by E. M. Powell
Barling clicked his tongue in impatience. ‘Stanton, go to the door. If anyone dares to try to enter, tell them they will have to face me too.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Stanton did as ordered, still with a close eye on Lindley.
Barling addressed Lindley once more. ‘I ask again, where is your home?’
‘Far from here. It is my home no more. It matters not. All that matters is that I did not kill Geoffrey Smith.’
‘Liar.’ Edgar ground out the word and took a step towards him, fist raised.
Lindley cowered from him with a cry.
Another thud on the wall. Another yell.
‘Uncle!’ Osmond cracked open the door and Edgar halted.
The ugly sounds spilled in of people baying for Lindley’s hanging, filling the small gaol and sending the prisoner into spasms of wordless terror.
This was intolerable. Barling turned. ‘Stanton.’
To his relief, the young messenger stood steady in the gap. ‘Hold, sir priest. You can’t come in.’
‘What is it, William?’ called Edgar.
‘Uncle, I can’t persuade people to stay back much longer,’ came the rector’s panicked reply. ‘They may take the law into their own hands at any moment.’
‘Sir.’ Stanton looked over his shoulder at Barling. ‘I fear that’s the case.’
‘They have no need to enter,’ replied Barling. Edgar had blabbed on about the good order in which he kept this sorry place. Nothing could be further from the truth. ‘For we are coming out. With Lindley. Tell them.’
As Stanton did so, Lindley cowered afresh, his cries buried under Edgar’s roar and those which came from outside.
‘About time!’ He went to grab Lindley, a huge grin on his face.
‘Stop, Edgar.’ Barling addressed Stanton once more. ‘You take him.’
Edgar swore loudly, shoving Lindley into Stanton’s grasp.
Barling’s gaze flicked over both younger men. He did not have much faith in Stanton’s physical prowess. But he had no choice. He walked to the door and gestured for Edgar to step out before him. ‘You first, Sir Reginald.’ Then he turned to Stanton with his prisoner. ‘Proceed when I tell you.’
Stanton nodded, knuckles white with his grip on Lindley’s clothing.
The uproar into which Barling stepped had his lips clamp in displeasure.
Angry faces, pointing fingers, fists and sticks waving. All towards the gaol and the man still within it.
Edgar appeared to pay his people no heed as he watched for Lindley, his nephew Osmond in similar thrall.
‘Silence!’ Barling raised his own voice in a shout, a vulgar action for which he had the most intense dislike, though he could do it with skill. ‘Silence!’
The response was immediate, as he knew it would be. Real authority had its own tone.
‘My name is Aelred Barling. I am here on the orders of the court of the King, so thereby on the orders of the King. The outlaw Nicholas Lindley is in my custody.’
‘God rot him!’ came a peasant’s curse.
Barling met the man’s eye as his wife shushed him, then continued. ‘Lindley is therefore in the custody of the King.’
‘And the King can hang him just as well.’ Edgar’s mutter of delight to his nephew drew others.
‘Stanton.’ Barling used the fresh interruption to look in at his messenger. ‘Bring Lindley out.’
The two men emerged to howls of rage.
‘Hang him!’
‘Now! We’ve waited long enough!’
And more. The clamour was not for the purity of justice. It was for the ugliness of vengeance.
Barling kept his counsel, kept his own countenance composed as he waited for silence again. He wanted all to hear what he had to say. The yells died away under his gaze. ‘As I have said, Lindley is in the custody of his Grace.’
Edgar nodding. Grinning.
‘For now, that is all you need to know.’ Barling was pleased to note that Edgar had stopped nodding. ‘Now, Sir Reginald, I would request that you lead us and our charge to Geoffrey Smith’s forge. With all haste, if you please.’ Even better, the lord had stopped grinning too. Best of all, he was stunned into complete silence.
Barling preferred him that way.
Chapter Nine
Clouds of dust rose up from the dry road under the many pairs of boots and shoes, making Stanton cough and his eyes water. But he didn’t dare use a hand to wipe them. He held Lindley tight in his grasp, his own pulse fast in readiness for action. He knew what the outlaw was capable of. Knew too that the man might break from him, leave him standing like a ninny on the roadway to the forge with a handful of clothing, while it fell to Edgar or one of the angry villagers to contain him. And contain him they would. Or worse.
