The Huntsman's Tale (Oxford Medieval Mysteries Book 3)

by Ann Swinfen

  Sir Henry sighed, stretched out his legs, and set down his cup on the hearthstone at his feet. Already his colour was looking better.

  ‘I had best tell you everything, as it happened,’ he said.

  ‘It was some time after you left, Nicholas, that the sheriff sent out his men to pursue the Lady Edith and Dunstable. He claimed at first not to believe what the grooms told him about their flight, then seemed to find other reasons for delay. I am sure he had no wish to overtake them. The lady comes from a powerful family. It is understandable, if regrettable, that he should have some hesitation in risking their anger. Eventually the men set off, and not in the direction the grooms had said, but into the village.’

  ‘When would that be?’ I asked.

  ‘About the time the family priest was saying Vespers in the chapel. We went to supper, with the search party not yet returned. Baverstoke was absent, but that was to be expected. The sheriff knew he must have warned Lady Edith of the evidence against her and so provoked her flight. Baverstoke would want to avoid de Alveton.’

  He shook his head. ‘I am not certain that anything had been openly said, but it was being whispered about the house that Sheriff de Alveton would put Baverstoke on trial, for having helped the choicest birds to fly the coop. Since he had done so, there was a clear suspicion that Baverstoke was implicated in the murders, if by nothing more than giving them warning. The sheriff must have something to justify his journey to Leighton, and I think both he and the coroner were thirsting for some form of revenge, having been made to look foolish more than once over this whole matter.’

  ‘But surely there can have been no real evidence against Baverstoke,’ Philip said, lawyer that he was to his fingertips. ‘You have not said that anyone saw or heard him warn the Lady Edith.’

  ‘So far as I know,’ Sir Henry said, ‘no one did. It was all supposition. Like so much else in this matter, there are clear signposts that any man may read, but no certain evidence, no witnesses to any of the crimes.’

  He bent down and lifted his cup, draining the last of the ale. Beatrice rose quietly and refilled it, then moved about amongst us, pouring.

  ‘As I have told Nicholas, I had already arranged to leave on the morrow. I had made a statement and answered Sheriff de Alveton’s questions, all of it written down by his clerk, signed and sealed by me, to be used if anything came to trial. After we had supped, I set my man to pack our belongings, ready to leave early, and went myself to see that my horse had been properly attended to, and given a good feed of oats, before his journey the next day. The grooms and stable lads were still in a pother, ever since Lady Edith and Dunstable had come demanding their horses. None of them were about. There was still some late daylight then, though it was dim in the stable. I thought the horses seemed restless.’

  He paused, and took another pull at his ale. ‘I do not know what drew me to the back of the stable. There was a small breeze flowing in through the open doors. Perhaps something was set swinging. Perhaps it was the way my horse rolled his eyes in that direction. I made my way past the stalls, and there he was, at the far end of the stable. Hanging from a beam. Lawyer Baverstoke.’

  There was a horrified gasp. It might have been any one of us. I felt the rise of nausea in my throat.

  ‘Dead?’ I said.

  ‘Aye, dead. Not long dead, he was still warm. It needed no skill to see that it was too late to save him. I will spare the ladies.’

  He bowed vaguely toward Margaret and the other women, who were sitting a little apart, but had heard everything. Beatrice had her hand clamped over her mouth. From the dark corner where James was sitting, there was a brief movement.

  ‘Murder?’ Jordain said. ‘Or felo de se?’

  ‘At first, of course, we could not know. It would be difficult to suppose the existence of even more killers amongst the company at the manor, but why should he kill himself?’

  ‘Unless he feared trial before Sheriff de Alveton,’ I said, ‘and the consequences. Perhaps he chose the quicker way.’

  Sir Henry nodded. ‘So also I reasoned. Some of the stablemen were sent for and they cut him down, then carried him to lie in the manor chapel. It was when we were laying him out that I heard a rustling of paper from the breast of his shirt.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘It was the first time I had seen him without his lawyer’s gown, for he wore nothing but shirt and hose. It diminishes a man.’

