Michael JECKS - Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

‘That’s right, sir. As God is my witness.’

‘Did you run over his head?’ Simon asked.

Edmund shuddered. ‘His head? God’s teeth, no, sir! The wheel went over his chest. The mud showed that plain enough.’

‘Now, Edmund,’ Simon continued, ‘did you see anyone else on the moor that day?’

‘Yes, sir. There was a carter who passed me a while before I got to the fork in the road.’

‘That’d be the fishmonger?’ Simon asked, glancing back at Daniel. And when the steward shrugged: ‘Thomas, send someone to find this itinerant fish-seller and bring him to us as soon as possible.’

‘I also saw Petronilla up on the hillside above the stream just before I saw the two men,’ Edmund recalled, his face screwed up with concentration.

‘The maid?’ Simon asked. ‘What would she have been doing up there?’

Daniel grunted. ‘She often goes up that way to fetch eggs from the ducks. There are several up towards the big pool, and her mistress likes fresh duck-eggs sometimes.’

‘Anybody else?’

‘No,’ lied Edmund stoutly.

‘The very first question that’ll occur to everyone will be, “So why didn’t you immediately go to the manor and fetch help”?’ Baldwin asked.

Edmund gave him a strange look, as if doubting the grave, dark-featured knight’s intelligence. ‘Why, sir? Because the manor knows me only too well, and I’d just been told I was to become a villein again. Would you have gone running back to a place where they’d be as likely to string you up as thank you?’

‘Why should they?’ Baldwin asked quietly.

‘Because they’d think I’d run down the boy on purpose, of course! Wouldn’t you?’

Baldwin considered him, head on one side. ‘No, I wouldn’t. You’re a fool often enough, you brag about things when you’re drunk, I have no doubt, and I can tell that you beat your wife, but as to killing a child for revenge – I doubt it. Especially since… How old is your horse?’

‘Eh?’ The man’s face registered his surprise at the sudden question. ‘Fifteen, I suppose, but so what?’

‘How fast can he haul your cart?’

‘I don’t know, he gets me from Oakhampton fast enough.’

‘Could he overtake a running dog?’

‘Well, not with the cart, of course…’

‘Could he overtake a running boy?’

Thomas thrust himself past Simon and went to stand between Baldwin and the prisoner. ‘What in God’s name has all this to do with anything? Are you making fun of my hospitality, Sir Knight?’

‘Out of my way, Thomas!’ Baldwin roared. Thomas blenched and fell back before the knight’s enraged glare. Baldwin stood, glowering.

‘You know perfectly well that this poor fool had nothing to do with the death of your nephew; he couldn’t have run down a child on a cart pulled by a broken-down nag. This whole affair is a farce, and you have contrived to have an innocent man arrested – someone who couldn’t possibly defend himself. You selected him carefully, didn’t you?’

‘He might have run over Herbert without the boy seeing him,’ Thomas said.

Simon had no idea what the two men were talking about, but two factors weighed heavily with him: he had faith in Baldwin’s judgement, and Thomas was showing signs of extreme anxiety.

‘You know as well as I do that that’s rubbish,’ Baldwin said sharply. ‘A lad lying on his back, and you suggest that he couldn’t see what was coming towards him? Or perhaps you believe that he wished to remain there, and wanted to be run down?’

‘Perhaps he was unconscious?’ Thomas suggested with a slight frown, as if putting forward a novel new concept.

‘Yes, and perhaps he was lying there because someone else had already killed him, eh? Master Thomas, you had your horse with you that afternoon, I believe?’

‘Do you dare to suggest that…’

‘I suggest you should exercise your brain as to how to release this man without leaving a smear of any sort on his character – and at the earliest possible moment,’ said Baldwin, and glanced towards the baffled farmer. ‘Edmund, you said the body reminded you of your son. Why was that? Was the boy wearing clothing like young Jordan’s?’

The shaken farmer took a moment to consider the question. ‘No, sir, it’s only that my lad often used to play with Master Herbert. The last time I saw Squire Roger was when he came to complain about my son playing with Master Herbert in the orchard, I remembered Jordan saying he was going to play up at the manor, and automatically thought to myself that it must be him. That was all.’

‘Well, all I can say is, I think you ran over a dead boy, farmer. Herbert was dead long before you hit him.’

‘He might have been alive,’ Thomas protested.

‘If he was alive, he was unconscious and unaware of the cart heading towards him, which means the farmer was not responsible. The man who knocked the child down in the first place was responsible. Wasn’t he?’

‘This is becoming more confusing, not less,’ fretted Simon as they walked into the bright sunlight again. ‘How did you get Edgar to call for Thomas like that?’

‘Oh, I had a little word with Wat before we went in. I knew we’d get nothing out of Edmund with Thomas throwing his weight about.’

Simon nodded, and sat on a bench by the hall’s door. ‘I wish to God this was only a simple accident as we first thought,’ he sighed.

‘So do I. We know that Thomas, the man who stood to gain most by Herbert’s death, was in the area when the child was murdered. I have no affection for that poor, stupid farmer, but I think we can allow him the benefit of the doubt. If he lied, Thomas would have corrected him, but he didn’t, which tends to make me believe Edmund’s story.’

‘So the child was already unconscious when he was run over,’ Simon murmured.

‘Alas, I fear that Herbert was in fact dead before Edmund ran over his body,’ Baldwin said gravely. I am very suspicious of the head wounds found on the corpse. The bones at the back of his skull were shattered, which was surely not done by accident.‘

‘Someone wanted to make sure of the boy’s death, I suppose.’

‘Perhaps,’ Baldwin said slowly. ‘Someone who wanted to kill and then cover up the evidence – by making it look like an accident. That was why Herbert was placed on the road. I am certain that whoever killed the boy did it up on the hill, and then dragged the body down to the road. It is possible that his attacker was a man with only one shoe, who may have had an accomplice – a woman. And now we find that Thomas and his man were both in the area, as were the Fleming and his man. And Edmund said he saw Petronilla. We know the murderer or murderers didn’t go back up the hill towards the moors, because we couldn’t find any tracks. That may mean that they simply walked home along the road – which suggests they came from the hall itself.’

‘That’s the most sensible conclusion,’ Simon said thoughtfully.

‘And yet any guest wearing only one shoe would be remarked, would he not?’ Baldwin frowned. ‘Take Thomas as an example. If he came back here with one shoe only, people would comment.’

‘Perhaps he lost it but then found it again before returning home.’

‘You suggest that he lost it, chased up the hill, struck down the boy, dragged the body to the road, dumped it, then went all the way back to where he lost his shoe… A strange sequence of events!’

Simon had a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘But what about the sling in the mud, if it was Herbert’s!’ he exclaimed. ‘What do boys always do with slings?’

Baldwin gave him an appreciative smile. ‘They fire at any target they like – especially people they dislike – and especially if they feel secure from retaliation, as the son of a squire would.’