Michael Jecks - No Law in the Land

Road between Nymet Cross and Sandford Cross

Sir Peregrine was not overly bothered by the sight of dead bodies. He never had been. Why should he be? He was a knight and the son of a knight, and for all his pride in being able to converse with the meanest villein on his lands, he was prouder still of his martial experience and skills.

A man like him who was used to the sights and sounds of battle wouldn’t be concerned by the sight of wounds. He had seen friends die near him in the petty wars that plagued this disputatious land, and on occasion he had travelled as far as Guyenne in support of the king, protecting Edward’s territories from the depredations of the French. But there was somehow a difference between seeing men-at-arms fighting and dying in a battle, and this.

The others were sad, of course. The clumps of bodies in the woods had been very disheartening, for such a scene was inevitably depressing, and yet the fact that Sir Peregrine knew none of them meant that he could at least maintain a professional detachment.

‘Who found him?’

He didn’t really care who had discovered the fellow. Sir Peregrine stared down at the body of Bill Lark with a rising sense of resentment. There were times when he felt that it was better never to grow fond of anyone, because he was invariably hurt when they died.

It was particularly true of his love life. He had almost married three women. Each had died before he could. Back in the year before King Edward took the throne from his father *he had lost his first love. He would have married her else. The next was his lovely Emily, who had died giving birth to their child four years ago when he was master of Tiverton Castle for Sir Hugh de Courtenay. And then, more recently, dear Juliana had died, leaving two children from another man, and he had taken them on himself, not reluctantly, in memory of her. But no matter how fond he was of them, he could not look upon them as his own. Which was a shame, but hardly surprising. They were not of his blood.

But it wasn’t just the women he had loved who had died just as he had grown to think that there could be a new life beginning. His loneliness was enhanced by the deaths of men like this.

This man was scarcely known to him, of course, and yet he felt a bond already. There was something about the fellow that had inspired confidence. He looked competent, stolid and dependable. The sort of man in whom another could place his trust. And Sir Peregrine had felt quietly confident that he would do all in his power to find the men who had committed the atrocity in the woods.

‘Who did this to him?’ he wondered aloud.

The man had been bludgeoned to death, from the look of him. It looked as though his head had been beaten with a rock, or maybe a mace or similar weapon. Until the blood had been washed away, it would be pure guesswork to try to say what did make those wounds.

‘He was found here last afternoon,’ a man said helpfully.

Sir Peregrine growled at him, commanding the full jury to be brought immediately, as well as a clerk or anyone else who could hold a reed, so that they could have the inquest, and bellowed when no one seemed to want to move. Soon he was all but alone, and he squatted at the man’s side, as though talking to a resting friend.

‘I am sorry about this, Bailiff. Truly, I will do all I may to find the men who did this to you. And if I can, I will bring them to justice. I swear it on my soul!’

Furnshill

‘You look tired,’ Baldwin said as he walked inside with his wife.

It was the same as it had been. In the worst days of his travelling, when he was incarcerated in the Louvre, trying desperately to stop himself from causing offence to any French nobility, he had been prey to horrible fancies: that his farm would have suffered from drought, or perhaps from dreadful fires; that his house had suddenly succumbed, as he had seen others, and collapsed with his wife inside. All those were in many ways easy to reject as being foolish. However, he had a strange, recurring thought that when he came home there would be some appalling alteration in his family that would make his return a matter of horror, not delight. It was a terrifying thought that, when he marched through his front door, he might learn that one of his children had died; perhaps even Jeanne herself.

Now, walking through the screens passage and into his hall, he was relieved to see that his fears were baseless. It made him even more glad to be home again, and he encircled his wife’s waist with his arm, drawing her nearer to kiss her.

She reciprocated, but after a shorter period than he would have liked, she drew away. In the doorway he saw his old Templar comrade, Edgar, and Baldwin inclined his head. ‘I hope I see you well, Edgar?’

‘Sir Baldwin,’ Edgar responded, bowing low. ‘I shall fetch you some wine and meats. You must be hungry.’

He was gone in an instant, and Baldwin could look down at his wife. ‘As I said, you seem very tired, my love. Are you quite well?’

‘Mostly, yes. The children exhaust me, I confess, but Edgar and his wife have been very kind. They both do all they can.’

‘Is it the estate? I can take all the effort of that away from you now, Jeanne,’ he said softly.

There was a redness about her eyes that he did not like to see. It was almost as though she had spent much of the last weeks weeping, and the idea that she should have been so saddened without his being there to calm or soothe her made him feel chilly with guilt. He was her husband, in Christ’s name. It was his duty to be here for her.

‘It isn’t the lands or the manor,’ she said after a few moments. ‘There is more than that.’

She walked to her chair and seated herself, waiting for him to join her. As soon as he had taken his own seat, Edgar returned with a tray and jug. Baldwin’s favourite mazer was on the tray, a beech cup with a silver band about it. Edgar filled it with wine and passed it to his master.

Jeanne waited until her husband had taken a sip before continuing. ‘It is the sheriff and his men. The sheriff is a new man, one of Sir Hugh le Despenser’s companions, I think, and it seems as though all are subject to Despenser’s scrutiny.’

‘How do you mean?’ Baldwin asked.

It was Edgar who, on a signal from Jeanne, began to speak. ‘I believe Despenser has grown terrified of an attack from a foreign power. Perhaps he fears that Mortimer will soon cross the sea and try to take the kingdom. Whatever the reason, he is even less trusting than before, and now he seeks to implement his control over every part of the land where there is a coast and where an invasion force could land. Clearly Devon and Cornwall are particularly dangerous, in his mind.’

Baldwin nodded. ‘There are coastlines to north and south, of course.’

‘And an infinite number of places where a man might bring a host to attack the king,’ Edgar agreed.

It wasn’t strictly true. In the north of Devon, as Baldwin knew well, there were few naturally safe harbours for a ship, let alone a fleet, but that was not the point. Devon and Cornwall were exceedingly hard to protect.

‘There is more,’ Edgar said. ‘Of course Despenser will know that the queen was mistress of much of both shires. She controlled the mining of the tin, and she had a lot of supporters over here.’

‘What of it?’

‘The king — and Despenser — would hardly be natural if they didn’t wonder whether she too might try to gather a force to oust Despenser. She has seen her power and authority eroded by him in the last years.’

‘So you think that Despenser has planned to come here and take over the running of the West Country from the locals?’

‘I think he is plotting to have his placemen set in all positions of any form of authority at the coast,’ Edgar said. ‘And that includes Devon, because there are so many ideal places for a bold team to land, and many potential supporters for the men who would try it. He has installed this Sir James de Cockington as sheriff, but there are others who are winning his favour as well.’