‘The best thing after a knock like the one you took is plenty of rest. Have some wine, then sleep.’
‘But where am I?’
‘You’re safe. And being well looked after.’
‘My leg,’ he remembered. He tried to get up to look at it, but the shooting pain that slashed through his skull at the movement made him want to heave. He sank back on to the sheets.
‘You’re fine. The leg’s still there, although it took a grievous cut. Don’t worry, friend. You’ve made your name today.’
Yes. Of course I have, Odo thought to himself cynically. There must have been thirty or forty men on that drawbridge, and he was sure that he’d heard the gates slam even as he sank down on to his face. ‘The castle wasn’t won?’
‘No. Now go to sleep.’
The next thing he remembered was being dressed in a new tunic, and Hugh de Courtenay and Sir John Sully being there to help him on with his sword. His leg hurt like the devil, but he was all right apart from that. If he turned too quickly, he would feel dizzy, but that would pass, he knew. He’d been thumped about the head often enough when he was a child and learning his fighting techniques, and he recognised this wound as one of those unpleasant ones that would leave him feeling tired and wanting to throw up if he wasn’t careful.
Not today, though, he had vowed. Because today he was being taken to see the master of the fourth squadron, the team he had served with. And the youth who was in charge was waiting for him.
Only seventeen he was, but you could tell he was a prince from his courtly disposition. He was polite, handsome, and a strong fighter. Even as Odo stumbled towards him, the future king drew his sword and held it aloft, while trumpets blew and the men all cheered. Odo the squire walked to Prince Edward, but Sir Odo left him.
It had been a great day, and although Odo felt much the older man, he had been impressed with Prince Edward’s calm and unassuming nature. He and his companions had been bold enough; certainly none of them seemed wary of fighting, or fearful at the clamour of battle.
Which was why Odo clung to that memory. It was good to recall the prince the way he had been.
He rode eastwards, and then north, crossing the ford under Crokers’s place. He’d heard of the attack there, but there was no sense in approaching it now, just in case Sir Geoffrey had put in a force to guard it. It could be hazardous to go unprotected to a place like that.
Instead, he left the track and took his horse up the hill to the old road, which, muddy, stone-filled, with tall hedges on either side and a thick wood on his right giving glimpses of fields between the trunks, was pleasant enough. It was this land that the Despensers wanted, from what Odo had heard. They wanted to take all the manors owned by John Sully on the east of the river, making their own holdings that much more extensive.
It was always the way: when a man of ambition grew rich, his first inclination was to increase his wealth. Odo couldn’t understand it. Hugh Despenser was fabulously rich. Odo had heard men speculate on his worth, and the general view was that he was the richest man in the country after the king himself. A terrible man, avaricious and ruthless. He would take men and torture them for sport, or to make them sign away their inheritances. Not only men, either. It seemed strange that the prince Odo had met all those years before could have grown into a man who tolerated advisers like Despenser.
There were the other rumours, of course. That the king was infatuated with his friend; that his friend had supplanted the queen in the king’s affections, that he was the king’s lover. It was possible. Odo had no opinion. He did not care particularly.
A twinge of pain in his thigh made him frown, and he massaged his old wound with his fist. It always played up during the winter. Warmer weather was needed, rather than this bleak coldness.
Sir Geoffrey, Despenser’s tool, was not difficult to deal with. Not if you knew his mind and understood what he looked for. He was no fool, and he wouldn’t risk upsetting people for no reason. No, that wasn’t his way. He’d be much more likely to wait until he had his master’s instructions, and then he’d obey them to the letter – provided it didn’t put him in any danger. And what danger could there be for a man who was in the pay of the king’s best friend? None. So if Sir Geoffrey thought he was acting on the advice of his master, he would do anything.
Odo did not need to guess at Despenser’s ambition. He and Sir Geoffrey had discussed it often enough in the past. Being neighbours, and having known each other before that for several years, they were realistic about whom they should trust. Yes, both had their loyalties to their masters, but they were in a unique position here, far from their lords. They had a duty to try to get along.
