After some while there were voices in the hall, and she obeyed a call to serve Lady Katharine. Her mistress was accompanied by Jeanne and Margaret, and Petronilla was sent to fetch them wine.
It was later, when she was filling jugs, that she found the boy. Wat lay on his side beneath a barrel, his jug. On his face was fixed a broad smile of sheer delight while he snored softly, the empty pot rolling gently beside him.
At the sight, Petronilla sank down on a stool, her hand resting gently on her belly, and a small smile played at her mouth as she wondered what her child would look like at Wat’s age.
It was then that she heard the low whistle. There at the doorway stood Nicholas, and Petronilla felt her previous good humour dissolve.
‘Maid, I am sorry if I upset you earlier,’ he said. I didn’t realise you’d be offended.‘
‘How would you expect a woman to feel?’
Nicholas gave a self-deprecating simper. ‘It didn’t occur to me that…’
‘That I’d care!’ she hissed.
It was no good. He could see that nothing he could say would alter her feelings towards him. He had tried to soothe her, mainly, it had to be said, so that he could attempt to win her over, for she was very comely. But now he became irritated in his own right. He was here at great risk to himself, and that reflection made him impatient. ‘Well, why don’t we agree on a compromise?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I could give you a penny for the night?’ he asked hopefully, and then ran before the pot could hit his head.
Baldwin was not in the best of moods when the sodden trio arrived back at the manor. He stood a moment in the screens, arms held out at either side, watching the water stream from his sleeves, and gave a sigh of sheer frustration. It was not unknown for the weather to change suddenly for the worse, even in Crediton and Cadbury, but to have got so sodden so quickly was vile.
Rather than attempting to dry his clothing before the fire in the hall, Simon had hurried off to fetch a dry tunic and hose, while the priest went to his chapel for a clean robe. Baldwin copied them, donning a clean linen shirt and tunic – one his wife had made just before their wedding. Glancing at his sword-belt, he buckled it on once more, but his training took over, and he pulled the blade from its scabbard to check its condition before leaving the room. The rain-guard had worked well, the leather disc between hilt and blade preventing water from seeping into the scabbard and rusting the beautiful blue steel. He nodded happily, wiped it with an oiled cloth, and thrust it back in its sheath.
With his hair dried on a towel and combed straight, his new sword a comforting weight on his hip, and wearing a fresh tunic with richly embroidered neck and sleeves, he felt more like a knight again and less like an impoverished peasant.
When he entered the hall, his wife and Margaret were still sitting by the fire with Lady Katharine, all of them plying their needles. Jeanne smiled at him, but as he bent to kiss her, she noticed his thumb. ‘My love, what have you done?’
‘I fell and broke my thumbnail – nothing more.’
Lady Katharine raised her face, bleared and miserable from weeping, but still with that strength of character showing in her piercing grey eyes. ‘You should be more careful, Sir Baldwin,’ she said quietly. ‘The moors are treacherous.’
‘I learned that much today, Lady,’ Baldwin said with an ironic smile.
His wife looked serious. She had lived at Liddinstone, a manor owned by the Abbot of Tavistock, and was only too well aware of how dangerous the moors could be. Her husband was no fool, and could protect himself against outlaws, but that was no guarantee that he would be equally secure against the elements. She was about to say so, when Simon entered. He walked over to Baldwin, a frown distorting his features.
‘Thomas has arrested the farmer.’
Only a few minutes after the two men had hurried out, James van Relenghes and his guard came in.
Godfrey walked to the side of the fireplace and leaned against the wall. To Margaret he was the picture of cool self-possession. His composure was almost unnatural. He glanced at her, gave a brief smile, but then his attention flew to the door as he heard steps. Seeing Petronilla, he appeared to relax; his shoulders dropped and he slouched comfortably, as though, since there was no immediate threat to his master, he could afford to be at rest.
