A Moorland Hanging aktm-3

by Michael Jecks

  As his wife’s grip tightened, he smiled through his pain. He could not bear to see her suffer, and if he was to run away with her, how could they earn a living? They had no profit yet from his workings, and they had lost all their belongings before they arrived. He gently stroked her back and led her inside the hut, where they sat and ate their bread in silence. There was no need to speak. Both knew the nature of their peril and the risks of taking to the road again. If nothing else, it was possible that one of their old enemies might discover them. At least here on the moors they were protected by the stannaries. Out in open country they could be challenged, and it was not so very far to their old home. Henry knew that they might be able to get to Cornwall, to the mining areas there, but who was to say it would be any better?

  After eating, and drinking a little of the ale Sarah had brewed, he stood, stretching. Groaning with a mixture of pain and pleasure as tired and knotted muscles ground under the bruises, he smiled at her, then walked outside.

  The moors glistened under a full moon, the rolling hills and plains colored silver-gray, as if illuminated by an inner light. They looked as if they were covered in a thin frost which lay as light as down over the stark landscape. Now, in the early evening, he felt aware of how ancient this land was, and how different from the pleasant woods and farmland around their old home in Bristol. He sat, his wife beside him, and they stared out together, lost in their thoughts and heedless of the world. They did not speak. There was no need, they simply sat and pondered, enjoying each other’s companionship and the coolness of the evening.

  They were so engrossed they did not notice the riders making their way toward them until a hoof clattered on a stone, and then Sarah clutched her husband’s arm as Thomas Smyth bellowed and cantered toward them.

  13

  Supper that evening was a dismal affair, though John Beauscyr found it amusing. Simon, Baldwin and their men sat at the table on the dais with the family, and servants filled the hall beneath them, but there was a stilted quality to the atmosphere. Sir Ralph, John saw, was sullen, and moodily chewed his food scarcely aware of the others near him, as if he was already marked out as a coward or murderer. On the few occasions when he caught John’s glance, he looked away hurriedly, almost guiltily. Matillida was snappy, and short with the servants, at one point flinging a pot at a man’s head and screeching at him when he spilled wine on her dress, while Sir William ate quietly with a determined concentration, trying to avoid the gaze of his guests and family alike.

  For his part, John was carefree and enjoying himself. His only cause for concern was Robert, his brother. He sat quietly but with a degree of nonchalance as he fastidiously pulled shreds of meat apart and ate them, which John found disturbing. If I were the bailiff, he thought, I’d want to know why he seems so free of all worries now. Out of the corner of his eye he kept a surreptitious watch on his older brother, looking for any signs which might explain his evident easiness, but as the meal finished and his father and mother made their way into their solar, the servants leaving for their rooms and the guards going to their duties or barracks, he was still no wiser.

  Baldwin could see the boy’s interest in his brother, and wryly acknowledged his own fascination with Robert’s demeanor. The latter was apparently finding it hard to contain his amusement or joy. Something must have happened this afternoon, he thought. As the room emptied, Baldwin rose. Seeing Robert making for the door, he strolled after him, only dimly aware of Edgar, who immediately stood and followed. After so many years, Edgar’s presence was only remarkable when it was absent.

  Seeing his prey in the stables patting a horse, Baldwin motioned to Edgar to wait, then walked over to join him.

  “So, Sir Baldwin. Are you following me?” Robert Beauscyr raised an eyebrow as if to suggest sardonic amusement.

  “No. But I thought I might as well come outside and enjoy the evening air when I saw you leave.”

  There was good reason for his words. The sun was slowly dropping, and the sky had taken on a pink and mauve tint, making the fort and surrounding hills look like a varnished picture, smooth and gleaming. It reminded Baldwin of the fine silks he had seen traded in Cyprus. He felt as if he could reach out and touch the warm, vibrant colors. The sun had washed Robert in glowing hues. His face looked almost golden, transforming his normally dull features.

