Somehow that didn’t ring true. Esmon had seen terror before in his life. He had killed enough men, had seen the wakening shock in their eyes as they saw their fate in Esmon’s face, had seen the intelligence fade from their faces as his sword took their lives, the way that their bodies either slumped quickly, or began their jigging dance as the nerves fought for life, had heard enough death rattles, could recognise fear when he saw it. There was nothing remotely like fear in Osbert’s face when he had confronted Esmon. Only hard, uncompromising hatred.
It was that memory which made him slow in his onward rush. There should have been some misgivings about attacking the son of a knight. It was appalling that a mere churl could think of lifting a weapon against a man like Esmon, and yet this fellow had done just that.
If it had been another man, one of the wandering tinkers who occasionally passed through here, he wouldn’t have been so shocked, because you expected stupid, antisocial behaviour from foreigners, but to see Osbert turn on him was like seeing a favourite mastiff snap at him. It was so incongruous, it was shocking. Osbert was usually so subservient, he could be embarrassing for it was shameful to see such an ox of a man so easily cowed. Something seemed to have made him forget his usual fear of Esmon and his father.
The girl!
Esmon’s twisted into a grimace. Of course, that was the reason! Osbert wanted to get into Flora’s skirts as much as Esmon himself did – no, more, since he was prepared to risk his life by threatening Esmon and attacking him. Esmon wouldn’t endanger his life or his livelihood in order to enjoy a tumble even with so sweet a wench as Flora. No, she was not worth risking a life over.
There was a faint thickening in the air ahead and Esmon felt his belly tighten. He recognised that sight: dust raised by men on the track in front of him. He raised his good hand and peered ahead. Here, he and his men were beneath some great trees, oaks and elms, and he felt secure enough. Those ahead would be unlikely to see his own company’s dust for the tree trunks, whereas he was looking northwards away from the sun, and the mist showed as an opacity against the woods further in the distance. Above the jangling of steel and puffing of the mounts, he was sure that he could discern the slow rumble and squeak of carts coming closer.
He had no need to speak to his men. They all knew how to operate effectively; they’d been on too many chevauchées together not to realise that this was potential spoil. As he made a hand signal, he knew it was redundant. None of them was watching him, they were all slipping to the sides of the path and waiting.
As the first horse appeared, with the bent figure of Saul jogging on the cart, Esmon’s men leaped forward, but they had not reckoned on the panic of the horse pulling Saul. Startled, it reared and jumped up in the traces, slipped sideways and blocked the way. Esmon’s men were ready to thunder off along the lane and capture any other folk behind Saul, but the kicking, bucking pony effectively prevented them, and Esmon could only watch as Alan took one look at him, then sprang from his seat and pelted away up the lane.
‘What is this?’ demanded one of Coroner Roger’s men. ‘Who are you?’
‘Shut up and keep still or you’ll have a quarrel in your guts,’ Brian shouted. True to his word, he had his crossbow ready in his hand. The two men obeyed, sitting without speaking, but showing their contempt for Esmon and his men by refusing to look them in the eyes.
Esmon had to wait, swearing volubly, while Saul tried to calm his beast and stood at last at its head patting it ungently while one of Esmon’s men galloped off after Alan.
‘So, master merchant. I hope you have enjoyed a successful fair at Chagford. I’d be upset if all I won today for this trouble was a few coins and your wineskin.’
‘I don’t have any wine,’ Saul said gloomily, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
‘Perhaps your friends do?’ Esmon said, looking at the two men on horseback who had been with Saul and Alan.
‘These aren’t friends of mine. They’re the Coroner’s men,’ Saul said, and there was an unmistakable leer in his face as he looked up at Esmon. ‘Doubt he’ll be best pleased when he hears you’ve caught two of his men.’
