Squire Throwleigh's Heir

by Michael Jecks

  Baldwin and Simon exchanged a glance. The bailiff could see that his friend was unsure how to proceed, and said, ‘Did you and he agree on a deal?’

  ‘Agree?’ Van Relenghes frowned sternly at Simon. ‘God’s blood, no, Bailiff! Would you expect a soldier to try to deprive his comrade’s widow of her livelihood? Of course not. I was disgusted by Thomas’s bad faith and turned him down flat. He rode off in a passion - absolutely furious, he was.’

  ‘Why should he have thought you would be interested in such a deal, I wonder?’ Baldwin murmured.

  ‘How can I tell?’ van Relenghes shot back. ‘All I know is that he is hard up for money. He speculated and lost, and now he needs cash badly.’

  ‘You learned this before coming here?’ Baldwin asked, surprised.

  Van Relenghes spoke frankly. ‘I heard of this man while in Exeter, and yes, I checked into his background. I wanted to know whether he was the brother of my old comrade. But I fear that when you ask for information, sometimes you are given more than you wish to hear.’

  ‘Was there anyone else on the road that day?’

  ‘We saw that drunken farmer, of course.’

  Godfrey smiled. The man had been so obviously the worse for drink that he and his master had laughed uproariously once Edmund had passed them, sitting uncomfortably on his board, his eyes wide and fearful at seeing two such men out in the middle of nowhere. His fear was all too plain, and although he tried to be surreptitious about it, they could see him peering Wearily over his shoulder at them as his cart creaked round the curve in the road. A thought suddenly struck Godfrey.

  ‘Master, there was the other cart, the one with the fishman coming back from the manor,’ he put in. ‘He passed us a short while before the farmer, going the other way.’

  ‘That must be the fish-seller Daniel mentioned,’ Simon said.

  ‘Yes, I’d forgotten him,’ the Fleming said languidly.

  ‘How did he look?’ Simon pressed.

  ‘Look?’ asked van Relenghes. ‘What sort of a question is that?’

  ‘Was he scared? Alarmed? Upset?’

  ‘I hardly know what some villein might look like while alarmed,’ van Relenghes said dismissively.

  ‘He was fine, sir,’ Godfrey said. ‘He came past us at a slow walk, whistling happily enough, gave us a good day, and carried on.’

  ‘You see my reasoning, Baldwin?’ said Simon, facing his friend. ‘If he’d just ridden past - or over! - Herbert’s body, he’d have shown it, wouldn’t he? But he came by and greeted these gentlemen as if nothing had happened. I’d bet Herbert’s body was put in the road after the fishmonger had passed by.’

  Baldwin nodded, then: ‘Did you hear anything as he approached, or perhaps after he’d gone past?’

  ‘Such as?’

  Baldwin’s face hardened. ‘A boy screaming, for example.’

  Van Relenghes shook his head. ‘I had other matters to consider at the time. The last thing on my mind was whether some fool of a farmer might take it into his head to kill my comrade’s son.’

  ‘Did you visit him often?’

  The Fleming shook his head sadly. ‘I fear not. I would have, but I have only recently come to this country. Until a few weeks ago I was serving in the castle in Bordeaux. Otherwise I would have been here before. Especially if I had known my old friend had so charming a wife!’

  His eyes were narrowed with amusement. It was intolerable that a man should make such a comment about a woman who had been bereaved for so short a time. Even a friend and comrade shouldn’t joke of such a thing. It smacked of impropriety.

  Baldwin continued as if he hadn’t noticed. ‘You chose to come here to pay your respects after Squire Roger died.’

  ‘When I heard what had happened, I thought it was only right that I should come and offer what comfort I could to his widow.’

  ‘Where were you when you heard of his death?’ Simon pressed.

  ‘In Exeter,’ van Relenghes admitted coolly.

  ‘Ah, yes - Exeter. A place only a single hard ride from here, by coincidence. And it was by similar good fortune that you were here when the squire’s son was killed.’

  Godfrey could see van Relenghes growing edgy. Whether it was irritation at being questioned or nervousness at the line the questions were taking, the master of arms wasn’t sure, and he listened with interest.

  ‘Where did you fight?’

  Van Relenghes waved a hand irritably. He felt as though the bailiff was studying him suspiciously, and tried to force an easiness into his manner. ‘All over. We fought in Wales and Scotland for your King, spent time together in Flanders with—’

  ‘If you’ll pardon my saying so, you’re a lot younger than the squire.’

  ‘Only a little. He was almost fifty, and I am over forty’

  ‘He looked a lot older,’ Simon said, and Godfrey thought he could detect a trace of sadness, as if for a friend who has died too early.

  ‘He always looked old. He could behave like an old man as well.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Van Relenghes regretted his lapse and swore to himself. For a man discussing a friend who had only just died, it was scornful in the extreme. He quickly tried to change the tone from insult to praise.

