‘He’s not eating?’ she asked.
‘Oh, he’s eating a bit, but not enough. I don’t know what to do!’
Cissy listened to the girl with a sense of futility. Emma was on the brink of despair. Her husband’s venture was petering out and he was scurrying about trying to find a fresh deposit, but so far there had been no luck. It was maddening, but there was no guaranteed reward for hard work, and then the tin ran out, and it was beginning to look like her family would soon have nothing. No income at the next coining meant no food for the children.
‘And my Joel, he won’t eat now. He looks up at me like he’s starving, but he won’t eat anything when I try to get him to feed, and he’s wasting away, the poor sweetheart. It’s been three days, and he’s not had hardly anything, not even when I’ve chewed it up and given it to him in a paste.’
‘He won’t suckle?’
‘No. He refuses my breast, just turns his head away when I get it near him.’
Cissy pursed her lips. It was more usual for children to be breast-fed until they were two or three years old, and hearing that the lad refused his mother’s pap was alarming. She had seen Joel only the other day and had thought then that he looked weakly and unhappy, although his belly was large enough. Asleep now in Emma’s arms, he looked restless and irritable.
She was no midwife. Her own boy had been an easy child, although he had become more difficult to feed later in life, growing fussy with his food. For some reason he disliked his father’s meat pies; but no, Cissy told herself sternly as her mind wandered, that was unimportant compared to Emma’s present and very real problems.
‘I have taken him to the abbey, and they have said prayers for him, but what else can I do?’
Cissy sighed. She had remained with Emma for ages, calming her as best she could. If it was God’s will to take the child to His arms, He would, and there was nothing that the people of Tavistock could do about it. All Cissy could do, in all truth, was try to soothe her friend.
‘There is one thing you could do,’ she said suddenly. ‘You could mix some honey with milk, and give that to him. It sometimes works. Can you afford some honey?’
Emma sniffed and wiped at her eyes. ‘Yes. Hamelin gave me his purse.’
Cissy’s eyes grew round as she saw the money in Emma’s hand. ‘Whee! He gave you all that? He must have sold a lot of tin!’
Emma became a little reserved. ‘No, he sold a debt to Wally before he died.’
‘Some debt, girl. When did Wally ever have so much money?’
Emma concealed the money in the purse again. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he grew lucky? There was no report of a man being robbed, was there? If so, perhaps I’d think evil of Wally – but no one has, so it must have been his money somehow.’
Cissy opened her mouth to argue, but then glanced at Joel and her expression softened, ‘Right, well you have enough to do him some good, anyway. Buy honey and some milk from the first morning milking, when it’s rich and creamy. Give him that, and then try him with soft bread dipped in honey too. Once he’s eating again, you can change his diet.’
By the time she had hustled the girl from her door, Emma’s tears were at least a little abated, although while her child refused to eat, she would remain petrified with fear that she was going to lose him. Also, now that her husband’s mine appeared to be failing, she knew that the rest of her children might suffer the pangs of starvation before too long.
It was a terrible thing to lose a child. Cissy hated the very idea. A devoted mother, she adored her children. One boy and two girls, and all fine, healthy, strapping creatures who had given her, so far, seven grandchildren. Her only regret was that all had moved from the shop as soon as they had married. Of course it was usual for a girl to do that, moving in with her in-laws, but it was sad to lose a son. And such a son Reg was! Tall, hair as dark as a crow’s wing, his eyes deep brown; she thought he was perfect. But he had been convinced of his calling, and he had needed to follow it. That was all there was to it. Perhaps in years to come he would marry and give her the extra grandchildren she wanted.
The thought of more children turned a little sour when she saw the state her Nob was in. As she said to him, he made her wonder whether she had married a child and not a man.
After such a long exile from his hearth, Nob was more liquid than solid when he eventually returned to the shop. Not that being overbloated with ale had been the worst of it, of course. She had known what he would be like, and he had more than fulfilled her expectations.