James didn’t notice how wary his servant was on his behalf. Godfrey was being paid: he should be loyal, and that was an end to the matter. The Fleming strolled languidly to the fire, looking at the ladies’ needlework as he passed, and complimenting Lady Katharine on hers, praising the fineness of her stitches, and taking a seat nearby where he could watch her. Unfortunately, his words had the opposite impact to that which he wished. She shuddered and called for her maidservant to fetch wine, rolling up her work and setting it on the floor at her side, composedly resting both hands in her lap, trying to hide the turmoil she felt.
She hadn’t wished to hear the two men in the yard, but it had been almost impossible to miss their shouting match through her open window, and now everything van Relenghes said to her felt wrong, somehow – false. On the face of it, his words had appeared reasonable enough, for he had been a friend of her husband’s, and yet… even that simple fact seemed odd now. Squire Roger had told his stories about fighting in France and Wales so often, Katharine felt she knew most of them by heart, and he had never once spoken of a Sir James van Relenghes. If she had been a young maiden, she might have thought, as Thomas clearly did, that the Fleming was courting her, and yet there was no hint of true affection in his manner, more a calculation.
But there was no point in his attempting to win her. If she had been a wealthy widow, one with lands or an enormous dowry, there could have been logic to it, but as matters stood, surely there was nothing she possessed which he could desire.
She daringly glanced in his direction, and felt her heart lurch as she saw his face light as if with love.
It made her feel physically sick.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Well, what of it?’ Thomas demanded. ‘I am lord of my own manor, you know!’ He was walking up and down in the yard, and with every word he spoke, his fists clenched, as if expecting the knight to try to attack him.
Baldwin was surprised by his truculence but held up a hand soothingly. ‘Thomas, I am not disputing your right. All I asked was, has he confessed to anything?’
‘No, but I have spoken to his neighbours, and they are all agreed that he is an habitual criminal. He’s been suspected of stealing food and chickens before now. He has a common fame in the vill.’
‘It is a large leap from that to murder, surely?’
‘Oh, these villeins stop at nothing. This one in particular is known to be lazy and a drunk – and beats his wife regularly. It could hardly be anybody else.’
Simon avoided Baldwin’s eye as the knight gave an exasperated ‘Pah!’ of contempt. The bailiff knew how his friend felt about such statements. It was a simple fact that members of a village would often find a man guilty if he had been described as ‘common’ or ‘notorious’ in the indictment. If they had the slightest doubt as to the man’s true honesty and integrity, they would convict him because otherwise they would all be held responsible for the supposed thief’s good behaviour; if they had a shred of doubt as to whether he was guilty or not, this threat, of having a massive fine imposed should the man later get arrested for another crime, often made them find their neighbour guilty just so as not to run that risk!
However, instead of exploding, the knight merely said, ‘Did anyone see him return to the village on the afternoon Herbert died?’
Thomas blinked, and for a moment stopped his restless pacing. ‘How should I know? What a question! Who cares whether anyone saw him? He was on the road and killed the boy – that’s all we need to know.’
‘I suggest you ask people in the village whether they recall seeing him, and if they did, what was the state of his hose,’ said Baldwin imperturbably.<
br />
‘His hose?’ Thomas gaped.
‘If he walked up through all those ferns and furze, he’d have got his legs soaked, wouldn’t he? It would be the final proof you need.’
Thomas gave him a cold look. First the damned Fleming, now this man telling him how to run his own affairs! ‘I have all the proof I need.’
‘Then that is fine. But I would suggest you send someone to check. You wouldn’t want the bailiff here to demand that the man be freed just for want of one question, would you? Why not ask at the houses next to his, and at the tavern, in case he dropped in before going home. And then, if you have no objection, I would like to speak to your prisoner.’
Thomas gave his agreement grudgingly and walked to the stables. Shortly afterwards they could hear him bellowing for a groom.
‘I suppose you’ll want to go back up to the moors later when it’s dry?’ Simon asked reluctantly.
‘It would seem the right thing to do,’ Baldwin agreed. He had not yet had a chance to tell his friend about the similarity between the cleric’s footprint and the one up on the track, but he did so now.