  But it was not only the color. There was an urgency to the youth’s movements as he strolled round his horse. He was different now, more alive. Even when he spoke there was a new vitality to his voice. “More questions? Or are you just a bored guest seeking entertainment?”

  Baldwin’s smile faded. He had known others who had been listless and vapid, only to become energized after violence. After the death of Peter Bruther, he wondered whether Robert’s new-found excitement had the same cause – whether Robert could have been the killer. “You had a pleasant afternoon?” he asked, and was rewarded by a quick glance.

  “Yes, thank you, Sir Baldwin,” he said mockingly. “I had a very pleasant ride, uninterrupted either by my brother’s needling or your questioning. I trust you had an enjoyable time too?”

  Ignoring the jibe, Baldwin stepped forward and stroked the horse’s rump. “I am sure you would have found it very boring. We asked questions of a lot of people, that is all. It is interesting, though, is it not, to speak to people you would not usually meet?”

  “You’ve questioned the three we caught?” Robert peered at the knight with sudden concentration.

  “Yes. Harold Magge and the others.” Baldwin was a little surprised to see that the young man had become reflective. “Who beat them?”

  “Beat them? What do you mean?”

  “Just that. They have been beaten severely. Did you and your brother torture them?”

  Sir Robert stared in astonishment. “Why on earth would I have done that? We thought they were there so we hunted for them, but we had no time to harm them – as soon as we found them we were attacked by the others.”

  Baldwin raised a doubtful eyebrow, and the young knight sighed and turned away. He looked sad now, deflated, and Baldwin was sorry to see how his happiness had fled. In a more conciliatory tone, he said, “The three were very helpful.”

  “What did they have to say?” As he spoke he moved further round the horse, so that now his face was hidden in the gloom of the stable and Baldwin could not see his features.

  Sucking at his teeth to extract a fragment of meat, Baldwin said, “They confirmed it was they who attacked Smalhobbe, though they deny absolutely having anything to do with the death of Bruther.”

  “Did… did they see the two riders noticed by Samuel?”

  A revealing question, Baldwin considered. “Why such interest in the riders? Do you think it was they who committed the murder now? This morning you were convinced that it must be the miners.”

  “I… well, they would hardly admit it themselves, would they? They will surely have tried to put the blame on to someone else. I just wondered if they had tried to accuse the two riders they saw. Did they say?”

  Baldwin smiled and nodded. Now he was sure that at least one of the riders was known to him.

  The next morning was dry but overcast as the four men set off from Beauscyr Manor, and Baldwin found the difference in the weather daunting. In the gloomy light the rolling plains and hills appeared more threatening on either side, their flanks invaded by dark-colored heather, the higher points malevolent with their variously-shaped moorstone tors. Some looked like fantastic creatures waiting to spring, others like giants towering over the land seeking smaller creatures to crush. Although he was not usually given to unwarranted fears or superstitions, the sight of the massive shapes looming on all sides made him aware of how remote this place was from any town.

  To his vague irritation, Simon was unaffected by the malign feel of the area. He rode on steadily, whistling tunelessly, and apparently unaware of the menace which the knight felt. In a strange way, his very lack of interest in the views was r
eassuring to Baldwin. His very unconcern seemed to keep the monsters Baldwin could sense at bay, as though they needed belief to make them whole. But it piqued his pride to find that for once it was he who was being superstitious.

  They made their way west, then north by west until they came to a small group of trees – not like Wistman’s Wood, Baldwin noticed, but ordinary, straight and tall oaks and chestnuts. Here they had to encircle a wide area of marshland, and to make a broad sweep before they could continue riding along well-trodden tracks of packed earth up and down the gentle slopes of the moorland hills until they came to a brook. Trailing along its banks, they continued northward, Simon leading the way. A scattering of trees rose around them. At last the sun broke free of the silvery clouds above, and they were enclosed in a verdant glow as it glimmered through the leaves.

