Michael JECKS - Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

After the ladies had made themselves comfortable, Simon could hold his impatience no longer. ‘What’s the matter, Baldwin? You look like a man with piles anticipating a long day in the saddle.’

The knight gave a feeble grin. ‘I wish it were something so simple. I was meditating on the miserable position of that poor lad. There he was, suddenly without a father, and everyone about him would have been happy if he had dropped dead in his turn. Well, now he has, and I can imagine that some people here will be gratified by this turn of events, no matter what their pious expressions might imply.’

‘That’s a dreadful thing to say,’ Margaret protested. ‘You surely can’t think that poor Katharine isn’t genuinely brokenhearted by the loss of her son?’

‘Margaret, you are a kind and gentle woman: you have borne your husband several children, and you loved them all. You are a natural mother, and I know you grieved deeply when they died – but you didn’t see the face of that woman when she was standing at her husband’s grave. She wanted no part of her son; she wanted him away from her. Wouldn’t any woman wish for the comfort of her child at a time like that? She did not: I saw her. She was revolted by the sight of her boy.’

Margaret shook her head. ‘It may be that she had a perverse reaction; I have heard the squire was furious with Herbert on the day he died. As a wife she might have felt bitterness towards her son, but that’s not the same as hating him and wishing him dead, Baldwin.’

‘I may be entirely wrong, just as I have been over so many other aspects,’ he admitted. ‘It is my fault. I should have protected the boy.’

Jeanne could see his sadness and confusion. ‘I find that hard to believe, husband. You could probably have done nothing to save him. It is enough for you to discover his killer.’

He took her hand, but stared out over the moor behind the house and didn’t meet her eyes. ‘If I had been here, it is possible I could have prevented his death.’

‘Will you arrest the farmer?’ Margaret asked.

Baldwin shook his head. ‘There is no evidence that he was responsible for anything. Daniel pointed us to him – but then Stephen pointed me towards Lady Katharine, and Thomas had as clear a motive as Edmund.’

Suddenly his voice hardened. ‘Enough! I will stop being directed by events. So far I have been blown by other people’s winds of fancy – no more! Now I shall do what I should have done in the beginning, and investigate this damned affair properly. Simon, let’s go and see where the body was found.’

It was Thomas who volunteered to take them to the spot. He was standing near the door with Stephen when Baldwin asked for a guide, and promised to lead them straight there.

‘We won’t need mounts – it’s only a short walk from here,’ he said importantly. ‘Do you wish to go now?’

Simon glanced at Baldwin. ‘There’s no point in delay. The Evensong of the Dead is not for hours. We might as well see the place immediately’

Baldwin reflected on that as they walked northwards from the manor. The Evensong for the Dead, the Placebo, was the first half of the funeral service, and after it there would be a vigil held over the body. Next morning the Dirige would be sung, and after that they would return to the graveyard so that Herbert could be buried next to the squire. Father and son had only been separated for a few days.

Some quarter of a mile north of the manor, Thomas stopped and the other two halted behind him. They were in a typical, desolate part of the moor. The hill rose up on their left, and the land fell away to a small wood on their right; the road was narrow, only wide enough for smaller carts and wagons, and was holed and rutted, the peaty soil beneath soft and treacherous.

‘When it rains, you know all about it up here,’ Thomas commented.

Simon nodded grimly. ‘It’s a hard moor. If it’s wet, you run the risk of bogs and mires, or a badly sprained ankle because of the mud. In the summer, the grass covers huge holes in the ground where the water has drained away and taken the soil with it. You can be riding over what looks like solid ground, only to fall into a massive pit. Usually it’s only two or three feet in depth, but sometimes it can be worse.’

Baldwin eyed the landscape sourly. In the main it was heather and gorse, the stuff they called ‘furze’ here, which stood a mere foot and a half tall. Every now and again he could see twisted, stunted trees, or tall bushes. None was more than ten feet tall, giving the area an eerie, unpleasant feel.

‘I wish you joy of your inheritance, Thomas,’ he said, ‘but I confess to a desire to see more trees.’

‘Hah! Ignore this blasted, wind-scoured view, Sir Baldwin, and turn the other way. Look! Down in that valley is Throwleigh itself, and that little vill is worth pounds each year, even now after five years of poor harvest. The only trouble here was always my brother’s softness with the villeins. What they need is a firm hand. Once they realise I know what I’m about, they’ll knuckle under!’

Simon disregarded his boast. As bailiff he knew many of the landlords on the moors, and he was aware that Squire Roger had not been an easy touch. In addition, the squire was ever polite, and greatly more courteous than his younger brother – and Simon was quietly confident that he would never have uttered so disloyal a comment about Thomas.

To Baldwin’s faint surprise the land beneath them looked good. A small stream trickled by at their feet, its passage cheerful even out here. Below them the trees rose higher, protected from the fiercest blasts of the wind by their position at the foot of the great hill. Over their tops the knight could see thin wisps of smoke rising from the vill beyond. Men would be tending their coppices, setting aside the larger branches and boughs to dry, some to be burned to warm their homes over winter, others to be hewn into planks; women would be going about their business, grinding the last of their grains from last year’s harvest into flour to make their hard, dry bread, then planting and weeding in their vegetable gardens; their children all out in the fields throwing stones at the pigeons and other birds which would try to steal their grain before it could throw out the tiniest shoot.

And Herbert would never see it again, he thought, his mood sombre again. ‘His body was where?’ he demanded.

‘Here.’

The knight set off quickly, and Simon had to hurry to keep up with his friend.

There was nothing to show that a child had died here: any sign of where his body had lain had been obliterated by traffic over the last few days. Simon stared down at the mud and peat at his feet, shaking his head again. It was appalling that the boy should have been murdered and left where he had fallen. He was about to comment on this when he saw that Baldwin was not even glancing at the roadway.

They had come round a bend at the top of a slight rise. The hill on their left was steep, and the road formed a terrace, having eaten into the hillside. It had created a bank some three feet above road level, at the top of which was a thick mass of ferns. Baldwin’s attention was divided: he kept peering through the ferns, then over to the verge at the other side of the road, his features sharp with speculation.

‘The wagon would have come from there, Sir Baldwin,’ Thomas said, pointing helpfully back down the road.

‘Yes, but the child wouldn’t. Herbert must have come from the bank there.’

Simon followed his pointing finger and realised the knight was considering a long track which had been gouged through the foliage. ‘What is it?’

‘If someone were to drag a body through the ferns, it would leave a long trail in the vegetation just like that, would it not?’ Baldwin said. ‘Broken fronds of fern, snapped stems of foxgloves, and even the occasional gorse bush has been overwhelmed!’