A Moorland Hanging aktm-3

by Michael Jecks

  “Damn this! Let’s ride in like men and stop this slow torture,” he muttered and was about to kick his horse, when Baldwin pointed with his chin at the ground.

  “Not if you love your mount, old friend.”

  Frowning, Simon followed his gaze and saw the little squares in the grass. There were holes dug all over the smooth, level area leading to the blowing-house, the turves relaid above to hide them. He gave a shame-faced grin and reluctantly nodded. Each turf hid a hole a foot deep, dug to break a horse’s leg and stop any charge.

  In among the cottages Baldwin glimpsed men waiting. In most ways they looked the same as those commanded by Sir William – a rough, scruffy crew used to working with the heavy picks and mauls they gripped, staring anxiously at the four men riding slowly in to speak to their master. The knight sighed. No matter what the dispute, he knew, it was always the way with war: the wealthy bickered and the poor fought and died for their cause.

  At the blowing-house they stopped and waited, remaining seated on their horses. Looking at Baldwin, Simon saw that he was quite calm and at ease, and the bailiff gave a grimace. His own stomach was bubbling, and he could taste bitter acid. At a sudden noise his horse skittered nervously, and he cursed it, gripping hard with his knees. When he looked up again he found himself meeting the enquiring gaze of Thomas Smyth. The miner stood grasping a heavy falchion, an old sword which had chips from its single edge to show its past had not been peaceful; he appeared surprised to encounter the bailiff and his friend.

  Simon felt his fear dissipate. It was hard to be scared of a man who looked so sane and normal, and even if his meetings with the miner had not always been pleasant, Smyth was at least businesslike. “Thomas,” he said, feeling suddenly tired and flat. “Just what in damnation do you think you’re doing?”

  21

  They sat on the bench outside a cottage and sipped rough ale while Thomas Smyth watched them, his brows lowered. To Baldwin he had the air of a man pushed beyond patience. His black eyes were redrimmed and sunken, making them appear bruised, and the lines in his face had deepened. Like Sir William, he had aged in the last few days.

  “It was the final straw – when I heard about that whelp John Beauscyr, I mean, and how he’d been to the inn that evening. He must have passed Peter on the way there, after he had left his father at my hall.”

  “So what?” asked Simon.

  “John Beauscyr must have followed Peter afterward and killed him.”

  “But the miner had men with him – you knew that already.”

  “Yes. I knew that. But I also know that the miners left him a little later and came back here. He told them he would not need them that night.”

  “So when he went on to his cottage, he was alone?” Baldwin asked.

  “Yes. All that way over the moors, he was on his own. It would have been an easy job to kill him.”

  “You know how he died?” Simon said gently, and the tinner nodded somberly.

  “Throttled. Then hanged. It’d be easy enough for John Beauscyr to do that.”

  “Perhaps. But why would he want to, that’s what I don’t understand.”

  “He’s a Beauscyr, isn’t he? Peter had run away from their lands and made them look like fools. John wanted to get rid of the man who had shamed his family.”

  “That’s not how the boy thinks, Thomas. No, I find it difficult to believe that would have led him to murder. In the main he seems to enjoy seeing his brother at a disadvantage. I think he liked the runaway getting off the Manor’s lands. At least, until he was shamed by Bruther himself.”

  “How was he shamed?”

  “The night he died, Bruther insulted John and Sir Ralph on the road, and that caused them to lose face.”

  “Yes? Well, I’m sure Peter was provoked.”

  “Provoked? When he had a force of men with him?” Baldwin’s eyebrows rose. “You suggest that when two men are confronted by eight the two will try to provoke the others? I do not find that entirely credible, Thomas.”

  “Maybe it was unintentional. Knights can be arrogant fools.”

  “So can villeins,” the knight observed caustically, and Thomas fell silent, throwing him a nervous glance.

  “Any man can,” said Simon pacifically. “It still doesn’t tell us what this is all about,” and he gestured at the armed men nearby.

  The miner stared at him. “What this is all about? I’d have thought it was obvious! If the boy killed Peter, I want him to pay for it. My men couldn’t get him, but his brother rode out, so they caught him instead.”

  “And what now? What do you intend to do, now that you have captured Sir William’s son? Kill him – or just hold him for your pleasure? Either way, there is a good-sized force led by the knight himself waiting just outside your camp, and he wants his boy back. Are you prepared to see more miners die just because you want to avenge Bruther?”

  “Yes! I shall exchange Robert for John, and the whelp will get miner’s justice for what he did.”

  The emphatic confirmation made the bailiff and his friend exchange worried looks. Both men wanted to avert what promised to be a bruising and vicious battle. The miners numbered more than the force of forty mounted men-at-arms that Sir William could field, but other guards from the fort were on their way by foot, and if the old knight thought he had the advantage he could attack.

  Baldwin leaned forward and met the unflinching, determined eyes of the miner. “This makes no sense. You have lost a man, but that’s hardly a good enough reason to risk the lives of all these others, Thomas. And we do not know that it was John who killed Bruther. Yes, he might have had an opportunity, but we think he was not in the area when Bruther was killed. He was over toward Chagford.”