  ‘Oh, he was a stickler for discipline among the men-at-arms, would stop any nonsense with women and other camp-followers, that kind of thing. He was known to be harsh with soldiers who misbehaved or disobeyed his orders - but that’s needed in an army. If your King had had more men like Roger, his armies would have conquered even faster.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Simon said, and Godfrey felt a grudging admiration for his master. He appeared to have lulled the bailiff.

  The knight was silent for a while, walking along thoughtfully. ‘You are quite sure you didn’t hear the sound of a boy screaming or anything at all after the cart passed you?’

  ‘No, there was nothing.’

  ‘There was a cry, master,’ said Godfrey, unable to withhold his evidence.

  ‘What was that, Godfrey?’ Baldwin asked.

  ‘Before the cart came past us, sir. In fact, just after Thomas went off, I heard something upstream.’

  ‘Whereabouts would this have been, exactly?’

  ‘At the road there, where we were, is a small bridge, and up the hill I could swear I heard a shout. I don’t know if it was a man, woman or child, but it was quite distinct to me.’

  ‘You didn’t hear this?’ Baldwin demanded of the Fleming.

  Van Relenghes shook his head with mystification. ‘If I had heard it I would have told you,’ he said simply.

  Baldwin glanced at Simon. ‘That must be up the track, up near the side of the stream.’

  ‘Yes,’ Godfrey offered. ‘Where the priest had been.’

  ‘You saw Stephen up there?’ Simon asked.

  Van Relenghes interrupted before his guard could answer. ‘Oh, yes. We saw him. We were talking, and as we looked up the hill, there he was, near the brow. When he saw us, he disappeared.

  Baldwin was decided at last. Stephen might be a priest with all the privileges his position entailed, but there were too many questions over his movements on the day Herbert died.

  ‘I think we shall need to speak to this disappearing priest,’ he said.

  Their arrival was a sombre event. There were cold meats and salad vegetables laid out on a great trestle in the hall, the leaves slowly wilting in the warmth of the fire, but most people ignored the food, apart from Thomas, who appeared to have a healthy appetite.

  Baldwin led his wife to a seat near the fire, taking two pots of wine from his servant and watching the other guests while Petronilla and Hugh served wine and ale to them.

  ‘Is all well?’ he asked.

  Edgar gave him a short nod. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Where is Wat? He should be helping you.’

  ‘Wat is asleep.’

  ‘Wake him.’

  ‘ Very asleep.’

  Baldwin groaned. ‘You did
n’t let him near the buttery? Edgar, for the love of Christ, haven’t you learned about him yet? You know how he was at our wedding!’

  ‘Sir, I was assisting the cook in the kitchen. Wat was with Hugh, and I think he thought it would be amusing to test Wat’s resolve.’

  ‘God’s blood!’

  Jeanne stirred and gave Edgar a warm smile. ‘Thank Hugh, would you? And tell him I shall remember his kindness to my servant boy at the very first opportunity.’

  Edgar flashed her a grin and disappeared to serve another.

  Jeanne shook her head. ‘I think that man of Simon’s has a rather unkind streak in him. He appears to enjoy ensuring that Wat feels miserable each morning.’

  Her husband grunted, but his attention was taken by the priest, who had just entered. Baldwin knew he had stayed with the mourners who had been paid to keep the vigil, and would only now have managed to return.

  Stephen of York stood at the doorway, and when he met Baldwin’s eye, instantly looked away and licked his lips. After a moment’s hesitation, he disappeared. Baldwin sipped at his wine. He could swear that the priest was scared of him. And it was clear enough that the man had been out on the hill where young Herbert had been killed.

  The knight found himself looking forward to questioning the priest with a keen anticipation.

  Petronilla hurried back to the buttery, and seeing Stephen sitting blankly on a stool, fell onto a barrel with a gasp.

  ‘I couldn’t face speaking to him,’ Stephen said heavily. ‘He knows. I’m sure he knows.’

  Her brow wrinkled with worry. ‘They can’t know. No one saw us.’

  ‘When I hit the boy, he screamed, and that bastard guard of the Fleming’s saw me, I’m convinced of it.’

  ‘If he was so certain, the bailiff would have arrested us.’

  ‘It’s the knight I fear. He’s the clever one, the one people say can see inside a man’s soul through his eyes.’

  ‘Well, you’re safe, anyway, Stephen. All they can do is force you to abjure the realm.’

  He flinched at that. It was a hideous thought, having to run from all this. He hadn’t ever dreamed that so soon he might be returning abroad, exiled for life, never to see his birthplace again. That was what abjuring involved: giving the oath to the Coroner at the church’s gate, promising to leave the country by whatever road the Coroner selected, dressed as a penitent carrying a cross, and if an abjurer left the road for any reason whatever, his life was forfeit: he could be beheaded on the spot.

  Benefit of clergy meant he wouldn’t be executed, though, and that was something. Petronilla didn’t have the same protection. Stephen patted her hand. ‘Don’t fear. You will be safe enough. Once they have me, they won’t bother with you.’