Sir Geoffrey was entirely his master’s man. He had joined Earl Despenser’s entourage many years before, when the earl was still a lowly knight. Odo for his part was devoted to Sir John Sully. Although the two stewards could have been at loggerheads, they had avoided disputes, and recently had even joined in small ventures together. Sir Geoffrey could trust Sir Odo – he was different from most neighbours, simply by virtue of the fact that he had been knighted personally by the present king on the field of battle. Sir Geoffrey knew that he must be more inclined to assist the Despensers, because they were King Edward’s most devoted friends. Helping them meant helping the king. That was what Sir Geoffrey had said to him once, and Sir Odo had not seen fit to deny it. In these troubled times it was safer for a man to keep his own counsel.
Which was why Odo was surprised that Sir Geoffrey was making difficulties about this parcel of land. They had discussed it when Geoffrey took the old manor from Ailward, but Odo thought he had persuaded Geoffrey that this piece was truly Odo’s. Ailward’s estate had been carved into two, and Odo had only taken a small part. Just enough to protect the ford. That way, hopefully, very few people would be hurt.
Still, if Geoffrey wanted to launch an attack, Odo had no objection. He would relish a little action; he was bored with idly sitting by. It had been a long time since he had known a dispute like this, and he was looking forward to it with an especial excitement. With any luck, once the land was gone and the dispute ended, Sir John would release Odo from Fishleigh, and he could go and rest in his own home.
Isabel was worried about little Malkin. She might be old enough already to be widowed, but she seemed a child to Isabel still. Since Ailward’s death, she spent too long just sitting and staring into the distance without speaking for long periods, her expression bereft.
‘Mary? Mary?’ Isabel sighed. ‘Malkin, please …’
Mary seemed to come to with reluctance. ‘Mother?’
It was what, eighteen months since this young woman had become her daughter-in-law? And until Ailward’s death Isabel had only ever seen her as happy, excited and enthusiastic. To see her green eyes grown so cold and empty was torture. Nothing could rouse her. Since she had lost her husband, she had lost all her love for life.
Isabel held her arms wide, and Malkin stood and crossed the floor, walking into her embrace.
It was impossible for Isabel to find the words to explain her own devastation in the face of such tragic despair. For Isabel this was merely the latest in a series of losses. Her life for the last ten years seemed to have been one of continual mourning. Well, she would not sit and wail again, no matter how much she missed her son. She was the daughter of a squire, the wife of another, and mother of a sergeant. She was proud.
Malkin had lost no one before, though, and she wept freely on Isabel’s shoulder. The girl felt so frail and soft to the older woman, it surprised her that she had been able to conceive her child. There was no strength to her, not like the women of Isabel’s age who were so used to death and trying to survive in the worst of conditions.
‘I must seem pathetic!’ Malkin murmured. ‘I am so sorry, Mother. But I miss him so – and I don’t know how I can live without him …’
‘Child, you know nothing of the world, do you? You are young. Yes, it is right to grieve for your man, but w
hen you are as old as me you will realise that there are always fresh losses. All you can do is weather each storm that comes, and try to protect those who still matter.’
She looked down at Malkin’s head approvingly. The chit was soft, but she had adored Isabel’s son, and that was enough to endear her to Isabel.
Malkin nodded and sat up, her head averted as though she was ashamed of her outburst. She stood and returned to her stool, picking up her wool and taking a deep, shuddering breath before counting each stitch on her knitting needle.
She was beautiful – there could be no doubt of that. Her blue-black hair was iridescent as a raven’s wing, and her face was delightfully shaped: a broad, white brow that curved down to a pointed little chin. With green eyes slanted down at the sides, and full lips, even now in the depths of her misery she was a delight to the eye. It was no surprise that she’d stolen Ailward’s heart. More surprising was that she’d been prepared to accept his advances.