  There was a quick doubt in the miner’s face at that. Baldwin continued softly, “And Robert himself was nowhere near the place. We know that on the words of three people who saw him.” He saw no reason to say that one of the three was Smyth’s own daughter. “He was not involved.”

  “So who did kill Peter?”

  “We wondered about you, ” admitted Simon frankly.

  “Adam Coyt saw you near Bruther’s place that day. What were you doing up there?”

  To his surprise, the miner gave him a twisted grin. “Me?” He turned and beckoned to Harang, who stood sharpening a long dagger some feet off, staring up the plain to the group of horsemen. “George, come here a minute. Right, tell these two what you and I were doing on the night that Peter died.”

  The thickset man stared at Baldwin and Simon suspiciously. Seeing Thomas Smyth nod, he shrugged. “We were here at the camp for most of the afternoon, checking on the blowing-house and seeing how it was working. When it got late, we left to go and see Peter up at his house. The day before, my master had offered him a job overseeing the smelting. It would make sense having someone here we knew and trusted to look after the ingots. We went to hear his answer, but the place was empty so we rode over to see Sir William at the hall.”

  “You must have trusted Bruther to offer him that,” said Simon, pouring more drink. The jug was misshapen, the earthenware cracked and the spout broken, but it was not this that made him spill the fluid. It was the miner’s next words.

  “He was my son, bailiff.”

  The two men sat back and gaped. Baldwin found himself thinking: So that is why he always called the young man by his Christian name – why did I not realize!

  Simon stammered, “But why… Surely you… Why the hell didn’t you tell us!”

  “Why the hell should I? Would it have changed the way you investigated his death? What would you have done, bailiff, if he had been your son? The same as me, I would think. I wanted to find out who had done it so that I could meet the killer and treat him the way he served my son. My only son.” He groaned in despair.

  “I do not understand, Thomas,” said Baldwin gently.

  “You say he was your son, but…?”

  He looked at the knight and smiled weakly. “My wife is a dec
ent woman, Sir Baldwin. She has been good to me, and she gave birth to many children for me. But only Alicia survived; all the others died at birth or within a few years. Then poor Christine could not have another, and I learned to be content, because I had Peter.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “His mother was Martha Bruther. She was lovely, widowed young, and I got to know her before I married. I had not even met Christine when I wooed Martha. I wanted her, I wanted her so much I was prepared to marry her, but she wouldn’t have me. She’d tried marriage, she said, and preferred life on her own. Her husband used to beat her and it put her off taking another – she had no need of a man. But she was proud of Peter, our son.” He stopped, staring past Baldwin’s shoulder as the memories came back.

  “You could have saved us hours if we had known this before,” Simon said peevishly. “We could have concentrated on the other suspects.” And then he cursed his insensitivity.

  “I couldn’t tell you before,” Smyth explained, “not with my wife there. It would have hurt her too much. So I kept it back and tried to help you as far as I could. I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “And no more does it now,” said Baldwin compassionately. “But we come back to the main issue: what will you do with Robert Beauscyr? He is innocent, I am sure, and you do not want to hurt the man who could become your son-in-law, do you?”

  The miner’s mouth dropped open, but before he could respond, there was a shout, and a man ran up to them, pointing to the plain. “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

  Smyth stood and gave Baldwin a brittle smile. “I think Sir William has decided for us. We defend ourselves.”

  It was the arrival of the foot-soldiers from Beauscyr that made Sir William decide to attack. His seneschal had rounded up all the men in the demesne as well as the spare guards from the hall, and made them hurry to join their master, all grasping whatever was at hand when the call came. Mattocks, peat shovels, axes and hammers were their meager weapons, and all wore the same fixed and anxious stares, too scared to run off, but fearful of the outcome of the day. If it was a battle to protect their children and wives, they would have fought to the death with stoic determination as their sires had against the French, the Danes and the Normans, but this was not their fight. This was an argument between miners and their master, and they had no wish to leave their families fatherless in another man’s feud.

  As they came to the plain, a lookout saw them and rode straight to the knight, who told him to get back and order the men to rest. Sir William would soon lead them into battle.

  For some time he sat watching the vill, frowning. The bailiff and his friend had been gone for too long: it was not his imagination, the sun cast strong shadows in this light, and he had watched his own move over a heather bush and on. John sat moodily on his horse beside him, while Sir Ralph gazed down at the camp with a kind of tranquil boredom, as if in this wasteland there was nothing else to hold his attention. When he heard a horse snort loudly, Sir William glanced over his shoulder at the man behind, and saw there too that he had the same quiet stillness. Few looked at him; their eyes were all fixed on the camp.

  He had never expected to ride out again at his time of life. Seeing his men, all the guards from the fort and the servants who could ride, he felt a curious sensation that this was all wrong. It should not be him here, it should be one of his sons leading the men. He was too old. His time had passed, even as the old King’s had, with the fierce and brutal clashes in Wales over thirty years ago. Then he had been young and eager, a forceful leader of men, a man of honor with other renowned names at his side.

