A Friar's Bloodfeud: (Knights Templar 20)

by Michael Jecks

  ‘And in the meantime,’ Edgar said, leaning forward, ‘what do you know about the family just over the way there?’

  ‘What, the foreigner and his woman?’ David asked, genuinely surprised. ‘What of them?’

  ‘You know that they were killed and their house burned down?’ Baldwin asked.

  David glanced over his shoulder again, but Jankin, the only man within earshot, seemed to have developed a fascination with a bit of dirt on a drinking horn, and was spitting on it and rubbing it against his sleeve. David unwillingly turned back to the knight. ‘The coroner decided that they’d had an accident.’

  ‘An accident? It was rather an uncommon one, surely?’ Baldwin retorted.

  ‘That was what the coroner said, not me,’ David said reasonably.

  Baldwin looked past him to the innkeeper. ‘Jankin – is this true?’

  ‘Yes. The coroner happened to be here because of the murder of another man, Ailward, the sergeant up at Sir Geoffrey’s manor.’

  ‘This same Sir Geoffrey who David says …’

  ‘I didn’t actually say he did anything!’

  ‘Very well, the same man on whose land the latest body has been found? This Ailward was his man?’

  ‘Yes. So the coroner was here for Ailward, and since he was in the area, he came here to view those bodies too.’

  ‘What did he find?’ Baldwin demanded.

  ‘That the hearth fire hadn’t been banked and the house caught light.’

  ‘Is that what you thought?’ Simon burst out. ‘Where is the man’s body?’

  ‘If I believed it, do you think I’d have been so open with you?’ Jankin said calmly.

  Baldwin nodded. ‘So why have you been so frank?’

  ‘Because …’ Jankin looked away, out through the unshuttered window at the rolling grassland and trees in front of his inn. When he began to speak again, his voice was quiet and reflective. ‘Perhaps because I could see that you cared, and I thought others should care too. The coroner didn’t – he didn’t give a damn about them. He knew what answers he wanted, and he made sure he got them. All the while, Sir Geoffrey’s men were waiting nearby, watching and listening to all that was said. It wasn’t right, sir. That’s what I reckoned.’

  Baldwin nodded slowly. ‘You are right, good keeper. You are right. But we shall make this right none the less. I shall see to it.’

  Walter was leaning against a tree when he heard the sound of hooves.

  It made his heart flutter, and he felt a sharp pain in his breast for a moment or two, while the sweat broke out on his forehead. He knew too well what hooves could mean. The picture of the woman’s dead face sprang into his mind, and he felt the bile rise in his throat, just as it had during the camp ball game when they had heard the men running towards them.

  Even when the hoofbeats passed away, his anxiety remained. Ridiculous that the mere sound of hooves could have such an impact on him.

  Christ’s pain, but that day had been terrifying. They’d thought they’d be safe up there. Ailward had said that no one would run out that way – everyone would be down at the main field. They always went that way. And then there had been the sudden roar from all those down on the plain and Walter saw the fixed, straining face of Perkin rushing up the hill towards him.

  It was the work of a moment to spring on him, knock him down, and hurl the ball away. With all the other men behind him, it was impossible to try to do anything else. Ailward hid the dead woman, Walter threw the ball and shoved Perkin back down the hill after it. Then, when the men were all out of the way, they’d lifted the body again and carried on their way. They had to get rid of her before they did anything else. If they were found with her, they would be hanged for certain.

  No one would protect them.

  They had ridden up the road so quickly beforehand that Baldwin was pleased to have an opportunity to see how the land lay round about. He had not taken any notice on the way here.

  The vill of Iddesleigh lay on the side of a low hill, the land dropping away gently to the south. From the road it was impossible to see much, for on the right was a stand of trees which obscured the whole view, while on the left there were fields for a short way, and then another section of woods. There was plenty of sound timber here, Baldwin reflected. It was good land, with plenty of space for cattle and sheep, pasture and arable. Perfect for a lord who wanted to make his holding pay its way.