Isabel was no fool; nor was she prepared to attribute characteristics even to her own son that were better than he possessed. Ailward was a bullying, covetous fool, who could, maybe, have made a good sergeant given time, but had died first. Not that his foolishness affected Malkin’s opinion of him, apparently. She seemed to have genuinely adored him. There had never been any tears about the place while he lived, and she had always been doting. Perhaps it was true, the old idea that love blinded a young wench to her man’s true character. If blindness were ever needed, it was in the lover of Isabel’s son.
She sighed. Already an old woman at four and fifty, she was lonely, and unlike the widow in front of her had little chance of ever winning another man.
‘Sad, Mother?’ Malkin asked softly.
It would have been easy to snap at her. What did she have to be sad about? No father, no husband, no son … not many even in the last decade had been forced to contend with so much despair. Isabel felt her eyes sting, but she blinked the tears away before they could form. ‘No, child. I was just remembering. There’s no need for sadness, not when the good Lord is protecting us at all times. My son is gone to a better place.’
‘Of course.’
The arrival of the steward prevented further discussion. Isabel held out her mazer for a refill of wine, and she watched as Pagan filled it to the brim.
He was a good old servant, Pagan. It was one of the old Devonshire names. Nowadays all the young men of quality seemed to have the same ones, even in the same family. Isabel knew one in which the oldest boy was called Guy, the following four sons were all called John, and the last two were both William. She knew why it happened – any parent wanted a godparent to be as committed to his offspring as possible, and so named the children after favoured friends. But if a favoured friend became godparent to more than one of the children, it could lead to embarrassing and confusing multiple naming in the family. Isabel was glad that she had only ever had to worry about the one boy. Much easier that way!
Pagan filled Malkin’s cup and then set the jug between the two women before leaving the room. He stood at the door, as usual, eyeing both of them, his eyes going about the room: checking the fire was warm enough, that the shutters were pulled shut against the cold evening air, that the dogs were settled out of the way so that they couldn’t upset the women. Only when he was satisfied that they were as comfortable as they could be did he quietly draw the heavy curtain over the doorway and retreat to his pantry to clear away the rubbish.
He was one man who could always be relied upon, Isabel thought. There were so many who were unreliable. Men who would steal the rings from a widow’s fingers, who would demand money before performing their services, who would eye her with a lascivious tenderness, hoping to receive a better payment in kind for their efforts, or simply pocket a portion of the manor’s wealth and fly the place, never to return.
Pagan was not like them. A little younger than Isabel, his family had served Isabel’s dead husband’s for many years going back into the dim and distant past. The fact that Pagan was still here was a measure of his commitment to them, and a proof of his honour, although he was only a common peasant in truth. At the same time, knights who called themselves honourable were stealing manors from defenceless widows like her.
She gazed into the flames, lost in thought.
‘Mother? Are you well?’
Malkin’s soft voice drew her back to the present. ‘Yes! Of course I am,’ she snapped without thinking, and then regretted her harshness. ‘I am sorry, Malkin. It’s just …’ She waved her hands feebly. ‘I don’t know how to say it.’
‘I know,’ Malkin said. Tears appeared in her eyes again. ‘I can’t think how to face life without my man.’
‘That is easy,’ Isabel said sternly. ‘You survive. I have lost three men now. My father, like my husband’s, killed by the Scots in Ireland, Robert himself in that treacherous attack at Bridgnorth, and now my son. My beloved son …’
‘I loved him so much,’ Malkin said.
‘I know you did, little sweeting.’
‘It seems so hard to imagine that he’s gone.’
‘The thing to concentrate on for now is my grandson. You have to look after him, child. It is he who matters, who has to be protected. No one else.’
Chapter Six
Sir Baldwin de Furnshill stood in the cool morning air wearing only a thin linen shirt and a fine tunic of flaming crimson, and drew his sword as he faced the rising sun on the grassy slope, tossing the scabbard aside on to the grass and standing still a moment.