  They were good days. The risks had been high, the plunder great, and for all the men who survived there was a feeling of achievement and pride. Even after the debacle of the expedition from Anglesey the tall man from Beauscyr had taken a good portion of the spoils for himself.

  A quick frown darkened his brow as he thought again of the short, dark man with the flinty eyes who had been in his company, who had stood apart from the others and fought alone, as if he was no part of the rest of the group but an outsider who had joined merely to offer assistance when needed. Now this same man Thomas Smyth had caught his son, thirty years on, and for no reason.

  Whirling his horse round, he motioned to a man nearby. “Take a message to the others,” he said, issuing instructions quickly and sending him on his way. His eyes stayed fixed on the rider as he galloped up the hill and disappeared over the other side, then he glanced at his son. “Come, John. Let’s free your brother.”

  Simon and Baldwin watched grimly as men poured over the brow of the hill and walked, a straggling mass, toward the vill. From his place behind his master, Edgar could see some of the defenses prepared for them. True, there was no high rampart or wall like that at Beauscyr, but all over the camp large rocks had been scattered, making it harder for horses to travel fast, and these, along with the holes dug out on the plain, should stop any charge. The miners stood in small groups, with outlying men at each side who carried bows, while in the middle was the greater force of men with arms, holding swords, picks and iron bars in fists gone suddenly clammy.

  Thomas Smyth strode around, offering brief words of support and encouragement, laughing at the words of one, slapping another on the back, and experimentally touching a rusty weapon here and there with a show of amused disgust. To Baldwin he was like any number of men who led others, smiling, instilling confidence by his own display, and always remembering the names of his men. Like all good commanders, he knew, the knight could see that if a man would fight and die for his master, that master must show respect for his man. And like all good commanders, he knew how to position his troops for best advantage.

  Chewing at his moustache, Baldwin tried twice to go to the miner, but now George Harang had his sword out and was guarding the two men and their servants with five others. His eyes never left the bailiff and his friend, not even when the shout went up from the Beauscyr force, not when the stumbling feet began to stamp and pound as they ran toward the camp, their steps sounding like a rushing river of noise. For all that, it was strangely peaceful. A lark sang above the camp, the murmur of the leat called softly behind the blowing-house, and Baldwin had a sense of unreality. It felt impossible that he was truly here, and would shortly witness the climax of years of arguing between the tinners and the landlord, that he would again be involved in a battle in which he had no part. He had no interest in either side’s claims or demands, he was only here to help his friend try to find justice for a man who had been captured.

  The running men had lost any semblance of formation now, and he could not help his lip curling in disgust, quickly replaced by sympathy. These men were just like the troops he had seen at Acre. Poor, untrained levies hurled at the enemy to try to batter a way through while the cavalry searched for the best point to smash a breach in the lines. Like at Acre, they would be destroyed. Here, there was no line to be broken, no defense where cavalry could focus. When he heard the whistle and snap of the bows, he winced, and had to turn away, but not before he had seen men stumble and fall, two with the feathered darts jutting obscenely from their chests, one with a shaft embedded in his throat. Another wave of arrows rose into the air, sounding like a flock of geese in their hollow swishing, and the solid thump as they hit flesh was a terrible sound.

  But he had not realized how well Sir William had been trained. As the torrent of men reached the camp, almost simultaneously, or so it seemed, there was a great shout behind. A strong party of horsemen had ridden round and were now attacking from across the river, behind the defenders. The call acted like spurs to the Beauscyr men in front, and their weapons rose and fell, swords meeting axes, pikes meeting hammers, daggers meeting daggers, in a cacophony of discordant clanging like an army of ironsmiths beating their anvils together.

  And now there was a fresh rumbling and pounding as the knight led his men at the gallop. Baldwin could see the two men leading, Sir William Beauscyr and Sir Ralph, their swords high, the sun
sparkling on their mail and plate, glinting from their swords as they whirled overhead, flashing from the sharp edges of the lances, while the land shimmered under the thunder of the hooves. When they came upon the pot-holed ground, many fell, but most reached the edge of the little town.

  Simon was fretting. He did not know what to do for the best. It was impossible to stop the brawl, but he could not stand by and see so many men killed or wounded for no reason without lifting a finger. George Harang and his men anxiously fingered their weapons and cast wary glances over the two men. Thomas Smyth had not asked Simon or Baldwin for their swords or daggers, but neither felt it would be safe to draw them. The miners had no reason to feel that they were enemies as yet, and both men would prefer matters to stay that way.

  Between the cottages Simon caught occasional glimpses of the struggling men. He winced as he saw an axe fall and take a man’s arm off at the shoulder. There was a short wail, swiftly cut off, and he spun round to see a man sinking to his knees with a bloody mess where his throat should have been. Suddenly he felt waves of nausea breaking over him, and he gasped, his eyes still on the man who slowly toppled to one side, eyes wide and staring as if in surprise.

  That was when his anger flashed into full flame. Shoving one guard away, he snarled at George Harang: “Take me to Smyth!”

  The miner gazed at him uncertainly. “I was told to keep you here.”

  “I don’t care! How many more must die while those two fools fight with other men’s lives? Take me to him now! This isn’t just madness, it’s futile!”