Squire Throwleigh's Heir

by Michael Jecks

  Hugh had been waiting at the door. Seeing the party approach, he walked quickly inside to stir the warmed wine in the jugs by the fire. As he crouched there, Lady Katharine entered. She acknowledged him with a pale shadow of a smile, and gratefully took a large mug from him.

  Hugh politely offered Anney a cup, but she refused with a quick shake of her head, and Daniel took it in her stead.

  Then the guests were filing in, and Hugh was having to serve faster than he could manage. When the jugs had all been emptied, he hurried from the room and into the buttery, where he found Wat, mercifully sober.

  ‘Quick! Fill this lot,’ Hugh ordered and sat on a barrel. ‘Where’s Petronilla? She ought to be helping.’

  ‘I suppose she’s gone for another walk.’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish!’

  ‘I still don’t understand why she had such filthy hands yesterday,’ Wat frowned.

  ‘What are you on about?’ Hugh demanded, and listened with surprise as Wat told how he had seen her the day before, all mucky with black soil smeared over her hands. Hugh was no fool and, after being servant to the bailiff for so long, he was able to make quick inferences, but for the present he only muttered grumpily, ‘Never mind her, you get more jugs filled, lad. The party in there will be dying of thirst soon.’

  As soon as the jugs of warmed wine were ready, he took them into the hall and began topping up people’s pots and mugs; the flow of conversation, muted at first, became louder. Shortly after this, Petronilla came in. She too carried jugs, and she took her station near her mistress, although with many a confused glance at Thomas. Hugh could understand her feelings: she knew her master was Thomas now, and although she was still loyal to her mistress, she had no wish to damage her position with him.

  Hugh pursed his lips and went to his master’s side. ‘Sir?’

  Simon listened, his expression unchanging as his servant told him about the girl and how she had returned from the moors with her hands covered in peaty soil. ‘Interesting,’ he murmured at last. ‘Well done, Hugh.’

  At the other side of the hall, Baldwin had been trying to get closer to the priest, but each time he made his way through the throng, Stephen moved on. Eventually Baldwin fetched up against a pillar, and he stood there, testily staring at the tonsured figure for some while before he realised someone was speaking to him.

  ‘Anney, my apologies, my mind was elsewhere.’

  The maidservant gave him a mocking curtsey. ‘So kind of you to apologise to a poor villein like me.’

  Baldwin thought she was an attractive-looking woman. Her face, although marked by channels of grief, some for the loss of her husband, some for the loss of her son, was still fresh and youthful, and she had a glowing complexion that many ladies of position would have given much of their wealth for.

  ‘A woman with your looks will always be able to force a poor, innocent knight to apologise,’ he riposted.

  ‘Thank you again, Sir Baldwin. I don’t know what I could have done to merit such compliments.’

  ‘Come, lady, you can hardly be unaware of your attractions.’

  She gave a low, throaty chuckle, but there was little humour in it. ‘You mean to a man like my husband?’

  ‘Anney, I am sorry. I never intended to remind you of him.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you? He was the only husband I ever knew. I don’t hate him. How could I, when he gave me my two boys? I believe you are hoping to speak to the priest?’

  Baldwin nodded. Stephen was now at the opposite end of the room, deep in conversation with Thomas.

  ‘I thought so. You’ll find it difficult, Sir Baldwin. He doesn’t want to talk to you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s scared you’ll discover something.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as how he disliked the squire’s son,’ she said coolly.

  ‘What could he have had against so young a child? Herbert was only five or six.’

  ‘Five, but rowdy with it. He never attended to Stephen’s lessons, wouldn’t obey his sternest orders, and treated the priest like a figure of fun. Herbert also used to shoot at him with his sling whenever he could, and for that Stephen would give him a good hiding.’

  ‘Did Herbert’s parents realise what was going on?’

  Anney gave a short laugh. ‘Squire Roger had won his son a place with Sir Reginald of Hatherleigh. What more could he ask but that his cleric should teach the boy the same way he’d already taught the sons of Sir Reginald? There was no difficulty there, I assure you.’

  Her tone interested Baldwin. ‘You think he wanted to beat the child?’

  ‘Of course he did. He hates children - not only the squire’s son, all children. It wasn’t just Herbert he thrashed: my own boy was often whipped or punched by him, and never for any real misdemeanour, only because it pleased him to do so. Look at him! He has such a soft, womanly appearance, and yet he has a heart of flint!’

  Baldwin followed her gaze. The priest was still chatting to Thomas, his face animated. That same hint of femininity that he had seen on first meeting the priest caught the knight’s attention once more. If it was not for the tonsure, Baldwin could have thought him a woman from this distance. It was hard to believe that such a person could enjoy hurting children, and yet that was Anney’s clear implication.

  ‘Are you sure he wasn’t merely trying to teach them obedience?’ he hazarded.

  ‘Master Herbert was a pleasant, well-spoken child, and my own boy is very well-behaved. He has to be, seeing as how he’s had to learn to fend for himself without a father. What a lad like him needs is the gentle hand of someone who appreciates him, not bullying from one who should know better. And as for poor Jordan…’

  Baldwin expressed polite interest but the woman shook her head. ‘No, I’ll leave it to you to speak to him. Make up your own mind.’

