“But it seems a little far-fetched to think that both wanted the man dead and coincidentally happened to be out looking for their victim on the same night. I find that too unlikely. There must be a more simple explanation; we just do not have all the facts yet. Come, let’s be off. I want to hear what these three miners have to say for themselves.”
At the miners’ camp they found a short but well-muscled guard standing before the blowing-house with his sword drawn. He watched the two men suspiciously as they approached, and seemed unwilling to stand aside until Baldwin rested his hand on his own sword and stared at him unblinkingly. After a moment the guard shrugged ungraciously and let them pass.
The three miners were back in the storeroom where they had been hidden, sitting sullen and uncommunicative. Though they glanced up as Simon and Baldwin walked in, none made any move to show that they recognized their questioners.
It made little difference, for there was no point in trying to talk. The waterwheel rumbled and clattered, and men added to the din, pounding chunks of ore with iron-shod clubs on moorstone mortars, reducing the stones for the furnace, and there was a continual hiss and suck as the great bellows worked. The room was stuffy, and acrid with a stench that Simon was coming to recognize: the metallic tang of tin, the smell of money. Motioning to Baldwin, he invited the three to follow them outside, where the air was cleaner and they could speak free of the clamor of the machines and hammers.
Blinking and wincing after the darkness, the three men followed Simon and Baldwin to the stream’s bank, the guard trailing along in their wake, unsure whether he should allow his prisoners to move from their jail but unwilling to force the issue with a knight.
When they were all seated some distance from the slowly revolving wheel, Simon surveyed the men. “Which of you is Magge?” he asked. There was no point in scaring these men further, he saw. Their fear was all too evident. They knew their lives were at risk. From their shuffling and limping, they must have suffered a beating; Simon would raise this with the Beauscyr brothers when he next saw them. In his opinion there was no excuse for torturing a prisoner.
Harold Magge lifted his head as though it weighed as heavily as a rock on his shoulders. Bloodshot blue eyes gazed back at the bailiff with immense weariness from a face tanned brown as the dark soil all round. In a happier time, Simon thought, and with a tankard of cider in his fist, this man could have looked as cheerful as a free-born farmer with his roughly cut hair and the thick gray bristle on his square jaw. Now a dark bruise showed on one cheek, the edges an unhealthy yellow, and there were scratches on his face where the skin had been scraped. He gave the impression of great sadness and near despair.
“You know that you’re all suspected of murder?”
Nodding slowly, Magge said caustically, “Yes. Our master has betrayed us.”
“You are not from these parts?” asked Simon.
“No, I come from the east, from Kent. I have been here for fifteen years, working the mines. I have been loyal to my master all that time.”
“We don’t doubt you, but we must know all that happened on the night Peter Bruther died. We already know that you attacked another miner. Why?”
Sighing, Magge picked up a pebble, then tossed it up and caught it, tossed it up and caught it. He carried on flicking and catching it as he spoke, his eyes on the stone and never meeting the bailiff’s. “It was some days ago now. Thomas Smyth came out and spoke to me, asking me to meet him with these men at Longaford Tor.”
“Was he there alone?”
“George Harang was with him.”
“Does he always go abroad with George?” Simon asked.
The eyes remained on the rising and falling stone. “Yes. George has worked for him for more than seventeen years, or so they say – a little before my time, anyway. Well, he asked us to help him get rid of the miners up on the moors – all the ones who didn’t work for him.”
“Like Henry Smalhobbe and Peter Bruther?”
“Like them,” he agreed, but then caught the stone and stared at Simon. “But he didn’t ask us to do anything to Bruther. He told us to leave him alone.”
“He told you to leave Bruther alone?” repeated Simon sarcastically. “I suppose he wanted to make himself feel good, leaving one man free on the moors while he got rid of all the others.”
The irony of the comment seemed to elude the miner. Still gripping the pebble in his fist he said, “All I know is what I say. He told us to leave Bruther alone. He wanted all the others to be scared off, but not Bruther.”
“Very well. What then?”
