The weather was cool, but at least for the moment it was dry, and he had on a heavy coat against the wind. This road was a foul one. It followed the line of the river at first, and then began to climb away, up one hill, and through Tavymarie, where the inn stood at the side of the road. At least here there was no need to worry about the dangers of Sir Robert, but even the mere thought of the man was enough to send a shiver down his spine.
He rode on along the valley of the Tavy, his horse’s shoes sinking into the mud regularly. The river had plainly been in flood a little while ago – hardly surprising after this summer’s weather, he thought. All about there was the rushing sound of the fast-moving waters, and he grew lulled by it. Not only that, perhaps. There was the natural feeling of a job done when he had delivered the last message. Now all he need concentrate on was the journey back to London, handing over his final messages, and then home for a rest. Riding so far for so long was exhausting at the best of times, but this had been the worst journey of his life, without doubt. If he never came to Devon again, he would be happy.
The patter of gravel against his leg and his palfrey’s flank made him blink. He had been close to dozing, and the drowsiness was hard to lose, even when his mount jerked his head up and down in anger at such treatment.
‘Messenger?’ a voice said.
Stephen snapped his head around and saw Osbert on his left, a sword already in his hand, kicking his horse forward with grim determination. There was no defence against a man like him on his left, and Stephen drew his own sword as he spurred his beast into a wheel, so that he could meet the attack on his right, but even as he did so, he saw the dark, malevolent form of Basil hurtling towards him from the south. Shooting a look northwards, towards Tavymarie, he saw two more men cantering towards him. It was a most effective ambush – but they hadn’t covered the east!
He hacked with his spurs, and felt the poor creature burst into action. There was a hedge lining much of the road here, but there was a small, narrow gap, which he could take. Whooping at the horse to egg him on, Stephen slapped him hard on the rump with the flat of his sword to encourage him, and bent low over his neck as they sprang through the little gap, not seeing the hempen cord stretched across it.
His horse caught the rope at the mouth, and it tore through the beast’s lips, catching on his teeth and jerking his mouth down to his breast, almost breaking his neck. There was a crack like a small cannon as the rope parted, and one end whipped around, cutting through muscle and tendons on the creature’s left shoulder like a razor and then ripping through Stephen’s thigh.
The pain made them mistime their leap, and instead of the beast’s forefeet landing square, both were angled away. There was a crack as a leg snapped, and suddenly Stephen was hurtling through the air. He had the foresight to drop his sword as he went, just before throwing his arms over his head. He landed in a pool of thick mud, which was at least soft, but winded and stunned, he remained there, panting, for a moment or two before he realised the danger.
‘Oh, Christ in chains!’ he muttered, and tried to stand. His head was sore, but it was the dull-wittedness from shock that slowed him. He could scarcely gather his thoughts as he forced himself to all fours. That was when he grew aware of the laughter.
Looking about him, he saw that his horse was thrashing about on his back, his foreleg flailing uselessly, whinnying in agony. The mud was flying up in all directions as he threw his hoofs about, and Stephen had to push himself away to be safe. And then, as he stared about him, he quickly fumbled in his message pouch. There were two, he knew, that should remain protected. He glanced down to check, and saw that he had the right ones. These he slipped under his shirt. These fools wouldn’t think to look there, he thought. There was no bitterness in his head, only a cold, firm resolve. He would die soon, he knew. His only conviction was that he would try to mark them beforehand.
It wasn’t the horse’s agony that was making the men laugh. It was Basil, who was trying to pick his way through the mud without smothering himself in it. In one hand he held a sword. Fortunately their attention was all on him, and none had seen Stephen’s quick extraction of the messages.
Better to die on his feet, he thought. He tried to stand, even tried to crawl to his own sword, but it was too far away, and his legs would not support him. He turned to face his opponent, pulling at his dagger as he did so, but Basil’s sword was already at his throat.
