Michael JECKS - Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

Christiana soon came out with an ale jug, a cheap pottery drinking horn and a stack of pots resting on a wooden plank. Lifting her makeshift tray, she offered Baldwin the horn.

The ale was good, he noted with relief. He had regretted his demand almost as soon as he had opened his mouth. Sometimes the ales brewed by poorer wives were utterly undrinkable; the dreadful quality of the grains and the rank herbs they used to try to stop the brew going off conspired to produce a sour beverage which only a fool or a man half-dead from thirst could have desired. This was a good, sweet ale with a malty flavour. ‘It is excellent,’ he congratulated her, and saw the nervous duck of her head at his appreciative comment. With an anxious glance at her husband, she darted off to offer drinks to Simon and Daniel.

‘So it should be,’ the farmer grunted. ‘I don’t see why I should have to drink an unhealthy brew’

Baldwin nodded coldly. As she poured his ale, he had been close enough to observe the bruise on Christiana’s chin, and noted that it was only one of several marks and blemishes on her face. Her husband had taken to beating her regularly – the proof of a bully. The knight was disgusted by the man.

He returned to the subject. ‘When the young Squire Herbert died, you were out on your cart. He died late in the afternoon, and you were seen at about that time, riding along the road where his body was found. Where had you been?’

To Simon, still on his horse, it looked as though the farmer was going to deny that he had been out, but Baldwin lifted his hand, and the farmer looked into his eyes. All at once, his gaze dropped, as if in shame, and he nodded.

‘I was out to Oakhampton, selling some stuff at the market.’

Simon drained his pot and lifted himself from his saddle. As Christiana passed, he touched her shoulder and refilled his pot from her jug before leaning on his horse’s withers.

His friend was watching the farmer intently. ‘You had ale when your business was done?’

‘Of course I did! It was a warm day. I only had the two quarts.’

‘Why were you there?’ Simon interrupted.

‘Our pig escaped during the floods last autumn, and the stupid animal drowned, so I was trying to sell what I could to buy a new one. Not that I got much, since what little I had wasn’t first quality.’ He waved a hand at his decrepit farmyard. ‘Our produce hasn’t been good, not since the famine. So afterwards, I went to the inn to have a quick drink. But I came straight back.’

‘You took the direct road?’ asked Simon.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Daniel interrupted. ‘If you’d wanted to go home directly, you’d not have turned up towards the manor.’ He looked at Simon. ‘Bailiff, there is a fork in the road from Oakhampton. One branch leads here, but the other goes straight to Throwleigh itself.’

‘I fancied going past the manor,’ Edmund protested.

‘Why?’ pressed Baldwin.

‘It was…’

‘And don’t forget that if you’re not careful, you might be arrested for killing your master,’ Daniel added pointedly.

Edmund glowered, and for a moment Baldwin thought he would be silent, but then the farmer lifted his head defiantly. ‘Sir, I’d seen a dead rabbit in the road. It’d only just been killed – maybe by a sling or something. I picked it up, and then I thought I’d better take it to the manor, so I rode on, but there was no one there.’

‘Liar! I was at the gateway and saw you ride straight past. You never made any attempt to leave a rabbit or anything else.’

‘I was going to leave the rabbit, but I dozed, and the pony found the road home.’

‘You poached the manor’s rabbits!’ Daniel asserted.

‘I never poached anything – someone else killed it. I was going to take it in… Anyway, if I hadn’t, it’d only have been stolen by a dog or a fox,’ Edmund protested sulkily.

Seeing the scandalised steward taking breath, Baldwin swiftly said, ‘I think we can forget about rabbits, Daniel. Let us draw a veil over such matters; in trying to hide them, people may be forced to conceal other facts which could help us. Now, Edmund, you stopped your wagon and collected up this tiny cony-corpse. You then rode on towards the manor, is that right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And saw what?’

‘Nothing, sir. I was tired: I rode back dozing, and saw nothing else until I turned off to go back to the village.’

Baldwin shook his head. ‘What of other carts?’

Edmund stared confusedly. ‘Oh, there was only the one, the fishman’s cart. I saw him on the road heading north, some while before I got to the fork and noticed the rabbit.’

‘So if he had knocked the boy down, you would have seen the body on the road?’

‘I… Yes, I suppose…’

‘So he hadn’t, had he?’

Edmund was silent, his nervous gaze going from one to another.

Simon finished his pot and gave him a not-unfriendly look. ‘We’re not here to arrest you, farmer. All we want to do is clear up what actually happened to the lad.’

‘But I don’t know!’

‘Did you see anyone else up there?’ Baldwin asked after a moment.

Edmund was alive to the possibilities and dangers of his situation. If he admitted whom he had seen, he could be dealt with severely; yet if he held his tongue, he would surely be at risk of losing his life. He took a cautious glance at Daniel. The old steward was frowning fixedly at him, as if daring him to make any comment about the people he had seen up on the moors that day. Edmund swallowed quickly.

‘Sir, I did see some folks. I saw the girl, Petronilla, the young maid from the hall. And I saw Anney, Lady Katharine’s maid, walking further up on the moors. No one else.’

And as he told the lie, Edmund stared guiltily at his feet.

While James van Relenghes supped his wine by the fire, Godfrey slipped out through the screens and left the hall by the great door to the yard.

Striding quickly, he crossed the court and paused a moment at the wide-open stable. People were always bustling about in here, shouting to each other, oiling and polishing saddles and bridles, gentling the horses, grooming them, taking the great animals from their stalls to be set into harnesses to go to the fields, or preparing them for exercise. One idle weapons master went more or less unnoticed.

He saw the man he wanted, and moved around the room, always keeping his target in view. As he came closer, he reached under his jack and eased his concealed knife in its sheath before covering the last few yards at speed. He gripped Nicholas’s arm and beamed into his face.

‘Well, now, old son! Isn’t this a nice thing, eh? Christ’s wounds, but it’s been ages. Last time we met was in France, wasn’t it?’ he babbled, pulling the startled servant towards the doors. ‘How long has it been – what, seven years? No, must be more than that – say about ten. Still…’

By now he’d brought his quarry out to the open air, and his wide eyes lent his smile a somewhat manic air as he brought his face close to Thomas of Exeter’s right-hand man.

‘… It’s never too late to renew an old acquaintance, is it, Nicky boy?’

‘He was lying,’ said Daniel bitterly.

The steward was peevish. He’d hoped for greater things from the famous knight of Furnshill; Sir Baldwin was supposed to be almost omniscient, and yet to the steward’s mind the knight had just had the wool pulled over his eyes by an unscrupulous serf. He could have got more from Edmund himself if he’d been left alone to question the sod, without the supposed benefit of the knight’s presence.

Baldwin sighed. ‘The man’s mere appearance on the same road as that on which the boy died is no proof that he was present at Herbert’s death, let alone that he had an active part in it. What of your own fish-seller?’