He was a tall man, broad and thickset about the shoulders and neck as befitted a warrior used to wearing armour, and his right arm was more heavily muscled than his left from working with heavy weapons. Yet for all his warlike appearance, his face showed a different quality. He lacked the brute arrogance and cruelty of so many modern knights. Instead, he had kindliness in his dark brown eyes – kindliness and a sort of wariness, a man always slightly on guard. A thin beard followed the line of his lower jaw. Once it had been dark, but now, like his hair, it was showing more and more grey. There was more salt than pepper, his wife had said recently, and he could not deny it.
Today he felt unsettled, and it was not merely his wound: it was a curious manor, this, the small estate which had been his wife’s first husband’s.
It had a lovely outlook, being some miles north of Tavistock but not quite on the moors, with a view of Dartmoor itself. The manor house was a good, solid moorstone building, with sound grey walls, lately whitewashed (Baldwin suspected because the local steward had heard that his mistress’s husband was coming to see the place) and thatched well only the previous summer. It stood on a small knoll, as though on its own shallow motte, and all about it at a distance of some sixty yards were woods, with the only bare aspect being to the south, where a man could see almost all the way to Brent Tor on a clear day, so it was said. Sir Baldwin didn’t know about that, but he did know that today he needed to try his muscles.
Some three or four months ago he’d been the victim of an attack, and the encounter had nearly killed him. Even now, the wound in his breast was enough to make his chest seize up when he over-exerted himself. The pain was normally a dull ache, but every so often it grew into a flaming agony that seemed to threaten to rip his ribs apart. Last night had been one such occasion.
They had come here to Liddinstone a matter of a month ago. He had promised his wife that they would come to see how the manor was faring, and as soon as he felt able to make the journey from his little estate near Cadbury, a short distance south of Tiverton, they had arranged their affairs, leaving Edgar in charge.
Edgar had been his most loyal servant for more years than either cared to remember. They had met in the hellhole of Acre in 1291, both arriving in time to witness the city’s death at the hands of many thousands of Moors. They had set up a vast siege encampment all about the city walls, and during their time there, Baldwin had found Edgar and saved his life. Subsequently, both had been injured and would
have died, had it not been for the generosity of the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, the Knights Templar, who had rescued them. As a result, as soon as they could, both had given their oaths to serve the Order, and Baldwin became a knight while Edgar became his sergeant. They served together for many years, until the appalling day when the Order was arrested.
Friday 13th October 1307. It was a date that felt as though it had been engraved with a red-hot burin on Baldwin’s heart. Each year he felt drawn to toast his comrades on that day, and yet he could not. The idea that he should celebrate their destruction was repellent. No, it was better that he remembered them all on days like today, when the sun was newly risen with the promise of clear weather, like so many of those other days when he and his companions had woken with the dawn.
He held his sword out forwards, his arm straight, elbow and wrist locked, the peacock-blue steel of the blade sitting still in his grip, and he smiled to himself grimly. There were few knights who were as old as he and yet still capable of holding their swords outstretched for any period. He was more than fifty years old now, and although he knew that he could best most men half his age, he had to pick his moments and his opponents.
Yet if there was one thing that the Templars had taught him, it was the benefit of constant practice. A man who trained was a man who could rely on his reflexes, and now Baldwin swung the sword in his wrist, first letting the point drop down then spinning it up on his right, then dropping it and flicking it up on the left of his forearm to form a figure 8. After twenty of those, he threw the sword spinning into the air, and caught it with his left hand, repeating the exercise before tossing it up again and catching it in his right hand once more.
Now he started the serious training. This was basic work, but he had performed these actions almost every morning since his acceptance into his Order. It was only at times of great pain that he had neglected his training, such as late last year, 1323, when the crossbow bolt had laid him low for so long.
A Friar's Bloodfeud: (Knights Templar 20) Page 6