  Jeanne and Emma had stayed at the inn. There was little point in their coming with the men to view this young woman’s body. Better that they should remain safe, in case this knight Geoffrey should grow angry at the appearance of a Keeper of the King’s Peace. It would not be the first time that a man had taken offence at Baldwin’s arrival.

  ‘How far to this place?’ Baldwin asked David.

  He trudged on disconsolately. ‘I don’t know. It takes me a short while to get there. It’s only over there. Maybe a mile or so more.’

  Baldwin smiled thinly at his tone. He could all too easily understand the man’s disgruntled mood: David had gone to the inn for a quiet drink, hoping to impart a little gossip to his companions, and had instead been caught up in this investigation. There was every probability that it would lead to great trouble in the future. Still, his irritation was nothing to Baldwin’s concern at Simon’s appearance. The bailiff looked quite exhausted. It was one thing for Baldwin to wince every so often as he flexed his muscles and felt that terrible pain in his breast again, but quite a different matter to see Simon so wearied and upset by the loss of his man.

  It made Baldwin wonder how he would cope were he to lose Edgar. Edgar had been such an intimate part of his life for the last thirty years or more, it was hard to imagine how he could survive without the man. Edgar was not merely some servant who remained with Baldwin from reasons of loyalty; he had shared the key moments of Baldwin’s career. Edgar had been there at Acre with him, had joined the Templars with him, and then had remained with him when the Order was betrayed and dissolved. If Edgar were to be murdered, Baldwin would feel the same as a man who lost a brother, or a son.

  That was clearly how Simon felt too. He had lost a close companion whom he had trusted for many years, and he felt the guilt of not having been there when Hugh needed him. If Hugh had indeed been killed. Now he thought about it, Baldwin wasn’t sure why it was that he had been so convinced that Hugh must have been murdered. Perhaps it was simply some confusion: wasn’t it possible that Wat passed on a message that Hugh was dead, and Baldwin had assumed he’d meant murdered? Or maybe Wat himself had made the error; on being told Hugh was dead had made the natural assumption, for Wat, that there must have been something unnatural about the death.

  Yet men did die daily from accidents. There had been the prints of many men outside Hugh’s burned-out house, but they could have been trying to help … or gawping at the smouldering remains. There were always a lot of people who would go to stare at another man’s misfortune. They’d drink ale while watching a poor soul hang; they’d travel miles for a good execution, especially if it was a noble who was to be killed. An accident like this was meat and drink to most peasants. They’d all seen death, and this one was the death of a man who was a ‘foreigner’ and therefore not of any great social importance – it wasn’t as if he was related to anyone at all. He was dispensable. Easily forgotten. Irrelevant.

  That word made Baldwin’s back stiffen. The thought that a man – even a miserable, whining, froward son of a cur like Hugh, and God knew how often Baldwin had cursed him under his breath – could be thought of as irrelevant was a disgrace. There were some, he knew, who believed that it was worthwhile hanging any number of men to make an example, but Baldwin was not one of them. Only the guilty should be condemned, he thought. The innocent should always be protected. If the innocent were forced to suffer, there was no justice. Justice existed to protect all: the strong, the weak, the innocent and the poor. There was no point in justice if it provided for only the strong and the wealthy.
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  Which made him look more sympathetically on David. The man was tedious, and Baldwin had taken a dislike to his sullen manner at the inn, but now he felt guilty at his initial reaction. ‘David, where do you live?’

  ‘Back up there.’ He pointed to their left, eastwards. ‘I’ve a small cottage up there.’

  ‘It’s good land.’

  ‘We grow enough to live.’

  That was the proof of a plot of ground, Baldwin knew. It had to provide. That was how a man measured his space: could he live there. Nothing else mattered. ‘On the day that the family was killed, did you hear anything or see anyone?’

  ‘Nothing. It was Saturday night. I was up at home.’

  ‘Was there anyone with you?’ Simon asked sharply.

  ‘Why should there be?’ Davie whined. ‘I’m not married.’

  ‘So no one can vouch for you?’

