing his daughter to marry the man she loves be an act of betrayal?’ demanded Janelle. ‘It is my business who I marry, not yours. You had no right to attempt to prevent it in Lent, and you have no right to claim you have been betrayed now. It is none of your affair!’

  ‘Your father has been cruelly misled!’ shouted Tuddenham. ‘He has been misguided by that beast who seduced you. I will talk to him and we will have this marriage annulled. These Michaelhouse men are scholars – they will find a way to put an end to this vile union.’

  ‘We do not have the authority to meddle with that sort of thing,’ said Bartholomew in alarm, afraid that Michael might agree to help for the sake of the advowson.

  ‘My colleague is correct,’ said Michael, to Bartholomew’s relief. ‘You will need to apply to a bishop for that.’

  ‘We will apply, then,’ determined Grosnold, ramming his helmet on his head again. ‘I will show Deblunville that we mean business. I will not have my neighbours’ women married off with gay abandon.’

  ‘We should ascertain that Deblunville is still alive first,’ said Wauncy thoughtfully. ‘Janelle was married at dawn yesterday, but the scholars claim they saw a man wearing Deblunville’s dagger hanging on the gibbet by mid-morning. She may already be a widow.’

  Hamon’s eyes lit with sudden hope, and Grosnold nodded keenly.

  ‘Perhaps you will allow us to question this lady,’ said Michael, sensing that if Deblunville was still alive he might not stay that way long, given his neighbours’ reaction to his choice of bride. ‘She can harbour no ill-feelings towards a harmless Benedictine monk.’

  ‘Then you do not know her,’ said Grosnold with feeling. ‘That is no lady, that is a vixen!’

  ‘She is an angel,’ whispered Hamon, gazing across at her. ‘And Deblunville has poisoned her innocent mind.’

  Grosnold gave a snort of derisive laughter. ‘Lust has made you blind, Hamon. She has never possessed an innocent mind!’

  Hamon stepped towards him threateningly, but Tuddenham pushed his nephew away. The young knight was strong enough to have taken exception to this rough treatment, but he yielded to his uncle’s stern glare, and stalked away to stand sulkily with the archers. Grosnold clicked his tongue, and shook his head in disapproval at Hamon’s behaviour.

  ‘May I offer you my congratulations, madam?’ called Michael. ‘Please accept the prayers of a humble monk for a happy and fecund union.’

  ‘It is already fecund,’ muttered Tuddenham. ‘That was the problem.’

  ‘I would like to speak to your husband,’ Michael continued. ‘Is that possible?’

 
‘Why?’ demanded Janelle. ‘So that Hamon’s archers can shoot him down in cold blood as soon as he makes an appearance? I do not think so!’

  ‘Madam!’ said Michael, sounding suitably shocked. ‘I am a man of God and abhor violence. I came here only so that I could be assured of your husband’s safety.’

  ‘And how do I know I can trust you?’ she demanded. ‘You have come to Grundisburgh solely to see what you can inveigle out of Tuddenham for your College.’

  Bartholomew looked down at his feet so no one would see him smiling. She was astute, and would not easily become a victim of Michael’s smooth charm.

  ‘Hardly inveigle, madam,’ said Michael, offended. ‘I am here on God’s business, not my own. I do not know your husband, so cannot wish him harm. I desire only a few moments of his time.’

  Janelle appeared to waver. Michael opened his mouth to add more, but then hesitated, and Bartholomew knew the monk was uncertain what else to say. If it had been Deblunville they had found hanging on the gibbet, and his expensive dagger suggested it was, then there were gentler ways of informing Janelle that she was a widow the day after she became a bride than howling across a field that someone had murdered him.

  ‘Please,’ Michael called. ‘Allow me and my colleague to come a little closer, and we will discuss this rationally. You can see we carry no weapons.’

  ‘All right, then,’ she conceded after a moment’s thought. ‘But walk slowly, and no tricks! I have archers with arrows aimed at Grosnold, Hamon and Tuddenham. Their lives depend on you being exactly what you say you are.’

