Michael Jecks - No Law in the Land

And then it was not him. This was not some wraith seeking him . It was looking for younger flesh. Baldwin realised it sought Edith, and with that the spell was broken.

He rolled from the bed, shivering with the chill as the cool morning air caught his damp flesh. The sweat had been no dream, and he was drenched, as was his bedding. At the farther extent of his hearing he could swear that there was a horse riding away, fast.

‘Darling …’ Jeanne mumbled, but he was already pulling a chemise over his head, thrusting his arms into the sleeves and hurrying to the chamber below, where Edith was supposed to be sleeping.

Jeanne was at the top of the stairs. ‘Baldwin?’

‘She is gone. The bed has been slept in, but the bedclothes are already cold to the touch. She must have risen long before dawn.’

‘The foolish child,’ Jeanne groaned. ‘Will she have gone to Simon’s house?’

‘I don’t know. I think I hope so. Better that than that she should have taken the Exeter road,’ he said.

‘At least the Exeter road will be quiet at this time of morning,’ Jeanne said reasonably.

‘Yes. But she will still need to get through the city gates. Ach! I was a cretin to trust her!’

‘Don’t berate yourself, Baldwin. Get yourself dressed, and I will fetch food for you to take. You will need to go to Simon’s before anything else.’

‘She may have gone to Exeter, though,’ he said pensively. ‘I shall have to send Edgar to Simon’s, while I go after her to the city, just in case she is in danger. It will hasten matters if I can see Bishop Walter and petition the sheriff too. Very well!’

Turning, Baldwin went up the stairs as quickly as he could, and began to dress in a hurry.

He would never forgive himself if harm came to that young woman.

Thorverton

Edith had known the roads all about this part of the country from an early age, and she had no fears about finding her way. From the age of eight she had been riding about these lanes with her parents when they visited Sir Baldwin, and often they would continue on from his house to go to the market at Exeter or to see their friend Bishop Walter Stapledon. Just as she had been able to ride to Baldwin’s the previous day, she was confident that she could get home again.

She had wanted only two things: to make sure that her father knew her plight, and to enlist the help of Baldwin too. There was no need for her to go to her old home at Sandford just now, though. She knew that Baldwin would send a man there. No, it was more crucial that she went to her own home in Exeter to begin to plan how to ensure the escape of her husband from gaol.

Peter was such a sensitive fellow, so mild of nature, so gentle and kind. She was convinced that he would find the experience of gaol absolutely horrific, and the only thought in her mind was how to get him out and free again.

There was a light mist over the ground as she dropped down towards the Exe, and she felt a chill. It had been a bitterly cold night, but then she always did feel the cold. It was so strange to experience that again now, after the last months of sleeping with her husband always at her side to warm her. In Baldwin’s house she had felt dreadfully uncomfortable, but that was only because her husband was not with her. Now she was cold and tired, but that was no surprise. How could she sleep while poor Peter was in Rougemont Castle, suffering from the freezing temperatures, wet, hungry and uncomfortable? It would be unthinkable that she should remain in Baldwin’s bed while Peter was there.

From somewhere there came a clatter, and she stopped to peer behind her. The mist was thicker here, and it was impossible to see anything, but she felt sure that she had heard a hoof striking stones. There shouldn’t be anybody out at this time of the morning, though. The city gates wouldn’t open for ages yet. She was only up this early because she was desperate to be closer to her husband. There was no reason for anyone else to be out on horseback, surely.

She felt a sudden sensation of absolute coldness and wondrous fear. It was hard even to turn back to face the road ahead, she was so nervous of whoever might be behind her, but she stiffened her resolve with the thought of Peter, and urged her horse onwards.

The road here wound about the river most of the way down to the city itself. At the bottom there was the great bridge, which gave on to the west gate. That was where she had intended to cross the river, and there was a little inn at the western edge of the bridge where she had hoped to rest a while before entering the city as the gates opened, but there was a good mile or two before she would come to the bridge, and very few people between here and there. If she was attacked, there was little likelihood that she would be able to call for help with any hope of success. No, better by far that she should hurry herself and make her way to the bridge.

She was about to whip the horse into greater efforts when she heard a voice.

‘Mistress? Are you all right? No one should be about so early in the morning.’

She cast a look back, fretful, but sure that she recognised the voice.

‘Don’t you remember me?’ he asked. He was a lawyerly-looking fellow, she thought. Hardly threatening. He wasn’t a hulking, strong man with arms like tree trunks, rather he was fine boned, from the look of him. Quite slender. He wore a cloak that smothered his shoulders, and a broad-brimmed hat that obscured his features, while a cloth swaddled his throat and mouth against the early-morning chill. He looked the sort of man she could imagine her husband bringing home for wine and food. But there was something.

‘I am sorry, master. You have the better of me. I do not know you.’

‘Of course you do,’ he said with a smile. ‘I know your father. He is Simon Puttock, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, sire. But who are-’

‘Don’t you recall? You met me in his house at Lydford, just a little before I took it from him for my master, Sir Hugh le Despenser,’ William atte Wattere said, grasping her wrist.

His face came into sharp focus suddenly. She remembered entering her father’s hall and seeing this man and Simon coming to blows with their swords. In the horror of the memory, she gasped, and then opened her mouth to scream.

‘If you’ll be a good maid, you may just live to see him again. Misbehave, and you’ll die. Quickly, and without warning.’

Jacobstowe

Agnes had not rested. Her night had been spent alone with Bill’s body, alternately weeping and praying. She was sure in her mind that she would meet him again, when she went to heaven, but the thought that she must now endure her life without his companionship and lazy grin was so hard to accept.

The idea that he had suddenly been stolen away from her … Her lovely man was dead. His spirit had fled. It was so difficult to understand how God could have allowed it to happen. When the priest came to try to comfort her, she had listened to his empty, foolish words, and had slowly closed the door on him. What could the man say to her, to her who had lost her darling husband? The priest had never known the love of a man for a woman. He had no concept of the bond that two people could feel, especially one that was mortared by the sharing of the creation of a child. He had no idea how love of that sort could elevate a person’s soul . And so he had not even the faintest understanding of the utter loss that the death implied.

As she grew aware of the sunlight filtering through the shutters over her windows, she forced herself to her feet. There was still her work to be done. Mercifully Ant was still. He had slept all through after crying himself to sleep on her lap as she sobbed. It was natural for a child to understand the misery and devastation of such a loss. Entirely natural.