Peter shut the door and rested his hand on it for a few moments, frowning. ‘I do not like that fellow.’
‘Why, my love? He was only a watchman, wasn’t he?’
‘He didn’t look like any man from around here. He was one of the guard with the new sheriff at Rougemont Castle, I’d swear.’
Edith shrugged and led him back to their hall. ‘What of it?’
‘He didn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d be sent for a simple message delivery. It was almost as though someone wanted to make sure that the coroner and your father had actually left the city.’
Road near Bow
Roger had made good time walking back down to the south coast. Embittered, chilly, sore footed and hungry, he was glad to have met a farmer just outside Winkleigh, who, after studying him a while, invited him in to sit before a fire, and fed him warmed milk sweetened with almonds, and some good thick maslin bread. Even better, he had allowed his guest to stay the night on the floor near the fire.
It was astonishing how well a man could feel when he had been rested and fed. Roger had known times in Guyenne, and in other parts of France, when he had been fighting, terrified for his life, and he and the others had found a little farmstead to take and sleep in, where the bliss of the peace was almost unbearable.
Walking here from that little farm had been much faster, and he had reached the outskirts of North Tawton the previous day. Somehow he had missed his path back to Jacobstowe. And although he knew he should have simply hurried on, down to Oakhampton, which was apparently not too many miles away, and thence to the coast and the busy port there, he had idled the day away. This morning, waking, he had been determined to get away from the area, but somehow he found himself still here. It was not until late afternoon that he decided to leave, but now, rather than seek out and walk through the woods at Abbeyford, he turned eastwards on a whim. There was no reason to go that way, other than the fact that he would have to take an easterly route at some point to get to Dartmouth, but he had an urge to take a slower path. He was enjoying the feeling of being on land too much to hazard the dangers of the sea followed by the hardship of fighting.
As he was strolling along, looking at the view from the roadway, he suddenly heard a force of men-at-arms approaching.
Most men, on hearing such a sound, would simply continue on their way. There were men on horseback all over the realm, and many of them warriors. It was a normal sight, natural in its way. So many magnates wanted to take their loyal men with them when they travelled so that any daring felons would be dissuaded from attempting a robbery. But Roger had a different attitude to such noises. In his mind there was an appreciation of the danger such men could represent. In Guyenne, the flat, treeless landscapes sometimes meant it was harder to conceal yourself, but here there were so many opportunities, it was difficult to pick the best.
The riders were approaching quickly. Gazing about him, he caught sight of a convenient tree branch at the side of the road, and used it to clamber up and over the hedge. He was just in time – as he landed, gently, on his feet and allowed his legs to fold beneath him so that he was almost flat beside the tree, he saw through the twigs and stems of the hedge the first flash of mottled armour, and heard the sound of hoofs suddenly grow louder. He saw a one-eyed warrior, and a fearful-looking man hemmed in by all the others, and reckoned that he was not a willing companion.
The damp was soaking into his tunic and his hose felt sticky and uncomfortable, but as they rode past, he allowed only his eyes to follow them. Any sudden movement could attract attention. He wasn’t worried about making a noise; it was enough to let a man catch a glimpse from the corner of his eye, and if he was an experienced warrior, as these appeared to be, he would investigate.
He watched and listened until the men were fully out of sight. Only then did he realise he had been holding his breath. As he clambered back over the hedge into the grassy roadway, he felt strangely light headed – and oddly exhilarated as well. It could have been the usual delight at escaping danger, but there was also the undoubted thrill of near action again. He was a fighter, when all was said and done.
And although in this case he had neither master nor money, he hesitated only a moment before darting off after the horses.
He would learn where they had come from.
Sandford
Simon walked up and down, while his wife watched with her blue eyes wide and anxious.
‘Well, I suppose we’ll continue together, then,’ Sir Richard said after a while. He was looking from one to the other of them with some concern, but mainly with a scowl of incomprehension.
‘Are you going to go?’ Margaret asked.