As soon as his head hit the pillow, he snored fit to shake the daub from the walls, and he wouldn’t roll over and shut up even when she prodded him with an ungentle finger. No, he merely lay back with his mouth agape, the fool! And then, just when she was thinking that she was so tired she might fall asleep, he snorted, grunted, and rose to go to the pot. Except, of course, he was fearful of wakening her, so he had lighted a candle that he might see without stumbling. The rasp, rasp, rasp of his tinder had been like a blade scraping on her skull, and the knowledge that there was no point in, arguing with him because he was still drunk did not soften her temper. At last, after making as much noise as the Lydford waterfall, he had returned to bed, but now the second evil of drink had made itself felt. He had broken wind, and soon she was reeling from the foul odour.
Next morning he had woken with a pained expression. It did not succeed in arousing any sympathy from her.
‘I don’t know why you do it to yourself so often. Can’t you get it into your head that you’re not a young boy any more? Look at you! A grown man, but you behave like a child, guzzling at ale like a baby at pap as soon as I turn my back!’
‘It was just nice to have a chance to talk to some of our neighbours, woman – and stop shouting. You’d wake the dead, you would!’
‘If you hadn’t drunk so much, you wouldn’t be so upset with a normal, quiet voice.’
‘I didn’t drink that much. I just got chatting, that’s all. Like you were chatting in here with Emma. And any way, it was you told me to bugger off. I didn’t want to go there – I was coming home, remember?’
‘You didn’t have to go straight to the alehouse, did you? You could have gone and waited at our door, or visited Humphrey or someone.’
The mention of that name had made Nob give a fleeting wince, but not so fleeting that Cissy missed it. ‘You didn’t see him in there?’
‘Look, I couldn’t help it, all right? He just asked me to join him in a game of knuckles, and I didn’t see the harm. When his friend challenged me, I had to accept.’
‘Oh? And which friend was this?’
‘Just some foreigner. He’s sergeant to the arrayer who’s in town. You must have heard about him,’ Nob said, attempting a confidence he didn’t feel while his belly bucked at the memory.
Humphrey had worn a serious expression, winking to Nob as he asked him over, and Nob soon saw what he meant. The arrayer was here to take every able-bodied man from sixteen to sixty, and that meant Nob was well within the age range. If the arrayer saw him, he could be taken – but if this sergeant gained an affection for him, he might be safe. Nob and Humphrey set to with a will, gambling wildly so as to lose, and buying the stranger plenty of ale. It would be dangerous to openly bribe him in public, but the sergeant must surely know what they were doing. It had been expensive.
‘You haven’t the brain you were born with, have you? Well, I hope you didn’t gamble too much.’
Nob remained strangely quiet on that score, and Cissy had pressed him. Finally he had been forced to admit that his investments hadn’t been blessed with profit.
Not only had he suffered the losses, but plying the sergeant with good ale had proved ruinous. The man had an astonishing capacity for drink and hardly seemed to feel the effects. Then, when Nob went out for a piss, and the sergeant followed him, grunting and farting as he did so, the sergeant blandly thanked him for the gambling, accepting the money as his due from the run of the dice, no more. H
e had no idea, or so he said, that Nob had been playing to lose.
Nob was dumbstruck. As the sergeant made to return indoors, Nob gave up, and with a bad grace he offered the money remaining in his purse. With an equally ill grace, the sergeant accepted it – but somehow Nob didn’t feel confident that he was entirely secure in the cold light of the following dawn.
‘You’re an oaf and a fool! You go in there and drink yourself to blind stupidity, and then you come back and want sympathy!’ Cissy snapped, but then fetched him a morning ale to whet his appetite. ‘I suppose you want me to give you some breakfast now.’
‘No, I’ll be all right with a pie,’ he said with stiff pride. ‘I wouldn’t want to put you out.’ He turned away and tripped over a stool, barking his shin on the seat. ‘Oh, bugger, bugger, bugger!’
It was enough. Laughing, she took his arm and settled him in his chair by the hearth, and bent to cook him some bacon and an egg. She had some bread she had thrown into the oven the night before when he had finished cooking, and now she broke off a crust and gave it to him while his meal spat and sizzled on the griddle over the fire.