Esmon swallowed his immediate reply. It was tempting to simply draw his sword and sweep off Saul’s head, but that wouldn’t help matters now. He glanced at the two guards. They looked furious, but entirely unworried about their fate. They knew that the servants of a Coroner were safe from the most unruly and wayward of the King’s subjects. Even an outlaw must respect the power of the King’s Coroner, and only the suicidal would harm them.
‘Let’s hope that my man catches your companion then, eh, carter?’ Esmon hissed at Saul. ‘If he does, it would be sad to think of the accidents that could befall a little group like yours, out on the open roads, wouldn’t it?’
Saul looked up at him, suddenly worried. It was clear that Esmon was in a killing mood, and Saul suddenly realised that he and Alan were the only men nearby who could identify Esmon as being responsible for the murder of Wylkyn.
Alan was a friend, and he had escaped from Esmon’s men before now, if he was to be believed. He should be able to make his way to safety. Saul’s only concern was whether Alan would bother to find help to come and rescue him.
‘Well?’ Esmon demanded as the one-man posse returned.
‘He went in among the woods up ahead. I lost him. He got away.’
‘You fool, you toad’s ass! He might get off and find help!’ Esmon spat.
‘Help? Where from?’
Esmon stared at the man and would have spoken, but Saul sniffed once and then responded slowly, ‘From the Coroner, the Stannary Bailiff and the King’s Keeper. They’re all a short ride up from here.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Simon was still thinking of the two carters as he dropped from his horse and slipped in a pile of horse’s muck. He had to catch hold of the cantle of his saddle to stop himself falling, and glared at the other two, who were laughing at his antics.
‘Are we going to hunt for this body or not?’
Baldwin was smiling broadly as he swung his leg over his horse’s broad rump. ‘No. We are going to seek signs that might indicate who could have taken the body.’
‘Most impressive,’ the Coroner grunted. He spurred his horse towards the wall. ‘Except the poor bastard was killed some days ago now. All traces will have been eradicated – if there ever were any!’
‘Yes, well, any that remain might survive another few moments,’ Baldwin said mildly, adding more curtly, ‘provided a clumsy Coroner does not trample them before anyone has an opportunity to seek them out!’
Coroner Roger’s face flushed momentarily, for he was unused to being commanded by others, but he saw the merit in Baldwin’s words and urged his horse a little further away, leaving it tied with Simon and Baldwin’s own.
Baldwin had seen his quick anger, and regretted his words. He had liked the Coroner ever since first meeting him over a year ago, and respected his judgements. Baldwin would have to make some form of compensation later, he decided. For now, he stood with his hands on his hips at the point where the body was supposed to have fallen.
‘We were here only a day ago,’ Simon objected. ‘What will we see now? I thought we were only coming here to show it to the Coroner.’
‘We were, but there is something about this…’ Baldwin broke off, then looked back towards Gidleigh. ‘No signs that way, nor northwards nor west. There is only one more direction.’
He went to the wall which had sheltered the boy Henry while he guarded the corpse, sprang lightly over it, and disappeared.
Simon and the Coroner exchanged a look. ‘I don’t know what he hopes to find either,’ Simon shrugged, but he followed Baldwin while the Coroner stayed with their horses.
Baldwin pushed his way through the undergrowth until he came to a little-used path which could have been made by sheep or deer, but which Simon guessed had been man-made, from the width. Furze and ferns had grown stunted and unhealthy for about a yard, w
hich could mean packhorses also used the track.
They carried on silently down the hill, until they came to a deep depression. There, in the bottom, they saw a dead calf.
‘A lime-pit?’ Simon asked.
‘Yes. A place to throw dead and diseased animals to dispose of them cleanly,’ Baldwin said pensively. He gazed into the hole, then glanced about him. A few tens of yards away was a pile of stones. Baldwin glanced back at the pit, then stared at the ground. He crouched and peered at some leaves and twigs, then rose and walked to the stones. Before he reached it, he bent over and once more gazed down. Then, nodding to himself, he beckoned Simon.
‘What?’ Simon asked.
‘See that?’