Simon was dismissive. ‘It’s probably coincidence. How many men around here have feet the same size?’
In answer, Baldwin set his foot into a patch of dark mud. Grinning, Simon copied him, making his own mark alongside it. The two prints were similar, but there was a significant difference in width. The bailiff shrugged.
‘See? I expect if you check the prints of the Fleming and his guard, not to mention the stablemen and gardeners, steward, Thomas, and others, you’ll find that they’ll all be about the same. That proves nothing.’
‘You are probably right – still, it does suggest that two people might have been up there, and that together they might have been responsible for Herbert’s death. And for the strangest possible reason, one of them was shod with only one shoe.’
‘What I don’t understand is why the prints disappeared,’ Simon mused.
‘Ah, that’s the easiest part to explain,’ Baldwin said. ‘Think about it. Two people walk up that path – they meet the boy, kill him, and drag him to the road; as they walk, the body they are dragging will sweep away all their tracks. What baffles me is where they then disappeared to.’
Simon gave him a serious stare. ‘You really believe the priest killed Herbert?’
‘Not necessarily. Whoever dragged the body back did wipe out Stephen’s prints, but that only tells us that the priest didn’t go down that path after the body had passed by.’
‘And those who dragged it down clearly didn’t go back up the hill,’ Simon agreed. They were standing at the gate, and they passed through and out to the clitter beyond, each selecting a rock on which to sit.
The bailiff narrowed his eyes and gazed along the road northwards, continuing slowly: ‘Why should anyone want to hurry back up the hill? It would only lead them to the moor, and that’d be lunacy. There are miles of moor between here and the next household: surely whoever did kill the boy had reason to do so, and that means it was someone who knew him, not some wandering vagabond.’
‘Absolutely. The killer was someone from the household, or from Throwleigh. A destitute outlaw will sometimes waylay a man for his purse, but would hardly think a five-year-old worth the risk of a rope. Whoever killed Herbert definitely had a motive.’
‘Thomas would say that this farmer, Edmund, had motive enough.’
Baldwin grimaced. ‘Yes, he probably would, but I still think Edmund is the least likely suspect. A drunk is rarely capable of killing and concealing his crime.’
‘I have known alcoholics commit murder, especially when intoxicated,’ Simon pointed out.
‘Of course you have, but what we have here is a careful attempt to conceal the murder, to make it look like an accident – and a drunken man would find it hard to do that. For instance, could the farmer have dragged the body so far without leaving some trace to show he was there? A footprint, a…’ His voice faded as he considered.
Simon picked up a handful of stones and began throwing them at a large black slug at the foot of a rock. ‘I wonder how large Thomas’s feet are.’
‘A good question. Our new squire is the man with the best motive for killing the lad. He wanted the money and estate – he’s never made any bones about that. But I also have to wonder about the length and shape of my Lady’s feet.’
‘Baldwin, for God’s sake! Herbert was Lady Katharine’s only son!’
‘But she blamed him for causing the death of the squire. You didn’t see the hatred on her face at her husband’s graveside.’
‘She’s a woman, in Christ’s name!’
‘Forget chivalry for a moment, Simon, forget courtesy. Lady Katharine is an intelligent woman, one with a long life ahead of her – she can only be some five-and-twenty years old. Any man marrying her would always know that the main part of her dowry would be his only until her son grew to be of age – and any son of his own would be without an inheritance. Tell me, if you were in her shoes, wouldn’t you wonder how much better your future prospects would be, without the burden of a readymade son?’
Simon stared aghast. ‘You’re asking me to believe that she adored her husband, but in the same breath you propose that she killed the only fruit of that union: I say that is unlikely. You suggest that she could not only plan to destroy her own son, but that she could participate in his end: I consider that improbable in the extreme. You then say she might be considering her future with another man, that she is already considering her next husband, yet that would presuppose that a suitable husband would wait for a year so that she could avoid any accusation of infamy for marrying before the end of her period of mourning. That is far too speculative.’
