King's Gold

It was a guard near Harry who responded, pointing to Dolwyn and describing how he was found, sword in hand, and blood all over his face.

‘What d’you have to say to that, eh?’ Sir Richard demanded, standing over Dolwyn.

‘Simply that I am First Finder. I came because this poor devil’s screams woke me, just as they did my friends here. And the man was almost dead when I got here. But my sword is clean. You look at it – no one’s been stabbed with it.’

‘Aye. Let’s see it,’ Sir Richard said.

A man indicated the sword. It lay near the body, in a pool of blood, where it had fallen when Dolwyn was forced to drop it.

‘I was made to put it down,’ he protested. ‘I can’t help that.’

Simon was crouching reluctantly near the body. ‘There is an axe here, a small hatchet,’ he said. ‘This is what killed the man.’

‘Who is it?’ Sir Richard said. ‘I haven’t looked at him yet.’ He turned to peer down at the body, and then shot a look at Simon. ‘Is it who I think it is?’

‘Yes, Sir Richard. It’s Sir Jevan.’

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Berkeley Castle

Simon spent much of the morning with the labourers and masons.

The hole in the wall of the chamber in which Sir Jevan had been found had been caused by a collapse in the outer wall of the tower itself, although that facing the inner ward was still sound. Like much of the rest of the fabric of the castle, this square tower set into the south-western corner of the wall had become sadly dilapidated during the period when the Despenser had overtaken the castle, because he wanted no strong fortresses at the edge of his own territories, and had deliberately weakened the buildings and walls.

‘Did you not hear the cries in the night?’ he asked a labourer.

He was sitting on a rock, while Hugh and two castle servants brought the workers to him. The responses were shifty at best. One man shook his head in frank denial, and pointed to his ears. Simon was given to understand that he was deaf. Another stated with conviction that the screams were those of the Devil carrying a soul to hell, but for the most part the men here denied hearing anything, or if they did hear, they didn’t know where the screams came from.

That was understandable, Simon felt, looking up at the tower again. With the only window many feet above ground, and no other gap in the tower’s wall facing this way, it would be hard for a man down here on the ground to know where the cries came from.

‘What of you?’ he asked the latest man to be delivered to him. ‘Did you hear the cries last night?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t know who it was, nor where he was.’

‘Where were you sleeping?’

‘I was down here,’ William said, pointing at the tent’s canopy.

‘With the other masons?’

‘Some of them.’

Simon looked about him. ‘Did you see or hear anything else after the screaming started?’

‘We’d drunk well last night. It was Samuel’s birthday, and we celebrated with a barrel of wine, so I don’t think any of us was fast to waken,’ William said. ‘But when we did, we ran up to see what was happening. We all went together.’

Simon thanked him and sent him away. ‘That is that, Hugh. They were all out here, but so drunk they scarcely knew what was going on. Whoever did it, how did he manage to escape when all the stairs and passages were full of men coming to investigate?’

Hugh shrugged. ‘Maybe the fellow was right, and it was a devil.’

‘And maybe the killer flew away, you mean?’ Simon said, staring about him at the rocks fastened with ropes, ready to be hauled up. ‘I don’t think that there was a flying murderer, Hugh. A magical killer would have no need of an axe, would he? No, this was a normal, flesh and blood murderer. Same as any. But how he did it, that’s a different matter.’

‘If anyone cares about the knight dying,’ Hugh shrugged.

‘I care,’ Simon said, but then he remembered Sir Jevan’s face from yesterday, and Sir Richard’s conviction that he was the murderer of at least two others.

‘I care,’ he repeated, with no conviction at all.

Second Wednesday after Easter

Berkeley Castle

Simon strode along the court from the hall where he had broken his fast, and up to the corridor.

‘Any sign of him?’ Sir Richard asked.

‘Not yet. I hope the man hasn’t gone to war with the others,’ Simon said.

‘Not too much risk of that, I’d think. There are enough murders down this part of the world to bring in a respectable income for the King. He won’t want to lose that.’

They had sent for the official coroner as soon as light permitted yesterday, but so far there was no sign of the man. Instead the castle was forced to try to run itself without allowing anybody in or out, as the law demanded. When a man was slain in a manor, the people living there were to be held until the coroner had come and held his inquest. Despite being a coroner himself, Sir Richard held no warrant for this county; he could not work here unless he had permission.