  ‘Let’s go home,’ said Tuddenham, plucking at Grosnold’s chain-mailed sleeve. ‘We came here out of neighbourly concern, and we do not have to play silly games with that harlot.’

  ‘Just give us a few moments,’ said Michael. ‘Remember that if Deblunville is dead, all your actions now will be reconsidered later, if you become a suspect for his murder. Standing here while we go to talk to her will say more for your innocence than if you leave.’

  Tuddenham glanced at Wauncy, who indicated with a shrug of his skeletal shoulders that the logic was sound. With a gusty sigh, the knight waved his hand to indicate that Michael and Bartholomew should move forward. Wisely, he led his nephew some distance away, where the younger man would not be tempted to undertake some rashly conceived rescue mission.

  ‘Come on, Matt.’

  Assuming that no mere physician would dare to disobey the imperious tone of Michael, the University of Cambridge’s Senior Proctor and valued agent of the Bishop of Ely, the monk began to walk toward Janelle, holding his hands above his head. Unhappily, Bartholomew followed, anticipating an arrow slicing through him at every step.

  With misgivings that grew with each passing moment, Bartholomew moved closer to the ramparts. Michael was a monk, and even the most lawless of men were usually loath to harm men of God, lest they pay for it in the fires of hell. But Bartholomew – although he had taken minor orders that meant if he committed a crime he would be tried under canon, rather than secular, law – was no priest, and he imagined that janelle’s archers would not hesitate to kill him if they felt threatened. He swallowed hard, wondering how a pleasant journey to a pretty part of rural Suffolk had ended with him at the mercy of hidden archers and a pregnant woman in peach-coloured satin.

  ‘That is far enough.’

  With relief, Bartholomew stopped short of the first rampart. Closer, Janelle was even more attractive, although she was also older, than his initial impression had suggested. From Tuddenham’s description of her careless pregnancy, he had imagined her to be in or near her teens, like Isilia, and her fair hair and delicate figure had made her appear childlike from a distance. But it was no child that glared down at him from her vantage point. It was a woman in her late twenties with a no-nonsense face and a determined expression in her eyes. He forced himself to look away, knowing it was not wise to admire other men’s wives openly when there were crossbows and arrows trained on him from all directions.

  Michael spoke in a low voice, trying to be gentle. ‘I hope you will forgive me mentioning such unpalatable matters, madam, but as we rode past Bond’s Corner yesterday we found a man hanging on the gibbet. My colleague here did all he could to revive him, but it was too late. His neck was broken, and he breathed his last as we gave him absolution.’

  ‘You are right – that is not the kind of tale I like to hear,’ said Janelle. ‘Who was he? And why have you come here, at considerable risk to yourselves, to tell me about it?’

  ‘This hanged man was wearing a blue doublet sewn with silver thread, a fresh white shirt and new shoes. He also wore a studded belt, and there was a jewelled dagger at his side.’

  ‘I wondered what had happened to those,’ came a man’s voice from behind the wall. A moment later, a head poked up next to Janelle’s ankles. ‘I am Roland Deblunville, gentlemen. I assume you believe your hanged man was me?’

  Judging from Tuddenham’s agitated pacing, he was not comfortable with the notion of his guests disappearing inside Deblunville’s enclosure. Hamon simply sat on the grass with his head in his hands, while Walter Wauncy leaned over him and whispered bleak words of comfort. Grosnold slouched against the trunk of a tree, his lips moving in agitation as he muttered to himself all the things he would do to Deblunville, if the opportunity came his way. But Tuddenham need not have worried. Bartholomew and Michael were invited only to the small barbican, and not the house, so that Deblunville could speak to them without needlessly exposing himself to his neighbours’ archers.

  From all he had heard of Deblunville, Bartholomew had anticipated a great hulking figure with a bristling black beard, missing teeth and plenty of scars. Deblunville, however, was not much taller than his elfin wife; he had a mop of fine, fair hair that flopped boyishly when he walked, and had no scars at all that Bartholomew could see. Only the lines around his eyes and one or two strands of silver in his beard suggested he was no youngster. And he was most definitely not the man who had been hanged on the gibbet.