‘Go on then, you murdering prickle!’ Stephen hissed from clenched teeth. He had to clench them to stop them chattering.
‘We ain’t goin’ to kill you like that,’ Basil said. He leaned down, and suddenly slammed the pommel of his sword into Stephen’s temple. ‘No, you’re dying from an accident, master!’
The messenger was alive still, but his ability to resist was gone. As he was turned over and pressed face first into the mud, he could do nothing at first, and then, as the horror blazed in his mind and hideous pain started to sear his ravaged lungs, he was already too weak to fight back. He tried to kick, to punch, to pinch, anything, but the weight on his head was unrelenting, and his struggles gradually became more staccato as the life fled from him.
Fourth Monday after the Feast of the Archangel Michael*
Furnshill
Baldwin knew something was wrong even as he slept. He was aware of a looming danger, a hideous and overwhelming presence. He dreamed that there was a menacing figure over him, and that although his sword was just to the side of his bed, he couldn’t reach it: he dared not. To move would be to alert the creature to his presence just as surely as calling out. The sweat was running from his body as he lay still, petrified with horror.
And then it was not him. This was not some wraith seeking him. It was looking for younger flesh. Baldwin realised it sought Edith, and with that the spell was broken.
He rolled from the bed, shivering with the chill as the cool morning air caught his damp flesh. The sweat had been no dream, and he was drenched, as was his bedding. At the farther extent of his hearing he could swear that there was a horse riding away, fast.
‘Darling …’ Jeanne mumbled, but he was already pulling a chemise over his head, thrusting his arms into the sleeves and hurrying to the chamber below, where Edith was supposed to be sleeping.
Jeanne was at the top of the stairs. ‘Baldwin?’
‘She is gone. The bed has been slept in, but the bedclothes are already cold to the touch. She must have risen long before dawn.’
‘The foolish child,’ Jeanne groaned. ‘Will she have gone to Simon’s house?’
‘I don’t know. I think I hope so. Better that than that she should have taken the Exeter road,’ he said.
‘At least the Exeter road will be quiet at this time of morning,’ Jeanne said reasonably.
‘Yes. But she will still need to get through the city gates. Ach! I was a cretin to trust her!’
‘Don’t berate yourself, Baldwin. Get yourself dressed, and I will fetch food for you to take. You will need to go to Simon’s before anything else.’
‘She may have gone to Exeter, though,’ he said pensively. ‘I shall have to send Edgar to Simon’s, while I go after her to the city, just in case she is in danger. It will hasten matters if I can see Bishop Walter and petition the sheriff too. Very well!’
Turning, Baldwin went up the stairs as quickly as he could, and began to dress in a hurry.
He would never forgive himself if harm came to that young woman.
Thorverton
Edith had known the roads all about this part of the country from an early age, and she had no fears about finding her way. From the age of eight she had been riding about these lanes with her parents when they visited Sir Baldwin, and often they would continue on from his house to go to the market at Exeter or to see their friend Bishop Walter Stapledon. Just as she had been able to ride to Baldwin’s the previous day, she was confident that she could get home again.
She had wanted only two things: to make sure that her father k
new her plight, and to enlist the help of Baldwin too. There was no need for her to go to her old home at Sandford just now, though. She knew that Baldwin would send a man there. No, it was more crucial that she went to her own home in Exeter to begin to plan how to ensure the escape of her husband from gaol.
Peter was such a sensitive fellow, so mild of nature, so gentle and kind. She was convinced that he would find the experience of gaol absolutely horrific, and the only thought in her mind was how to get him out and free again.
There was a light mist over the ground as she dropped down towards the Exe, and she felt a chill. It had been a bitterly cold night, but then she always did feel the cold. It was so strange to experience that again now, after the last months of sleeping with her husband always at her side to warm her. In Baldwin’s house she had felt dreadfully uncomfortable, but that was only because her husband was not with her. Now she was cold and tired, but that was no surprise. How could she sleep while poor Peter was in Rougemont Castle, suffering from the freezing temperatures, wet, hungry and uncomfortable? It would be unthinkable that she should remain in Baldwin’s bed while Peter was there.