‘You daft old sod,’ she had said fondly.
No, Cissy thought now, it was no wonder that she was tired. No rest Sunday night, and Monday had been busy, too, what with all her work and Nob being unable to do more than grunt all morning. Monday night she had been so tired she’d only slept shallowly, waking at the slightest groan or squeak amongst the timbers of the house. And today, Tuesday, she had had to listen to poor little Sara as well. Sometimes it felt as though she was mother to all the foolish chits in the town.
Sara was a silly mare! She was always hoping to find a man who would help her, and she was so desperate that she would give herself to anyone; and now she must suffer the inevitable result of a fertile woman and be scorned as a whore. The parish had to keep her and her children, just as it would any child, but Sara would be fined the lairwite by the Abbot’s court. Her child would be known as a bastard, and while a King or nobleman could sire bastards all over the country without concern – why, even King Edward himself was taking his bastard son, Adam, with him to wars, if the stories were to be believed – a woman like Sara got off less lightly. Adam would be provided for by the King his father, but Sara’s child would be despised by everyone, as an extra burden on the parish. No one would blame the incontinent man who had promised to wed her; no, they’d all blame the gullible woman.
Idly, Cissy wondered again who the father might be, but then she shook herself and told herself off for daydreaming. There were some crusts and scraps of pie in a pot, and she reopened the door and threw them out, and it was then, as she saw the bits and pieces fly through the air, that she saw a man recoil.
He looked familiar, she thought, a young fellow with broad enough shoulders, but then he was gone. Disappeared along an alley. Cissy closed the door thoughtfully. He was familiar… and then she realised who it was. ‘Gerard, you poor soul!’
* * *
Simon was about to make his way to the guest room when, yawning, he heard a chuckle and turned to see Augerus and Mark sitting in the doorway to the salsarius’ room.
‘So, Bailiff, the strain is showing, is it?’ Augerus asked, not unkindly.
Simon smiled and accepted a cup of Mark’s wine. ‘You fellows are never likely to suffer from thirst, are you?’ Mark looked like a man who had already tasted more than a gallon of wine, Simon thought.
‘We have a reasonable supply, it is true,’ he agreed. ‘Why, any monk, should be allocated five gallons of good quality ale and another five of weaker each week. Even a pensioner gets that. And Augerus and I have strenuous work to conduct for the abbey. We need to keep our strength up – and what better for that than strong wine?’
‘Shouldn’t you both be abed, ready for the midnight services?’
‘I rarely go to bed until later. I need little sleep,’ Mark said with a partly boastful, faintly defensive air. ‘I am like Brother Peter, the almoner. He only ever has three hours a night. Never needs more than that. Most of the night he wanders about the place, along the walls and about the court. And look at him!’ He belched quietly. ‘He doesn’t look too bad on it, does he?’
Simon noted that. So, Peter was always up and wandering about, was he? Well, it was hardly surprising. After his wound, maybe he found it hard to sleep. He was ever looking out for another band of attackers, perhaps?
‘Have you found out any more about the murderer?’ Augerus asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘Am I right, that the miner was killed by a club?’
‘Yes. The sort of weapon that anyone could make,’ Simon said. He saw no reason to mention that it had gone missing. Augerus or Peter was responsible for gossip, according to the abbot, and Mark had already admitted his own interest in it.
Augerus glanced at Mark, then back to Simon. The bailiff’s tone was curious, he thought, and he wondered whether Simon harboured a suspicion against Mark. It was quite possible. After all, Augerus knew that Mark had been up on the moors, the day that Wally died. And he had argued with him. Perhaps the bailiff knew that, too.
‘I only asked, because I have heard that some mining men will scratch marks into wood they have purchased to stop others from stealing it. Perhaps there might be something on the timber that killed Walwynus?’
Simon was still a moment. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Take a closer look at the weapon. If it came from a miner, marks will be visible.’
Mark sniffed. ‘I think Brother Augerus here has been drinking too much of my wine, Bailiff. Ignore his words. You will only find yourself wasting time. Have you learned any more about the thefts?’