Simon threw a look at her. ‘Meg, I have to. I don’t want to any more than you do, but I have to obey a direct command like this!’ he said, and slapped the note in his hand.
They had been talking about the message all the afternoon, and Meg was no more keen to think that he was about to have to leave again than she had been before. Their son Perkin had already left to run and play in the yard after listening to the wrangling back and forth, and Sir Richard was only there because he thought it would be rude to leave the two to their discussion. Simon was glad that he had remained. The presence of the coroner forced Simon and Margaret to maintain a moderately calm demeanour.
‘Isn’t it enough that they have our house?’ Margaret asked quietly.
‘This isn’t from the man Despenser sent to steal it from us,’ Simon said wearily. They had been over this already. ‘It’s from the Cardinal de Fargis. He is living there, but not with the approval of Despenser. When we were thrown from our house, Bishop Walter had already offered it to the cardinal, and he will maintain it whether or not Despenser wants him there.’
‘Simon, I don’t want you to go.’
‘I don’t want to. But look at it sensibly, Meg. The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back. The worst that can happen is that I’m asked to help with some matter for a few days, and then I’ll be back. I will not accept another post abroad, no matter what they offer or threaten.’
‘You said that in the summer. And then they sent you to France.’
‘That was the king,’ Simon reminded her. ‘And after the way the king reacted to Baldwin, Sir Richard and me last time he saw us, there’s not the remotest chance he’ll want me around again. I think I’m unlikely to be sent anywhere other than Tavistock now.’
‘He’s right there, lady,’ Sir Richard said.
‘We will leave in the morning,’ Simon said, more firmly.
Chapter Ten
Castle at Bow
The meal was well under way when the men turned up.
Sir Robert of Traci was not a pretentious man. He didn’t have a wife, nor did he have a taste for some of the extravagance of modern courtly life in the royal household. It was fine for others to aspire to the little luxuries, as they were sometimes called. Men wanted pretty finery to show off their legs or arms. He had no need of that. His sword arm was strong enough to cut off the head of any man who offended him. Others wanted great piles of plate and pewter to show how rich they were. Sir Robert knew how rich he was. Richer than any other local magnate. In London he had seen tapestries, fabulous hangings created and set up to demonstrate the stylish elegance of their owner’s way of life, to prove that the man was cultured. Sir Robert had no need of such fripperies and nonsense. He was as cultured as he wanted, and his money was put to better use in providing weapons and men. It was his job to pacify the area, not emulate some fop of a lord with more money than brains.
He had not been born rich, God knew. His journey to wealth had been long, and was by dint of effort and careful manipulation of every opportunity. In his youth he had been the impecunious son of a minor squire, little more than a peasant himself, as he had told anyone who listened. Then, he had only had dreams of money.
The famine had taken away all his father’s money, rot his soul, and when his old man had died, leaving him as the inheri
tor of the estates, there had been next to nothing for him. His demesne was hopeless. What the famine hadn’t devastated, other disasters had destroyed. Some fires, some flooding, and suddenly whole tracts of land were unviable. The vills were poor and their crops pathetic, while fields were ruined, and the likelihood of making a living as he wanted was so remote as to be next to impossible. He could only look at his future with despair.
But then his fortune changed. His uncle had a friend who was to enter the parliament, and who offered the young Robert the opportunity to join him. Robert had agreed with alacrity. That was in the thirteenth year of the king’s reign,* when all was in flux. And young Robert had discovered the attractions of riches and power at the same time. He had been taken into the king’s household.
Then there had been the fall. He had joined those who had sought to curb the king’s power. Not because he was a fool, but because he had thought that Edward’s inherent feebleness was too much of a threat to the realm. He couldn’t fight the Scottish, he couldn’t fight the French – in Christ’s name, he could hardly control his own kingdom! So Sir Robert had joined the malcontents, men like his friend Badlesmere, who were prepared to ally themselves to Earl Thomas of Lancaster, the king’s cousin, the king’s enemy.