  He sighed. ‘I drew out the paper. On it he had written a confession for Sheriff de Alveton. It seems he has been in love with the Lady Edith for years, even before her marriage to Gilbert Mordon. As a younger son, he had nothing to offer her until he had made his own way in the law. He served her family first as one of their men of law, then came with her in her household when she married.’

  For the first time, one of the women spoke.

  ‘Did she return his feelings?’ Margaret asked.

  ‘He did not say.’ Sir Henry smiled sadly. ‘In everything he wrote, he sought to protect her. He claimed that he had shot Gilbert Mordon, during the hunt. He had used one of her arrows because he had brought none of his own, intending to use his hunting spear. Realising, afterwards, that it would implicate her, he threw it away. Later, he killed Le Soten, for fear that his discovery of the existence of the second will would throw more blame on the lady.’

  ‘I believe he did kill Le Soten,’ I said quietly.

  ‘So also do I. Finally, he wrote that he had urged the Lady Edith to ride at once for London, lest rough country justice should set the blame on her. She would be safer in London. Of course, we do not know if that is true. Even if it is, she may have gone elsewhere. Both murders should be laid at his door, he said, and to avoid scandal and harm to the lady and her family, arising from a murder trial, he was taking steps to end his life, and with it the blame for the killings.’

  ‘But of course,’ I said, ‘he did not kill Gilbert Mordon.’

  ‘Nay, like you, I am sure he did not.’

  ‘He must have loved her very much,’ Beatrice said quietly, ‘to take all the blame on himself.’

  Jordain nodded. ‘Not only has he taken the blame in this world. He has condemned his immortal soul to everlasting torment.’

  For the first time, James spoke. ‘Does this mean he cannot receive Christian burial?’

  ‘It does,’ I said, and shuddered. ‘He will be buried in unconsecrated ground.’

  We were all silent. How mysterious is every human creature. I had thought Baverstoke nothing but a pompous lawyer, strong in defence of his client, nothing more. Yet the man had acted with almost inconceivable courage, calling down upon himself the eternal fires of Hell. I bowed my head, clasping it between trembling hands.

  It was difficult to understand how any man could have so loved that proud and bitter woman. Yet perhaps, before her family sold her unwilling into marriage with Gilbert Mordon, she might have been different. She was beautiful. Or she would be if she lost that hardness about the eyes and mouth. As a young girl her nature might have been equally fair. Marriage to Mordon would have been enough to twist many a woman’s nature, had she no inner strength to resist the corrosive effects of such a life.

  ‘And now what does the sheriff propose to do?’ Edmond asked.

  ‘Before I left the manor,’ Sir Henry said, ‘he spoke of holding a brief formal trial in which Baverstoke’s confession would be read out and the jury instructed to find him guilty, with no need for any further evidence or enquiry.’

  ‘So the real murderer of Gilbert Mordon will escape justice,’ I said. ‘Despite all the evidence which points to the Lady Edith.’

  ‘If he would have been found guilty in any case of the murder of the king’s man,’ Margaret said quietly, ‘perhaps he thought he could at least do this one final thing for the woman he loved.’

  ‘She may escape justice in this world,’ Jordain said. ‘God sees all. He will decide.’

  Sir Henry spent the night at the farm, Edmond and Susanna having given over the bes
t bed to him, while they rested – in poor comfort, I suspect – on a chair and a settle in the kitchen. Not long past dawn Sir Henry’s manservant arrived on his own mount, a sturdy pony, encumbered with two pairs of saddlebags. The mockery of a trial would be held later that day, and we were not summoned to attend, for which we were all heartily grateful.

  ‘Baverstoke is to be buried without ceremony tomorrow,’ Sir Henry said, as he was preparing to leave. ‘In an unmarked grave, somewhere out along the road beyond the village.’

  ‘Sad that there will be few or none to mourn him,’ I said, holding his horse steady while he mounted. ‘The villagers barely knew him, and I never saw him in company with any of the household at the manor, save for the two who have fled.’

