Michael Jecks - No Law in the Land

At the grave, the body was lifted clumsily and three men helped the sexton to lower it to the edge. The hole looked enormous to her, compared with the frail bundle of linen that had been her husband. Her Bill.

The corpse had been stiff as a plank when they brought him to her. Overnight she had thought it was as if he was gripping hold of his body still, determined not to give up his life, desperate to retain his hold on it. But not now. She could see that his limbs were flaccid and loose. There was no form of life in that wrapping. It was just an accumulation of bones and meat, like the animals killed and butchered each year. It wasn’t her man any more. He had gone. Truly, he had gone.

She wept again now, silent tears that flowed down her cheeks, while Ant began to wail. She had to pick him up and cradle him as he bawled for his incomprehension, for his father, whom he could never know. For the world that had suddenly become so threatening to him.

It was in the midst of her tears that she saw the three men standing and watching. And then, as the people began to depart, she saw them walk towards the vicar: one knight, one monk and another man, with a grim face.

She saw them, but didn’t take notice. Instead she walked to the graveside and peered down with Ant. In her hands she had the hood now, and she took it out, holding it to her face, inhaling his scent as though that would keep him here with her just a little longer. A shred of linen moved aside, and she found herself staring at a small patch of his flesh, just about his cheek. It was the last sight she would have of him.

‘Madam? May we speak with you about your husband?’ she heard, and turned to find the three men nearby. The man who spoke was the grim-faced one. But now, as she looked at him, she saw that there was something else in his eyes, and it made her spark to rage in an instant.

She didn’t want his pity .

Road near Oakhampton

‘You worried about passing through the town again?’

Basil was sitting with one thigh flung over his horse’s withers, picking at a scrap of meat that was wedged between two teeth as he cast a grin at the other men.

Osbert didn’t look at him. There was no need to. He knew all about Basil. He was the sort of weakly creature who’d make fun of those stronger than him when he had men at his back, just to show that he had the greater force with him. Arrogant, foolish, he had grown to manhood with violence all around him. Living rough, as they all had, Basil had never known the gentle comforts of life in a great hall, had never seen the subtle interplay of characters as those with authority negotiated their way around the customs and little delicacies that were so essential to life in a large household. Instead he believed in simple, raw power. And because he was his father’s son, he believed in exercising that power at every possible opportunity.

‘Not scared, no.’

There was plenty to think about. Osbert had been through the messenger’s pouch, looking for the message that should have been there, but there was nothing. It was possible, he knew, that the man had been given a verbal message, but if that was the case, it was so much the better that he was dead. No one would want him to go straight to the king and blurt out something about the offer made to Busse at Tavistock. No, it was probably better this way. And since the monk hadn’t accepted, they’d have to think up some alternative. Sir Robert had more or less hinted that he reckoned that would be the way of things. He expected that they would have to take some other approach to forcing Busse to drop out of the running for the abbacy. He didn’t believe Busse was as corruptible as Despenser felt; perhaps it was merely that Despenser assumed everyone had a price.

‘Oh, I didn’t ask if you were scared, Os. I wouldn’t suggest that. No, I thought you might be a little concerned, though. Anxious, right? After all, that was the town where you showed your ability to lead strangers, eh?’

Osbert groaned to himself. The lad would keep on needling at a man. ‘It’s easy. Told them the road past your father was too dangerous.’

‘And it is, isn’t it? But the way you took them, that was perfect. Just far enough to make them secure for us to catch them. The only problem-’

‘I’m not worried about Oakhampton. It’s not for me we avoid it.’

‘Oh, it’s for my good, then?’ Basil laughed.

There were times like this when Osbert could still see the little boy that this lad had once been.

Before their fall from the king’s household, branded traitors and forced to wander the roads and forests, Basil had been a happy-go-lucky boy. There hadn’t been a great problem with him. He’d been the same as all boys: using slings and bows, practising his swordplay, and most of all enjoying a joke and some fun. But somehow something had loosened in his head or his heart. Osbert reckoned he had needed the calming influence of a woman while he was younger. Too late now. Now he was a man, and he wouldn’t listen to anyone. That had been shown by his capture of the miller’s daughter. They’d had to have the sheriff agree his innocence in court for that, and later see to the death of the miller himself, just to ensure that Basil was safe.

Osbert was sure that Basil would be the last of his line. He would be sure to die before long, once his father’s restraining influence was gone. If he kept up this behaviour for much longer, it would be Osbert himself who killed him. While he kept on making snide little comments about the others all the time, winding a rope about their souls tighter and tighter, until at last a man had to explode, that was one thing; if he tried it with Osbert, he would soon learn his error.

‘Yes. We avoid the town for your good, Basil.’

‘Tell me, how could it be in my interests? There are taverns in that town, aren’t there? Places where the whores go, places where I could catch a smile and a kiss.’

‘That’s why ’tisn’t in your interests,’ Osbert said. ‘If you go in the town, you’ll find a bint and hold us up for hours. We don’t have time.’

Basil nodded and straightened his leg, settling it in the stirrup again. ‘Well, many thanks for your protection of me, but I think I can cope. You hurry on homewards. I’ll probably catch you up anyway.’

‘Your father wouldn’t want you to go and stop in town,’ Osbert said.

‘Well he’s not here, is he?’ Basil said, gathering up his reins.

‘No. But I am.’

‘I don’t give a turd for you, though. You’re only a servant, Os.’

Osbert nodded. Then suddenly his hand whipped out and slapped Basil’s cheeks, first the left, then the right, then the left again. Basil’s hand fell and gripped his sword, and it was half out when he realised that Osbert already had his dagger in his hand, held by the tip in that gentle, relaxed manner Basil had seen so often before.

‘Os, you shouldn’t tease me.’

‘I didn’t. I slapped you, hard. Because I’m older than you, boy, and I’ve the experience you’re lacking. You know what that means? It means I’m faster than you. Faster and more dangerous. You start testing me, and you’ll learn that you’d best respect me, because if you don’t, I’ll see you hurt.’

‘Hurt? What, like those children? Or their mother?’

Osbert shrugged. ‘They were in the way. If we hadn’t killed them, they could have got away and told all about us.’

‘All about you , you mean. None of us would have been seen in the dark,’ Basil pointed out, but already his anger had left him. Now he contemplated the road ahead, a small smile on his lips. ‘It was a grand attack, though, wasn’t it?’

‘Was it?’ Osbert said.