  She gave him an anxious look from the corner of her eye. ‘I have done nothing to make me fear the rope. It’s not that which worries at me. It’s that man Nicholas.’ It hadn’t been possible to tell the priest before, but now she burst out with the sordid story. ‘He grabbed me, here?“ she cried, and her tears glistened as she remembered the scene. ’And now whenever I pass him, he leers at me.‘

  Stephen felt a rush of affection for her sweep through him. He took her hand and held it to his breast, and she saw the kindly smile touch his eyes. She bent her head and allowed him to gently kiss her hair. ‘Be easy, child. You shall be safe; I shall see to it.’

  ‘Safe from who?’ Hugh demanded, marching into the buttery with two empty jugs of wine, and overhearing the priest’s final words. Although he habitually wore a scowl, beneath it Hugh had a generous soul and a soft-natured heart, and he had taken a liking to this poor young girl.

  The priest gave him a rather measuring look. ‘My son, there are some men who insist on taking advantage of women, whether the women wish to comply or not.’

  Hugh’s dour features visibly darkened. ‘Has that henchman tried to muck about with you again?’ he asked Petronilla.

  She gave a sour laugh. ‘No - since I’ve kept well out of his way.’

  Stephen looked serious. ‘You mustn’t do anything against him, Hugh. You’ll only get yourself into trouble. Leave him alone, but tell me if he tries something again so that I may rescue this poor girl.’

  Hugh nodded. In silence he refilled his jugs and left the buttery to rejoin the guests in the hall.

  But Stephen sat a while longer, holding Petronilla’s hand in his own and staring at the ground as if on it were written the answers to all his confusions.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In his home at Throwleigh, Jordan sat quietly in the corner of the room, his dark eyes never leaving the rocking form of his mother.

  Christiana sat before the little fire, her daughter Molly cuddled on her lap, her figure casting a terrible, crone-shaped shadow against the far wall. It looked like a witch, swaying from side to side as she cast a spell of doom on them, waiting to leap upon the family and bring disaster to them all.

  And the disaster had happened. There was no protection for a family that had no means of support, and if his father was thought to have killed Herbert, he was guilty of treason. Jordan wasn’t sure, but he thought his father could be burned alive for that. It was as vile an act as could be envisaged: it was still more wicked than ‘petty treason’, the murder by a wife of her spouse. Everyone knew that Edmund’s manumission, his formal release from serfdom, had been revoked by Lady Katharine, and it followed that everyone would believe that he had killed her son in revenge. He could expect no mercy.

  Jordan felt the sobs rising in his throat once more, and sniffed hard to quell them, wrapping himself tighter in his blanket. The fire was low, but they had little wood left to burn, and it was very chill at this time of night. It was normal for Jordan to shiver himself to sleep throughout the winter and well into spring, and if it was too cold even for that, he would climb into the bed with his parents and sister. Now, with the house silent in the absence of his father, he wanted to cuddle up with his mother. He felt a hole in his very soul at the sight of her misery, and longed to ease her fear, and make things better - but he didn’t have the words. Somehow he knew that only another adult could do that.

  He was hungry, but dared make no demand for food. There was none to be had, and asking for it would only set his mother off again into another frenzy of rage at her useless husband.

  And it was all because his father had been arrested for running over Master Herbert, Jordan knew. His father - arrested, and for something Jordan knew he couldn’t have done. Fortunately, he and his friend had the thing that could demonstrate the priest’s guilt, and now he decided that there was no time to lose. He must go with Alan to see the knight, the man everyone said was so clever.

  A shiver of fear upset his resolve. It was one thing to want to protect his father, to rescue him from prison, but to speak to a knight? When he was a lowly serf? It had been a shock for their family, to become slaves once more, but Jordan had speedily adapted to his new position. If anything, it had made his friendship with Alan even stronger - for now he was on the same footing as the older boy.

  Jordan’s spirit quailed within him at the thought of speaking to a knight - and a Keeper of the King’s Peace at that. This Sir Baldwin was the most powerful person the boy had ever heard of, even superior to his old master, Squire Roger. Would he listen to a boy with a story such as his?

  Baldwin and Jeanne joined the bailiff and his wife. They took their stand at some distance from the fire, nearer the trestles which were now being cleared of food.

  Jeanne was struck by the change which had come over her husband. The quiet, introspective man she had married had gone, and in his place was this implacable stranger who had but one aim - to avenge the death of the young Master of Throwleigh. She had seen Baldwin at his work several times already, at Tavistock and in Crediton, but never before had he appeared to be so fired with grim determination.

  He drank his pot off now, and held it out to Edgar to refill. ‘This wine is good.’

  �
�I am glad you like it, Sir Baldwin. It is from my last shipment from Bordeaux.’ Thomas had appeared as if from nowhere, and stood now at Baldwin’s elbow.

  The knight nodded. ‘From Bordeaux? That is where the Fleming says he came from.’

  ‘Him?’ Thomas snorted. He was feeling more himself now, and he gave van Relenghes a cold stare. ‘I’d be surprised. He has more the look of a wandering mercenary than a soldier.’