  ‘Nor I,’ he said, gathering up his reins. ‘At least Le Soten’s body is coffined and shortly to be returned to the king’s court, and to any family he may have.’

  ‘At least there is his cousin, Mistress Walsea, who will truly mourn him. She should reach the court before his coffin arrives.’

  Sir Henry and his servant rode away down the lane. The dust raised by their horses’ hooves floated between the hedges, lingered in a soft cloud, then slowly sank and settled again. And the farm, after all the disturbance of recent days, subsided once more into the simple cycle of the agricultural year. A soft and steady breeze arose later that same day, allowing the women to begin winnowing the wheat, tossing it high from the winnowing baskets, so that the wind might blow the chaff away, then catching the grain as it fell back. Again and again, with an age-old rhythm of its own, the winnowing continued, leaving the arms aching but the grain clean and ready to be milled. After Mordon’s encroachments, our mill would be grinding again.

  The last of the peas and beans were gathered and the haulms cut for bedding and fodder. James and Thomas harnessed the new yoke of oxen to the plough and turned the soil over, feeding the roots back into the ground to enrich the field, which would next be planted with wheat. Edmond’s small flock of sheep was brought down from the high pasture to graze on the stubble of the barley field. The shepherd had served my father as far back as I could remember. Godfrid was a man of indeterminate age, as tough and gnarled as a windswept oak, who said little to men, but cherished his sheep, and nourished each newborn lamb as tenderly as a woman.

  We remained another week at the farm after Sir Henry’s departure. Aelfric brought word that all the London party had left as soon as the brief trial was over. The remaining servants were to stay until ownership of the manor could be ascertained. Mordon’s original will was still valid, leaving his property to the Lady Edith, but the king’s officials were looking into his original fraud. Besides, no trace had been found of either Lady Edith or Dunstable. The villeins continued their customary labour, though with little enthusiasm, and brought in the rest of the harvest from the demesne lands. Who would eventually benefit from it, no one could say.

  Two days before we were to leave, Edmond had an announcement to make as we all sat, breaking our fast at leisure, with most of the harvest work done, apart from the remainder of the threshing, which would continue over the coming weeks.

  ‘Susanna and I have decided,’ he said, smiling across the table at his wife, ‘that we should hold a greater harvest feast than usual. Thanks to your help, we have gathered in more than we could ever have hoped.’

  ‘And besides,’ Susanna said, ‘it was always the custom of the manor in the past to hold a feast to celebrate the first hunt of the season. Since there is no longer a lord of the manor, and since it is unlikely that there will be any more hunts this season, we thought we would make the occasion a celebration of both harvest and hunt.’

  ‘I have had a word with the manor steward,’ Edmond said, ‘and he will give us the haunch of the deer Alan shot at the hunt, and both cook and cellarer will help in the preparation of the feast.’

  ‘And who is to be invited?’ Margaret asked.

  Susanna spread her hands wide. ‘The whole village!’

  ‘The whole village? Even those labourers who hired themselves to Mordon for higher wages, and left you stranded?’

  ‘Especially them.’ Susanna gave a wicked grin. ‘I think next year they will come back humbly asking for work!’

  The following day saw the whole farm turned over to preparations for the feast. We had always held a harvest supper in my parents’ time, but this was to be a feast like no other. My mother arrived early in the day, her sleeves rolled to the elbow and her face flushed with the eagerness I remembered from my childhood. She was followed shortly by several of the village women, including Alan’s wife Beth. At the manor, it seemed, the cook and scullions were busy roasting the venison on a great spit and dressing conies from the manor warren to be made into pies, while Warin Hodgate despatched several barrels of fine French wine by a careful cart to the farm, in time for them to settle quietly before the feast, for he said that Mordon had no more use for them, and the king would surely not begrudge his loyal subjects the means to drink to his health.

  The men were banished from the kitchen, but once the regular day’s farm work was done, we were occupied in setting up all the trestle tables we could lay our hands on, including those carried up from the village. By late afternoon, all was ready, and a steady stream of people began to arrive from the village, many of them – especially the truant labourers – bringing gifts of custards or cakes or meat pies to add to the feast. The invitation had been extended to the manor servants, so that I do not believe so great a gathering can have been held at Leighton since the marriage of Yves de Vere, before I was born.