‘You’ll burn in hell!’ An older woman, grey hair escaping from her coif in her efforts to keep up with the crowd.
‘Hang him, I say!’ A squat man’s eyes almost left his head in rage.
‘Yes, hang him now.’ The younger, wiry ploughman, who walked close alongside, but with half a wary eye on Barling ahead.
The clerk’s pace matched Edgar’s hard, quick steps, the lord’s pace telling of his fury, as did the deep red of the back of his square neck. Osmond scurried along with them, casting many anxious looks back over his shoulder.
‘Hell!’ The old woman screamed right in Lindley’s face, causing the man to stagger.
‘Steady.’ Stanton didn’t know if he said it to himself or his prisoner as he shoved his own shoulder under the man’s arm.
‘God help me.’ The outlaw’s eyes glazed as he stumbled on in terror, Stanton taking much of his weight now. ‘God help me.’
No wonder. Being mobbed by folk shouting for his neck in a noose. Stanton pushed that thought away. Take a hold of yourself. Geoffrey Smith’s death had been horrific. It needed to be punished.
Yet what Barling was up to with this grim parade to the forge, he’d no idea and didn’t want to know. Being sent to serve Barling here had been the worst luck. Stanton cursed himself for it, as he had many times on the long journey to this place. Had he reached the court just a few minutes earlier, Nesbitt would have been here and not him.
‘Let me through!’
A high-pitched scream above the many voices. A woman’s scream.
‘Let me at him!’
A scuffle came from the crowd to Stanton’s right.
‘Agnes, no!’ A man’s ragged shout.
Barling and the others in front halted, turned round at the commotion.
The crowd parted and a dark-haired young woman burst through. ‘You bastard! I’ll kill you myself.’ She leapt at Lindley, kicking, hitting, clawing at his face and eyes.
‘Leave him.’ Stanton let go of Lindley with one hand to try to fend her off as the outlaw ducked his head, his forearm raised against the attack.
‘My love, stop.’ A hugely fat man was with her now, breathless in his useless efforts to pull her back.
‘Kill you!’ Her nails rent Lindley’s cheek.
‘What is going on?’ Edgar’s roar echoed out, Barling’s pale face set in fury at the edge of Stanton’s vision as he tried to wrest his prisoner free in a new chorus of yells.
The girl threw a punch at Lindley’s face, half on target, her fist glancing off and catching Stanton on the side of the head in a ringing blow.
‘Agnes. No.’ The ploughman put large, sinewy hands on her shoulders and hauled her off.
‘Let go of me, Simon.’ She twisted in his hold, but he held her firm.
‘Agnes Smith! Desist!’ Edgar stomped towards Stanton, Barling with him.
‘Not till I see Lindley in his grave.’ She tried without success to break free from the ploughman’s strong grasp, even as the obese man wheezed an anguished plea at her again.
‘My. Love. Stop.’
Stanton dragged Lindley back from her reach.
‘What on earth is going on here?’ Somehow Barling’s sharp question cut through the
melee and brought a bit of order.
‘This . . . this malapert is Geoffrey Smith’s daughter,’ said Edgar.
‘I see. Perhaps you would explain your conduct, miss.’ Barling’s look carried a cartload of disapproval. Stanton knew it well.
Yet Agnes Smith didn’t flinch. ‘No explanation, sir.’ Still in the ploughman’s hold, her breath fast, she tossed her head to get the long, dark curls of her loose, uncovered hair off her face. ‘This outlaw killed my father.’ Head high, she kept her light brown gaze fixed on Barling. ‘He must pay. I’ll do it if no one else will.’
Stanton didn’t doubt she would. Her voice had a venom in it that could melt a rock. What was more, she was a strapping woman, almost as tall as him. His head still smarted from her punch, indirect as it had been.
‘My love, please.’ The fat man again.
‘Theaker.’ Edgar addressed him. ‘Have you no control over your betrothed?’
‘Of course, my lord.’ The obese Theaker wrung his hands. ‘She’s just upset, that’s all. Isn’t that right, Agnes?’
She gave him a withering look. ‘I’m not upset.’ Her square jaw set. ‘I want Nicholas Lindley to pay for what he did.’