All about, the grass was still slightly damp from the dew, but in this area it had dried. As Simon crouched, he saw that the grasses had been bent, as though a weight had been settled upon them. He glanced up at Baldwin, then back to the ground. It was almost as though someone had swept the grass here in a thick swathe – and then bisected it with a second, narrower sweep near the top, making the shape of a crude cross.
‘What do you think of that?’ Baldwin asked with satisfaction.
‘Very impressive. What about the lime-pit? Shall we order it to be emptied?’
Baldwin said nothing, but smiled enigmatically, then made his way back to the Coroner. There he stood on top of the wall, arms on hips, gazing about him. ‘Yes, this is a good spot for an ambush. Plenty of open ground up there, for a small force to use to manoeuvre. They could swing down and take a group of travellers in flank. They would cause mayhem with men unused to war. I can see it now.’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier to spring a trap in the lane?’ Coroner Roger asked. He had joined them and now stood behind Simon, staring at the wall.
‘You have experience of war as well, Coroner. What would be the difficulty in a narrow lane?’
‘Oh, the narrowness, of course. You’d not be able to sweep past them so easily.’
‘That, I think, is the reasoning behind this spot,’ Baldwin said. ‘It offered a better chance of capturing all the travellers. In a lane, some at the rear must inevitably escape, or at least evade pursuit for some while, making the whole exercise more protracted, while here, the entire group could be rounded up in the open like so many sheep. All those who sought to escape would find themselves rushing away from the men attacking them, and what would they find?’
Simon glanced at the Coroner, who stood with a sour expression on his face as he nodded. ‘This damned wall.’
‘Yes, if you look up there in the grass, you’ll find hoofprints, like ten or twelve men at arms in a line, before they turned and charged down the slope. The carters couldn’t turn to the rear because the attackers had hurried around behind them and cut off retreat. They couldn’t go forward because there would be bound to be a man or two there as soon as the trap was sprung, and they couldn’t go up the hill because that’d be the direction the main force was coming at them from. No, the only way they could go was down the hill, and they’d end up here.’
‘As neat a trap as any I have seen.’
Baldwin nodded. ‘And one which speaks of a commander’s ability.’
‘As does the ruthlessness,’ the Coroner commented.
‘Yes. Sir Ralph’s whelp has much to explain.’
‘If it was him,’ the Coroner said.
‘Wylkyn had been a member of Sir Richard Prouse’s household,’ Simon explained. ‘And it seems Wylkyn bolted soon after Sir Richard died.’
Baldwin nodded. ‘Why should this man decide to leave what must have been a comfortable life in order to have a rough existence on the moors?’
The Coroner grunted. ‘He stole something?’
Baldwin shook his head. ‘If Wylkyn was a thief, he would have avoided this area. What on earth would have compelled him to return to the place where he committed his crime?’
‘Don’t expect me to solve a riddle like that,’ the Coroner smiled. ‘I only deal in the facts, and all I know right now is that this man was killed.’
Baldwin told the Coroner about Wylkyn’s store of herbs and potions. ‘Wylkyn aided his master by acting as physician to him. In a room at the castle, there are many plants which could cause death. I think Sir Richard took to his bed because of his gout, but once there, someone poisoned him. Perhaps it was the very medicine he used to reduce the pain in his foot, I don’t know, but I believe that if Sir Ralph and his son thought Wylkyn had willingly poisoned his master, they would seek to punish him. Kill one noble and you threaten all.’
‘Punish him by slaughtering him out here,’ the Coroner muttered. ‘It would make sense.’
‘As would someone else killing Sir Richard with Wylkyn’s potions,’ Baldwin said. ‘The other possibility is that Sir Ralph or his son killed Sir Richard, and Wylkyn got to know about it, and then fled before they could kill him too. They caught him, however, and killed him here to silence him.’