  ‘I have never seen so many people together,’ Alysoun said, slipping her hand into mine, ‘or so much food! Is it true we are going home tomorrow?’

  ‘It is. Shall you be sad to leave?’

  ‘Happy and sad. I love it here, but I miss Jonathan. And the hens.’

  I laughed. ‘You miss the hens? There are hens here.’

  ‘Aye, but they are not as friendly as our hens.’

  ‘That is because no one has time to make pets of them.’

  She frowned. ‘Do you think they miss us?’

  ‘Our hens? Perhaps, but you will soon see them again. And Jonathan too.’

  Rafe had been listening and now took my other hand. ‘You promised you would teach me to ride this summer, and you never did.’

  I bit my lip guiltily. ‘I am sorry, my little man, but there has been too much work at the harvest. Still, you did learn to fish.’

  He grinned. ‘Aye, I did. And I caught two fish, the day you didn’t come with us. James said the little one had to be thrown back, but we ate the other one. Only, when they were cooked, I didn’t know which one was mine.’

  ‘I am sure I ate some of it, and it was very good. Perhaps I can teach you to ride in Oxford. The Mitre has no small ponies, but I think Master Harvey, out at King’s Mill, has a pony that his children ride. Perhaps he would let you ride it.’

  Once everyone had settled to eat, the feast was a mighty success. There was a little stiffness at first, between those labourers who had remained loyal to Edmond, and those who had defected to Mordon, but it eased as the ale and the French wine went round. The manor villeins and servants were celebrating their release from a hard master, reckoning that whoever the king placed in the manor, he could hardly be worse than the recent lord. The free villagers were relieved of Mordon’s exacting tolls at the mill and his restrictions on their hunting of conies and other small game. Matt Grantham boasted loudly of how he would have bested Mordon, had the case of his supposed villeinage ever come to court. Alan and Beth simply looked content, with young Jane restored to them from Burford, even though Alan’s position as huntsman was still unsure.

  The feasting lasted well into the dark, after moonrise, when a blaze of stars in the unclouded skies dwarfed the candle lanterns hung in reckless abandon about the yard. Alysoun and Rafe had both fallen asleep, with their heads amongst the dishes, by the time Jordain and I gathe
red them up and carried them to their beds.

  After I had tucked them in – Alysoun, of course, had woken and claimed she was not sleepy – and returned to the yard, I found guests beginning to drift away. Despite the pleasures of the double feast, the morrow would be a working day for most. And for us, the journey home. I found my mother with Susanna, who was removing a pile of used trenchers from her hands.

  ‘Leave all to us, Mother Bridget,’ she said. ‘There are hands enough here to do the clearing, without the need for yours.’

  I was warmed by her words, for with all her children gone, I knew my mother would be glad of this substitute daughter. I put my arms around her and kissed her cheek, thinking that she seemed to grow a little smaller every time I saw her. The bones of her shoulders felt fragile beneath her best gown.

  ‘You will come at Christmastide, Nicholas?’ she said.

  ‘If the weather permits. Or perhaps you might wish to come to us? You have not been to Oxford since you came to my marriage.’

  She looked doubtful. ‘It is a long journey.’

  ‘I would come to fetch you, and we would make two days of it.’

  ‘We shall see.’ She smiled and squeezed my hand. ‘I am glad to see the children so well and happy. And you, Nicholas, are you happy?’

  ‘All is well with me, Mother. Very well.’

  I smiled privately to myself, but it was never possible to hide my feelings from her. She gave me a knowing look, and I wondered what she and Margaret had been saying of me and my affairs behind my back.

  James had said he would walk home with my mother, and I let them go, for I hate prolonged farewells.

  One of the last to leave the farm was Sire Raymond.

  ‘Will you walk a little way done the lane with me, Nicholas?’ he said.

  ‘Gladly. All the way, if you wish.’

  ‘Nay, not so far.’