Secure in Stanton’s hold again, Lindley shook his head in silence, slow beads of blood seeping from his rent cheek.
‘I would not in the usual circumstance repeat myself,’ said Barling. ‘But in acknowledgement of the death of your father, Agnes, I will do so this once. Lindley is in my custody and so therefore that of the King. If you do not agree to progress in peace, then you will be facing charges also. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
The wiry young ploughman, who held her, muttered something into her ear.
‘Sir,’ she added through gritted teeth.
‘Good,’ said Barling.
‘You can let go of me.’ Agnes pried herself from the ploughman’s hold.
‘All will be well, my love.’ Theaker, her betrothed, lunged to grab her in a clumsy embrace, yet she shook him off without a glance.
Barling went on. ‘Now, there has been enough delay. I need to continue to the forge. Stanton, with me.’ He set off, not bothering to ask anyone else to follow him, yet all present did, as if he’d issued an order.
‘Come on.’ Stanton urged the unsteady Lindley forward the best he could. No doubt the outlaw dreaded seeing again the place where he’d taken Geoffrey Smith’s life.
Truth be told, Stanton was dreading it too.
Chapter Ten
For Stanton, entering his uncle’s forge had meant many things.
Security, for one. His uncle, quiet like his late father, and with equally as kind a heart. Shoulders like a cross-beam and no time for fools or those who wanted to try their luck. Boredom, too. Put stoking the fire, Stanton as a small boy would whine that it was too hot. Put sweeping straw, he would sigh that it was too windy. Put standing and watching his uncle’s sure strikes at the anvil, he would sway in long complaint that his legs were tired. Then one day: excitement. The day a horse came into the forge. Not just any horse. An animal utterly unlike the big, tired plough horses or placid rouncys. It was the finest palfrey, bursting with muscle, power and spirit. And speed. Oh, the speed. The rider who’d brought it in was a messenger, so impatient to be off and gone. And once the shoe was on, he took off at a gallop. Stanton had watched him go down the road and could only marvel that anything moved that fast. From that moment he knew he’d ride like that one day. He’d told his uncle, who’d simply nodded with his quiet smile in the warmth and orange light of the forge.
Now, entering a forge meant looking at death.
‘Close the doors,’ said Barling. ‘I wish for privacy.’
Stanton stood with Lindley still firm in his grasp, as Edgar, the one other person Barling had allowed in here, swung the high doors shut.
Dead, cold ashes in the grate. The anvil, silent on its high mount, never to ring out from Geoffrey Smith’s strike again. A stained floor splashed with what would have been an unspeakable red, now a terrible decaying brown, with bloated flies buzzing on, above and around it. The heavy stench could be that of a slaughterhouse, yet it was a man, not a beast, who’d died here.
Outside, the calls had started again for Lindley’s hanging, headed by Agnes Smith, with the rector, Osmond, trying without much success to start a prayer.
Edgar jabbed a finger at Lindley. ‘You see what this monster has done, Barling?’
Lindley gave a low moan, a sudden weight in Stanton’s hands.
‘I can see what has been left behind.’ Barling’s gaze moved over the scene as he took measured, slow steps.
Edgar snorted. ‘Same thing.’
‘Lindley’s losing his sense, sir.’ Stanton’s arms strained to keep him on his feet, but the man was becoming a dead weight.
Barling looked over and tutted. ‘Put him on the ground, then. At least for now. He will need to be revived.’
‘Yes, sir.’ As Stanton lowered Lindley, Edgar moved in with a booted kick to the man’s stomach, so hard it sent him sprawling down on the hammered-earth floor.
Stanton recovered his own balance to Edgar’s grin.
‘That’ll revive him,’ said the lord.
‘Edgar.’ No ‘Sir Reginald’; Barling was clearly livid. ‘This’ – he gestured to the coughing, retching Lindley, who was trying to claw his way out of the reach of Edgar’s boot – ‘is unhelpful and distracting. No more.’ He nodded to Stanton, who moved to stand between Edgar and the cowering Lindley on the floor.
‘I didn’t do it.’ Lindley’s pleas came through more coughs. ‘I swear, I swear. You must believe me.’
Stanton folded his arms, refused to look down as Edgar moved his shoulders inside his own cloak as if preparing for a fist fight.