From somewhere there came a clatter, and she stopped to peer behind her. The mist was thicker here, and it was impossible to see anything, but she felt sure that she had heard a hoof striking stones. There shouldn’t be anybody out at this time of the morning, though. The city gates wouldn’t open for ages yet. She was only up this early because she was desperate to be closer to her husband. There was no reason for anyone else to be out on horseback, surely.
She felt a sudden sensation of absolute coldness and wondrous fear. It was hard even to turn back to face the road ahead, she was so nervous of whoever might be behind her, but she stiffened her resolve with the thought of Peter, and urged her horse onwards.
The road here wound about the river most of the way down to the city itself. At the bottom there was the great bridge, which gave on to the west gate. That was where she had intended to cross the river, and there was a little inn at the western edge of the bridge where she had hoped to rest a while before entering the city as the gates opened, but there was a good mile or two before she would come to the bridge, and very few people between here and there. If she was attacked, there was little likelihood that she would be able to call for help with any hope of success. No, better by far that she should hurry herself and make her way to the bridge.
She was about to whip the horse into greater efforts when she heard a voice.
‘Mistress? Are you all right? No one should be about so early in the morning.’
She cast a look back, fretful, but sure that she recognised the voice.
‘Don’t you remember me?’ he asked. He was a lawyerly-looking fellow, she thought. Hardly threatening. He wasn’t a hulking, strong man with arms like tree trunks, rather he was fine boned, from the look of him. Quite slender. He wore a cloak that smothered his shoulders, and a broad-brimmed hat that obscured his features, while a cloth swaddled his throat and mouth against the early-morning chill. He looked the sort of man she could imagine her husband bringing home for wine and food. But there was something.
‘I am sorry, master. You have the better of me. I do not know you.’
‘Of course you do,’ he said with a smile. ‘I know your father. He is Simon Puttock, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, sire. But who are—’
‘Don’t you recall? You met me in his house at Lydford, just a little before I took it from him for my master, Sir Hugh le Despenser,’ William atte Wattere said, grasping her wrist.
His face came into sharp focus suddenly. She remembered entering her father’s hall and seeing this man and Simon coming to blows with their swords. In the horror of the memory, she gasped, and then opened her mouth to scream.
‘If you’ll be a good maid, you may just live to see him again. Misbehave, and you’ll die. Quickly, and without warning.’
Chapter Fifteen
Jacobstowe
Agnes had not rested. Her night had been spent alone with Bill’s body, alternately weeping and praying. She was sure in her mind that she would meet him again, when she went to heaven, but the thought that she must now endure her life without his companionship and lazy grin was so hard to accept.
The idea that he had suddenly been stolen away from her … Her lovely man was dead. His spirit had fled. It was so difficult to understand how God could have allowed it to happen. When the priest came to try to comfort her, she had listened to his empty, foolish words, and had slowly closed the door on him. What could the man say to her, to her who had lost her darling husband? The priest had never known the love of a man for a woman. He had no concept of the bond that two people could feel, especially one that was mortared by the sharing of the creation of a child. He had no idea how love of that sort could elevate a person’s soul. And so he had not even the faintest understanding of the utter loss that the death implied.
As she grew aware of the sunlight filtering through the shutters over her windows, she forced herself to her feet. There was still her work to be done. Mercifully Ant was still. He had slept all through after crying himself to sleep on her lap as she sobbed. It was natural for a child to understand the misery and devastation of such a loss. Entirely natural.
She went outside, pulling the shutters open, then scattered some grain for the chickens, letting them free from the coop, and took some scraps to the pig, before returning to the house and setting about starting the fire.
It was a miserable morning, and the day would grow worse, she knew. But she must do all she could and keep the house running. There was nothing else for it. It was what Bill would have wanted.