  Coming to a clapper bridge, where a massive block of stone had been laid over the stream, Simon turned right. Here there was a track leading east, and they were soon out of the trees, climbing a slight hill. At the top Simon slowed, and here Baldwin caught his first sight of Adam Coyt’s farm.

  It was a well-cared-for barton, lying a scant half-mile from the road in the lee of a wooded hill which protected it from the worst of the winter storms. The long house was sturdy and strong, built of moorstone which was hidden under the white lime render. A few yards away was a byre, with three outbuildings leaning close by as if for warmth. From the roof of the house came a thin ribbon of smoke which was immediately wafted away by the gusting wind.

  From the barn where he was axing branches from a series of tree trunks, preparing them for cutting into manageable planks, Adam Coyt watched them approach with slitted, suspicious eyes. Strangers out here were a rarity, and letting the axe fall from his hand, he walked out to meet them.

  Hugh was relieved to fall from his horse. He knew full well that today his master wished to travel widely and see several people, and was determined to take his rest when he could. Seeing Adam walk up, he nodded. From his youth in Drewsteignton he recognized the sort of man he was. Hard as the elements, as much formed of the land around him as any of the trees in his little wood, this was one of the old Dartmoor men.

  Simon dropped from his mount and smiled reassuringly. “Good morning. I…” As he spoke, two sheep dogs suddenly bolted from the barn and stood snarling before him.

  Giving a whistle, Adam commanded them to be silent without even glancing in their direction, and Simon was relieved to see them obey. Both immediately sat, and one began to scratch, changing in an instant from wild animals with slavering jaws into friendly companions with wide smiling mouths. At home with dogs, Baldwin ambled over to them, let them smell his hands briefly, and began to stroke them, and soon was engulfed as they ecstatically panted and slobbered over and around him, almost knocking him from his knees in their enthusiasm.

  “He likes dogs,” Simon said, more by way of apology than explanation, and Adam nodded again, this time in frank astonishment that any man could wish to coddle a working animal. To his way of thinking it was a certain sign of lunacy, the same as petting a cow or a lamb. There was no profit in behaving that way with farm animals.

  After Simon’s introductions, the farmer grunted his assent to answering the bailiff’s questions and led the way to the log-pile. Foreigners were welcome, his actions showed, to pass their time any way they wished, but he still had a living to earn and work to do. Their enquiry was conducted to the steady chop of his hatchet.

  Regretfully leaving the dogs, Baldwin squatted on a thick trunk while Simon stood nearby. It was Simon who began.

  “Adam, you’ve lived here all your life. Have things changed much over the years?”

  Without looking up, the farmer considered for a moment. “No. The moors are the moors. They change with the seasons, but that’s all.”

  “Have the miners made a difference?”

  “They’ve got more greedy. Before, there was only a small number. Now there’s lots, and a few own all the mines. Used to be that all tinners were like that Bruther or Smalhobbe, just one or two men with a little place. Now there’re lots all covering the same bit for the likes of Thomas Smyth.”

  “I suppose at least you’re safe up here, anyway. There aren’t many come all this way to trouble you.”

  The axe paused, then fell again. “If you’ve got rights of pasturage, they come close enough. They dig all over the place, and leave their holes in the ground for animals to hurt themselves in. I had a heifer break her leg last year, but I can’t get money from the miners, they claim stannary privileges. I lost my cow, but I’ll get no help from them even though it was their fault.”

  “And it’s worse than it used to be?”

  “Ah, yes. Time was, they used to come no closer than five miles from here. Now they’re only a mile away, and right where I lead the herd.”

  “And you think they’re being greedy?”

  “We have ancient rights here, bailiff, we who live in the common land of the moors. We’ve been here since time out of mind, my family and a few others, but now our lives are being made hard by some few foreigners. There are robberies done by some – there was one on the night Bruther died. They demand money not to take our land, and if they aren’t paid, they dig it and take the water so we can’t use it. But we can do nothing. Who’s going to protect us who live out here if the miners choose to attack us or steal what’s ours?”