  ‘I am sure Tuddenham has explained to you that relations between us are not all they might be,’ said Deblunville, with a spontaneous grin that revealed small, white teeth. ‘And I am also sure that he insists it is all my fault.’

  ‘Is it?’ asked Michael.

  Deblunville gazed at him for a moment, before throwing back his head and laughing. Michael exchanged a furtive glance with Bartholomew, not at all certain what was funny. His wife certainly was not amused: she raised her eyes heavenward and folded her arms, presenting quite a formidable figure for one so slight.

  ‘I imagine I am totally to blame, Brother,’ said Deblunville, still smiling. ‘According to Tuddenham, I am a wife-killer, rapist and land-thief. However, go to the courts in Ipswich, and you will see documents that show I am the legal owner of the land near the river that Tuddenham says is his. He even built himself a house there – Peche Hall – to try to strengthen his claim. But he will live to regret spending his money, because I will have what is rightfully mine.’

  ‘Tuddenham said Peche Hall was an ancient house, not one he raised himself,’ said Michael.

  Deblunville waved a dismissive hand. ‘There was an old house there, but he pulled it down and built a new one. Peche Hall is a modern mansion – go and see it for yourselves.’

  ‘But there was an old house there,’ pressed Michael, ‘so he was telling the truth.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ said Deblunville, leaning against the rampart and chewing on a blade of grass. ‘But take your fine Benedictine robe. If I were to replace all the old material and sew it with new thread, would it be an old garment or a new one? You are intelligent men – you can see that it would be a new one. That is what Tuddenham did with Peche Hall.’

  ‘No, the issue is not quite so straightforward, my son,’ said Michael patronisingly. ‘And the analogy you posed has room for considerable debate. But we did not come here to argue about houses and land – we are simple scholars and kn
ow little of such matters. We came to—’

  ‘Simple scholars?’ interrupted Deblunville, his blue eyes glittering with merriment. ‘I am sure you will haggle long and hard, and with every ounce as much lawyerly skill as that crafty Walter Wauncy when you negotiate for the living of Grundisburgh’s church.’

  ‘I am sure Wauncy will appear a mere novice when compared to Brother Michael of Cambridge,’ said Janelle, appraising the monk coolly. Bartholomew was sure she did not intend the remark to be complimentary.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Michael with a faint smile. ‘But we did not come here to discuss our advowson, either. I am relieved to see you fit and well, Master Deblunville, but how do you explain the fact that your clothes and dagger were on a corpse? Have you lost them? Have you missed a member of your household, who might have borrowed them and been killed instead of you?’

  ‘That is a sobering thought,’ said Deblunville. ‘I noticed the clothes were missing a few days ago, but I merely assumed I had misplaced them.’

  ‘Do you know of anyone who might have taken them?’ asked Michael.

  Deblunville shook his head. ‘No, and I am certain no one is missing from my household. Usually, the people of Burgh are scattered all over my estates, tending the sheep. But we are still celebrating our wedding day, and all the villagers have gathered here to wish me well.’

  ‘And to drink your wine,’ added Janelle dryly.

  Deblunville laughed and, as she smiled back, Bartholomew could well understand what had captured the man’s heart. The harsh lines around her mouth softened and her eyes lost something of their piercing, forceful quality. He wondered how she had stayed unmarried for so long, particularly given that Hamon clearly adored her and the Tuddenhams were a powerful force in the area.

  ‘What clothes have you missed, exactly?’ Michael asked.

  Deblunville tore his attention away from Janelle, and scratched his head. ‘A blue doublet and red hose that belonged to my father. They have always been too big for me, and I seldom wear them. There was also a dagger – purely ornamental and so blunt it would not slice through warm butter. You will understand when I say such a weapon is of no use to me, given that I have neighbours who want me dead. I always carry something a little more practical. It is not real gold, by the way, just gilt. But it looks good, and I know my neighbours are jealous of it, thinking it to be valuable. They are foolish men, Brother, and they covet foolish things – like a dagger with no cutting edge.’