It had nearly ended his life. He had been lucky to escape the wholesale slaughter after that disaster, and still more lucky to have got away with his son. Basil had been only fourteen years old or so in the fifteenth year of the king’s reign, and it had been hard for him to come to terms with the loss of everything. As it had for Sir Robert himself.
But those dreadful days were over now. Sir Robert had the trappings of authority once more. If the power he had once wielded was sadly declined, he still had his castle returned to him, and his son had his inheritance. And if they were to obey the commands given to them, they would be able to keep them.
Aye. If they obeyed.
‘Who is this?’ he bellowed as the man was pushed into the room.
‘Says his name is Stephen of Shoreditch, Sir Robert,’ Osbert said. He pushed Stephen further into the room, past the side benches of sitting men-at-arms, who stopped their guzzling and slurping to take a look at him.
‘So, Stephen of Shoreditch, I wonder what you will have for me?’ Sir Robert said musingly. He was a broad-shouldered man, if not so tall as some, and when he stood, the cloth from his tunic hung down smoothly, emphasising the strength of his frame. It was that that had first caught the eye of the king.
‘Messages, Sir Robert. From your good friend Sir Hugh le Despenser,’ Stephen said boldly. He held the gaze of the man in front of him with resolution.
The knight was big, handsome even, with his flashing black eyes and thick dark hair. He was clean shaven, although in need of a razor again; his chin must require a trim twice a day. His eyes, though, they were scary, Stephen remembered. He had seen the man a few times in Westminster at parliaments, and then more often when the king was holding a feast. Sir Robert was one of his loyal guests always. Sir Hugh le Despenser had a worrying habit of staring unblinkingly and unmovingly; it was one of his ways of unsettling a man, Stephen thought. As though whenever he was beginning to lose his temper, it was reflected in his powers of concentration on the poor being right in front of him.
This Sir Robert had a similar way of holding a man’s attention. He would stare fixedly, without blinking, but instead of Despenser’s steady bearing, the rest of his body motionless as if the whole of his being was fixed within that gaze, Sir Robert had a more feral, fearsome quality. He would slowly pace about the room, like a great cat stalking a prey, his eyes all the while on his victim, while his head sank down, his whole demeanour that of a ferocious beast. And all too often, the subject of his attention would later be discovered dead.
‘Where is the message?’
Stephen said nothing, merely opened his little satchel and passed the sealed parchment to the knight. Sir Robert took it, still watching Stephen, and gradually circled around the messenger. ‘Osbert, where did you find him?’
‘He was on the road to Crediton. We found him up there about a mile east.’
‘I see. Good. Follow me, man.’
Sir Robert turned abruptly and strode to the back of the hall. There was a heavy studded door there, and he pushed it open. It squeaked and groaned as he did so, and Stephen winced. He would have wiped some lard or goose grease over the hinges to stop that noise if it had been his own house.
Sir Robert stood in a small solar, and as soon as Stephen had followed him, he pushed the door shut and slid the oak bar across in its slots, locking it. He walked to the farther side of the little chamber, grasping a candle as he went, and used it to light a sconce. In this light, he peered down at the letters, frowning with the effort.
‘Your men murdered a man on the road, Sir Robert,’ Stephen said.
‘Eh?’
‘I said, your men murdered a man.’
Sir Robert glanced up, and there was a frown of anger on his face as he looked the messenger over. ‘Are you so young that you didn’t know men are dying every day?’
‘This man’s death was unnecessary. He deprecated your men’s demands for tolls. Did you know that they stop all travellers to take their money?’
‘Messenger, you overstep your welcome here. Did I know? Yes. I knew. And what is more, I ordered them to take tolls on my roads. Because I am in the fortunate position of being responsible to my lord Hugh Despenser for maintaining the law here. In case you hadn’t noticed, we have problems in the country just now, and I have been charged with keeping the peace.’
‘By robbing people?’
Sir Robert’s eyes seemed to film over with ice. ‘By taxing those who can afford it,’ he said.