  ‘What do you think of the Fleming?’ Baldwin asked after a moment.

  ‘Him? Haven’t you realised yet?’ she asked, and then gave a long sigh. ‘Look at him! Ever at my lady’s side, always there with a flattering word, a generous compliment. It’s like watching a knight courting a lady, isn’t it? The man wants her. He knows she won’t inherit all the estates, although I think that was a shock to him at first because he was hoping that he might be able to master the whole manor with luck, but he still hopes to win her and whatever Master Thomas thinks fit to endow her with.’

  ‘What?’‘ Baldwin demanded, startled. ’But the woman has only just buried her man. She can’t remarry - it would leave her open to the charge of unchastity! She could be accused of lasciviousness - or of being guilty of infidelity while married!‘

  ‘In short, she would be suspected of infamy,’ agreed the maid unabashed. ‘Yes, she would, but would the Fleming care? Next time you talk to him, look deep into his eyes, Sir Knight, especially when he smiles, because the smile never touches them. He is cold and unfeeling, no matter what his words might be. Watch him carefully, Sir Knight. He’s not what he appears to be.’

  When Jordan met Alan out at the fields near the manor, he could see that his friend had already heard the news about Edmund.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Alan asked him quietly.

  Jordan nodded. His eyes were red from weeping all the long night, and he felt utterly miserable, but he said nothing. He couldn’t rely on his voice, and didn’t want to scare the quarry.

  Thirty feet away three pigeons were feeding from four tiny mounds of grain. Others were circling, unaware of the two boys. A fourth and a fifth gradually felt the desire for food overcome their fears, and plummeted downwards. When mere inches from the ground, they stretched their wings, halting their mad plunge, and landed gently. In a few minutes there were eight there, and only then did Alan spring his trap. He pulled quickly at a hempen string before him; the knot at the far end slipped free, and the framed net fell swiftly onto the eating birds, only two managing to make off.

  Flapping, the six remaining pigeons could
not escape, and the boys laughed with delight as they ran to the net, sitting down and wringing their necks before beginning to pluck and draw them.

  ‘Have you seen your dad yet?’ Alan asked.

  ‘No, he’s up at the manor, in their gaol there. I’ll go and see him later. We’ll need to take him food, I suppose. Alan, we must tell them about the shoe. Otherwise my dad might be hanged, and he had nothing to do with it.’

  Alan appeared not to hear him. ‘I talked to that knight this morning.’

  Jordan waited expectantly.

  ‘He seemed quite all right, really,’ Alan continued thoughtfully. ‘Didn’t seem to look down on me just ’cos I’m a villager or anything, but listened to what I thought.‘

  Jordan watched as his friend pulled a grass shoot and sucked the sweet, pale end.

  ‘Maybe we should explain about the shoe,’ Alan murmured.

  ‘You think we should take it into the manor?’

  Alan nodded slowly. ‘I think we should tell him about the priest.’

  Hugh gratefully handed his jug to Edgar and walked through to the buttery. There he drew off a large pot of ale for himself and carried it outside for a breather.

  The early promise of the bright morning had been false, and now thick white clouds smothered the sky like a blanket over the whole world. Hugh took a deep breath and let it out contentedly. This was his country, for he had been born and brought up on a farm outside Drewsteignton, and he knew the moors and their weather as well as he knew himself and his own moods.

  Especially around here, the north-eastern part of the moors, he could recognise the way that the weather was likely to develop. The hill behind the manor led up to another, still more massive, and this one, Cosdon he had been able to see from his father’s farm when he was out with his sling and his staff protecting the family flocks from beasts of all kinds.

  It was a comforting scene. At the other side of the yard he saw four or five men, the ones from Thomas’s party. They watched him narrowly as he came out, visibly relaxing as they recognised who he was. Hugh gave them an interested look. They had the appearance of a set of outlaws setting an ambush, but they scarcely took any notice of him, and Hugh sat on a moorstone block, comfortably certain that they were no threat to him. Soon he began to nod.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Inside, Baldwin was still digesting Anney’s words about Brother Stephen’s hatred of children when he once more found himself being addressed. He apologised automatically. ‘I am sincerely sorry, but I was miles away.’

  ‘So I could see,’ Thomas said, smiling thinly. I thought you looked lonely over here, and decided I would come and make sure you weren’t upset or over-full of wine, eh?‘ And with that remark he would have prodded the knight’s belly, had he not caught a glimpse of Baldwin’s expression.

  Thomas was feeling more at ease with himself now. He was still unhappy about his sister-in-law’s denunciation in the church, in the midst of all their friends - and before the altar, in Christ’s name! - but that was mere indignation compared with his blind fury at the man who had caused the outburst: the Fleming. However, Nicholas would soon make the slimy git regret his remarks to Lady Katharine, whatever they may have been.

  ‘Have you heard whether Edmund’s hose were damp?’ Baldwin asked unkindly.

  ‘No one appears to have seen him that evening,’ Thomas replied warily.