“We’d spent some time trying to scare them already, but they’re a strange lot, these squatters and foreigners.” His voice was disdainful. “None of them would go. That was the problem. Thomas wanted them gone, so he told us to beat them. So we did.”
“Henry Smalhobbe. You were there.” It was not a question, and Magge gave a short nod before tossing the stone once more, apparently calmed by the monotonous rhythm of throwing and catching. Simon found it irritating, and longed to snatch the pebble from the man, but intuition made him sit still and silent, waiting for the man to continue. It was not long before his patience was rewarded.
“We were there. I was out on the path, waiting for him, when his wife called from the hut.” He spoke without expression as he described the short ambush, how Smalhobbe had almost caught his attackers but had been betrayed by his wife’s anxious call, how they had wrestled him to the ground and then begun to beat him. “He was game, I’ll say that,” he said at last, his tone meditative. “If we hadn’t been three, if we’d only been two, he might have been able to keep us off. As it was he had little chance; we came at him from all sides.”
Nodding, Simon was half-amused at the grudging respect the miner held for the man he had beaten so viciously. Catching sight of his friend, he was surprised to see an intense concentration, and then realized what had caught Baldwin’s interest. It was strange that Henry Smalhobbe could have displayed such a skill for hunting his attacker. “He fought that well?” he said thoughtfully.
“Yes.” There was no doubt in his mind. “Like a trained man-at-arms.”
“And then you went on to Peter Bruther’s place?”
The bloodshot eyes looked at him with a flare of anger. “No! I told you, we never went there. Thomas told us to leave him alone and we did.”
Beside him, one of the other prisoners, a thin, ill-favored man with sparse gray hair and pale almond eyes, looked up and spoke peevishly. “Why don’t you believe us? Why would we go and kill him? We had no reason to.”
“Shut up, Stephen.” Magge’s terse command, made the other silent, and Baldwin studied him with a frown. That Crocker was a weak and ineffectual man who would obey orders Baldwin did not doubt, but there was a sense of whining injustice about him that indicated he felt genuinely hard done by.
“Very well,” Simon said at last. “So you absolutely deny having anything to do with the murder of Peter Bruther. Did you see anybody else on the moors that day – either before or after your attack on Smalhobbe?”
The stone was caught once more, and remained in his hand while Magge drew his brows down in concentration. “There were a couple of men, I’ve seen them before at the Beauscyrs’ Manor. They went off up to Wistman’s Wood.”
“You saw no others?”
His bloodshot eyes wavered. “No,” he muttered, and Baldwin and Simon could both see he was lying.
“Why would we hurt Bruther, anyway?” Stephen the Crocker’s voice was a miserable wheedle. “Ask Smalhobbe – he could kill! He probably wanted Bruther’s land, and he used to be an outlaw, so…”
“What’s that?” Simon’s head snapped round to stare at the man and he gestured curtly to Harold Magge to be silent. Magge glared at his companion, but held his tongue. “How do you know?”
“I saw him.” There was an underlying satisfaction in Crocker’s voice at the reaction to his words. “He was in a band that robbed a mer
chant up north, over a year ago. I saw him. That’s where he learned to fight, with a gang of killers.”
When they finally got back to the Manor, they did not have to seek out Sir Ralph. Hardly had they reached the hall and seated themselves before the knight came in.
“Where is everyone?” asked Simon, vaguely waving a hand at the empty room.
“Lady Beauscyr has gone to the solar to rest, and Sir William is out hunting. He was not best pleased with his sons, as you may well imagine. Robert has gone out, and John was down at the stables when last I saw him,” Sir Ralph said with his eyes on Baldwin. It appeared that the northern knight wanted to speak to him alone, but Baldwin was not prepared to permit that. He motioned to a bench, resting his chin in a hand.
“It was only a few days ago, Sir Ralph, that I was telling my friend here about some news I had received from a traveller. He had just come from the north, from the armies protecting Tynemouth, and had some interesting stories to tell about the events up there.”
To Simon it was as if the man suddenly lost all energy. He fell on to the bench and stared at Baldwin with the eyes of a hare frozen to immobility as it watched a hunter creep close.
