Michael JECKS - The Oath

‘You are good to help me in this way,’ the man said.

‘I had placed you in a position of danger; it was the least I could do,’ Baldwin said.

‘But still very kind. Many would not have helped me.’

‘I wish I had realised the danger those men posed.’

‘I wish I had known myself!’ Redcliffe said. ‘I still wonder who it was who paid them.’

The fellows had all denied any knowledge of the man who told them to hunt Redcliffe. It made Baldwin wonder who could have had such a violent hatred of the man that he was prepared to pay a gang to murder him. It was possible that Redcliffe knew who this man could be, but he vehemently denied it when Baldwin asked him, and from his apparent shock when he heard what the men had said, Baldwin reluctantly had to believe him. He was the subject of someone’s irrational hatred, apparently. Well, such things did happen. Or perhaps it was merely that the Queen had heard Redcliffe was coming this way, and had set men to catch him. It would depend on the importance of the message he carried.

Redcliffe himself had suggested that it could be a past competitor in his businesses. Not only had he been successful as a merchant, he had been known as a good judge of horseflesh, and had three times travelled to Lombardy and Spain to buy destriers and other mounts for the King and his nobles. Were others perhaps jealous of his trading? he wondered.

‘I confess, I find it astonishing that you do not know who this murderous enemy could be,’ Baldwin said now. ‘Surely it was a man who saw you on your travels and set those fellows on you at the inn.’

‘There was no one I noticed.’

‘You are certain you have not offended any other fellows on your journey? I recall one man who felt himself offended.’ Baldwin recounted the tale of a murder some years before: in that case the murderer had been a parson, from Quantoxhead in Somerset. He had taken umbrage at a man who accidentally jostled him in the street. In a sudden rage, he declared that he would see the man in hell within a day, and was in fact better than his word. The fellow was found dead the same afternoon, his servant also murdered at his side.

‘The idea that a man should seek to have me killed is appalling,’ Redcliffe said with a shudder. ‘I have never been in such a situation before. It is most extraordinary to think that I could be the target of a killer.’

‘You have much to remember this year. Losing a ship, then being attacked while on pilgrimage, then this latest incident… It was Black Heath where you said you were robbed, was it not?’

‘Yes.’

‘Those men: did they appear to want to kill you, or were they interested only in robbing you?’

‘Oh, they seemed solely interested in my purse. If they had wanted to, they could easily have slain me. They had me at their mercy.’

‘Did they get anything else?’ Baldwin asked. ‘Something that told them you were a King’s Messenger? You could have become the target of someone who seeks to support Queen Isabella against the King.’

‘No, only money,’ the man repeated.

Baldwin glanced at the purse at his belt: it was a very old, worn-looking leather one. ‘I am surprised your purse was returned to you,’ he remarked.

‘Yes. I was fortunate,’ Redcliffe said. ‘I found it later in the roadway.’ He put a hand on it as though protectively, although there was not much money in it, from what Baldwin could see.

‘And it survived the robbery, too. That was lucky,’ Baldwin said.

‘It is valuable to me, this purse,’ Redcliffe said shortly. ‘A sentimental object.’

Baldwin nodded. It was true that a man could become attached to a number of items. He had himself been most attached to his blue sword, now sadly lost in France; but he did find Redcliffe’s attraction to what was a simple leather purse to be a little surprising in a man who said that he had once been very rich. He would have expected such a merchant to be more attached to a richly embroidered purse, perhaps with gold threads, and a decoration of precious stones.

‘Are there many merchants in Bristol?’ he asked. ‘It is one of those cities which I have never before visited, only passed nearby.’

‘It is a great city,’ Redcliffe said enthusiastically. ‘Beautiful, clean, with excellent lands all about, and access to the sea from the Severn. There could be no better place in all the realm.’

‘You are proud of it, then?’

‘Very. I love Bristol. Even though I have suffered in recent years, I cannot blame the city. It is not, perhaps, so well-governed as some others, but it–’

‘In what way?’

‘Oh, we have the usual problems. There is a small number of men who will regulate all business to suit themselves, and they are not accommodating to others.’

‘We have a similar situation in Exeter,’ Baldwin said. ‘The Freedom is a jealously guarded liberty.’

‘So it is in Bristol. There are a mere fifteen men who control the working of the city. Nobody may do what he wishes without the approval of them all.’

‘You sound bitter.’

‘I was promised by one, a man I trusted, that he would help me by paying some of my debts and support my return to business, but when I actually needed his help, he turned upon me and demanded all his money back. It was he who ruined me after all my problems.’

‘Was he a friend?’

‘I should not speak too ill of him. It is not kind, for he is dead, but yes, I had thought him a friend. It only serves to prove that in business no man may be counted your friend. All may smile and allow you to join their mess, but when it comes to a matter of business, you must assume that each and every one will stab you in the back. Capon did not appear to care about my feelings. It was only a business transaction to him. He did not feel my pain when he forced me to sell my property and leave the city. He had won, I had lost, and that was all.’

‘You say he is dead?’

Redcliffe nodded, and related the story of the Capons and Squire William.

‘I have heard many similar stories,’ Baldwin said. ‘Yet it is difficult to comprehend how someone could take his revenge on an entire family… that beggars belief. But I suppose if he had been cuckolded, knew that his father-in-law was denigrating him… There are many men who would find that difficult to swallow. He must have felt entirely betrayed.’

‘Oh, I can imagine a man killing when he realised his wife had betrayed him like that,’ Redcliffe said, ‘but not the other deaths. The wife, maybe, while in hot blood, but that case was not a hot-blooded affair. It had been carefully planned. He slew the family with a gang of his henchmen. They were so subtle and careful that they all escaped the city before the hue and cry. It was only when the poor dry-nurse recovered herself enough to raise the alarm that people realised anything had happened.’

He shook his head, frowning slightly. ‘You know, Sir Baldwin, it helped me a little. I had not yet paid off the last of the money I owed him, and God’s body, but I had no reason to feel sympathy for him. Yet I do feel sorry that he died in that way. It was a hideous death. And the Squire was found in his manor near Hanham, denying that he had any part in the murders, the deceitful fellow.’

‘Men will deny their crimes,’ Baldwin said heavily. ‘Even when their lies are tested and proved false.’

‘As happened here,’ Redcliffe said. He glanced at Baldwin, who was turned in his saddle and now gazed over his shoulder at the way behind them. ‘You are worried, Sir Baldwin?’

‘There is one thing that concerns me,’ the knight admitted, turning forward once more.

‘You are worried that those fellows might follow us? I don’t think so. The way that you bested them in the bedchamber was surely enough to persuade them all to relinquish any ambitions against me. Hah! The bearded man would scarcely be able to walk with the prick you gave his side.’