  ‘No matter. I trust you will shortly be releasing Edmund. It was kind of you to seek me out to tell me,’ Baldwin said distantly, eyeing the pot in Thomas’s hand. The new master of the manor had evidently made himself free with the wine.

  ‘No trouble, none at all,’ Thomas said, and belched. ‘And you enjoyed your chat to Anney? She’s a good enough woman, I daresay, though her son Alan is an unholy terror.’

  ‘I have found that if you treat a dog like a wild beast, it will reward your patience by behaving like one.’

  ‘Eh? Oh, I daresay. But her brat really is a pest. Of course, his mother can’t see it, or won’t. As far as she’s concerned, the sun shines out of his arse.’

  Baldwin was annoyed that the man should demean the woman while he was drunk. ‘I found her intelligent and quickwitted, unlike some. If a woman finds little fault with her offspring, that is hardly cause for censure. Especially if she has already lost one boy, as Anney has.’

  ‘Oh, I see she’s convinced you. She’s a clever spark, I’ll give her that, but as for her lad, he’ll end up on the gallows, you mark my words.’

  ‘Why do you say so? I spoke to him, and found him sharp, but not villainous, just as I would expect from his mother.’

  ‘Be careful of what he says to you. If you don’t believe me, ask the priest.’

  Baldwin felt his interest stirring again. ‘I saw Stephen talking to you just now,’ he said. ‘Was that something to do with this young Master Alan?’

  ‘Oh, no. No, he wanted to ask my advice on a private matter, that was all,’ said Thomas, but he could not help looking complacent. It was quite an honour to have been confided in by the priest. He still didn’t like Stephen, but at least the man had confessed, and that made a lot of difference to Thomas. He was the respected master of a big hall now, as Stephen had proved. If a cleric could feel so sure of his integrity that he would dare confess such a thing, then Thomas must be wonderfully important in the eyes of those around him.

  To Baldwin’s mind he looked puffed up with his own pride.

  ‘May I ask what the matter was?’ he enquired, carefully setting his voice at a low, flattering level, as though he was keen to know why Thomas’s advice had been sought instead of his own.

  ‘It was a matter of some delicacy, I fear, and I couldn’t possibly tell you what it concerned, Sir Baldwin. Under confidence, you understand. Strictest confidence.’

  As the man tapped his nose knowingly, Baldwin was tempted to laugh at his blundering stupidity, but managed to keep a straight face. ‘Ah, of course.’

  ‘But these boys,’ Thomas added solemnly with a grimace and shake of his head, ‘they’re the most unholy nuisances. They shout and run when they shouldn’t, they play practical jokes in the churchyard and carry on as if there were no authority that could hold them.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’

  ‘They shoot their damned slings at anything that takes their fancy. Often out poaching, so I’m told. And they fire at people when they want to, knowing they can run off and hide. That’s what… Anyway, they shoot at folks for no reason, just to make them jump or fall from their horse. They have no respect for anyone. I’ll tell you this, if they’re not taught a lesson soon, they’ll be fodder for the gibbet, and nothing more.’

  Baldwin wasn’t listening, and missed his lapse. The knight was quite certain that he could never learn anything of any use from the bone-headed Master of Throwleigh, so he merely nodded and made understanding noises while watching the rest of the guests. He could see that Simon and their wives were enjoying a story from Edgar, who had a store of jokes and tales suitable for occasions even as sad as this. Behind them, sitting on her large chair, was Lady Katharine.

  The knight watched her for a moment. At her side was the maid Anney, holding her mistress’s drinking vessel, and even as Baldwin watched, she passed it to her lady, hardly glancing at her as she put it into Katharine’s hand. Baldwin was convinced there was a lingering resentment between maid and mistress, but he was not convinced that it could have sparked the fuse that led to the murder.

  The mother herself was an enigma. Had Baldwin only seen her reaction at her husband’s funeral, when the woman had recoiled from her own son as if in revulsion, he would have believed her more than capable of hating Herbert enough to kill him. And yet now, having witnessed her despair at the funeral, he found it hard to dispute Simon’s outrage at the suggestion. It was unthinkable that a woman should knowingly murder her own boy.

  As he considered her, Daniel touched her shoulder and bent to whisper in her ear.

  There it was again, h
e thought. Glancing at Jeanne, he saw her quick nod, and he grinned to himself. She had seen it too -the hand resting on the shoulder just a moment too long, with that hint of a certain special affinity accepted by both sides.

  It was then that he noticed van Relenghes again. The Fleming was standing unconcernedly sipping at his wine, alone for a moment; his servant had gone to refill a jug.

  Baldwin studied him dispassionately, recalling the way Anney had described him. James van Relenghes had the look of someone set apart from the group within the hall. It was not because he was foreign, because that would imply isolation caused by incomprehension, either of language or customs; no, this was a different sort of otherness. He was aloof, separate. He smiled pleasantly enough at people who spoke to him or passed by, yet Baldwin watched the eyes, as he had been commanded by Anney, and sure enough, they reflected an inner coldness. The eyes displayed calculation; the potential for shallow deceit.