“He told me of groups of men up there, knights and soldiers who were taking advantage of the Scottish troubles to make their own mischief, robbing and pillaging over a wide area while the King is absorbed with other matters. A disgraceful state.”
“Yes,” Sir Ralph whispered distractedly, but then sat up, as if finding a new source of strength and courage, meeting Baldwin’s serious gaze with resolution.
“I understand that they are called ‘shavaldores,’ and they ride out over the land like soldiers,” Baldwin said, and seeing the tight nod carried on. “And two men led them, Sir Gilbert of Middleton and Sir Walter of Selby. They attacked two cardinals, Luke of Fieschi and John of Offa, who had been sent to negotiate with the Scottish King. They didn’t harm them, did they? But they did take their horses and money and everything else, so it was a grave insult to the Pope. And a slight to the King, of course.”
Now Sir Ralph’s face was as gray as the ashes in the hearth. Simon felt no sympathy. There were too many supposedly honorable men up and down the country who had resorted to violence in the last few years for him to have any feelings other than disgust.
“That was last year, of course – 1317. Since then, all of Sir Gilbert’s neighbors have been persuaded by his actions that he must be stopped. I understand that they were to attack his castle at Mitford. I merely wondered whether you knew of this affair, Sir Ralph? No? There was a knight with Sir Gilbert, too, I recall.” The vagueness of Baldwin’s voice was deceptive; there was no loss of concentration in his eyes as he stared at the man before him. “His name was Sir Ralph, I think. Sir Ralph of Oxham. Have you heard of him, I wonder?” Without giving the other man time to respond, he immediately moved on. “Of course, it doesn’t matter to us down here. It’s irrelevant. If a knight swears fealty to a more powerful knight, he should be honored for keeping to his vows. It is hard to condemn a man for holding to his oath if his master then decides to become, for example, a shavaldore. In any case, we have enough trouble keeping the peace in this county without worrying about the affairs of others many hundreds of miles away. After all, there’s this murder to think about, even if it was only the killing of a villein.”
Sir Ralph breathed out slowly, the exhalation whistling through his pursed lips. “Yes,” he said raggedly. “Murder is a more serious crime, isn’t it?”
“Tell me, Sir Ralph. On the night that Peter Bruther died, you went to an inn with John, didn’t you? We have been to that same inn today, and a girl there told us that you spent the evening with one of them, but that John was out riding.”
“Out riding? No, he told me he was there all night. He was certainly there when I returned to the room.”
“Asleep?”
“No, he was already awake, sitting by the fire.”
“Was this in daylight?”
“It was still dark. The cocks hadn’t crowed yet.” There was little doubt in Simon or Baldwin’s mind of Sir Ralph’s sincerity. “He was there all night, I thought,” he continued. “Or at least, that was what he told me. I mean, where else could he have been?” His face went white as he suddenly realized what he had said.
“Sir Ralph, we would be very grateful if you did not mention anything about this conversation to John or his family,” said Baldwin quietly. “You are not a fool, so I won’t explain why.” The knight nodded again, slowly, his mind dwelling on the surprise revelation about his squire. “And now, could you tell us what he was like while he was with you in the north?”
“Very good,” said Sir Ralph shortly. “He always appeared brave, prepared to put himself at the front of any raiding party, whatever the risk. And he was bright, too – not a mindless thug like some: he could think an attack through. When it came to a defensive action, he was very quick to see the lie of the land and use it to best advantage, siting archers and men-at-arms effectively. I have to say, there was no better squire while I was in… the north.”
“Was he honest? Would you call him honorable?”
“Honorable, yes. He would make sure that a captive was well looked after until a ransom could be sought, and what more can a soldier do? I’m not aware that he ever mishandled a prisoner; he always looked after them.”
“You didn’t answer the first question: was he honest?”
Sir Ralph thought back to the raids, the times when his leader, Gilbert, had led them out to the villages, to the churches and the priory. The clashing of the arms, the arguments over the spoils, the looting, women weeping at the sight of their dead men, and the inevitable, cynical smile on his squire’s face as he looked to their portion of the profits, playing at dice with other soldiers and always winning their loot, secretly finding food while those same men starved, and his ability to lie to them, saying he was as hungry as they.