‘Perhaps, but it is possible. Look at the way that the Fleming is trying to insinuate himself into her favour.’
‘You think he is?’ Simon asked doubtfully, then smiled with delight as he hit the slug. It fell from the stone leaving a yellow stain. ‘Even if he were, surely it’s unlikely that she’d countenance his advances. You can’t doubt her feelings about her husband, can you?’
‘No-o,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘No, her misery was all too plain after Roger’s death. And yet van Relenghes appears to think he can win her over.’
‘I reckon it’s more likely that a band of marauding outlaws came past here, murdered the child, went up to the moors and were swallowed up by a mire, than that she could have been involved.’
Baldwin gave a grin at his friend’s exasperated tone. ‘Very well, then, Simon. So we have more to discover about the whole affair.’ He looked up to see Nicholas cantering past on a pony, heading for the Throwleigh road. ‘It seems Thomas has sent to check on Edmund’s hose. Perhaps we should begin by questioning the man whom everyone assumes is guilty.’
When they arrived at the locked door of the small cell beneath the chapel, they found a sulky Wat waiting with Daniel and Thomas. The boy carried a tray of food, Baldwin was relieved to see: at least the farmer wasn’t going to be starved while he awaited his appearance in the manor’s court. The new lord of the manor said nothing, but gave a sharp gesture, and the steward shoved a massive key into the lock. It made a grinding noise as it turned, but then opened, and the men all entered. Baldwin was last, and when Simon turned, he saw the knight speak quietly to Wat before slipping inside.
The knight found himself in a simple cell some twelve feet square. It was not so terrible as some he had seen – his own little gaol in Crediton was worse, a mere hole in the ground – but this was dark and gloomy. The only light came through a grating high in the wall. To Baldwin the sunlight looked as if it had expended all its energy in breaking in, and having achieved that it was so enfeebled it had no ability to warm.
Edmund was seated on a bench in the corner. A toilet bucket had been provided, and from the stench he had already used it. Baldwin winced. Ever since his time in the Knights Templar, when he had spent many months in the Kingdom of Cyprus, he had appreciated cleanli
ness and fresh odours. Edmund was quite obviously terrified; he equated his arrest with his death – and not, as Baldwin thought privately, without good reason. It was evident that Thomas viewed him as the perfect scapegoat.
Baldwin took his seat on an old barrel and studied the farmer. Edmund had lost his previous swagger. Now he sat as one crushed by events too monstrous to defy. Every so often he gave a brief shiver, as if the cold had eaten into his bones, and he refused to look at his visitors.
Thomas swung a riding switch, which caught the farmer on his shoulder. He flinched and drew back as the new squire cried, ‘Tell us what happened, fool, or you’ll get worse than that!’
Simon said curtly, ‘We want to know what happened on the day that Master Herbert died, Edmund. Don’t worry that you’ll get punished if you are innocent. I’ll ensure you’re safe.’
‘Sir, I’ve done nothing – it wasn’t my fault,’ Edmund said, and for that moment his voice was strong and clear, but immediately his tone dropped and he began to snivel. ‘He was dead when I got there. I didn’t do anything that could have hurt him, he was beyond that already.’
‘Tell us what happened.’
Edmund sniffed, his attention apparently fixed on his worn-out boots. ‘I told you I’d been up to Oakhampton, and after I’d sold what I could, I’d gone to the tavern. God only knows, there wasn’t much money, not from the few eggs and chickens I could sell, but I needed something to refresh me. The last few months have been so hard, sir, and what with being told that we were to be evicted, and then that I’m to be servile again… well, I needed a drink.
‘I was there a while, long enough to swallow two quarts of strong ale, before setting off for home. I came down past the Sticklepath, and out onto the moor road, then cut through the woods to the lane where I could turn off to Throwleigh. That was when I saw Master Thomas on the road, and chose to walk this way instead.’
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