Free For the Love of Old Bones - and other stories (Templar Series) by Michael Jecks Page A

taken everything you could to fill your guts with ale, you drunken sot! What did you expect me to do? Watch my children starve?’ she sneered.
    Baldwin stared at him coldly. ‘Adam, I shall question you in a moment. For now, be silent!’ He faced Edith. ‘So, you do not deny your trade?’
    ‘Why should I? Don’t most wives have to turn to selling their bodies at one time or another?’
    Baldwin reflected that his own wife was born to a more fortunate environment. ‘Did you see Humphrey yesterday?’
    She was quiet for a moment, as if choosing whether to lie, and Baldwin snapped his fingers to Tanner. The Constable pulled the kerchief from his belt and passed it to him.
    Adam cried out, ‘Edith, your kerchief!’
    Baldwin said, ‘This was beside his bed. It is yours?’
    ‘Yes, it’s mine,’ she agreed.
    ‘Where were you last night? Were you there?’
    She paused again, but this time Baldwin had noticed something else. ‘What is that?’ he asked, pointing at her foot.
    On one sole of her thin sandals he had seen a mark, and there was a corresponding smudge on the inner side of her foot below her ankle. Edith gazed down at it with a kind of weary resignation.
    ‘It is blood, is it not?’ Baldwin said sternly.
    She sighed and nodded. ‘Yes. I had to flee after I saw him die. Humphrey was here in the yard yesterday morning, and he asked me to visit him last night. I knew Adam would be in the tavern till late, so he wouldn’t care, and Humphrey always paid me well, so I agreed.’
    ‘When were you to go to him?’
    ‘At dusk. But when I arrived, he was in the forge talking to the man Jaket described. I walked into the hall and drank some of his wine. When I heard him leaving the forge and talking outside, I went up the ladder to his chamber and began to doff my clothes. He was talking angrily, I thought. I wasn’t sure if he would still want me, but I was desperate for the money, so I prepared. My kerchief and skirts were already off when I heard him come in, and a gust blew out the candles. I could see nothing in the dark. I took off my other garments, thinking he would soon join me, and then … I heard it.’
    She lifted her eyes to meet Baldwin’s serious gaze. ‘It was like the thud of a clod of soil thrown at a man’s back. I heard Humphrey curse, then cough, and I heard him say, “You have killed me!” and there was a tumbling noise, then a rough, rattling sound, as of a man with too much phlegm in his throat. I remained silent up in the chamber, not daring to move, until I heard the door slam. Then I donned my clothing as speedily as I might, and rushed down the ladder to him, but I was too late.’
    ‘He was dead?’
    ‘Yes. There was nothing I could do. And I feared that if I called the Constable, I would be suspected. What else could I do? I ran.’
    ‘The door was locked,’ Baldwin said.
    ‘I locked it.’
    ‘Where did you get the key?’
    ‘He always kept a spare in the forge, hanging with his tools. Everyone knew about it. I went there to fetch it, locked the house, and returned the key to the forge. I was scared – but I am no murderer.’
    Which explained why the hall was locked but the forge open, Baldwin thought. ‘Did you see whom it was that entered the hall with Humphrey and stabbed him?’
    ‘No. I swear it.’
    Jaket interrupted eagerly. ‘Surely it was the tall knight I saw with Humphrey earlier.’ And then his eyes widened with horror.
    ‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said. ‘But there is no proof of that.’
    ‘Proof of what, Sir Baldwin? My Heavens, have you decided to hold the inquest without me? Eh? Won’t do, Sir Baldwin. No, it won’t!’
    Sir Gilbert, Sir Baldwin sourly told himself, could scarcely have picked a better time to have arrived.

    Baldwin sent Tanner to fetch bread, wine and some roasted meats, then joined Sir Gilbert in the hall. They sat at Humphrey’s table, and while they waited for their meal to arrive, Baldwin summarised the evidence he had heard