Michael JECKS - Squire Throwleigh’s Heir

‘We were all up on the hill playing hunters.’

Baldwin smiled. ‘I used to play it myself when I was young.’

Alan looked up at him doubtfully, wondering whether the tall, grave man was making a joke.

‘We used to play lots of games when I was a boy, before I was sent to be trained in warfare. Hunting was only one. I enjoyed all the shooting games – I used to be a good shot with a bow’

‘I haven’t got a bow,’ Alan said regretfully. ‘It broke.’

‘A sling is almost as useful.’

‘Oh, I’m pretty good with mine,’ Alan said complacently. ‘But…’ He was about to say more when Stephen of York came out of the church.

After the ceremony the priest had gone inside to settle the account with the paid mourners and to exchange his garments for travelling robes ready for the walk back to the manor. Now he stood in the yard, blinking in the bright sunlight. As soon as his eye lit upon the boy talking to Baldwin, the knight saw his expression change from one of melancholy to wrath.

Alan saw him too. With a noise that Baldwin could only describe as a bleat, Alan leaped the fence with a single bound and hared away. The knight watched the lad rush off until he was out of sight among some trees, a small frown wrinkling his brow.

‘Has that young scoundrel been troubling you?’ Stephen demanded.

Baldwin turned and gave him a smile. ‘No, I was merely passing the time of day with him. He is very upset at his friend’s death.’

‘Him?’ Stephen said scornfully. ‘He’s the best actor in the whole parish. Don’t believe a word he says.’

Baldwin nodded, keeping the smile fixed to his face, but he was conscious of one thing: Alan had been terrified by the sight of the priest. As Stephen strode off to rejoin the rest of the congregation, Baldwin stared after him musingly.

Thomas was seething with fury as the procession began the journey back to the hall. It was plain stupid of Sir Baldwin to talk to that Alan! He was bound to lie, just like his father. The man had been a liar, a lecherous bigamist, and there was little doubt that the boy would follow in his father’s footsteps. And he might tell Baldwin where Thomas had been on the day Herbert died. Thomas could live without that complication and that was why he now boiled with impotent anger.

‘Are you recovered?’ The soft, insinuating voice broke in upon his thoughts, and he almost jumped.

Van Relenghes gave a gentle laugh. ‘I know I am suffering – I drank far more than usual last night. I gather your men drank a lot as well. Especially after they had spoken to the bailiff and his friend the knight.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Oh,’ the Fleming chuckled. ‘They forgot to mention it, did they? Well, never mind. I am sure they didn’t tell the bailiff anything he didn’t already know.’

‘You bastard!’ Thomas blustered. He was feeling bitter: the little scene with the boy just now had reinforced his feelings of being ignored and treated like some kind of untrustworthy felon. He wanted to lash out and hurt someone, but there was no one suitable, apart from this tall, sarcastic Fleming. ‘You foreign buggers are all the same.’

‘Oh – in what way?’

‘You can’t lose gracefully, can you? You wanted my brother’s land, and now I won’t let you have it you’ll enjoy anything that discomforts me.’

‘I only enjoy scenes which I have myself created.’

His calm words took a moment to sink in, but when he realised what the man had said, Thomas gasped and stopped dead in the road. ‘You told her that I’d been negotiating with you? Is that why she made that scene in the church?’

Van Relenghes chuckled softly, then leaned forward until his face was only inches from Thomas’s. ‘Yes, fool! If you had a brain to think with, you’d have realised that immediately. And now I have ruined your chances of settling down here, because she will make your life miserable in any way she can! That will be most pleasant for me to reflect upon when I return to my own hall.’

‘You turd! You think you’ll make it home? Why, I’ll…’

Van Relenghes gave a massive yawn. ‘Godfrey, I think Thomas is about to threaten me. Do prepare yourself to look fearful, won’t you?’

He walked on, his guard laughing, and Thomas was left alone, clenching and unclenching his fists in the road.

‘You whoreson bastard! I’ll see to it you regret that! I’ll make you bloody eat your words!’

Baldwin and Simon were walking with their wives a few yards in front of this hushed dispute, and thus saw nothing of Thomas’s rage or the Fleming’s delight.

Simon could see that his friend was frustrated, but could think of no way to relieve his mood. Baldwin, he knew, would worry at the problem until a solution presented itself to him, and only then would he be able to relax.

‘Did you learn anything from that boy?’ he asked.

‘Nothing – no. If I had been able to speak to him a little longer, I might have done, and yet perhaps I did find out something,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The lad is plainly terrified of the priest.’

‘Well, of course he is. Many people are,’ said Margaret. ‘The parish priest is the only man of any learning that a villein will ever meet. He’s the one who officiates at every critical ceremony in their lives.’

‘Especially in a small place like this,’ said Jeanne. ‘Here Stephen is the only man who can read: he’s the one who will tell them whether it is a fasting day or a meat one, which day of the week it is, and so on.’

Baldwin smiled at her. ‘I know the people here are peasants, but even my own villeins know what the day is,’ he said in a tone of mild reproof. It was all too common for those in a higher station of life to assume that serfs were little more intelligent than the oxen which they used to pull their wagons.

Jeanne shook her head, amused by his presumption. ‘I do not speak from idle foolishness, Baldwin. You forget that I have lived as Lady of a manor similar to this one. I know these people. They have no time for speculation, no time to play or enjoy leisure. Their lives are hard, geared to the weather and to the hours of daylight rather than some arbitrary notion such as a day’s name. It’s different for you and your peasants, living up at Cadbury, where the weather is warmer, and where the rain runs away rather than sinking into the ground to form mires, where trees grow straight and tall rather than bent and warped.’

‘Perhaps, but I do not know whether young Alan was scared of the figure of authority, or of Brother Stephen the man.’

Simon agreed. ‘In that case we need to find out more about this mysterious cleric, don’t we?’

Nicholas was in the courtyard when the procession returned from the church. He had ordered the other men to remain in the stable out of the widow’s sight, from respect for her feelings; he himself stood quietly near a rain-butt. He had been sharpening his knife, but he set his whetstone and dagger aside when the mourning party slowly made their way to the hall.

When the mistress was out of the way, he picked up his blade once more and tested it with the ball of his thumb. Still blunt – it was taking an age to put an edge on this one. He was about to bend to his task again when he became aware of his master hurrying towards him.

‘Nicholas? Come here. Listen to me, I have a job for you.’

Hugh had been waiting at the door. Seeing the party approach, he walked quickly inside to stir the warmed wine in the jugs by the fire. As he crouched there, Lady Katharine entered. She acknowledged him with a pale shadow of a smile, and gratefully took a large mug from him.

Hugh politely offered Anney a cup, but she refused with a quick shake of her head, and Daniel took it in her stead.