‘Mistress?’
She was feeding Ant when the knock came, and soon Hoppon was in the room with her, his cap in his hand, while other faces she recognised peered at her from outside. Why did all these churls live, when God had taken her own precious darling?
‘You’ll be needing someone to take Bill up to the church, we reckoned. You want for us to help?’
She looked at him with fleeting incomprehension. There seemed no reason to take Bill anywhere, and then her mind allowed her to recall that he was dead. Anger flooded her, anger at God, at Hoppon, at the world – but most of all, anger at her husband. How could he dare to die and leave her and Ant all alone? How dare he!
‘Yes.’ She rose, shivering, and suddenly felt as though she must fall down. Her legs seemed as insubstantial as feathers. ‘Yes, please help me,’ she said, in a voice bereft of all but misery.
Sourton Down
Up at the edge of the moors, Simon felt more cheerful. It was always good to be here on the high ground, looking down on God’s own country. West he could see Cornwall, with Bodmin gleaming in a burst of sunshine, while northwards was the lowering mass of Exmoor.
‘So what’ll you do, then?’ Sir Richard asked as they breasted the hill’s western flank and could stare ahead towards Meldon and Oakhampton.
‘I think I have little option. I’ll ride on to where the bodies were all found, up near Jacobstowe, and then see if I can learn anything about the men who died. With that sort of money involved, somebody must have seen or heard something. If a small gang of felons took it all, they’ll have been celebrating ever since.’
‘True enough. There never was an outlaw born who had the sense of a child,’ Sir Richard said. ‘A man would have thought that most of them would realise that sprinkling coins about the wenches in a tavern, when all their lives they’ve been as wealthy as a churl on alms, would make a few people suspicious. But they never do.’
‘Are you riding straight back to Lifton?’ Simon asked. He felt a slight trepidation. The idea of spending too much time with the coroner was alarming, because the man was undoubtedly one of the very worst he had ever met when it came to giving him sickly hangovers. On the other hand, he was a loyal, amiable character with a shrewd mind, when it was free of thoughts of wine, women and food.
‘I was thinking about
that. I wouldn’t want to leave you all alone. Performing an inquest on a matter such as this is hazardous, my friend. And you are all alone.’
‘I am here!’ protested the man behind them.
This was the clerk whom Cardinal de Fargis had commanded to join Simon in order to record all he learned. Brother Mark was a skinny little fellow, but he had the humorous face of an imp. He reminded Simon of some of the figures that adorned the church at Lydford. But he did not merit consideration as protection against a man such as the one who could beat a reeve to death, let alone a gang that could kill a band of nineteen travellers.
‘Yes. I would be glad of someone to help defend me,’ Simon admitted.
‘What of me?’ Brother Mark asked plaintively.
Sir Richard sniffed. ‘I suppose it is fair to say that since this money was the king’s, and was deposited with his officers, it is reasonable to suppose that I would be failing in my duties to him were I not to aid you in this inquest.’
‘I can do that!’ Mark stated with vigour.
Simon agreed. ‘It is plainly the king’s service. It would be to his advantage were you to help me in this matter.’
Sir Richard nodded, looked westwards reflectively, and then threw a glance at the clerk behind them. ‘What? No comments? No arguing? No protestations of your ability to help us?’
Mark gave him a look of contemptuous disgust. ‘I see no further reason to waste my breath.’
‘Good. Perhaps the rest of our journey will be all the more peaceful,’ Sir Richard said with a chuckle. ‘In the meantime, we should hurry ourselves if we are to make our way to a house in time for dark. Simon, you know this area better than me, I am sure. Which is our best direction?’
Simon pointed. ‘Straight up to Oakhampton, thence to Abbeyford. If there is anything to be learned, it will be up there.’
Their journey took them a little past the middle of the morning. Before noon they were already ambling along the roadway through the woods.
No Law in the Land: (Knights Templar 27) Page 18