Bernard Knight - Figure of Hate

'Did you see where he went?' asked Walter, not really expecting any useful reply. Adam muttered something about moonlight-and raised his good hand to point unsteadily across the road at some cottages and other rickety buildings along the opposite edge of the village green.

'Across there, towards the ox byres,' he spluttered.

Walter left him with a word of thanks and ambled across the track that was Sampford's main street.

Between the widely spaced cottages there were a couple of large shelters where the plough teams of oxen were stabled in the winter, though at this time of year they were grazing out on the meadows, waiting for the men to start work after the manor leet.

The stables had already been searched, but to humour old Adam the bailiff decided to have another look. He walked up to the sheds, which were little more than sloping roofs of old thatch supported on poles,

with hurdles of woven branches forming the walls.

As he went into the gap that served as the entrance of the first stable, his lethargy was brought to an abrupt end by a piercing scream from inside. A woman he recognised as the wife of the mole-catcher was standing at the other end, alongside a hurdle that held back a high stack of winter fodder for the oxen. She had an armful of loose hay, which she dropped as he ran forward, holding her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.

'God's teeth, Gertrude, what's the matter with you?' he shouted.

Tremulously, she pointed over the hurdle. 'I was taking a bit of hay for my conies — only a handful,' she gabbled defensively. Walter knew that she kept rabbits penned in her garden for food and stole a little hay to bed and feed them, as did many other cottars. He peered over the panel of twigs and his pulse began to race as he saw a booted foot and most of a leg sticking out from under the pile of fodder. Gertrude, a heavily built matron with a bad turn in her eye, came nervously up behind him to look over his shoulder.

'I lifted a bit of hay and there it was, sticking out from under the rick.'

She pointed a wavering finger at the tight yellow hose that covered the leg like a second skin. With an oath, Walter Hog dragged back a hurdle and bent over the limb, hurriedly pulling away handfuls of the sweet smelling hay. More fell down from above as he burrowed at the pile, and with another curse he seized larger armfuls and tossed them aside to clear a space over the body. He needed to expose it only up to the waist before he knew it was his lord and master, as he recognised the good-quality hose and the finely embroidered hem of the green tunic that came to the knees.

'Run, woman, go and tell the reeve, the steward anyone! Go to the leet if you see no one on the road …. tell them the lord is found, though I fear he's dead!'

Gertrude picked up the hem of her shabby kirtle and hurried off, forgetting to pick up her scavenged hay on the way. Left alone, the bailiff, sweating with excitement and a little apprehension, decided to drag the body out, as the more he threw the fodder aside, the more cascaded down from above, the stack being well over head height. Walter had realised immediately that the body was a corpse and not just a drunken man, as his first touch on the man's calf told him it was cold and stiff.

He cleared the other foot and pulled on them both, the body sliding back easily on a layer of hay on the earthen floor. It was face down, and as soon as it was free the bailiff saw that in the middle of the back the tunic was saturated with a wide dark red circle of blood, in the centre of which were several small tears.

Walter rocked back on his heels, shocked and bewildered — trying to take in the fact that his master had been stabbed to death.

Any thought of the usual noonday dinner was abandoned in the confusion that followed. The manor court had been cancelled halfway through and no work was being done in the fields or village, apart from seeing to the livestock. Virtually all one hundred and fifty inhabitants were standing around in groups, gathered at their garden gates, outside the alehouse or in the road to discuss the event which had fallen like a thunderbolt out of the blue. Some were even in the church, praying, not so much for the soul of Hugo but for salvation for the village in yet another time of crisis.

It was not just a topic for wonder and gossip, but a cause of real concern about their future. They had already suffered one upheaval this year, when William Peverel had been killed at the tourney, followed by the dispute about his successor. Now it had happened again, and the villagers were wondering who would lead them into the coming winter. An uncaring or inefficient lord could mean life or death for some, if the economy of the manor was not well run. There was always a thin line between survival and starvation in a bad season such as this one, and though a good steward and bailiff were vital, the real responsibility lay with the manor-lord. Some were muttering quietly under their breath that they were not all that unhappy that the unpopular Hugo was no more, but would his successor be any improvement? Some wished Odo would take over, as he should have done by right of primogeniture, but most assumed that Ralph would now become lord, as Joel was surely too young.

But at midday all this was academic as far as the freemen and bondsmen out in the lanes were concerned. What mattered was what was being said in the hall of the manor house, where the whole family and the senior servants were assembling. The three surviving brothers were sitting on stools and benches around one of the bare tables, and another dozen men were standing around in front of them. The low buzz of conversation was stilled as feet were heard on the stone staircase, and the male Peverels came to their feet as the dowager and the new widow entered the hall, followed by their handmaidens, who were dabbing at their eyes, more from a cautious sense of duty than sorrow. The bereaved ladies themselves showed no sign of grief, but rather a fretful anger at the disruption to their comfortable routine.

Odo came forward and held out his hand to courteously escort the ladies towards the only three chairs that the hall possessed. Brusquely, Ralph pushed in front of him and, with a sweep of his hand, invited them to be seated. The action was not lost on those present, who saw this as the first arrow-shot in the next battle for supremacy.

The Peverel ladies, Avelina and Beatrice, sat down, and their maids fussed around, arranging the skirts of their mistresses' kirtles and adjusting the fur-edged pelisses over their shoulders, for the day was cool and the fire in the hall did little to assuage the draughts coming through the window slits.

'This is an unhappy day for us all — indeed, an unhappy year!' said Odo sonorously. He was attempting to retrieve the initiative as the men sat down again at the table, with the ladies at one end, their handmaidens standing behind them. Odo, at thirty-seven, was the eldest of the late William's sons, and alone among them was not a tournament addict, being more interested in estate management and getting the best from the manor lands. It had therefore been all the more galling — indeed, humiliating — for him to be deprived of the inheritance the previous April. He was a tall, gangling man, less thickset than his father and brothers, but with the same straight Peverel nose and russet hair. The thin lips of a rather weak mouth were always turned down at the ends in permanent disgruntlement.

Not to be outdone by Odo's pronouncement, Ralph imperiously beckoned the senior staff forward.

'Roger Viel — and you, Walter Hog — stand before us there!' He pointed to the other side of the table, then crooked a finger at the others, so that the stable marshal, the master-at-arms, the falconer, the houndmaster, the armourer and the steward's clerk came to stand in a row facing their betters.