The Tournament of Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘Thank you, Edith.’
    She passed him the cup and wine, watching with her head set to one side as he drank and replenished his cup. ‘That’s better!’ he sighed appreciatively.
    Edith walked to her mother’s side and both women stood eyeing him narrowly.
    Aha! he thought. This is it. ‘Is something the matter?’
    ‘We both saw him,’ Edith said accusingly. ‘Who was it?’
    Simon gave her a serious look. ‘When a messenger is sent to me, little girls shouldn’t worry themselves about the messages. After all, they might be secret.’
    ‘Will you have to travel away?’ Margaret asked, frowning. ‘He wasn’t wearing the insignia of the Abbot.’
    ‘No, it wasn’t one of the good Abbot’s men,’ Simon confirmed. As Bailiff, he reported to the Warden of the Stannaries, who was presently Abbot Champeaux of Tavistock.
‘Although he came from the Abbot.’
    ‘Well?’ Edith demanded impatiently. ‘What did he want? He was in too much of a hurry to have been here to pass the day in chat with you.’
    ‘What if I was to say that he carried private and secret news for me alone?’ Simon asked aloofly.
    ‘I’d say you were lying,’ Edith said confidently.
    Simon gave her a stern look.
    ‘I asked the stableboy after the messenger had gone in to see you,’ she explained with delight, her dimples flashing momentarily.
    ‘And what did he say?’
    ‘That the messenger was called Odo, that he’s a Herald for Lord Hugh, and that you have been asked to help organise a tournament. Oh, Daddy, is it true? Are we going to have one
here?’ she begged, her pose of disinterest falling away like tresses under the scissors.
    ‘No, we are not,’ he said severely. And then his face broke into a smile. ‘It’ll be in Oakhampton.’
    Sir Roger stood at the door to Benjamin’s hall and allowed his gaze to rise from the door to the jettied upper stories and windows – properly glazed with real
glass, too – which looked out over the street.
    His expression was grumpy. It often was, but today, standing here and staring at this magnificent house, he felt bitter. Never a man who had appreciated usurers and bankers, he found this place
with its extensive undercroft, wide shopfront and large hall with solars and other chambers, an insult. ‘More rooms here than five houses,’ he muttered. Such conspicuous flaunting of a
man’s wealth was obscene.
    The door was opened by a maid. ‘Your mistress here?’ he grunted.
    ‘In the hall, sir.’
    ‘Show me to her.’
    Mistress Mand Dudenay didn’t rise. Her hall was a long, broad room, its timbers darkened from the fumes of the fire which crackled in the hearth in the middle of the floor, and the high
windows illuminated the space with a meagre light, the dirty glass letting in little compared with Sir Roger’s own unglazed holes.
    The atmosphere suited the situation; it was dim and gloomy.
    ‘Madam, I’m sorry to be forced to ask you these questions.’
    ‘Then don’t. I’m in mourning, Coroner.’
    ‘I have a duty, as you know. I must discover, if I may, who killed your husband and where the murder weapon is.’
    She was a short, dumpy woman and now she lifted a hand as if in surrender, not meeting his eyes. ‘What do you want?’
    ‘Did your husband have any enemies?’
    ‘None that I know of. He was a banker, but no one appeared to want his death.’
    ‘What of the men who owed him money?’
    She turned her face and called over her shoulder. A white-haired clerk appeared in the doorway. She sent him away to fetch her husband’s papers and soon he was back, arms filled.
    Mistress Dudenay gave a fluttering gesture with her hand. ‘My late husband’s accounts. If there is anything, it will be in there.’
    She lapsed into silence as Sir Roger followed the clerk to a table at the wall. The Coroner was grateful for her composure. He was all too used to having to deal with the screaming bereaved, but
somehow this woman’s quiet desperation was more