  David looked at Simon, and then a smile spread over his face. ‘Yes! Pagan was there. He lives a short way from my house, and he was there that night.’

  ‘Pagan?’ Baldwin enquired.

  ‘He’s the steward to Lady Isabel – the woman who used to own all the lands about here, from here down to Monk Oakhampton and the river.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Down there now. Since Sir Geoffrey took her hall,’ David said.

  ‘And where is the hall?’

  ‘There it is. Up on the hillside there.’

  There was a strange feeling about this place, Jeanne thought. She sipped wine as she sat at the table rocking Richalda in her lap, listening as Emma slurped.

  It was very sad to think that Hugh and his woman were dead. She had liked Hugh a great deal, and she knew full well that it was rare for a man like him to find a companion. Sometimes a shepherd or peasant farmer would meet a woman and marry, but a man like Hugh?

  ‘I never liked him,’ Emma said. ‘He was uncouth.’

  ‘You should remember that you are talking of a dead man, Emma,’ Jeanne said sharply.

  ‘There is no point in hypocrisy,’ Emma said, and burped.

  Jeanne recalled that her maid had already been in the buttery for some while. ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘Me?’ Emma exclaimed horrified. ‘I hope I can hold my drink, my lady.’

  ‘Then do so. Hugh was a kind man, and he was honourable. That is all that matters.’

  Emma sniffed. ‘He still took a nun from her convent.’

  ‘That is nonsense!’ Jeanne said hotly. ‘He only helped a poor woman when she had already left her convent because she should never have been there in the first place.’

  ‘So you say. I believe that a woman who has become a Bride of Christ should not resign her position. She chose her path and renounced it when it suited her.’

  ‘She was not there legally, Emma. She was taken in there when she was too young to choose,’ Jeanne said with a cold anger. This kind of small-mindedness was no more than she should have expected from her maid, she knew. Emma was a strangely cold, unkind woman, but she was a habit now as much as a companion. ‘If you cannot keep a civil tongue in your head, then best it isn’t exercised.’

  ‘It’s not my fault if the chit betrayed her God and her vocation,’ Emma grunted. ‘But if you prefer me to keep my thoughts to myself, I’m sure I don’t mind.’

  Jeanne snorted and turned from her. Emma’s unforgiving, almost brutal nature sometimes made her so angry, she could have happily told her to return to Bordeaux. But then she had to remember that Emma herself had given up everything for Jeanne, her home in the city with all its beautiful cloths and decorations on display, and come here to this miserable, cold, wet land where the nearest thing to civilisation was the monthly visit to Tavistock. Emma had decided views on Tavistock.

  Just for once Jeanne wished that Emma could have shown a little compassion. Sitting here, she saw that Matthew the priest had entered the inn and now stood at the bar with a quart jug in his hand. He turned as Jeanne glimpsed him, and she was sure that he was surreptitiously trying to watch her from the corner of his eye.

  Somehow Jeanne felt deeply unsettled by the sight of him. She was certain that he had overheard at least a part of her conversation with Emma, and something about the set of his shoulders made her think that he was not impressed with what he had heard.

  Chapter Twenty

  David grew more disconsolate as they approached the channel of thick, brackish water that trailed down from the drained pool.

  There was a small group of men hanging about the place. Baldwin noticed one in particular, a brute of a man, rather like a bear, who reminded him of someone. It was a little while before he realised that the man was very like the hunter and tracker, Black, whom he had used so often in his early days as keeper in Crediton. There were the same strong features in his face, the same thick dark hair, the same strength in the shoulders – and then there were the differences.

  Black would never have looked away as though already cowed. He’d always meet a man’s eye, no matter what the station of the man concerned. There was something about the hunter that made him confident in the presence of anyone. That couldn’t be said for any of the fellows here. There was a consistency in their nervousness in the presence of strangers that seemed wrong. It was almost as though they were petrified of any man in authority.

  Baldwin snorted and dropped from his mount. ‘You! Come here.’