Trouble was, Lindley’s pleading sounded real. Just as three months ago Stanton had gone to visit an innocent man who faced the noose. The King had ordered it so. But Stanton had spoken up that day. Saved a life. He put the memory aside. No. He wouldn’t become involved. The King’s justice would do its own work. And yet. The pleas of the men in York who’d gone on to face the ordeal echoed in his head, along with Lindley’s voice. And one of those had been innocent. He shook his head to himself. No.
‘Listen to the scum.’ Edgar flung a hand out in disgust, then bent with a grunt of effort to the floor. ‘This is what he says he didn’t do.’ Edgar straightened up, holding a long-handled branding iron.
Stanton blinked in a vain attempt to banish the sight. The head of the thing was in the shape of a letter – he didn’t know which. But caught in the sharp angles of the metal, angles which should have been clean and smooth the better to make a clear brand, was a foul oozing clump. A clump that held a tuft of dark hair.
Barling barely gave it a glance, now peering into the shadowed corners. ‘It was indeed a vicious attack on Geoffrey Smith. It is still the case that no one saw what took place here.’
‘No, no one saw the deed,’ said Edgar. ‘But think of his poor daughter. You should have heard her piteous cries when she found him.’
From outside came Agnes’s continued shouts. ‘String him from a tree. Now!’
‘Hardly piteous.’ Barling raised his eyebrows.
‘But correct,’ said Edgar. ‘The sooner the better. Eh, Barling?’
Barling ignored the lord, moving instead to look at the tools hanging from the walls.
‘Anybody with half an eye can see what has gone on here.’ Edgar looked at Stanton, pointed at his bruised eye. ‘Even you, man.’ He laughed at his own weak joke, Barling still not responding.
Trouble was, Stanton could see. See that something wasn’t right. Same as the day an innocent man, a knight called Sir Benedict Palmer, was about to be hanged. The day Stanton picked up on a detail. A small, small detail. He’d spoken up, even when the King believed the accused man’s guilt looked complete; even when Stanton knew it could have terrible consequences for himself.
‘I have see
n all I need to here.’ Barling moved to the door. ‘Stanton, bring Lindley outside again. I need to address my remarks to everyone present.’
‘Finally,’ said Edgar, following him. ‘We can leave this putrid place.’
But Stanton didn’t budge, instead blurted out, ‘Sir Reginald, how tall was Geoffrey Smith?’
Chapter Eleven
Stanton braced himself as Barling stopped dead and glared at him.
‘I beg your pardon, Stanton?’ The clerk’s tone was one of utter disbelief.
No going back now. ‘How tall was he, Sir Reginald?’ repeated Stanton.
Edgar had a ready scowl. ‘He was tall.’ He waved a hand three inches above his head. ‘Broad. What of it?’
He’d been right. The height of the anvil on its mount. Agnes, the smith’s daughter, tall too. ‘Then how could this man here overpower him?’ Stanton winced inside at the thunderstruck look on Barling’s face but ploughed on. ‘Lindley here’ – he gestured to where the outlaw cowered on the floor – ‘is the height and build of regular men. Surely it wasn’t possible for him to overpower Smith. Maybe Lindley speaks the truth.’ He swallowed again as his heart hammered at the sight of the two faces before him.
Edgar had gone puce. ‘Barling, have you no control over your man’s tongue?’
‘Of course I have.’ Barling remained pale as ever, but his look worried Stanton far more than the blunt-nosed Edgar’s.
‘Good! Then we need to get on with this pressing matter.’ Edgar marched to the doors and hauled them open.
Golden evening light flooded in, along with the sound of angry voices, scattering the cloud of feasting flies.
Barling went to go out too. ‘Pick Lindley up,’ he ordered Stanton. ‘Bring him out.’ He took a quick glance at Edgar, who was busy shouting to his nephew. ‘And, Stanton?’ Barling’s eye fixed back on him.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Mark my words: I will deal with you later. Do you hear me?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He doubted if Barling had even heard, as the clerk was now on his way out of the doors. ‘Come on.’ He hauled the quaking Lindley to his feet and marched him out, cursing himself for a fool. He’d only added to his troubles with Barling. He should’ve kept his mouth shut.