There was not a sound for a moment or two.
‘My apologies, Sir Robert,’ Stephen said at last.
‘I suggest you go and refresh yourself. You have travelled far,’ Sir Robert said, and watched unblinking as the messenger left the room.
The fool. He was the sort of man who got himself into trouble over trifles. Who cared about some man killed on the roads? There was the possibility of invasion to worry about now, not peasants and other churls. Sir Robert turned back to the parchment, carefully reading the black writing. Since the disaster of robbing those travellers out near Jacobstowe, he had been wondering how to make a little more money. At least this note seemed to show how he might make a profit again.
At last, when Osbert quietly opened the creaking door, he set the parchment aside. ‘Apparently good Sir Hugh wants to have a monk killed,’ he said with a dry smile. ‘I suppose he will pay us for this little service!’
Fourth Saturday after the Feast of the Archangel Michael*
Road between Crediton and Oakhampton
‘So, Simon,’ the coroner said as they jogged along in the early-morning light. ‘What do you think the good cardinal will want to discuss with you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Simon admitted with a shrug of bafflement. ‘All I can hope is that it takes a short time to resolve. You saw how upset Meg was to hear I was being called away again so soon. I could take my fist and hit the man for what he’s doing to me.’
‘Your family has definitely been made to suffer enormously.’ The coroner nodded. ‘A man like me, no children, no woman, it’s a damn sight easier for me. You, you have responsibilities. Something to think of.’
Simon nodded. It was a fact of life that when a liege lord demanded help, a fellow like Simon was forced to obey. No lord would have women in his household. His wife, his children, all would have their own establishment, and naturally, though the womenfolk would have maids, and ladies-in-waiting if they were of sufficient status, the bulk of their staff would still be men. And all those men must leave their wives and children behind.
‘I will not agree to another long period away from my wife,’ he grumbled. ‘It is too much to ask of a man that he should keep discarding all those he loves the most. I missed the last months o
f my daughter’s life before she married, all because I was dutifully serving the queen, her son and the king. I cannot do more.’
He meant it. In the last months his life had been turned upside down. First there was the problem with his position in Dartmouth, which had soured relations with his wife; then the loss of his job when Abbot Champeaux died; and then the journeys to London and to Paris. He had done enough. Now it was time for him to rebuild his marriage.
‘That is good,’ the coroner said. Then he glanced over at Simon. ‘Did you hear the joke about the one-eyed bishop and the courtesan?’
‘Yes!’
‘Are you sure?’ the coroner asked, hurt. ‘I didn’t think I had told you that one.’
‘Perhaps you told Baldwin and he told me,’ Simon said dishonestly. He had no desire to be forced to listen to one of the coroner’s appalling jokes yet again.
‘Really? What, the one where—’
Simon was saved from hearing any more. ‘What’s going on there?’
They had passed far now from Crediton and Simon’s home, and he looked up at the sun, assessing the time. He thought it must be well into the middle of the morning, which meant it was strange to see so many men milling. He and the coroner exchanged a glance and then put spurs to their mounts.
St Pancras Lane
Edith had enjoyed a good morning. It had been a lovely day so far. The sun was filtering in through the clouds of smoke from the morning fires, and when it kissed her face outside on the way to the baker’s, she could have sworn it was summer again, it felt so welcoming, warm, invigorating. It was what a mother needed while her babe grew in her womb, she told herself, and almost laughed aloud at the thought.
It was a daunting prospect and no doubt about it. There were so many dangers in childbirth. Some of her friends were petrified of the birth, talking themselves into a fever over the possibility of death or miscarriage, but for Edith the risks seemed minor. As she reasoned, so many mothers had given birth with ease over the years, there was no reason to suspect that she would be any different. And anyway, she had good broad hips, and the old woman in the next street had said to her that she could deliver a cog for the king’s navy without pain. Edith only prayed she was right.
No Law in the Land: (Knights Templar 27) Page 13