  The large man glowered, but obeyed. ‘Sir?’

  ‘I am Sir Baldwin de Furnshill, Keeper of the King’s Peace. I have heard that there’s a dead woman here. Where is the body?’

  ‘Sir Geoffrey has taken it, sir.’

  Baldwin was still for a moment as he digested this. ‘Where has he taken it?’

  ‘Back to the manor, I expect. He wants to have an inquest as soon as possible, I think.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Baldwin commented. ‘He wants an inquest, so he removes the evidence first.’ He could feel the anger beginning to boil within him. This was intolerable! Everyone knew that a dead body should remain where it was until the coroner had been to view it. That was the king’s law. He made to return to the saddle, but Simon shook his head and slipped from his own mount.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I am called Beorn.’

  ‘A good name. I’m Simon Puttock. Show us where she was found.’

  Beorn led them to the brackish pool, what was left of it. ‘She was there.’

  ‘How?’ Simon asked ‘On her belly or her back?’

  ‘Back. Her hand stuck up, as if she was waving to tell us she was there. It was terrible. Poor young Martin found her.’

  ‘Is he here? Can he tell us more?’ Baldwin asked eagerly.

  ‘No, sir. He threw up three times, and now he’s back at home. I saw her there, though, and helped bring her to the land, so I can tell you all you want to know.’

  ‘You know who she was?’

  ‘Lady Lucy of Meeth, yes.’

  ‘And she was a widow?’

  ‘Her husband died a while back in battle, yes. She’s been making the best of things ever since, so I’ve heard.’

  ‘She disappeared a while ago?’ Simon asked. ‘That was what we heard in Iddesleigh.’

  ‘Yes. She went to Hatherleigh market, and on her way back we reckoned she was attacked.’

  Simon shook his head. ‘She was alone?’

  ‘No. She always had a servant with her, usually a swordsman. That day it was her steward. He was found by the side of the road later. There was no sign of her, though.’

  ‘Was she the sort of lady who would trust a stranger?’ Simon asked.

  ‘No woman is that trusting, is she? No, she was taken against her will. She must have seen her man die, and then she was taken away. And later killed.’

  ‘Do you think she’d died a long time ago?’ Baldwin said.

  ‘No. You know how a body can be when it’s been stored under water? She was foul-looking because the skin of her hands
and feet was loose and ready to fall away, but for all that she was well preserved.’

  ‘It is scarce surprising,’ Baldwin observed, looking about him and blowing in his hands. ‘It is so cold, any body would survive well.’ He gazed about him at the land again. ‘This is a curious place. It is far enough from the house. Where is the nearest homestead?’

  ‘Probably my own, sir, over there beyond those trees to the east,’ Beorn said.

  ‘And you saw nothing, heard nothing recently which could have been a man bringing her here?’

  Beorn’s dark features rose to Baldwin’s. ‘If I’d heard someone bringing her here, I’d have told you by now.’

  Simon burst out, ‘What about when you found the body, though? Would you have sought out a king’s man to catch the killer if we hadn’t appeared here?’

  Beorn met his stare calmly. ‘Of course not. If I was to go to any man it would be to him, Sir Geoffrey. This is his land.’

  Baldwin smiled drily. ‘And no point going to a murderer to tell him about one of his victims, is there?’

  Sir Geoffrey supervised the carrying of the body to his hall. The peasants had gone to Beorn’s house, which was nearest, and fetched his front door to use as a stretcher. Sir Geoffrey had them take her through the door at the rear of his hall and deposit her in his solar. He stood at the back of the little chamber as the men gently set her down and glanced at each other with that embarrassment which men have in the presence of death when the dead bore no relation to them. When Sir Geoffrey gave an irritable gesture with his hand, they all trooped out.

  ‘You poor fool,’ he whispered thoughtfully, looking down at her. ‘You couldn’t do what was safe, could you?’

  It was sad. He left her there and went into his hall, pouring himself a large mazer of wine and moodily throwing himself down into his chair. The discovery of her body boded badly for him and the manor.