  “You say there was a robbery? Who was attacked?”

  Adam Coyt jerked his head in the direction of Widecombe in the Moor. “Old Wat Meavy at Henway. He was knocked down and had his purse taken.”

  “I wasn’t told,” said Simon with a frown.

  “When these things happen, we can’t run to Lydford every time. Anyway, one minute he was riding into Chagford, and the next he was on his bum in the middle of the road and lighter by some pennies. There are too many miners out here to worry about just another robbery, bailiff. It happens all the time.”

  “And it’s getting worse, from what you say.”

  “Yes.” He suddenly looked up and pulled a wry smile, shrugging. “But isn’t it the same all over the country? The King’s warden knows how things are going, doesn’t he? From all I hear, it’s not just here, it’s everywhere.”

  “But if people are suffering badly, you should tell the chief warden, or at least me as a bailiff. We might…”

  “Suffering badly!” the farmer cried, and let the axe fall from his hand. “And what do you think has been happening here? Whole vills have emptied with the bitter weather, the last people leaving before the land eats them up, like it has their fathers, their mothers, their wives and children. Do you need us to come and tell you how places like Hound Tor have emptied? The menfolk worked on while their women sickened and their children died, just as we have to, we farmers. We have our farms to look after, but what good are they when our boy-children are gone? Why keep toiling and straining when there is no one to pass your profits to? Up at Hound Tor, there were only three left, out of eleven four years ago: all dead, all gone! Had you not heard, bailiff?”

  His wide, staring eyes held a misery and near-desperation which struck like a mace at Simon’s heart. The famine had been appalling, he knew, but somehow he had never associated it with the troubles here on the moors. During the worst of the suffering he had still been living at Sandford, far to the north and east, where the farms were not so badly affected.

  Seeing the understanding on the bailiff’s face, Adam bent slowly and painfully to retrieve his axe. Grunting as he straightened, he peered at it as if he no longer recognized it. When he spoke, his voice was contemplative. “I had a wife and a son – just the one, the other children all died young; they have to be hardy to survive out here. There’s no midwife, no wetnurse to help. There was always only me, and often enough I was out working when my wife gave birth. I think it was the last birth that was so hard on her, she never really recovered afterward. She looked so pale and weak for the next year and a half. The
n when she had been out working one afternoon, she died in a snowstorm on her way home. And then my boy started to fade too.” He blinked suddenly, then swung the axe viciously. “I’m not alone,” he said resolutely. “There are many like me round here. Lots of us have lost our own, had to take them to Widecombe or Lydford when the snow cleared to have them buried. We’ve all suffered enough. So if we forgot to tell you before, sir, at least you know now.”

  Baldwin had been silent, but now he cleared his throat and leaned forward. To offer sympathy would have been insulting, he knew, and would have been taken as patronizing. “Adam, could you tell us about the night Peter Bruther died. Where were you that day?”

  The axe dropped and a branch leapt away. Picking up the twigs, the farmer tossed them onto the growing pile by the door, then sighed and walked out, crossing the yard to the house, returning with a large earthenware jug which he upended, taking a long draft. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he passed it to the knight, who smiled appreciatively. Tipping it, Baldwin found it was filled with cider so strong he could hardly swallow, and he had to control an urge to cough at the pungent fumes. It was with relief that he passed it on to Simon.

  “That afternoon, I was up to the north of here, seeing to some peat up near Longaford Tor, where the ground is flat before the marsh. I often go there, it’s good fuel,” Coyt said, glancing at the bough before him. “And wood is not plentiful here. It’s too valuable to burn. Anyway, it took longer than I expected, and my old pony isn’t as fast as she used to be when she has a weight to carry, so I was late coming home. I was near the Smalhobbe place just as dusk fell. Young Henry, he was game, I’ll say that for him. He tried to get one of the men waiting, but there were two others got him first.”