‘Who would have taken away his body, though?’ Simon asked. ‘That’s the thing that confuses me. Execute him, that I can understand – but why not hide the corpse immediately? Why do it later? Most knights like Sir Ralph or Esmon would leave the corpse hanging about as a sign to their enemies or other potential thieves. “Take my property, and this is what’ll happen to you!” is more their kind of approach, I’d have thought.’
‘Like riding down the Bailiff investigating a miner’s murder. Blatant and threatening,’ Baldwin agreed. ‘If we assume that this Wylkyn had done something to upset Sir Ralph, he would have stayed hidden away on the moors, surely. He wouldn’t approach here. Yet if this ambush was conducted because they knew that Wylkyn was here, then…’ He stopped, shaking his head. ‘This tale makes no sense. I must think about it.’
‘There’s one thing that appears consistent,’ Coroner Roger said. ‘There is flagrant robbery on the King’s highways about here. We ought to speak to Sir Ralph and make sure he realises that he’ll have to pay if we learn he was involved.’
Os kissed her once more as they parted, then he walked back to the clearing where he had dropped his axe. He was still sorry that Mary was dead – he’d miss her all his life, probably – but in her place, he had found Flora, and she was all a man could want, as well as adoring him. He would be churlish indeed if he didn’t reciprocate her love.
They had left the clearing and gone to a deserted charcoal-burner’s hut deep in the woods, where they had made their vows, and then they had lain together, sealing their contract in the oldest way possible. Now he knew he would live with her, Os was more than content: he was the happiest man alive.
Which made him more than a little concerned when he thought about how he had spoken to Esmon. It was lucky that Os had been born a freeman. If he wished, he could run away with Flora, take her to a town far from here where they could start afresh. Os was strong and willing to work and there was always a living to be earned by someone like that.
A peasant who bolted could always be chased and brought back, but Os was safe, all because he was born illegitimate. Any illegitimate offspring could have been born to a freeman, which meant that all bastards had to be assumed to be free. Everyone in the vill had a fair guess that Os was actually the son of Sir Ralph, not that the knight would ever admit the fact, so no one ever dared to suggest that he might be a peasant’s son anyway. He was safe from that.
His axe was gone. There was nothing there. He frowned, searching along from the tree where he’d been working to the farthest edge of the clearing, but there was no sign of his axe, only a heavy stirring of the grass where many horses appeared to have trampled.
‘What have you lost?’
‘Ben!’ he burst out, startled. ‘Where did you spring from?’
‘Oh, don’t mind me. What’s gone?’
‘I left an axe here.’ He couldn’t help but feel a more kindly attitude to Ben. He had disliked the boy for a long time, but felt he ought to make the effort to be friendly to him now that he w
as a brother-in-law.
‘Forgot it in your rush, did you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw you with Flora.’
Os reddened. ‘I’m sorry. We were going to…’
Ben sniffed and waved a hand. ‘I don’t want to know the details. I saw you watching one sister in the river, and now you’ve shafted another.’
‘Oh, you won’t lose your sister.’
‘I didn’t mean I would. I meant you would. Do you know who is Flora’s father? No? I didn’t think so!’
‘Huward, of course, your own father.’
Ben smiled maliciously. ‘No. Our father is Sir Ralph of Wonson. The same father as you.’
The small cavalcade rode to the inn and left their horses with the ostler at the gate. Gladly they entered the hall, roaring for ale and wine as they passed under the lintel, but when they reached the fire, the host scurried in looking worried.
‘Master Knight, I’m right sorry to–’
‘Drinks, Host! Excuses later,’ Coroner Roger stated firmly.
‘This man, though,’ the landlord said, wringing his hands.
‘What man?’ Simon said sharply. Glancing about him, he saw no sign of Alan and Saul and suddenly he recalled his anxiety watching them ride away. ‘The two carters, where are they?’
Baldwin gave a most uncharacteristic curse and clenched his fist. ‘By God’s vengeance, if he’s killed them as well, I’ll have Esmon’s head.’
The Mad Monk of Gidleigh Page 34