King's Gold

She had taunted him, telling him he was less of a man because he couldn’t hold his drink. ‘You used to be someone I could admire, but look at you now,’ she jeered. ‘A pathetic dog is what you’ve become, with the sense and courage of a rabbit. Once our Emily looked up to you, but these days she would be happier with Saul Archer as her father. You’re nothing but a drunken wastrel.’

‘What about Saul?’

‘I should have married him after he swyved me before you,’ she said spitefully. ‘He is worth ten of you.’

He could recall throwing aside the cup of spirit, and screaming at her to shut up, to just leave him alone, and then he lashed out with his stick and saw it catch her cheek, and he remembered throwing his stick aside and trying to catch her to hug her, but then she had drawn her knife, and the blade caught his forearm. The sting of it stirred his rage. He punched her, with all the malice and fury that seven years of marriage had given him, and saw her fly to the ground.

He left the house. Saul’s was only a few hundred yards away, and he remembered staggering dangerously up towards it, the anger sparkling and fizzing in his blood like acid. But before he could get close to Saul’s, he stumbled. It was only by a miracle that he managed to throw himself to one side before he tumbled into the narrow well at the roadside, and he lay there, on his back, panting, before throwing up. He had the presence of mind to turn away from the well, so he did not pollute the water, but even as he was vomiting, he felt the waves of self-disgust rising and washing through him.

She was right – he was weak. How could she or Emily respect him, when he was a miserable brethel without prospects or skills to create them? He stood up, determined to show her he could be worthy of her. It was true – she did deserve better than him. And if she had rolled in the hay with Saul, what of it? That was more than seven years ago, if it was before they had wed. He would not hold that against her.

That was when he had heard the screaming. Emily must have been screaming for a while before that, he assumed, because Peter and John were there with buckets, and others were, bellowing to the girl and her mother to escape.

Completely sober now, he ran for his door. The flames were already leaping up and the thatch had caught a spark. Smoke rose in black clouds, and then there was a hollow roaring noise, and a warm flame lazily rolled from the door, throwing aside the thin oiled screen at the window, and a strange thudding detonation came to his ears, and he knew instinctively that it was his burned cider.

The barrel-staves were found later near the fire in the middle of the hearth, and gradually he pieced together what must have happened. His wife had decided to destroy that spirit that had taken him so long to make, and rolled the barrel to the drain-hole at the rear of the cottage, opening the taps to let the drink run away. But some had reached the flames, and the liquid caught fire. The barrels themselves exploded like flour in a mill.

He had tried to make his way inside to save them. God knew, he had tried – but John and others held his arms and pulled him away as the flames licked about the doorframe and the window. If he had gone in, he would have died, there was no doubt.

Baldwin listened carefully. The man’s sorrow was plain enough. ‘So afterwards, you said you were pardoned?’

‘I was accused, but it was agreed that I had not killed them. I was outside when my little girl screamed. And I tried to get in to save them. I wasn’t actually pardoned. There were discussions about my having tried to harm them, and the coroner recorded them, and the facts of our shouting at each other, but the court agreed I was innocent. That was that.’ He gave a long, shuddering sigh.

‘I see.’

‘Sir, I know how this must look,’ Dolwyn said, ‘but I had nothing to do with Ham’s death. He was a sad little man, who inspired sympathy in me because he reminded me of how I once had been.’

‘A pathetic churl. But one with a chest of gold and an array of weapons that might be sold,’ Baldwin said.

‘I knew nothing of gold. That was hidden from me. Like his axe.’

‘So you say you did not know where his axe was?’

‘I didn’t know he had one. I did find the weapons, but not his axe.’

‘You still state that you did not slay him?’

‘Sir, I state that I did not even see him. Alive or dead, I did not see him that night. I found the horse and cart and bethought me that they gave me more chance of evading capture in the days following the attack on Kenilworth.’

‘I see.’

‘Sir, is it true that you are loyal to the memory of our last King? I had heard the gaoler say that you were called here by Sir Edward to help guard him.’

‘It is true.’

‘Then, sir, ask him about me,’ Dolwyn said, his voice dropping. Ask about the man who went to see him at Kenilworth.’