Simon was suddenly aware that Mark’s eyes were brighter and more shrewd than his voice would have indicated possible. Mark was perhaps inebriated, but that was his usual condition, and he was still perfectly capable of reasoning.
‘What should I have learned? The abbot did not ask me to investigate the theft,’ he said, purposefully leaving the word in the singular.
‘Aha! So you weren’t piqued with interest? But perhaps other things have been taken from here, which could lead to the reputation of the abbey being damaged – badly so. Don’t you have a duty to seek out the truth?’
‘Not if the abbot told him not to,’ Augerus said, and hiccuped. ‘Isn’t that right, Bailiff?’
‘Yes,’ Simon said. ‘After all, I have no jurisdiction here, do I?’
‘If a man is threatening to trample the abbey’s good name in the mud, he should be punished,’ Mark said, but now his eyes were turned away, and Simon felt he was almost talking to himself. ‘He deserves punishment.’ Then he turned to face Simon again. ‘Any man who dares harm this abbey will suffer the consequences,’ he declared. ‘God won’t allow blasphemous behaviour.’
Chapter Thirteen
After a long and strenuous ride, Baldwin and the coroner had slept the Tuesday night in a pleasant inn at South Zeal. The weather had been kind to them, and they had made good time, riding fast on the swift road that led through Yeoford and then Hittisleigh, finally arriving in the village only a short time after dark.
Sore from their ride, Baldwin rose with a grunt as the innkeeper arrived and started opening the windows. This, Baldwin thought, was the worst aspect of travelling. Small inns so often had nowhere to put guests, and all they could do was make space for a man to sleep on a bench, or perhaps allow him to sleep on the hay in the stables. Perhaps he should be glad that at least there was space near the fire, because the weather was turning unseasonably cold. The landlord and some local men asserted that it was normal for the time of year, but Baldwin found it hard to believe that the weather so near to his own home could be quite so different. And the midges were foul, too. When he went out during the night to piss against a nearby tree, he found himself crawling with them in the space of a few minutes.
It was a great relief to be up and ahorse after a rushed breakfast of cold meat and some coar
se bread. While he chewed, Baldwin saw the coroner putting half his own loaf in a cloth and tying it into a neat bundle.
‘What’s that for?’
‘I thought it would be as well to take something for our lunch.’
‘There are plenty of good inns on the way to Tavistock, Coroner. We have eaten in some of them.’ Baldwin eyed his own loaf. ‘I certainly do not think that this would be comparable with some of the food at inns there.’
‘No. If we were to ride around the north side of the moor, you’d be right,’ the coroner agreed. ‘But I didn’t intend that.’
‘Which way do you want to go, then, Sir Roger?’
‘Over the middle.’
Baldwin considered this. ‘You do realise how quickly the mist can come down?’
‘I have been on the moors and lived to tell the tale when that happened to me,’ Coroner Roger said lightly. ‘No, I merely wish to see the place where this death happened before we go to Tavistock and hear what people think we wish to hear.’
Baldwin nodded, but he was not content. Even when they had mounted their horses and he could see that the sky was almost devoid of clouds, that the top of the nearby hill was smooth and an apparently easy ride, and that the ground underfoot was dry and not at all boggy, he still felt a nagging anxiety.
‘Come on, Sir Baldwin. Courage!’
They had left the inn, and were riding down the main street, past all the houses in their burgage plots on either side, and then turned right at the bottom of the road, heading for the great hill Baldwin had seen before.
‘I am not fearful,’ he said stiffly. ‘Yet I swore to my wife that I would avoid spending too much time on the moors. Every time I visit, there is death and murder.’
‘Well, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?’
Baldwin grunted. He could not put his feelings into words. He was aware of a curious awe about the-moors which bordered on the superstitious; probably, he told himself, because his wife’s attitude had coloured his own. Earlier this year, before the double disasters of the tournament at Oakhampton and then the murders at Sticklepath, he would have scoffed at the idea that the moors could themselves be unlucky or fated, but now he was growing to feel if not a fear, certainly a degree of apprehension.
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