“No,” Sir Ralph said sadly. “No, I do not think he was very honest. Not now I think back.”
Baldwin nodded slowly. From the expression on Sir Ralph’s face, it was clear that the knight was seeing his squire in a new light. “I think,” he said, “we should see this other man-at-arms who was with Samuel Hankyn when he found the body, so that we can check his story.”
“Yes,” said Simon, his eyes still on the knight.
“What was his name?”
“Ronald Taverner.”
The start was unmistakable. Sir Ralph had been reaching for a pot of wine when Baldwin spoke, and on hearing the name, his hand almost knocked the drink from the table. He remained there, fixed, contemplating the pot in his hand as if to avoid meeting the gaze of the bailiff, then carefully set it back down.
“What is it, Sir Ralph?” asked Simon, his voice betraying his frank surprise.
The knight’s face turned to him. He looked tragic, but without speaking he rose and strode quickly from the room, and Simon and Baldwin could only stare at each other in amazement.
George Harang walked carefully into the hall. He had managed to avoid his master for some hours by riding to the camp on the pretext of checking on the blowing-house, but the messenger had not left any room for doubt. “Master Thomas wants you, George, and he wants you now. I don’t think he’s of a mind to wait,” the boy had said, and his eyes told of the urgency of his mission.
Questioning him on the way back, George found that Smyth had hardly moved from his seat at the fire since the bailiff and his friend had left. When the bottler had gone in to speak to him, he had been bellowed at, and since then all had left him alone. Then, after some hours, he had suddenly come back to life, roaring for wine and demanding George.
As he crossed the floor to where Smyth sat contemplating the small fire, chin cupped in one hand, the other resting idly on a hound’s flank, George felt his anger mounting. This shrivelled old man was not his master. Thomas Smyth was a strong and courageous man known throughout the moors. The figure before h
im was that of a huddled old man, tired and weak after a lifetime of struggling.
“Master? I heard you wanted me,” George said tentatively, and the black eyes fixed on him.
“Wanted you?” Smyth sounded pensive, as if his mind was elsewhere, but then he stood, and George saw that he was not humbled, but consumed with rage. “Of course I want you. Who else? That bailiff and his friend – what do you think of them?”
“I don’t like the knight. The bailiff seems straightforward enough.”
“Oh, yes. Straightforward, certainly. But can we trust him? I don’t think so. For a start, how well does he know this area? Not as well as us, George. And all the time he’s here, he’s staying with the Beauscyrs, listening to their poison about the miners and me! I don’t like him and I don’t trust him, and I think the Beauscyrs can wind him round their fingers like a ring. All that family wants is to see us off the moors, and while they’ve got the King’s own man living with them, they can get him to think their way. In any case, I doubt he’d cost much to buy – most bailiffs are cheap enough.”
“Do you think he’ll take their side, then?”
“I think we have to make sure he isn’t going to. You’ll need to keep an eye on them, George. Keep an eye on where they go and who they meet, and then we’ll see, won’t we?” His gaze turned away, and he stared once more at the fire. “I think that bailiff could be a great danger to us, a real threat. And I want to make sure we’re safe…”
12
Ronald Taverner was lying on a palliasse below the hall, in a quiet room where he could rest. Samuel Hankyn knelt by his side, feeding him sips of hot sweetened ale. He watched his friend with concern. Gone was the cheerful lad he had known for so long. Now Ronald was pale and nervous, starting at the slightest noise. Chewing his lip, Samuel was angry to see how his friend had changed. As Simon and Baldwin entered, Samuel stepped back to the wall, throwing them a suspicious glare.
Simon felt claustrophobic in the small room. Only a little light crept through the narrow slit window in the wall and the open doorway. Apart from a bench, well chewed by woodworm and rats, there was nowhere else to sit. The bailiff tried it tentatively. It appeared able to support him, but after giving it a cursory glance, Baldwin preferred to stand. Testing it with two bodies, he reasoned, could prove to be too dangerous.
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